Big Swords, Jesuits, and Bondelswarts Studies in Central European Histories

Founding Editors

Thomas A. Brady and Roger Chickering

Edited by

David M. Luebke (University of Oregon) Celia Applegate (Vanderbilt University)

Editorial Board

Steven Beller (Washington, D.C.) Marc R. Forster (Connecticut College) Atina Grossmann (Columbia University) Peter Hayes (Northwestern University) Susan Karant-Nunn (University of Arizona) Mary Lindemann (University of Miami) H.C. Erik Midelfort (University of Virginia) David Sabean (University of California, Los Angeles) Jonathan Sperber (University of Missouri) Jan de Vries (University of California, Berkeley)

VOLUME 62

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/sceh Big Swords, Jesuits, and Bondelswarts

Wilhelmine Imperialism, Overseas Resistance, and German Political Catholicism, 1897–1906

John S. Lowry

LEIDEN | BOSTON Cover illustration: As firefighters representing General von Trotha and Governor von Götzen spew water [300 million marks] at the Southwest and East African blazes [uprisings], a messenger arrives announcing: “Fire in Kamerun!” Fire Chief [Colonial Director] Stuebel declares in dismay: “That’s really all we needed. I’ve already used up too much water for the two fires! When the landlord [Reichstag] returns, there will be a tremendous ruckus!” Source: Arthur Krüger, “Starker Wasserverbrauch,” Caricature, Kladderadatsch, Sept. 17, 1905, Nr. 38, 1st Supplementary Sheet. Cover illustration reproduction courtesy of the Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen, Germany.

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This book is printed on acid-free paper. To My Parents

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Contents

Acknowledgments ix List of Abbreviations xi List of Maps xiii

Introduction 1

Part 1 The Center, the Kulturkampf, and the Colonies

1 A Profile of the German Center Party, 1897–1906 17

2 Anticlericalism and the Scars of the Kulturkampf, 1864–1904 37

3 The German Colonies: Topography, Resistance, and the Catholic Missions 55

4 Prologue: The Catholic Center and German Colonial Politics, 1884–1897 97

Part 2 Chinese, Cuban, and Samoan Resistance: The Loom, 1897–1903

5 Big Swords and Battleships, 1897–1898 109

6 Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the New Naval Law, 1898–1900 128

7 Jesuit Collision to Yihetuan Diversion, 1900–1901 175

8 China, Kamerun, and the New Tariff Law, 1901–1903 203 viii contents

Part 3 African Resistance: The Wedge, 1903–1906

9 Thunderclouds from Africa, 1903–1905 215

10 The Colonial Tempest, 1905–1906 268

11 The Breach, Mid to Late 1906 304

Conclusion 336

Sources 341 Index 369 Acknowledgments

This study could never have been written without the professional, financial, logistical, and moral support of a significant number of individuals, organizations, and institutions. I am extremely indebted to my late doctoral adviser Professor Henry Ashby Turner Jr. of Yale University for the encouragement he consistently provided throughout the research and writing process and for the meticulous care with which he reviewed my drafts. I am also most grateful for the thoughtful suggestions offered along the way by the other two members of my committee, Professors Paul M. Kennedy and Kevin D. Repp. I likewise benefited substantially from the guidance of Professor Wilfried Loth of the Universität Essen who kindly agreed to act as German supervisor of the research segment of the project. Thanks are also due to Professor Horst Gründer of the Universität Münster for his helpfulness in sharing with an itinerant American doctoral candidate his perspectives on relevant Catholic mission archives. Similarly, I wish to acknowledge my debt to Professor Wilfrid Haacke of the University of Namibia for his assistance with the Romanization of Nama names from the Khoekhoegowab; naturally, any errors in this respect—as in every other—remain my own. Furthermore, I am much obliged to the German Historical Institute and the Center for European and German Studies at Georgetown University for their joint sponsorship of a trans-Atlantic doctoral seminar in German history in April 1995. On that occasion I gleaned food for thought from the observations and suggestions of virtually all the participants, but most especially from very fruitful conversations with my esteemed colleagues in German colonial history, Krista O’Donnell, now an associate professor at William Paterson University, and Pascal Grosse, now a neurologist as well as historian at the Virchow-Klinikum of the Charité. I also wish to express my gratitude for the kind encouragement I received at the 2004 German Studies Association conference from Professors Ute Frevert of Yale, James Retallack of the University of Toronto, and Andrew Zimmerman of George Washington University and from my co-panelists, Professors Erik Grimmer-Solem of Wesleyan University and Bradley Naranch, currently at the University of Montana. I also wish to express my deepest gratitude to my friend, colleague, and chair Professor Christiane Taylor of Eastern Kentucky University for her firm confidence in this oft disrupted project and to Professor Roger Chickering of Georgetown University and the editing staff at Brill Academic Publishers for their enduring patience in the publication process. At the same time, I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the staff of the archives in the twenty-odd German and European x acknowledgments cities where the research for this work was conducted. Not only were the archivists and their professional assistants extremely capable and efficient, but more than a few also displayed a gratifyingly high level of interest in the character of this investigation. In particular I wish to underline the invalu- able support rendered to me by the staff at the Bundesarchiv Koblenz, the former Bundesarchiv Potsdam, the Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes in Bonn, the Hohenlohe-Zentralarchiv at Schloß Neuenstein, and the Archief van Arenberg in Edingen, Belgium. My sincerest thanks are likewise due to our own departmental administrative assistant Diane Tyer at Eastern Kentucky University for her diligence and expertise in the manipulation of electronic images scanned from highly detailed sources, most of them quite discolored with age. I am also much obliged to Cambridge University Press, the University of California Press, and the Bibliographisches Institut for granting me permission to reproduce selections from their publications. Generous financial support was furnished over the course of this project by the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), the United States Department of Education, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. To all three of these institutions I wish to express my deepest appreciation. No less profound is my gratitude for the immeasurable logistical and moral support provided to me during my fifteen-month trek through Germany by my friend of many years Doris Oberle and by the ever hospitable Familie Przytulski of Bochum. Indeed, given my lack of even a semipermanent abode for most of the research phase of this project, it is difficult to imagine how the latter could have been organized without the sort of unflagging aid these friends rendered by rerouting mail, taking messages, finalizing microfilm orders with a permanent address, and offering shelter whenever I was passing through. A multitude of thanks is likewise hereby extended to my friends on Kaiser-Konrad-Straße in Bonn and to my many German and Polish Servas hosts for their wondrous hospitality, a generosity which placed my unusually extensive scholarly pere grination within the realm of the logistically and financially feasible. In closing, I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation for the unwavering technical, logistical, and moral support my brother Stephen M. Lowry has provided over the years since this project began. I likewise feel most grateful to my sons Eric and Ben Lowry for their patience and understanding for their father’s all too extended endeavor and to my wife Yafeng G. Lowry for those periods when she took the lead in the household so that I could focus. Finally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my father David B. Lowry and to my late mother Mary Beth Lowry for their faithful support and concern during the lengthy process from the first tentative conceptions of this project to its ultimate completion, and to my beloved parents I dedicate this book. List of Abbreviations

AABKW Archiwum Archidiecezjalne i Biblioteka Kapitulna we Wrocławiu, Poland AAE Archief van Arenberg, Edingen, Belgium Abt. Abteilung BAK Bundesarchiv Koblenz BAP Bundesarchiv Potsdam, collections now at Bundesarchiv Lichterfelde BBKL Biographisches-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon BdGB Großherzogliche Badische Gesandtschaft Berlin BMAF Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv Freiburg BSWA Budget for Southwest Africa ByGB Königliche Bayrische Gesandtschaft Berlin ByHSA Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv ComB Complementary Budget ComCB Complementary Colonial Budget DB Draft Bill DHPG Deutsche Handels- und Plantagen-Gesellschaft DOAG Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Gesellschaft Ges. Rom-V Königliche Preußische Gesandtschaft Rom (Vatikan) GABS Gräfliches Archiv Ballestrem Straubing GLAK Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe GNK Gesellschaft Nordwest-Kamerun GSK Gesellschaft Südkamerun HASK Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln HSAS Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart HZAN Hohenlohe-Zentralarchiv Neuenstein KD Das katholische Deutschland: Biographisch-bibliographisches Lexikon KDS Kommissions-Drucksachen KVZ Kölnische Volkszeitung MdR Mitglied des Reichstags MPAL Missionshaus der Pallottiner Archiv, Limburg NDB Neue Deutsche Biographie Nr. Nummer PAAA Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts ProtBc Protokolle der Kommission für den Reichshaushalts-Etat (Budget‑ commission) xii list of abbreviations

RDS Reichstags-Drucksachen RKA Akten des Reichskolonialamts RKzA Akten der Reichskanzlei RMA Akten des Reichsmarineamts RTA Akten des Reichstags RTSB Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Deutschen Reichstags SupB Supplementary Budget SupCB Supplementary Colonial Budget SVD Societas Verbi Divini WüGB Königliche Württembergische Gesandtschaft Berlin WüMAA Württembergisches Ministerium der Auswärtigen Angelegenheiten WüSM Württembergisches Staatsministerium List of Maps

1 Southwest Africa 61 2 Togo 69 3 Kamerun 73 4 East Africa 81 5 New Guinea and the South Pacific 92 6 Shandong Province, China 124

Introduction

Decades of African and Asian resistance to imperialist occupation culminated in the middle of the twentieth century in the withdrawal of the exhausted European powers. Devastated by their own internecine struggles in two world wars, the European states proved incapable of retaining their previous military, economic, and organizational advantages over the subject populations of their colonial empires. Even as anti-imperialist resistance then drove forward local and regional decolonization, it often likewise disrupted the domestic political constellation of the occupying or encroaching power. For conspicuous examples, one need look no further than the fall of the French cabinet on the heels of Dien Bien Phu, the Algerians’ contribution to the collapse of the Fourth French Republic, the Vietnamese destruction of the credibility of American president Lyndon Johnson, the African erosion of the Salazarist regime in Portugal, or the Afghans’ role in the acceleration of the demise of the Soviet Union.1

1 Jean-Pierre Rioux, The Fourth French Republic, 1944–1958, trans. Godfrey Rogers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press with Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1987), 214–18, 224. Frank Giles, The Locust Years: The Story of the Fourth French Republic 1946–1958 (London: Secker & Warburg, 1991), 194–206. John Talbott, The War Without a Name: France in Algeria, 1954–1962 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980). Matthew Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 142–70. Don Oberdorfer, Tet! (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1971). Douglas A. Borer, Superpowers Defeated: Vietnam and Afghanistan Compared (Portland, OR: Frank Cass Publishers, 1999), 202–41. Douglas Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1977), 30–59, 75–96. Anthony Arnold, The Fateful Pebble: Afghanistan’s Role in the Fall of the Soviet Empire (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1993). For the purposes of this study, the term ‘imperialism’ will be defined somewhat more broadly than simply the establishment and maintenance of formal colonial rule, but not so broadly as the mere creation of inequitable trade relations between an industrialized capitalist state and a predominantly agrarian nation. Here ‘imperialism’ will refer to the application or maintenance of a state’s power on foreign soil, or the palpable threat of such application, with the intent not merely of defeating a hostile army in wartime, but also of subjugating, exploiting, transforming, or exterminating the indigenous population of that region to suit the interests of the intervening or occupying state. The interchangeable terms ‘resistance to imperialism’ or ‘anti-imperialist resistance’ shall then refer to all civil or military manifestations of a population’s opposition to foreign incursions or occupation for imperialist purposes. For an introduction to the various theories of imperialism, see Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Theories of Imperialism, trans. P.S. Falla (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). William

In the years before the First World War, however, manifestations of this potential ‘boomerang effect’ of imperialism arose less frequently as neither indigenous resistance nor European self-destructiveness had yet reached critical levels.2 Nor did most Europeans of the prewar era withhold support from their own governments’ practice of overseas conquest and occupation. Indeed, the general domestic consensus regarding the value of colonial possessions meant that a successful imperialist venture against an indigenous foe or European rival could even be expected to contribute to the stability of the existing political order.3 Nevertheless, the domestic political pitfalls of imperialism revealed in the postwar era were not without prewar precedent. The joint Sino-Vietnamese victory over the French at Lang-son in 1885 warrants mention for its contribution to the fall of the second cabinet of Jules Ferry as does the Ethiopian triumph over the Italians at Adowa in 1896 for its precipitation of the fall of Francesco Crispi’s government in Rome.4 The current study

Roger Louis, ed., Imperialism: The Robinson and Gallagher Controversy (New York: New Viewpoints, 1976). Winfried Baumgart, Imperialism: The Idea and Reality of British and French Colonial Expansion, 1880–1914 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982). 2 First to cite the ‘boomerang effects’ of imperialism, Hannah Arendt emphasized the jeop- ardy in which European civil societies ultimately placed themselves by permitting their elites to create societies overseas based upon racist violence and bureaucratic irresponsibility. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (San Diego: Harcourt, 1968), 206–7. Hannah Arendt, “A Special Supplement: Reflections on Violence,” New York Review of Books 12, no. 4 (February 27, 1969). Here I employ the same metaphor of the boomerang to refer to the independent threat likewise posed to the metropolitan status quo by domestic reverberations from indigenous resistance to colonial rule. 3 A number of historians have seen this expectation of domestic political stabilization as the primary grounds for engagement in overseas conquest, a model that has come to be known as ‘social imperialism.’ This thesis attributes imperialism to a manipulative strategy of domestic control by a nation’s ruling elite through “the diversion outwards of internal tensions and forces of change in order to preserve the social and political status quo” at home. Hans- Ulrich Wehler, Bismarck und der Imperialismus (Cologne: Kiepenheuer und Witsch, 1969), 115, quoted in English translation in Geoff Eley, “Defining social imperialism: use and abuse of an idea,” Social History 3 (October 1976): 265. The original German definition may also be found in an abridged excerpt from Bismarck und der Imperialismus in Hans-Ulrich Wehler, “Sozialimperialismus” in Imperialismus, ed. Hans-Ulrich Wehler (Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1970), 86. For the origins of this model, see Eckart Kehr, Schlachtflottenbau und Parteipolitik 1894–1901: Versuch eines Querschnitts durch die innenpolitischen, sozialen und ideologischen Voraussetzungen des deutschen Imperialismus (Berlin: Verlag Emil Ebering, 1930). 4 Jean-Marie Mayeur and Madeleine Reberioux, The Third Republic From Its Origins to the Great War, 1871–1914, trans. J.R. Foster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press and Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1984), 96–99. Jean Michel Gaillard, Jules Ferry ([Paris]: Fayard, 1989), 582–598. Christopher Duggan, Francesco Crispi, 1818–1901: From Nation Introduction 3 therefore takes as its central question whether the anti-imperialist resistance of colonized populations may have also affected German domestic politics in the decades before 1914. More specifically, it explores the extent to which the widespread overseas resistance in the years from 1897 to 1906 affected, whether positively or negatively, the relationship between the Reich government and the Catholic Center Party, the indispensable swing bloc of votes in the Reichstag during the period in question.

Historiography

Hitherto, most domestic political narratives of this era of German history have treated the contemporary conflicts in China, the South Pacific, and Africa as phenomena of only superficial significance for the Reich.5 This is particularly surprising in the African case as the German colonial crisis of 1904 to 1906 culminated in the dissolution of the Reichstag over the Center’s stance on a supplementary colonial budget. Although historians have devoted considerable attention to Chancellor Bernhard Fürst von Bülow’s sharp breach with the Center and the ensuing ‘Hottentot elections’ of early 1907, most have dis- sociated these dramatic political developments from the preceding wave of military and civilian resistance movements in German-occupied Africa. Even the broad Herero, Nama, and Maji Maji Uprisings of Southwest and East Africa are represented in these accounts as no more than a novel backdrop for developments otherwise transpiring independently upon the German stage.6

to Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 707–9. Christopher Seton-Watson, Italy from Liberalism to Fascism 1870–1925 (Frome [Somerset] & London: Methuen, 1967), 179–82. Margot Hentze, Pre-Fascist Italy: The Rise and Fall of the Parliamentary Regime (New York: Octagon Books, 1972), 198–99. Martin Clark, Modern Italy 1871–1995, 2d ed. (London: Longman, 1996), 100. 5 A version of this historiographical discussion first appeared in print in 2006. Reprinted with permission from John S. Lowry, “African Resistance and Center Party Recalcitrance in the Reichstag Colonial Debates of 1905/06,” Central European History 39 (2006): 244–46. © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association. 6 An early statement reflecting this propensity to minimize colonial issues may be found in Hans Pehl’s discussion of the origins of the Reichstag dissolution of December 1906: “[T]oday this much is already certain: the ultimate and decisive reason for the dissolution was not the conflict in the colonial question; rather, this was only the external occasion for things that lay far deeper,” which Pehl proceeded to identify as Bülow’s own weakened position as chancellor. Hans Pehl, “Die deutsche Kolonialpolitik und das Zentrum (1884–1914)” (Ph.D. diss., Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt a.M., 1934), 86. Unlike Pehl, George Crothers 4 Introduction

First to challenge the problematic Eurocentricity of this interpretation, Wolfgang Reinhard attempted in 1978 to reconcile his intent to recognize Africans “not as raw material, but as active agents of German history” with his own subscription to Hans-Ulrich Wehler’s thesis of social imperialism, which emphasizes the explanatory power of domestic politics.7 Unfortunately,

acknowledged the link between the weakening of Bülow’s position with the Kaiser and the Center’s struggle with the colonial administration, but he made no association of the latter with reverberations from African resistance. George Crothers, The German Elections of 1907 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1941), 98. Eighteen years later Klaus Epstein essentially ascribed the entire colonial crisis to Matthias Erzberger’s political acumen and moral enthusiasm. “The exposure of German colonial scandals by the Zentrum deputy Matthias Erzberger led to the Reichstag dissolution of 1907 [sic]. . . . He showed his uncanny political instinct by turning his attention to colonial topics just before they became the centre of national controversy.” Klaus Epstein, “Erzberger and the German Colonial Scandals, 1905–1910,” English Historical Review 74 (1959): 637. However, since the government’s budget requests for suppression of the Herero and Nama Uprisings had already reached 135 million marks by December 1904, Erzberger’s press assaults of 1905 should not be credited with quite so much clairvoyance. John Zeender was somewhat more attentive to the impact of the Southwest and East African uprisings upon government-Center relations, yet he was inconsistent in his recognition of the enormity of the costs involved. He commented, for example, that “it was ironic that the break did not come over the staggering budgetary demands the government made upon the Reichstag but over colonial issues” as if by 1905/06 the demands of the latter were anything but staggering. John Zeender, The German Center Party, 1890–1906 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1976), 99. 7 Wolfgang Reinhard, “ ‘Sozialimperialismus’ oder ‘Entkolonisierung der Historie’?: Kolo nialkrise und ‘Hottentottenwahlen,’ 1904–1907,” Historisches Jahrbuch 97/98 (1978): 391. Although otherwise in sympathy with his ideas, Reinhard argued that Hans-Ulrich Wehler had unduly reinforced the traditional Eurocentric interpretation of colonial issues through an excessively one-sided emphasis upon Eckart Kehr’s thesis of the “primacy of domestic politics” and the Reich government’s tactic of “social imperialism.” Ibid., 384–89. Averse to those theories of imperialism underscoring the contributions of actors on the colonial periphery, Wehler has preferred to see the colonial controversy of late 1906 as the key nationalist diversionary “opportunity” seized by Bülow to facilitate the electoral integration of his awkward new bloc of parties. From this premise, it has been implicitly necessary that the colonial issue not also constitute a substantive cause of the domestic political crisis from which the chancellor was attempting to escape by social imperialist means. Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, 3. Band, Von der “Deutschen Doppelrevolution” bis zum Beginn des Ersten Weltkrieges 1849–1914 (München: C.H. Beck, 1995), 985–89, 1137–40. Hans-Ulrich Wehler, “Bismarcks Imperialismus 1862–1890” in Krisenherde des Kaiserreichs 1871–1918: Studien zur deutschen Sozial- und Verfassungsgeschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970), 138, 149–61. Hans-Ulrich Wehler, The German Empire 1871–1918, trans. Kim Traynor (New York: Berg, 1997), 171–79. Dirk Stegmann, Die Erben Bismarcks: Parteien und Verbände in der Spätphase des Wilhelminischen Deutschlands—Sammlungspolitik 1897–1918 Introduction 5

Reinhard’s call for a “decolonization” of the history of Germany’s domestic colonial crisis found little echo at the time. A 1986 article by Winfried Becker provided the most noteworthy exception to this lack of resonance as it emphasized one vital African contribution to the domestic crisis in the serious fiscal disruption that the Herero and Nama Uprisings unleashed upon the Reich.8 Much more recently, of course, German social, cultural, and literary historians have been devoting themselves vigorously to the ‘decolonization’ project, and these efforts have included a number of worthy analyses of the impact of colonial issues upon German political culture.9

(Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1970), 105–13. Reinhard’s own attempt to reconcile peripheral and social imperialist interpretations faltered on the logical incompatibility of the two models. He soon returned in the article to his original social imperialist predilection, stranding most of his carefully marshaled African causes without clearly defined German effects. Reinhard, “ ‘Sozialimperialismus’ oder ‘Entkolonisierung’?,” 402–412. 8 Winfried Becker, “Kulturkampf als Vorwand: Die Kolonialwahlen von 1907 und das Problem der Parlamentarisierung des Reiches,” Historisches Jahrbuch 106 (1986): 59–84, especially 61–63, 83. Also reprinted in Die Verschränkung von Innen-, Konfessions- und Kolonialpolitik im Deutschen Reich vor 1914, ed. Johannes Horstmann (Paderborn: Katholische Akademie Schwerte, 1987). Better known but less related to the topic at hand, Woodruff Smith’s 1986 book The Ideological Origins of Nazi Imperialism established links between the contra- dictions in Wilhelmine imperialism and the disastrous solutions pursued by the Nazis in World War II. Although not concerned with African or Asian agency, Smith indirectly aided Reinhard’s call for the ‘decolonization’ of German history by bringing the often neglected topic of German colonialism into closer association with the unfailingly prominent Nazi question. Woodruff D. Smith, The Ideological Origins of Nazi Imperialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). This direction of inquiry is continuing. See, for example, Shelley Baranowski, Nazi Empire: German Colonialism and Imperialism from Bismarck to Hitler (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Róisín Healy and Enrico Dal Lago, eds., The Shadow of Colonialism on Europe’s Modern Past (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). 9 Sara Friedrichsmeyer, Sara Lennox, and Susanne Zantop, eds. The Imperialist Imagination: German Colonialism and Its Legacy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998). Lora Wildenthal, German Women for Empire, 1884–1945 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001). Pascal Grosse, Kolonialismus, Eugenik und bürgerliche Gesellschaft in Deutschland 1850– 1918 (Frankfurt a.M./New York: Campus, 2000). Andrew Zimmerman, Anthropology and Antihumanism in Imperial Germany (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001). Daniel Walther, Creating Germans Abroad: Cultural Policies and National Identity in Namibia (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2002). Eric Ames, Marcia Klotz, and Lora Wildenthal, eds., Germany’s Colonial Pasts (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005). Birthe Kundrus, Moderne Imperialisten: Das Kaiserreich im Spiegel seiner Kolonien (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 2003). Birthe Kundrus, ed., Phantasiereiche: Zur Kulturgeschichte des deutschen Kolonialismus (Frankfurt a.M.: Campus Verlag, 2003). Birthe Kundrus, Die imperialistischen Frauenverbände des Kaiserreichs: Koloniale Phantasie- und Realgeschichte im Verein (Basel: 6 Introduction

However, in the sphere of German domestic political history per se, the question of the agency of colonial and semicolonial populations has remained largely dormant since Reinhard and Becker made their original forays into the field.10 It is therefore the intent of this present work to re-initiate discussion of

Basler-Afrika-Bibliographien, 2005). Krista O’Donnell, Renate Bridenthal, and Nancy Reagin, eds., The Heimat Abroad: The Boundaries of Germanness (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005). Sebastian Conrad, Globalisation and the Nation in Imperial Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). David Ciarlo, Advertising Empire: Race and Visual Culture in Imperial Germany (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011). Michael Perraudin and Jürgen Zimmerer, eds., German Colonialism and National Identity (New York: Routledge, 2011). Christian S. Davis, Colonialism, Antisemitism, and Germans of Jewish Descent in Imperial Germany (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2012). John Phillip Short, Magic Lantern Empire: Colonialism and Society in Germany (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012). Jeff Bowersox, Raising Germans in the Age of Empire: Youth and Colonial Culture, 1871–1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). Bradley Naranch and Geoff Eley, eds., German Colonialism in a Global Age (Duke University Press, 2014). 10 Even in more recent political histories of the period, the view remains quite prevalent that the colonial crisis of 1905/06 was merely the occasion of the ensuing Reichstag dissolution and/or that Africans played no significant role in creating the colonial crisis in the first place. Katharine Anne Lerman, for example, correctly emphasizes the importance of both the defeat of the Colonial Office and the Podbielski-Fischer Affair in the erosion of the chancellor’s position with the Kaiser, yet she scarcely connects these factors with any of the overseas calamities. Indeed, she makes surprisingly few references to the colonies themselves in her chapter on the crisis of 1905/06. Katharine Anne Lerman, Chancellor as Courtier: Bernhard von Bülow and the Governance of Germany, 1900–1909 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 127–66, especially 145–47, 153–57, 163–65. Reflecting upon the origins of the Reichstag dissolution, Christian Leitzbach looks to Bülow’s questionable memoirs for confirmation of the speculations of Friedrich Naumann and Karl Bachem. On this basis he concurs with Hans Pehl: “It has thereby been established beyond doubt that the colonial scandals and the rejection of the supplementary budget were only a pretext for von Bülow to part with a troublesome Reichstag majority.” Christian Leitzbach, Matthias Erzberger: Ein kritischer Beobachter des Wilhelminischen Reiches 1895–1914 (Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 1998), 358–60, 363–64. Likewise, in a work that otherwise leans heavily toward the anti-Kehrite thesis of ‘creeping parliamentarization,’ Volker Schulte sees the Reichstag dissolution as a social imperialist diversionary tactic and the colonial issue as correspondingly incidental. Volker Schulte, “Die Reichstagswahlen 1907: Parlamentarierungsforderungen [sic] und interfraktionelle Allianzen von Zentrum und Sozialdemokratie” (Ph.D. diss., Universität Göttingen, 1989), 135. On the other hand, in a more recent essay on the 1906 dissolution and ensuing elections, Ulrich van der Heyden has endorsed Reinhard’s argument that Africans had become “active agents” in German history through provocation of the colonial crisis. Still, van der Heyden does not bolster this point with further evidence, and at times his account even appears to be leaning in the opposite direction. Ulrich van der Introduction 7 the import of such populations as actors upon the stage of German political history. This shall be accomplished not only by delving more deeply into the African contributions to the explosive colonial crisis, but also by broadening the chronological and geographical scope of inquiry to include the impact in Germany of earlier anti-imperialist resistance movements in China, the South Pacific, and the Caribbean.

Sources

The availability today of sources that illuminate the impact of colonial or semicolonial resistance movements upon government-Center relations around the turn of the century varies widely according to the year of interest, the type of source, and the fortunes of intervening history. Not surprisingly, the peak years of the colonial crisis, 1905 and 1906, produced by far the densest level of documentation overall while 1902 and 1903 generated the fewest relevant documents. Less obvious perhaps are the difficulties presented by research which was simultaneously focused upon the Wilhelmine Center and upon an issue which, in the absence of a crisis, would generally be peripheral to the concerns of the Catholic party. In the first place, the national Center Party archives in Berlin were destroyed by fire in 1942 as a consequence of Allied air attacks upon that city.11 Second, few leading Centrists composed memoirs or left behind particularly useful collections of political papers. Although party leader Ernst Lieber left behind a significant set upon his death in 1902, of which the most valuable portion now lies at the archdiocesanal archive in Wrocław, Poland, his successor Peter Spahn bequeathed neither memoirs nor papers of his own to posterity.12 The same holds true for such key party figures as Adolf Gröber, Richard Müller-Fulda, Alois Fritzen, Franz Hitze, Franz Schaedler, Franz Pichler, Georg Dasbach, and Hermann Roeren.13

Heyden, “Die ‘Hottentottenwahlen’ von 1907,” in Völkermord in Deutsch-Südwestafrika: Der Kolonialkrieg (1904–1908) in Namibia und seine Folgen, ed. Jürgen Zimmerer and Joachim Zeller (Berlin: Christoph Links Verlag, 2003), 97–102. 11 Wilfried Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich: Der politische Katholizismus in der Krise des wilhelminischen Deutschlands (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1984), 31. 12 Nachlaß Ernst Lieber, Archivum Archidiecezjalne i Biblioteka Kapitulna we Wrocławiu (AABKW). 13 Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 32. 8 Introduction

Moreover, even when individual Centrists maintained collections of their political papers, they did not always reach posterity intact. Indeed, research on the current topic was particularly impaired by the almost total destruction of the relevant papers of the Center’s two leading colonial experts. Those of Chancellor Bülow’s longtime friend Franz Prinz von Arenberg nearly all perished in August 1914 when retreating Belgian troops set fire to the family’s castle at Marche-les-Dames.14 More regrettably still, some years after the 1921 murder of Matthias Erzberger by right-wing extremists, his friend Josef Hammer found it necessary under the Nazi regime to stage the public destruction of the prewar papers of the much-maligned Swabian Centrist in order secretly to salvage the wartime and early Weimar portions.15 While the latter are now housed at the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz, they were of less use to this study than the quite interesting, if regrettably small, surviving segment of the Arenberg papers at the ducal Arenberg archive in Edingen, Belgium.16 Fortunately, a close associate of Spahn and Gröber, Karl Bachem of Cologne, assembled an enormous collection of documentation during his parliamentary career and in his subsequent capacity as party historian. In fact, his nine- volume Vorgeschichte, Geschichte und Politik der deutschen Zentrumspartei represents only a fraction of the material maintained among his papers at the Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln, which were examined for this project in 1993, years before the archival building’s catastrophic collapse in March 2009.17 The infinitely smaller Karl Trimborn papers at the same location, however, contained little of interest on colonial and related issues. On the other hand, the papers at Koblenz of the generally governmental Centrist professor and subsequent wartime chancellor Georg Freiherr, later Graf, von Hertling ran a distant but noteworthy second to the Bachem collection in terms of their usefulness. Moreover, while Hertling’s published two-volume memoirs extend only up to the year 1899, a manuscript of a proposed third volume by his son Karl lies with his father’s political correspondence in the federal archive.18

14 Jean-Pierre Tytgat, Archivist, Archief van Arenberg, Edingen, letter to the author, Sep. 25, 1993. 15 Klaus Epstein, Matthias Erzberger and the Dilemma of German Democracy (New York: H. Fertig, 1959), 439. 16 Nachlaß Matthias Erzberger, Bundesarchiv Koblenz (BAK). Papiers Franz Prinz von Arenberg (36/13), Biographie 61, Archief van Arenberg, Edingen (AAE). 17 Karl Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte und Politik der deutschen Zentrumspartei, 9 vols. (Cologne: Verlag J.P. Bachem, 1929–32). Nachlaß Karl Bachem, Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln (HASK). 18 Georg von Hertling, Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben, 2 vols. (Munich: Verlag der Jos. Köselschen Buchhandlung, 1919–20). Nachlaß Georg Graf von Hertling, BAK. Introduction 9

In addition to the aforementioned Lieber collection at Wrocław and its less valuable complement at the Pfälzische Landesbibliothek Speyer, the chrono- logically thorough but tantalizingly succinct diaries of the Silesian Reichstag president Franz Graf von Ballestrem warrant special mention (Gräfliches Archiv von Ballestrem Straubing). Otherwise, the most helpful Centrist collections were those of Karl Herold and of Peter Spahn’s son Martin, both at the Bundesarchiv Koblenz. The papers of the coeditor of the Kölnische Volkszeitung Hermann Cardauns and the Reichstag delegate Wilhelm Mayer- Kaufbeuren, both likewise at Koblenz, produced only a minimal yield as did also those of Clemens Freiherr Heereman von Zuydtwyck (Westfälisches Archivamt Münster), Georg Heim (Stadtarchiv Regensburg), Maximilian Pfeiffer (Bayrisches Hauptstaatsarchiv München / Pfälzische Landesbibliothek Speyer), Eugen Jäger (Landesarchiv Speyer), and Konstantin Fehrenbach (Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe). If individual Centrist sources frequently proved to be disappointingly limited, the published stenographic reports of the Reichstag debates themselves naturally represented an indispensably rich source for this study.19 Their value was also immeasurably enhanced by an examination of the nearly complete set of printed, yet unpublished, Budget Committee protocols on colonial issues to be found in the records of the Reichstag, which then lay at the Bundesarchiv in Potsdam, but which since have been transferred to the facility at Berlin- Lichterfelde. Whereas speeches in the plenum on a given colonial issue were ordinarily delivered by a single Center delegate, the Budget Committee debates revealed much more clearly the spectrum of party opinion and concerns about overseas developments. Moreover, both the plenary and the committee debates were rendered far more accessible to analysis by the nearly complete set of the government’s colonial budget proposals located in the same collection. These also made it possible to plot much more precisely the extent of the correlation between the material costs of imperialist ventures and the level of Centrist exasperation with the Reich government. In addition to the evaluation of these various parliamentary documents, another crucial avenue to an understanding of Catholic opinion on colonial and pseudocolonial issues may be found in an examination of the Centrist press. In this regard, the periodicals that were examined most systematically were the Catholic party’s national paper Germania, the more widely circu- lating Kölnische Volkszeitung, and the Trierische Landeszeitung, the principal organ of the oppositional populist Father Georg Dasbach. Otherwise, the

19 Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Deutschen Reichstags. 1897–1906 (hereafter RTSB). 10 Introduction abundant newspaper clippings on colonial and pseudocolonial issues to be found in many governmental and individual collections were used as signposts revealing crucial articles from journals ranging across the German political spectrum, but with a special emphasis upon organs of the Center. Finally, to the extent that sources were available in Germany, the nexus was explored between overseas anti-imperialist resistance, the Roman Catholic missions, the Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy, the Reich government, and the Center Party. Unfortunately, it became increasingly apparent during the course of the investigation that most of the relevant missionary collections had been relocated to Rome. Serious thought was therefore given to spending a month in that city, but the idea was eventually ruled out due, on the one hand, to certain logistical constraints and, on the other, to relative satisfaction with the insight gained regarding the missions via several other collections and secondary sources. Among the three missionary society collections that were examined in Germany, the most valuable proved to be that of the Pallottine missionaries to Kamerun at their archive in Limburg. Visits to the Benedictine archive at Sankt Ottilien and the Sacred Heart (Herz-Jesu) archive at Münster both yielded some promising documentation. However, the Maji Maji murder of a Benedictine bishop and his companions in East Africa had less of an impact upon government-Center relations than upon the nature of the latest anticlerical press attacks upon Roman Catholicism. As for the Sacred Heart missionaries’ clash with the imperial navy over the murder of Purser Below by the New Pomeranian Barossa, the documents reveal that the affair dragged on for years, but there is no evidence that the Center ever became involved. The China Zentrum of the Societas Verbi Divini (SVD) in Sankt Augustin and the Spiritan archive at Knechtsteden both proved somewhat disappointing. The former was only a library of published works; all political records of the SVD regarding its missions in the crucial venues of Shandong and Togo are to be found in Rome. Similarly, the relevant Spiritan collections had been transferred there from Knechtsteden in recent decades. For the most part, however, the geographical challenge was surmounted by the wealth of other sources in Germany and Belgium concerning the political activity of the SVD, the most important mission society for this study. Documentation of its relations with the government were concentrated at the Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts in Bonn and at the Bundesarchiv Potsdam while much on SVD-Center relations was to be found in the Bachem and Arenberg papers at Cologne and Edingen, respectively. Most of the remaining lacunae were then filled by reference to the work of Karl Rivinius on the SVD in China and Togo and to Karl Müller’s Geschichte der katholischen Kirche Introduction 11 in Togo, both of which are partly based upon research in the society’s Roman archive.20 More generally, in Bonn the official correspondence of the Prussian envoy to the Vatican assisted with analysis of the role of the papacy and the Propaganda Fidei in the intertwining of German colonial and domestic affairs. Lastly, although the papers of Bishop Michael Korum in Trier yielded little, the archepiscopal archive at Cologne contained some revealing fragments of correspondence between the Colonial Department, Canon Karl Hespers, and the SVD regarding the Togo Affair and its exposure in the Reichstag by Centrist Hermann Roeren in December 1906. Whereas investigation of the Catholic side of the government-Center relationship presented some considerable difficulties, governmental collections and those of individual statesmen and officials often yielded an abundance of relevant material. At the Bundesarchiv Potsdam the voluminous records of the Imperial Colonial Office, now at Berlin-Lichterfelde, revealed an enormous amount about African resistance to German imperialism, the colonial administration’s response thereto, and the impact both had upon government- Center relations in Berlin, whether directly via military costs or indirectly via Catholic missionary reactions. Similarly, the very considerable documentation of Sino-German relations preserved by the Foreign Office in Bonn and the records of the Kiautschou administration of the Naval Office, now housed at the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv Freiburg, offered an analogous picture of the interplay of Chinese anti-imperialist resistance with German official and missionary responses. Moreover, extensive use was also made of the existing secondary literature on each of the German colonies and the other relevant arenas of imperialism in order to render as clear and accurate a portrayal as possible of events overseas. To the extent that the reverberations from colonial and pseudocolonial resistance then reached the power centers of the Reich, ample material could be found in the records of the Imperial Chancellery at Potsdam (now at Berlin-Lichterfelde), among the Foreign Office documents concerning relations between the German states, and within the official

20 Karl Rivinius, Mission und Politik: Eine unveröffentlichte Korrespondenz zwischen Mitgliedern der Steyler Missionsgesellschaft und dem Zentrumspolitiker Carl Bachem (St. Augustin: Steyler Verlag, 1977). Karl Rivinius, Weltlicher Schutz und Mission: Das deutsche Protektorat über die katholische Mission von Südshantung (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 1987). Karl Rivinius, “Akten zur katholischen Togo-Mission: Auseinandersetzung zwischen Mitgliedern der Steyler Missionsgesellschaft und deutschen Kolonialbeamten in den Jahren 1903–1907,” Neue Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft 35 (1979): 58–69, 108– 32, 171–90. Karl Müller, Geschichte der katholischen Kirche in Togo (Kaldenkirchen: Steyler Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1958). 12 Introduction

correspondence of the Bavarian, Württemberg, and Badenese envoys to Berlin with their respective governments at Munich, Stuttgart, and Karlsruhe. Apart from government records, a number of sources have survived that contain further illuminating observations by Germans stationed overseas. With respect to the officials who served in China, the most useful non-government sources were the published diaries of Elisabeth Freifrau von Heyking, wife of the German envoy to Beijing, and the likewise printed memoirs of Field Marshal Alfred Graf von Waldersee, supreme commander of the 1900 international expedition to northern China.21 Little was to be gleaned, on the other hand, from a perusal at the Westfälisches Archivamt of the correspondence of two relatives of Clemens Freiherr von Ketteler, Freiherr von Heyking’s ill-fated successor as envoy to the Middle Kingdom. Among the papers of colonial officials, those of Samoa’s governor Wilhelm Solf (Bundesarchiv Koblenz) proved quite unexpectedly to be the richest lode largely because Solf happened to have been on home furlough assisting at the Colonial Department at the height of the 1905/06 crisis. Likewise noteworthy, the unpublished memoirs at Freiburg of Berthold von Deimling, commander of the German forces in Southwest Africa, went far to illuminate the contingency of the Reichstag dissolution of December 1906 upon the decisions of the Bondelswart Nama. Of more limited value, but nonetheless worthy of mention were the papers of Governor Friedrich von Lindequist of Southwest Africa and those of Paul Leutwein, the son of Lindequist’s predecessor, both at Koblenz, and at Potsdam (Berlin-Lichterfelde) the papers of Governor Jesko von Puttkamer of Kamerun as well as the 1906 correspondence of Bogdan Graf von Hutten-Czapski with the returned Governor Gustav Graf von Götzen of East Africa. Puttkamer, Götzen, and Theodor Leutwein also all published accounts of their years as governor of their respective colonies while the infamous District Official Geo Schmidt of Atakpame, Togo, printed a repre- sentatively anticlerical polemic against the SVD missionaries and the Centrist Hermann Roeren.22

21 Elisabeth von Heyking, Tagebücher aus vier Weltteilen, 1886–1904, edited by Grete Litzmann (Leipzig: Koehler & Amelang, 1926). Alfred Graf von Waldersee, A Field- Marshal’s Memoirs: From the Diary, Correspondence, and Reminiscences of Alfred, Count von Waldersee, condensed and translated by Frederic Whyte (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1924). 22 Jesko von Puttkamer, Gouverneursjahre in Kamerun (Berlin: Verlag von Georg Stilke, 1912). Gustav Graf von Götzen, Deutsch-Ostafrika im Aufstand 1905/06 (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1909). Theodor Leutwein, Elf Jahre Gouverneur in Deutsch-Südwestafrika, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler und Sohn, 1907). Geo A. Schmidt, Schmidt contra Roeren: Unter dem kaudinischen Joch. Ein Kampf um Recht und Ehre (Berlin, 1907). Introduction 13

Among members of the central colonial administration, Acting Colonial Director Ernst Erbprinz, later Fürst, zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg and Privy Councillor Bernhard von König left the most useful documentary legacies. In addition to assembling his own collection of revealing papers during his ten- month tenure in the Colonial Department, Hohenlohe-Langenburg also wrote his father frequent illuminating letters regarding behind-the-scenes developments during the colonial crisis in Berlin. All of these documents may be found at the Hohenlohe-Zentralarchiv Neuenstein. Meanwhile, as the chief of personnel at the Colonial Department, König maintained private correspondence with key figures in the colonial administration, witnessed the unfold- ing of scandals from an unusually immediate perspective, and came under heavy fire himself from some Centrists for negligence in the making of colonial appointments. As a result, his papers at Potsdam (Berlin-Lichterfelde) provided a wealth of material for the topic under investigation. Less useful among the papers of Colonial Department officials were those of Hohenlohe’s successor Bernhard Dernburg, Erzberger’s nemesis Karl Helfferich, and Hohenlohe’s chief adviser Theodor Seitz, all at Koblenz, and those of Colonial Director Gerhard von Buchka and Alfred Zimmermann then at Potsdam. Naturally, an examination of the personal papers of the leading statesmen of the Reich was quite indispensable for establishing a picture of the impact of colonial resistance upon German domestic politics. At Koblenz the papers that offered the richest yield were those of chancellors Chlodwig Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst and Bernhard Fürst von Bülow and of Bülow’s successor as foreign secretary Oswald Freiherr von Richthofen. Only occasionally helpful, on the other hand, were the papers of Bülow’s Chancellery Chief Friedrich Wilhelm von Loebell at Koblenz and those of Richthofen’s successor Foreign Secretary Heinrich von Tschirschky und Bögendorff at Bonn. More useful than either of these collections were the papers of Bülow’s press bureau chief Otto Hammann and the microfilm reproduction of the papers of Bülow’s ever crafty adviser Friedrich von Holstein, both then at Potsdam. Meanwhile, although not many relevant documents were found at Freiburg among the papers of the admirals Alfred von Tirpitz and Gustav Freiherr von Senden und Bibran, several of those discovered proved quite important. Lastly, cautious but regular use was made of the memoirs and other published contributions of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Bülow, Tirpitz, Anton Graf von Monts, and Kaiser Wilhelm II himself.23

23 Chlodwig Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Denkwürdigkeiten der Reichskanzlerzeit (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1931). Bernhard Fürst von Bülow, Denkwürdigkeiten, 4 vols. (Berlin: Ullstein, 1930). Alfred von Tirpitz, Erinnerungen (Berlin: K.F. Koehler, 1927). 14 Introduction

Chapter Organization

The first of this book’s three parts offers the reader an introduction to the key elements of the subsequent historical account. Chapter 1 presents a geographical and socioeconomic profile of the German Center Party and its constituencies from 1897 to 1906. Sketches of the careers of individual Centrist politicians may also be found here. The origins, course, and conclusion of the Kulturkampf of the 1870s and early 1880s are then treated in chapter 2 since the later battles over the Anti-Jesuit Law and persecution of missionaries kept the bitter memories of this church-state struggle alive. For readers unfamiliar with the German colonies, chapter 3 provides a guide to their basic topography, to the military and civilian resistance of their sundry populations, and to the highly variable roles of the Catholic missions in each colonial context. The first part of the book then concludes with a chapter summarizing the Center’s attitudes to the German colonial empire from its inception in 1884 up to 1897, the actual starting point of this investigation. The next four chapters then treat the period from 1897 to 1903 when the interwoven reverberations of Chinese, Cuban, and Samoan resistance movements generally promoted government-Center accord on naval issues in spite of the complete lack of progress on the Jesuit question. By contrast, the book’s final three chapters on the origins and eruption of the German colonial scandals show that widespread African military and civilian resistance after 1903 drove a deep wedge between government and Center, precipitating the Reichstag dissolution of 1906 that terminated the same partnership that Chinese, Cuban, and Samoan resistance had earlier unwittingly fostered. Thus, German experiences of anti-imperialist movements overseas proved a significant but extremely ambivalent factor for the stability of Wilhelmine domestic politics.

Alfred von Tirpitz, Politische Dokumente: Der Aufbau der deutschen Weltmacht (Berlin: J.G. Cotta’sche Buchhandlung Nachfolger, 1924). Anton Graf von Monts, Erinnerungen und Gedanken des Botschafters Anton Graf Monts, edited by Karl Friedrich Nowak and Friedrich Thimme (Berlin: Verlag für Kulturpolitik, 1932). Wilhelm II, The Kaiser’s Memoirs, translated by Thomas R. Ybarra (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1922). Part 1 The Center, the Kulturkampf, and the Colonies

∵

CHAPTER 1 A Profile of the German Center Party, 1897–1906

The swings in the relationship between the Reich government and the German Center Party offer an ideal vehicle for measuring the impact of overseas resistance movements upon the domestic affairs of Wilhelmine Germany. From 1890 to 1906 the roughly one hundred Reichstag delegates of the German Center Party held the pivotal position in the national parliament. By this era the col- lective strength of the generally governmental German Conservative, Imperial, and National Liberal parties had dwindled from 220 seats in 1887 to 125 in 1898, far short of the 199 votes needed to command a majority. Meanwhile, in the opposition the Social Democrats and two of the three left liberal parties together also held roughly one hundred Reichstag seats. Of these, a rapidly increasing share was falling to the officially revolutionary socialists such that by 1903 these controlled eighty-one seats to the left liberals’ twenty-seven. Between this increasingly radical left and the three erstwhile Kartell parties of the right stood the Center, the political manifestation of Germany’s beleaguered Roman Catholic minority and by 1890 the one party capable of delivering the dozens of missing votes necessary for passage of the government’s budgets and legislation.1 Thus, as long as the Social Democrats remained strong and the left liberals both weak and doctrinaire, Berlin had no viable

1 The third left liberal caucus, the Radical Alliance (Freisinnige Vereinigung), was not as consistently oppositional as either the Radical People’s Party (Freisinnige Volkspartei) or the German People’s Party. However, the mere dozen votes the Alliance could offer still left Berlin requiring Centrist support. Likewise, the presence in the Reichstag of another fifty-odd delegates from lesser parties presented no threat to the Center’s indispensability to the government since three dozen of them represented national and regional minorities. Although not always on uniformly good terms with the Center Party, the Poles, Alsatians, Danes, and Hanoverian Guelphs frequently collaborated with the German Catholics, with whom they had far more in common than with the governmental proponents of Germanization, anticlericalism, and centralization. Hence, the Reich could not hope to secure any leverage over the Center from that direction as long as it persisted in pursuing policies hostile to the interests of these smaller parties. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 3:145–49, 190– 91, 278–82, 4:294–99. Peter Molt, Der Reichstag vor der improvisierten Revolution (Cologne: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1963), 100–103, 175–76. John C.G. Röhl, Germany Without Bismarck: The Crisis of Government in the Second Reich, 1890–1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 45–46. Stegmann, Erben Bismarcks, 29–31. David Blackbourn, Class, Religion and Local Politics in Wilhelmine Germany: The Center Party in Württemberg Before 1914 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 23, 27.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004306875_003 18 CHAPTER 1 alternative to seeking an accommodation with the Center on every legislative item of national significance. However, such government efforts to secure Centrist cooperation were still impeded by the legacy of the Kulturkampf, the legislative, administrative, and judicial campaign Imperial Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the liberals, and several state governments had waged in the 1870s against the perceived threat of political Catholicism.2

Geographical Profile

Given the Center’s confessional nature, the profile of its delegates and constituents reflected the geographical distribution of the German Catholic minority, rather than any particular set of economic interests.3 As approximately eighty percent of the Reich’s Catholics resided in either Prussia or Bavaria, these two states accounted for the overwhelming majority of the party’s Reichstag delegates. On average, from 1897 to 1906 the Center caucus consisted of nearly sixty Prussians, thirty Bavarians, and about a dozen other South Germans, primarily from Baden and Württemberg. Generally speaking, the forty-odd South Germans leaned toward continued limitation of the expanding power of the imperial central government while most of their Prussian counterparts concluded by 1898 that more concessions could be secured for German Catholics by accommodating the naval, colonial, and military ambitions of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Nevertheless, conspicuous exceptions to this pattern warrant mention. For example, the Eifel and Hunsrück regions of the Prussian Rhineland elected outspoken populist leaders such as the Trier publicist Father Georg Dasbach and the maverick Superior Court Judge Hermann Roeren. Conversely, such South Germans as Justice Adolf Gröber of the Württemberg Supreme Court and Professor Georg Freiherr von Hertling in Bavaria were both instrumental in the Center’s pursuit of a governmental strategy. In any case, although the Prussians possessed a majority within the Center caucus, the edge this afforded for pursuit of the pro-government line was less comfortable than might first appear, not only because of dissent within the Prussians’ own ranks, but also because Berlin often needed more than just a simple majority of the Center to pass its legislation through the Reichstag.4

2 See chapter 2. 3 Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 3:149–51, 368, 372–73. Blackbourn, Class, Religion, 42. 4 Molt, Reichstag, 48, 132, 311–12. Blackbourn, Class, Religion, 38. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 38–113. A Profile of the Center, 1897–1906 19

Within Prussia, Catholics comprised approximately one third of the population while the Center’s sixty Reichstag seats corresponded to roughly one quarter of those allotted to the kingdom as a whole. Of the forty-odd Prussian Center delegates from west of the Elbe River, more than two dozen hailed from the heavily Catholic Rhineland and another nine or ten from neighboring Westphalia. The remainder represented Catholic pockets of Hesse-Nassau, southern Hanover, and western Provincial Saxony as well as Prussia’s South German enclave of Hohenzollern. Meanwhile, nearly all of the East Elbian Center arose from a dozen heavily Catholic electoral districts in eastern Silesia. Apart from these in Silesia, the party also regularly claimed two seats in the East Prussian diocese of Ermland and intermittently held one in southern Posen. Otherwise, outside Prussia, Oldenburg was the only North German state to have any Centrist representation, a lone delegate representing the Catholic hinterland of that diminutive grand duchy.5 In contrast to their minority status in Prussia, Roman Catholics in Bavaria possessed a majority of approximately seventy percent. The thirty Bavarian Centrists accordingly occupied more than sixty percent of that kingdom’s Reichstag seats, dominating in particular the regions of the Upper Palatinate, Bavarian Swabia, Lower Franconia, and Upper and Lower Bavaria. In the remaining South German states, six or seven Centrists held about half of the seats of confessionally polarized Baden, and Catholic constituencies in southern and eastern Württemberg returned another four Centrists, roughly one quarter of that kingdom’s representation. Finally, the Catholic enclave at Mainz accounted for the single Centrist among the nine delegates from the grand duchy of Hesse.6 Although the Roman Catholic tradition prescribed no particular economic ideology for the Center, the geography of German Catholicism sketched above

5 Max Schwarz, MdR: Biographisches Handbuch der Reichstage (Hannover: Verlag für Literatur und Zeitgeschehen, 1965), 139–506. Bernd Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete der deutschen Zentrumspartei 1871–1933: Biographisches Handbuch und historische Photographien (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1999), 118–289. Jürgen Schmädeke, Wählerbewegung im Wilhel minischen Deutschland, 2. Band (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1995), Karten 1, 3–5, 10. Blackbourn, Class, Religion, 43. Volker R. Berghahn, Imperial Germany, 1871–1914: Economy, Society, Culture and Politics (New York: Berghahn Books, 2003), 97. 6 See previous footnote. It should be noted at this juncture that in 1906, the final year of this study, the Straßburg lawyer Dr. Leo Vonderscheer became the first Alsatian Reichstag deputy to join the German Center Party. He was, however, already the regional director of the People’s Association for Catholic Germany, an organization closely associated with the Center. This would suggest that he may have effectively committed himself to the party at an earlier date. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:200. 20 CHAPTER 1 had a direct impact upon the relative influence of various economic interests within the ranks of the party and its constituency. First, whereas a nation’s initial proponents of colonial expansion generally emerge from its seafaring communities, German Catholics were almost nowhere to be found along the German coast of the North and Baltic Seas.7 Out of the forty-six Reichstag districts on the seacoast or an estuary, just one was held by the Center—namely, the district associated with the minor East Prussian port of Braunsberg on the Vistula lagoon. Only three other Centrist districts lay within even two hundred kilometers of the sea, and in all four cases agriculture engaged twice as many of the district’s residents in the 1890s as did commerce and industry combined.8 Indeed, at that time agriculture predominated over other occupations in over seventy percent of the Reichstag districts held by the Catholic party.9 The Center accordingly drew most of its electoral strength from Catholic peasant farmers, artisans, and shopkeepers, all traditional groups without intrinsic economic interests in the possession of colonies.10 Moreover, while the numerous Catholic industrial workers in the Rhineland, Westphalia, and Silesia might have had an indirect interest in imperialism if it enhanced their employers’ profits, the virtual certainty of higher taxes from colonial ventures tended to offset any slim hope that a share of the purported colonial dividend might one day materialize in their wages. In short, German possession of colonies held no economic value for the largest constituencies of the very party upon whom the Berlin government was compelled to depend for authorization of its colonial spending. For these Centrist voters, only an inexpensive colonial policy would be palatable and only then if the Roman Catholic missions also enjoyed the fullest protection of the German authorities.11

7 Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 8, 11. 8 Schmädeke, Wählerbewegung, 2. Band, Karten 3–5, 11. Of these four northernmost Centrist seats, the Delmenhorst district in Oldenburg was at least adjacent to the major Hanseatic city of Bremen, but the latter’s port of Bremerhaven still lay considerably further north. 9 Ibid. Blackbourn, Class, Religion, 42–43. 10 Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 8–9, 11. Herbert Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperia lismus: Geschichte der Wandlung des Zentrums beim Übergang zum Imperialismus in Deutschland” (Ph.D. diss., Universität Jena, 1966), 2–3. Blackbourn, Class, Religion, 10–11, 15, 42–44. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 41–48. 11 Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 8–10. A Profile of the Center, 1897–1906 21

The Aristocratic and Bourgeois Party Elite

Still, the emergence of parliamentary candidates directly from these less affluent circles was hindered by the lack of remuneration for Reichstag delegates and by the incompatibility of most occupations with political engagement in distant Berlin for six months out of the year. These impediments to populist candidates increased the propensity of ordinary Centrist voters to acquiesce, at least initially, in the election of wealthy local luminaries nominated by a regional party committee comprised of similar dignitaries. As a result, the social profile of the Center’s Reichstag delegation bore only a distant resemblance to that of its constituencies.12 For example, during the period from 1897 to 1906 nine Centrist seats were still occupied by lesser Catholic nobles, primarily barons and counts from the Rhineland, Westphalia, Silesia, and Bavaria.13 Since the mitigation of most anti-Catholic Kulturkampf legislation in the 1880s, the aristocrats, particularly those from Prussia, had wished to discontinue the Center’s tradition of con- straining the government. Their consequent efforts to rescue an unpopular army bill in 1893 then precipitated a debacle at the polls as their own Catholic constituents slashed their numbers from thirty to eleven. Nevertheless, the aristocrats remained disproportionately influential in ensuing years as junior partners of the new bourgeois party leadership.14 Most important of the aristocrats for this study, the Rhenish colonial enthusiast and former embassy official Franz Prinz von Arenberg (MdR 1890–1907) enjoyed close personal ties to the later chancellor Foreign Secretary Bernhard von Bülow and therefore served as a frequent liaison between the Center, the

12 Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 4. Molt, Reichstag, 38–43, 48, 161–64, 197, 268, 276–77, 311–12. Blackbourn, Class, Religion, 10–11, 14–15. Ursula Mittman, Fraktion und Partei: Ein Vergleich von Zentrum und Sozialdemokratie im Kaiserreich (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1976), 24–27, 62–63. Hermann Butzer, Diäten und Freifahrt im Deutschen Reichstag: Der Weg zum Entschädigungsgesetz von 1906 und die Nachwirkung dieser Regelung bis in die Zeit des Grundgesetzes (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1999). 13 Molt, Reichstag, 104–6. Schwarz, MdR, 139–506. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 118–289. 14 Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 15–17, 134–36. Molt, Reichstag, 106, 135. Zeender, German Center Party, 28–35. Blackbourn, Class, Religion, 29, 33–34. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 48–54. J. Alden Nichols, Germany After Bismarck: The Caprivi Era, 1890–1894 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958), 214–17, 251–53, 256. Mittman, Fraktion und Partei, 169. Stig Förster, Der doppelte Militarismus: Die deutsche Heeresrüstungspolitik zwischen Status-Quo-Sicherung und Aggression 1890–1913 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden, 1985), 52–54, 57–63, 71. 22 CHAPTER 1

Catholic missions, and the government.15 Equally governmental and one of the Center’s few major industrialists, the Silesian count and veteran officer Franz Graf von Ballestrem (MdR 1872–1893, 1898–1906) served as president of the Reichstag from his return to the parliament in 1898 until its abrupt dissolution in 1906.16 The Westphalian aristocrat and co-founder of the German and Prussian Center Parties, Clemens Freiherr Heereman von Zuydtwyck (MdR 1871–1903) served on the board of directors of first the German Colonial Association (Deutscher Kolonialverein) and then the German Colonial Society (Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft) from 1882 to 1901.17 Finally, the Hessian philosophy professor Georg Freiherr von Hertling (MdR 1875–1890, 1896–1912) at the University of Munich stood somewhat closer to his bourgeois colleagues, but like Arenberg he often served as a line of communication for the government with the Center and the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, by 1903 his governmental predilections had rendered his re-election to the Reichstag in populist Bavaria so improbable that he was compelled to seek a safely conservative seat in Prussian Westphalia.18 Like the aristocrats, the roughly fifty bourgeois lay Centrists owed much of their prominence to the social deference, political inexperience, and financial

15 MdR = Mitglied des Reichstags, Member of the Reichstag. Wilhelm Kosch, Das katholische Deutschland: Biographisch-bibliographisches Lexikon (KD) (Augsburg: Lit‑ erarisches Institut von Haas & Grabherr, 1933–1939), 53. Schwarz, MdR, 255. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 121. Varnbüler to Mittnacht, April 16, 1899, Report, Württembergisches Ministerium der Auswärtigen Angelegenheiten (WüMAA), E50/03, 193:32–37, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart (HSAS). Karl Bachem to [Franz or Julius] Bachem, Oct. 27, 1900, Nachlaß Bachem, 170, Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln (HASK). Berliner Tageblatt, Mar. 25, 1907, Nr. 154, Biographie 61, Papiers Franz Prinz von Arenberg (36/13), Nekrologe: 3, Archief van Arenberg, Edingen (AAE). Molt, Reichstag, 104n55. 16 Kosch, KD, 103. Historische Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissen schaften, Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB) (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1953–2007), 1:561. Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 16–23, 27, especially 27n109. Schwarz, MdR, 259. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 125. Molt, Reichstag, 105, 190, 193, 201. 17 Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 210. 18 Hertling to Anna von Hertling, Feb. 21, 1903; “Wer soll des Zentrums Führer sein?” Berliner Tageblatt, Apr. 7, 1902; Hertling and Richthofen, Mar. 26, 1903, Agreement, Nachlaß Georg Graf von Hertling, 16:7–8, 34:48, 47:7–9, BAK. Lerchenfeld to Podewils, Mar. 15, 1903, Report 122, Königliche Bayrische Gesandtschaft Berlin (ByGB), 1075, Bayrisches Hauptstaatsarchiv (ByHSA). Kosch, KD, 1548–49. NDB, 8:702–4. Schwarz, MdR, 345–46. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 179–80. Blackbourn, Class, Religion, 38, 45. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 56–57, 97. Klaus-Gunther Wesseling, “Hertling, Georg Friedrich Freiherr von,” in Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL), ed. Friedrich- Wilhelm Bautz and Traugott Bautz (Nordhausen: Verlag Traugott Bautz, 2002), 20:737–57. A Profile of the Center, 1897–1906 23 constraints of their constituents. However, up to 1898 the bourgeois Centrists had proved more willing than the aristocrats to articulate popular opposition to costly government proposals. Indeed, it was precisely by embracing the general outrage over the army bill of 1893 that the bourgeois delegates had wrested control of the party away from the nobility.19 For the period from 1897 to 1906, the core of this bourgeois sector of the Reichstag Center consisted of approximately thirty Catholic lawyers and judges, twenty-two of them Prussian. The Nassauan lawyer Ernst Lieber (MdR 1871–1902) led the party from 1893 until his death in 1902, at which time the Center leadership passed to an informal trium- virate headed by Lieber’s fellow Nassauan, Justice Peter Spahn of the Imperial Supreme Court (MdR 1884–1917), with the support of the Cologne lawyer Karl Bachem (MdR 1889–1907) and Justice Adolf Gröber of the Württemberg Supreme Court (MdR 1887–1918). Aspiring to secure patriotic credentials and social respectability for the Catholic bourgeoisie, all four men steered the Center in a decidedly governmental direction from 1898 onward, but each also experienced moments of doubt regarding the feasibility of pursuing such a course with a government that appeared to take their support for granted.20 Out of all the jurist delegates, only one would have preferred an oppositional tack—namely, Judge Hermann Roeren (MdR 1893–1912) of the Rhenish Superior Court in Cologne. Born in Westphalia, Roeren’s outspoken rhetoric won him the Reichstag mandate from Saarburg-Merzig-Saarlouis in the southwestern Hunsrück region of the Rhineland, the same area that had launched the career of fellow radical populist Father Georg Friedrich Dasbach.21 When measured against the thirty jurists, the ranks of Centrist bourgeois businessmen in the Reichstag were quite thin, numbering only about seven

19 Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 52. Blackbourn, Class, Religion, 29, 33. Nichols, Germany After Bismarck, 217, 237, 251–53. Förster, Doppelter Militarismus, 52–54, 57–63, 71. Pauline Relyea Anderson, The Background of Anti-English Feeling in Germany, 1890–1902 (Washington, DC: American University Press, 1939. Reprint, New York: Octagon Books, 1969), 90–91, 94–96. 20 Kosch, KD, 91, 1145, 2596. NDB, 1:493–94, 7:107, 14:477–78. Schwarz, MdR, 258, 330, 388, 468–69. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 124, 167–68, 206, 263–64. Molt, Reichstag, 161–64. Pauline Anderson, Anti-English Feeling, 94–98. Blackbourn, Class, Religion, 24, 35–39, 58–59. Manfred Berger, “Lieber, Ernst Maria,” BBKL 21:830–34. Konrad Fuchs, “Spahn, Peter,” BBKL 10:865. Michael Traut, Der Reichsregent: Ernst Liebers Weg vom Männer-Casino Camberg an das Ruder kaiserlicher Großmachtpolitik (Bad Camberg: Camberger Verlag Lange, 1984). Rolf Kiefer, Karl Bachem, 1858–1945: Politiker und Historiker des Zentrums (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, 1989). 21 Kosch, KD, 4020–21. Schwarz, MdR, 439. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 245. 24 CHAPTER 1 merchants and three manufacturers at any given time during this period. 22 These low figures reflected the relative underdevelopment and limited influence of big business and industry within the German Catholic community as compared to the substantial political weight of these sectors among Protestants. The numerical predominance of party jurists over merchants and industrialists meant that the Center’s bourgeois leaders had nearly as little material interest in the colonies as did the vast majority of its constituents.23 The preservation of their credibility as dignitaries and patriots certainly provided the bourgeois Centrists with an incentive to support colonial legislation, but, like their voters, they expected in return that overseas expenditures would be kept within reasonable bounds and that German officials would handle the Roman Catholic missions with due respect.24 Among the few bourgeois businessmen in the Center delegation, two warrant particular mention for their interest in overseas issues. A Nassauan tropical produce importer and banker in Limburg, Peter Paul Cahensly represented his hometown in the Reichstag from 1898 to 1903, served on the board of direc-

22 Schwarz, MdR, 139–506. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 118–289. Molt, Reichstag, 190–91, 201–2, 207–8. It should be noted that the average of seven bourgeois merchants given above includes several Bavarian Centrists whose sketchy biographical information leaves open to question their definitive assignment to the bourgeoisie, not least because no data is available concerning the scale of their business operations. While nothing further could be gleaned about the business of Josef Aigner (MdR 1898–1907) in Mainburg, Lower Bavaria, Josef Echinger (MdR 1899–1903) was a timber dealer and road construction contractor in St. Englmar, Lower Bavaria, and Michael Sir (MdR 1903–1918) owned a general store and berry shipping business in Wernberg, Upper Palatinate. The businesses of these latter two were thus closely intertwined with the fabric of their local rural communities, suggesting that Echinger and Sir may have belonged to the same petty bourgeois circles as their peasant and artisan clientele, rather than to the bourgeoisie. The involvement of all three men in the leadership of regional peasants associations would also suggest stronger ties to the petty bourgeoisie than to bourgeois business circles. Even so, this evidence is not conclusive since unequivocally bourgeois Centrists like Karl Herold and Karl Becker played comparable leading roles in regional peasants associations in Prussia. In any case, if it were presumed that Aigner, Echinger, and Sir belonged to the petty bourgeoisie, rather than to the bourgeoisie, then the average number of bourgeois merchants within the Center delegation from 1897 to 1906 would be reduced from seven to five, further underscoring the minimal influence of larger business interests within the Catholic party. Schwarz, MdR, 253, 301, 466. Molt, Reichstag, 216n52. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 119, 147, 261. 23 Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 8–9. Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 23–26. Molt, Reichstag, 190–91, 193, 197, 201–2, 207. Blackbourn, Class, Religion, 34–35. 24 Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 1, 7–10. Blackbourn. Class, Religion, 24, 35–39, 58–59. A Profile of the Center, 1897–1906 25 tors of the German Palestine Bank, maintained close ties with the Pallottine missionaries in Kamerun, and founded an association for German Catholic emigrants to the Americas. It was also Cahensly whose wealth and connec- tions rescued the Center’s undersubscribed national daily Germania in 1893 when its previous patron Graf von Ballestrem attempted to bankrupt the Berlin paper for its opposition to the army bill.25 Still more influential than Cahensly, however, was the Hessian felt manufacturer and mine owner Richard Müller-Fulda (MdR 1893–1918). Having entered the Reichstag in 1893, Müller- Fulda quickly rose to become the Center’s leading expert on financial and tax legislation, and by 1902 he had joined the executive committee of the party caucus. Surprisingly, he often employed his indispensability to both party and government as a vehicle for expressing sharply outspoken views regarding official misrepresentation of facts, misappropriation of funds, or abuses of authority, not least in the colonies. After 1898 these unpredictable forays into the opposition typically ran at cross-purposes to the preferred tack of his bourgeois colleagues, yet Müller-Fulda consistently returned to the ranks of accommodation, reflecting a moderation that distinguished him from more radical populists like Hermann Roeren, Georg Dasbach, and Georg Heim.26 Besides the roughly thirty jurists and ten businessmen, the Center’s Reichstag delegation during this period also included an average of seven bourgeois estate owners. Engaged primarily in agriculture, these landowners tended to share peasant farmer grievances over the reduction of grain tariffs authorized in the early 1890s under Chancellor Leo von Caprivi. These bourgeois farmers therefore stood somewhat closer to the Center’s more oppositional agrarian wing than their affluence and social position would otherwise have suggested, and they were often involved in the emergence of regional peasants associations organized for the purposes of both mutual aid and protectionist agitation. For example, the vice president of the Lower Franconian Christian Peasants Association was Luitpold Baumann (MdR 1898–1918), a prominent Bavarian vintner with extensive landholdings and a wine dealership recognized

25 Kosch, KD, 300. NDB 3:91. Schwarz, MdR, 286. Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 29, 137–38. Zeender, German Center Party, 36. Blackbourn, Class, Religion, 35–36. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 56, 58. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 140. Friedrich- Wilhelm Bautz, “Cahensly, Peter Paul,” BBKL 1:846. 26 Kosch, KD, 3130–31. Schwarz, MdR, 409. Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 29–30. Molt, Reichstag, 201. Zeender, German Center Party, 52, 70. Blackbourn, Class, Religion, 35, 40. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 220–21. 26 CHAPTER 1 throughout Germany.27 The proprietor of a landed estate near Münster, Karl Herold (MdR 1898–1918) likewise served for years in leadership capacities in the Westphalian Peasants Association, the Westphalian Central Cooperative, and the Dairy Farmers Association for Westphalia, Lippe, and Waldeck. Having become a leading spokesman of Centrist agrarian interests by 1902, Herold joined the executive committee of the party’s Reichstag caucus and led the negotiations with the government stipulating the minimum grain tariff rates acceptable to the party.28 This agrarian populist tendency among bourgeois landholders was even occasionally visible within the ranks of the party’s Prussian jurists as the Rhenish estate owner Circuit Judge Karl Becker (MdR 1902–1912) served on the executive committee of the Rhenish Peasants Association and as chairman of the board of a rural credit union.29 Like the moderately populist manufacturer Müller-Fulda, these bourgeois landowners represented an important bridge in the spectrum of party opinion, linking the generally governmental bourgeois and aristocratic party leadership with more oppositional representatives drawn from the Center’s larger constituencies.

The Populist Challenge

Despite the financial and logistical obstacles to participation in the national parliament, Catholic peasants, artisans, and workers managed to secure a combined average of twenty Reichstag seats within the Center between 1897 and 1906. Apart from these, the remaining twenty-odd Centrist seats in the Reichstag were occupied mostly by lesser clergy, schoolteachers, and journalists, many of whom had been born into families of modest means or had daily occupational contact with the less affluent. The piety characteristic of such local intellectuals and of the Catholic masses as a whole tended to fuel resentment of the continued symptoms of government anticlericalism, and this confessional antipathy merged readily with South German distaste for Prussian hegemony, agrarian frustration over inadequate grain tariffs, and popular suspicion of expensive overseas ventures. Therefore, the core of the Center’s populist challenge to German colonial policy arose from the ranks of these

27 Reichstags-Bureau, Amtliches Reichstagshandbuch, 10. Legislaturperiode, 1898–1903 (Berlin: Hausdruckerei des Reichstags, 1898), 150. Schwarz, MdR, 262. Haunfelder, Reichstagsab geordnete, 126–27. 28 Kosch, KD, 1539–40. Schwarz, MdR, 345. Blackbourn, Class, Religion, 51–52. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 59. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 178–79. 29 Schwarz, MdR, 264. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 128. A Profile of the Center, 1897–1906 27 roughly forty-three delegates, about thirty-three of whom belonged to either the peasantry or the clergy. While nearly thirty of the fifty bourgeois Centrists in the Reichstag represented Prussian districts west of the Elbe, the party’s approximately sixteen peasant deputies hailed primarily from South Germany and Silesia, with the former region sending on average nine Bavarian peasants and one Badenese. Among the more prominent Bavarian peasant delegates, Franz Burger (MdR 1884–1898) and Nikolaus Holzapfel (MdR 1898–1912) held leading positions in the Lower Franconian Christian Peasants Association, and Josef Aichbichler (MdR 1884–1907) served on the governing board of the Bavarian Agricultural Council until 1897, at which time he was admitted to the executive committee of the Center’s Reichstag caucus.30 Foremost among the delegation’s four Silesian peasants, Franz Strzoda (MdR 1894–1918) was deeply involved in the leadership of rural cooperative organizations, including the Silesian Peasants Association, the Landowners Mutual Aid Association, a dairy cooperative, and a credit union. At the same time, Strzoda embodied Polish Centrist independence of the German bourgeois party leadership, having won his Reichstag seat in 1894 at the expense of the official Center candidate.31 By contrast, just two small farmers represented Prussian districts west of the Elbe. The sole Westphalian peasant in the Center delegation was Heinrich Humann (MdR 1893–1907), a member of the executive committee of the Westphalian Peasants Association.32 The only Rhenish Centrist of similar status, the market gardener and tree nursery owner Quirin Peter Wallenborn (MdR 1896–1917) served for many years as vice president of the Trier Peasants Association and on the executive committee of the Rhenish Peasants Association.33 Comparable in number to the peasant delegates but somewhat more diverse in outlook, the roughly seventeen Catholic clergymen in the Center caucus were comprised in equal measure of local priests and cathedral canons. Like the peasant Centrists, the clerical delegates represented parliamentary districts that were predominantly South German and still more disproportionately

30 Kosch, KD, 19. Schwarz, MdR, 253, 285, 354. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 119, 138–39, 184. Molt, Reichstag, 174. 31 Schwarz, MdR, 476–77. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 270. Molt, Reichstag, 127. 32 Kosch, KD, 1801. Schwarz, MdR, 357. Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 15n58. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 187. Molt, Reichstag, 131. 33 Schwarz, MdR, 490. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 277–78. However, Herbert Gottwald has called attention to the fact that Wallenborn was a member of the board of directors of the Fire Insurance Company Rhineland. This tends to undermine, though not exclude, the evidence characterizing Wallenborn as a small farmer. Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 28–29. 28 CHAPTER 1 rural than was typical of the party as a whole.34 Indeed, whereas agriculture overshadowed other occupations in more than seventy percent of all Centrist Reichstag districts in the 1890s, the figure surpasses ninety percent when limited to Centrist districts that elected a clergyman. Consequently, the discourse of most clerical Centrists resembled that of the peasants, blending complaints of continued official anticlericalism with expressions of agrarian and South German hostility toward Prussian industrial, commercial, and political power.35 Such intertwining of clerical and agrarian interests manifested itself in the prominence of the clerical delegates as leaders of the Catholic peasants associations and as parliamentary spokesmen for the Center’s agrarian wing. Most outspoken of the Prussian clerical deputies, the Trier publicist Father Georg Friedrich Dasbach (MdR 1898–1907) combined confessional zeal, populist appeal, and considerable journalistic and organizational talents. The son of a Rhenish baker and innkeeper, Dasbach had studied theology in Trier and Rome just prior to the outbreak of the Kulturkampf in Germany. Instrumental in the organization of Trier’s Catholic community against the encroachment of the state, he earned a reputation in Prussian bureaucratic circles as a dangerous agitator. Deprived in 1875 of state authorization to practice his clerical vocation, Dasbach plunged still more deeply into his journalistic activities. Over the next twenty years, the ‘press chaplain’ established his own publishing house, a Catholic press association, and seven popular Catholic daily newspapers in the Rhineland, Alsace-Lorraine, the Bavarian Palatinate, and Brandenburg. During

34 For example, much as in the case of Prussia’s peasant delegates, the roughly fifteen Centrist districts in largely rural East Elbia consistently sent an average of four clerical deputies to the Reichstag (i.e., over 25%) whereas the party’s forty-odd districts in Prussia’s more urbanized west typically elected only two priests (less than 5%). Schmädeke, Wählerbewegung, 2. Band, Karten 3–5, 11. Schwarz, MdR, 139–506. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 118–289. Molt, Reichstag, 173–74. 35 Molt, Reichstag, 173–74. Blackbourn, Class, Religion, 49–50. One prominent exception to this oppositional tendency among the Center’s clerical delegates was the long-standing Badenese representative of Bühl-Rastatt, Father Franz Xaver Lender of Sasbach (MdR 1871–1913). An erstwhile 1848 revolutionary, Lender had helped establish the Catholic People’s Party of Baden in 1869 during the anticlerical administration of State Minister Julius Jolly. As the Badenese Kulturkampf had begun to recede after 1879, however, Lender’s consistently conciliatory line toward Karlsruhe led to his ouster from the leadership of the People’s Party in 1887. The following year the latter was reorganized as the Badenese Center Party under the leadership of the radical populist Father Theodor Wacker of Zähringen. The increasingly conservative Lender nevertheless managed to retain his Reichstag mandate until his death despite his even having voted for the highly unpopular army bill of 1893. Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 134. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 42, 51. Frank Engehausen, “Lender, Franz Xaver Leopold,” BBKL 30:872–876. A Profile of the Center, 1897–1906 29 the same period he founded and presided over the Trier Peasants Association, the Trier Vintners Association, the Trier Cooperative Association, a livestock insurance association, and a legal assistance office for farmers facing ruthless lend- ing practices. Finding Dasbach’s populist appeals and oppositional rhetoric distasteful, the Center’s bourgeois leadership only very reluctantly acquiesced to his successful Reichstag campaigns in 1898 and 1903 to represent, in succession, two Rhenish districts in the Eifel. During his ensuing career in the Reichstag, his confrontational inclinations precipitated frequent clashes with party leaders who were anxious to demonstrate to Berlin the Center’s reliabil- ity as a governing partner.36 Although exceptionally brusque in style, Dasbach’s populism was far from unique among the party’s clerical delegates, particularly in Bavaria. The founder of numerous Bavarian rural credit unions, Father Liborius Gerstenberger (MdR 1895–1918) helped to establish the Lower Franconian Christian Peasants Association in 1893. By 1896 he was general secretary of that association and editor of the regional agrarian newspaper Der Fränkische Bauer as well as the Center’s Reichstag delegate representing Aschaffenburg.37 Similarly, the son of a peasant farmer in Bavarian Swabia, Father Benedikt Hebel served from 1898 to 1918 as secretary of the Swabian Christian Peasants Association and as Reichstag representative of Illertissen after 1903.38 Finally, in contrast to the relative unpopularity of the eminent Munich professor Georg Freiherr von Hertling, Canons Franz Xaver Schaedler of Bamberg (MdR 1890–1913) and Franz Seraphim Pichler of Passau (MdR 1893–1912) maintained effective leadership over the Bavarian wing thanks to their greater identification with their constituents’ agrarian grievances.39

36 NDB 3:518. Schwarz, MdR, 292. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 142–43. Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 9, 11. Hubert Thoma, Georg Friedrich Dasbach: Priester- Publizist-Politiker (Trier: Paulinus-Verlag, 1975). Ulrich Fohrmann, Trierer Kultur kampfpublizistik im Bismarckreich: Leben und Werk des Preßkaplans Georg Friedrich Dasbach (Trier: Paulinus-Verlag, 1977). Blackbourn, Class, Religion, 50. Wilfried Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 43, 70, 97. Wilfried Loth, “Georg Friedrich Dasbach— Kulturkämpfer und Baumeister des Katholizismus,” theologie.geschichte 2 (2007), http://aps.sulb.uni-saarland.de/theologie.geschichte/inhalt/2007/53.html (July 23, 2009). Martin Persch, “Dasbach, Georg Friedrich,” BBKL 15:463–64. 37 Kosch, KD, 993. Schwarz, MdR, 321. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 163. 38 Kosch, KD, 1426. Schwarz, MdR, 341. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 176. 39 Kosch, KD, 3568. NDB 20:414. Schwarz, MdR, 423, 446. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 230, 250. Molt, Reichstag, 173. Blackbourn, Class, Religion, 45–46. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 53, 113. 30 CHAPTER 1

If the scope of comparison is broadened to include not merely lesser clergy, but also community-based intellectuals more generally, the Franconian schoolteacher Georg Heim (MdR 1897–1912) also represented a close Bavarian counterpart to Dasbach. Like the Rhenish ‘press chaplain,’ Heim grew up in an artisan family and pursued higher learning without losing touch with his petty bourgeois roots. In a manner reminiscent of Dasbach’s early career in the 1870s, Heim lost his first teaching assistantship in Upper Bavaria in 1892 due to his political audacity as editor of the local Centrist paper. Undeterred by his disciplinary transfer to a smaller community in Upper Franconia, Heim completed his doctorate in economics and proceeded to establish an association of rural credit unions in eastern Upper Franconia and the northern Upper Palatinate. Wary of the increasing popularity of the ‘peasants’ doctor,’ the Bavarian bureaucracy again transferred Heim in 1896, this time to a school in Middle Franconia. The prime mover in 1898 behind the foundation of the overarching Bavarian Christian Peasants Association to coordinate the regional peasant organizations, Heim soon became head of its new central office and established in Regensburg the Central Agricultural Cooperative of the Bavarian Peasants Association. Meanwhile, his popularity among the peasantry of the northern Upper Palatinate had secured him a Reichstag seat in 1897 over the objection of the Bavarian Centrist leadership. By then Heim was already so dissatisfied with the Reichstag Center’s handling of peasant grievances that he publicly broached the question of an outright Bavarian secession from the Center and the establishment of an agrarian Bavarian People’s Party. This threat of Bavarian secession thereafter loomed large in the calculations of the Reichstag Center’s bourgeois leaders as they strove to balance between the desires of the government and those of their constituents.40 Comparably populist but less well represented than the peasants, an average of only three Catholic artisans sat in the Center caucus during the decade between 1897 and 1906. Most notable of the three, the Rhenish cabinetmaker Jacob Euler (MdR 1893–1912) had once worked alongside Father Adolf Kolping of Cologne, the founder of the movement to establish Catholic journeymen’s associations. Having served since 1883 as vice president of the Rhenish Artisans Association, Euler first secured his Westphalian Reichstag seat in 1893 by defeating the incumbent bourgeois Centrist dignitary, the Bocholt textile

40 Kosch, KD, 1452. NDB 8:267–68. Schwarz, MdR, 341–42. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 177. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 5:272, 6:150. Molt, Reichstag, 135n38. Mittman, Fraktion und Partei, 169. Blackbourn, Class, Religion, 45–46, 49, 52. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 43, 97. A Profile of the Center, 1897–1906 31 manufacturer Albert Beckmann (MdR 1884–1893).41 The remaining artisans in the delegation as of 1898 consisted of a watchmaker and a woodcarver, both from Bavaria.42 Despite this parliamentary underrepresentation, the artisans nevertheless exercised considerable electoral muscle as a crucial constituency in the Centrist bastions of South Germany, Westphalia, and the less industrialized regions of the Rhineland. For this reason the Bavarian Center consistently supported the restoration of compulsory guilds in direct contradiction to the liberals’ principle of occupational freedom.43 Like the peasants, the artisans also benefited from the presence of advocates for their concerns among the clergy, schoolteachers, and journalists in the Center delegation. For example, although the Westphalian priests Franz Hitze (MdR 1884–1918) and Philipp Hille (MdR 1898–1900) both devoted most of their careers to the needs of Catholic industrial workers, Hille had also served from 1890 to 1895 as president of the local Catholic journeymen’s association in Hamm, and Hitze’s still greater support for the artisan cause earned him the honorary national presidency over all the Catholic journeymen’s associations.44 A social scientist from a farming family, Father Hitze pressed for legislation in the mid-1890s to improve the lot of artisans and small retailers. Responding to the complaints of craftsmen and shopkeepers about the competition of traveling salesmen and peddlers, he sponsored an unsuccessful Reichstag bill in 1895 that would have limited the quantity of goods brought by itinerant salesmen into local markets. The same year Hitze led a major Centrist campaign for legislation reviving the compulsory guild system and establishing public chambers of artisans across Germany. This effort ultimately resulted in the Reichstag’s passage in 1897 of a compromise bill creating the public chambers and enabling artisans of a given district and trade to hold a referendum to determine the optional or compulsory nature of their local guild.45 Similarly populist in rhetoric, the lay editor Johannes Fusangel (MdR 1893– 1907) of the Westfälische Volkszeitung was drafted by an ad hoc nominating committee of artisans, peasants, and workers to run for the Reichstag in 1893

41 Schwarz, MdR, 306. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 149–50. Molt, Reichstag, 217. 42 Schwarz, MdR, 384, 398. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 202, 215–16. 43 Georg von Hertling, Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben, (Munich: Verlag der Joseph Köselschen Buchhandlung, 1919–20), 2:54. Zeender, German Center Party, 46. Blackbourn, Class, Religion, 53–57. 44 Kosch, KD, 1616–18. NDB 9:272. Schwarz, MdR, 348, 350. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 181–82. Gunnar Anger, “Hille, Philipp,” BBKL 23:662–665. Friedrich-Wilhelm Bautz, “Hitze, Franz,” BBKL 2:902–904. 45 Zeender, German Center Party, 46–47. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 60–61. 32 CHAPTER 1 against the Center’s official candidate in Arnsberg-Olpe-Meschede. Hailed as the champion of the common folk and boosted by popular outrage over the Caprivi army bill, the outspoken Fusangel won in a landslide despite Lieber’s campaign on behalf of his aristocratic opponent.46 Meanwhile, in the Bavarian Palatinate the lay editor Eugen Jäger (MdR 1898–1918) also cultivated artisans and small retailers with his demands in 1899 for the imposition of high taxes upon department stores in order to limit their growth and spread.47 Most prominent among the lay intellectual advocates for artisan issues was the erstwhile assistant schoolteacher Matthias Erzberger of southern Württemberg (MdR 1903–1918). The son of a Swabian tailor, Erzberger had briefly taught elementary school until 1896 when he assumed the editorship of the Centrist Deutsches Volksblatt of Stuttgart. While also devoting much of his attention to organizing industrial workers in this period, he became the liaison in artisan affairs for the Württemberg branch of the People’s Association for Catholic Germany in 1898 and succeeded in establishing the Swabian Artisans League the following year.48 Catholic industrial workers enjoyed even less representation in the Reichstag Center than did the artisans. The only worker in the Center delegation before 1903 was the self-schooled Gerhard Stötzel (MdR 1877–1893, 1898– 1905). A former metal turner for Krupp in Essen, Stötzel then played a leading role in the Catholic workers movement in the Ruhr as editor of the populist Rheinisch-Westfälischer Volksfreund. As unwelcome to the party leadership in 1877 as the later populist elections of the 1890s, Stötzel’s original entrance into the Reichstag had come at the expense of the incumbent Centrist delegate for Essen, Prussian Superior Tribunal Judge Christoph Ernst von Forcade de Biaix (MdR 1874–1877). With the elections of 1903, the number of workers in the Center caucus temporarily increased to two as long as the Polish coal miner and workers association leader Theophil Królik sat in the delegation. However, Królik withdrew from the caucus in late 1905 over the Silesian Center’s refusal to put forward his candidacy for a seat in the Prussian Landtag, a conflict that precipitated the general secession of the Silesian Poles from the Reichstag

46 Kosch, KD, 900–901. Schwarz, MdR, 318. Zeender, German Center Party, 31–32, 34. Mittman, Fraktion und Partei, 157n89. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 44. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 159–60. 47 Kosch, KD, 1851–52. Schwarz, MdR, 359. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 188. Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 4. 48 Kosch, KD, 658. NDB 4:638. Schwarz, MdR, 305–6. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 148–49. Molt, Reichstag, 268n27, 313n10. Blackbourn, Class, Religion, 53, 110, 181–82, 189. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 95. A Profile of the Center, 1897–1906 33

Center the following year. Meanwhile, Stötzel had died in mid-1905, and his Reichstag seat had been filled by the erstwhile Rhenish metalworker and boil- erman Johann Giesberts (MdR 1905–1918), more recently the co-founder of the Christian Metalworkers Association, the secretary of the Catholic workers associations in Cologne, the editor of the Westdeutsche Arbeiterzeitung, and a key leader of the Christian trade unions.49 While the Center’s Reichstag delegation thus never included more than one or two workers before 1907, the two dozen community-based intellectuals in the caucus included a number of advocates for industrial labor alongside or even among the champions of the peasants and artisans.50 Centrist advocacy for the workers was complicated, however, by two major issues. In the first place, the workers’ pleas for affordable bread stood in direct conflict with the peasants association demands for higher grain tariffs, and the party perforce leaned toward the agrarian side in light of its more numerous rural constituencies.51 Second, although concerned about inadequate wages and appalling conditions in the factories and mines, both Centrist and ecclesiastical leaders were generally wary of the prospect of Catholic workers organizing themselves into trade unions.52 There was no consensus among church and party leaders, for example, whether the strike was even a morally legitimate tactic for Catholic laborers to use. On the other hand, a trade union movement unwilling to employ the strike would be at a pronounced disadvantage not only in labor disputes with employers, but also in membership recruitment efforts when competing with the socialist Free Trade Unions. At the same time, conservative clergy and Centrists disapproved of the willingness of Catholic labor organizers to recruit Protestant workers as well as Catholic. This strategy would result in larger, and thereby more effective, interconfessional Christian trade unions, but it also threatened to dilute clerical and Centrist influence over Catholic workers.53 Fearful that the trade union movement would promote political radicalism and confessional relativism, the conservative elements in church and party promoted the model of priest-led

49 Kosch, KD, 1008–9. NDB 6:375–76. Schwarz, MdR, 322, 377–78, 474. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 196, 267. Molt, Reichstag, 244, 246n46. Zeender, German Center Party, 79. Margaret Lavinia Anderson, Windthorst: A Political Biography (Oxford: Clarendon, Press, 1981), 209. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 91n24, 93, 97. 50 Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 94–95. 51 Blackbourn, Class, Religion, 41–53, 191. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 87, 96. 52 Molt, Reichstag, 245, 247. Blackbourn, Class, Religion, 189–91. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 83, especially 83n4, 85–86. 53 Zeender, German Center Party, 76–77. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 84, 86, 93–94. 34 CHAPTER 1 diocesan workers associations for mutual aid and education. The same circles condoned the alliance of these associations into larger entities only where the latter were non-confrontational craft sections (Fachabteilungen) under direct clerical leadership. However, other Centrist labor organizers, including some clergy, argued equally strenuously that the achievement of social justice and the defeat of socialism required autonomous interconfessional Christian trade unions equipped with the strike as a legitimate bargaining tool.54 As a result of these conflicting views, some clerical labor advocates within the Center caucus limited their involvement to the Catholic workers associations while others also provided significant assistance to the Christian trade union movement. Among the former, both the Lower Bavarian pastor Georg Hinterwinkler (MdR 1903–1912) and the Upper Franconian cathedral vicar Johannes Wenzel (MdR 1887–1898) held prominent positions in their local Catholic workers associations yet played no role in the trade unions. Likewise, the Silesian-born pastor Wilhelm Frank (MdR 1893–1911) founded several Catholic workers associations in Berlin but regarded Christian trade unions with skepticism.55 More sympathetic to worker autonomy, the Trier publicist Father Georg Dasbach contributed substantially in the late 1880s to the inroads of trade unionism among the miners of the Saar. On the other hand, while complying in 1905 with the instructions of Bishop Michael Korum of Trier, Dasbach attempted to promote the spread of the pacific craft sections in the Saar, thereby running afoul of the very trade unions he had once helped found.56 Meanwhile, although typically more conciliatory than Dasbach, the Bavarian Centrist leader Canon Franz Pichler of Passau embraced Christian trade unionism much more firmly, openly endorsing the principle of intercon- fessionalism and promoting the unionization of the Bavarian railroad workers in 1896.57 Most prominent among the Center’s clerical champions of labor, the Westphalian priests Franz Hitze and Philipp Hille had reached the conclusion by the mid-1890s that unencumbered interconfessional Christian trade unions

54 Molt, Reichstag, 247. Zeender, German Center Party, 76–77. Blackbourn, Class, Religion, 189–91. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 83–89. 55 Schwarz, MdR, 313, 349, 496. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 156, 181, 281. Anger, “Frank, Wilhelm,” BBKL 22:342–350. 56 NDB 3:518. Schwarz, MdR, 292. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 142–43. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 95. Loth, “Georg Friedrich Dasbach—Kulturkämpfer und Baumeister des Katholizismus,” in: theologie.geschichte 2 (2007), http://aps.sulb.uni-saarland.de/ theologie.geschichte/inhalt/2007/53.html (July 23, 2009). Martin Persch, “Dasbach, Georg Friedrich,” BBKL 15:463–64. 57 Kosch, KD, 3568. NDB 20:414. Schwarz, MdR, 423. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 85. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 230. A Profile of the Center, 1897–1906 35 were absolutely necessary. The professor of Christian social science at Münster and general secretary of the People’s Association for Catholic Germany, Father Hitze encouraged the foundation of the Union of Christian Miners at Essen in 1894 under the leadership of the miner August Brust. During this period he also spoke repeatedly in the Reichstag in favor of according full legal recognition to trade unions and instituting mechanisms for worker participation in factory management. While Hitze managed to secure Lieber’s tepid endorsement for these motions, it was not until 1899 that the Westphalian cleric’s persistence carried a resolution through the Congress of German Catholics (Katholikentag) endorsing the principle of Christian trade unions.58 Meanwhile, Hitze’s protégé Father Philipp Hille, founder and general secretary of the League of Catholic Workers Associations of North and East Germany, had also participated in the foundation of Berlin’s first Christian trade union in 1897.59 Aside from such clergymen, the Reichstag Center’s locally-rooted intellectuals included two noteworthy lay advocates for the interests of industrial workers—namely, Johannes Fusangel in Westphalia and Matthias Erzberger in Württemberg. In 1889, several years prior to his election to the Reichstag, the populist editor Johannes Fusangel of the Westfälische Volkszeitung had collaborated with the activist workers Stötzel and Brust in an abortive effort to found a Christian miners union in the Ruhr. Although the new organization was successfully launched, the majority of its members had then preferred to join the socialist-oriented free trade unions in 1890, leaving the three men little choice but to withdraw. However, Fusangel’s continuing endeavors on behalf of Westphalian workers contributed substantially to his regional popularity and thus to his subsequent election in 1893 to the Reichstag in defiance of Lieber and the Center leadership.60 Most importantly for this study, Matthias Erzberger in Württemberg abandoned his brief career as an elementary school teacher in 1896 to become not only editor of the Centrist Deutsches Volksblatt, but also director of the Catholic Workers Secretariat of Stuttgart. Rising quickly to the fore, Erzberger was already representing Württemberg’s Christian trade union movement in 1897 at the International Worker Protection Congress in

58 Kosch, KD, 1616–18. NDB 9:272. Schwarz, MdR, 350. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 181–82. Zeender, German Center Party, 76–78. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 83, 85, 88–89. Bautz, “Hitze, Franz,” BBKL 2:902–904. 59 Schwarz, MdR, 348. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 181. Anger, “Hille, Philipp,” BBKL 23:662–665. 60 Kosch, KD, 900–901. Schwarz, MdR, 318. Molt, Reichstag, 244–45. Zeender, German Center Party, 31, 34, 77. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 82, especially 82n2. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 159–60. 36 CHAPTER 1

Zürich. The following year he presided in Ulm over the southern conference of Christian trade unionists discussing the principles necessary for establishing nationwide organizations. Both the southern conference and its northern counterpart in Cologne agreed with the principles espoused by Erzberger, Brust, and Giesberts that the new trade union federations should be central- ized by industry, willing to strike, open to Protestants, and independent of both party and church direction. The first general congress of Christian trade unionists therefore endorsed these guidelines in 1899 at their first national congress at Mainz, where again Erzberger played an instrumental role.61 Having thus secured his populist credentials through such advocacy for the interests of industrial workers and through his aforementioned organizational activities on behalf of artisans, Erzberger entered the Reichstag in 1903, and by the summer of 1905 he was launching his notorious campaign to expose waste and malfeasance in the German colonial administration. Thus, although underrepresented in the Center’s Reichstag delegation, Catholic peasants, artisans, and industrial workers made their influence felt not only through a number of deputies from their own ranks, but also through the voices of populist clergy, journalists, and schoolteachers within the party caucus. Since none of these constituencies nor most of the party elite had any economic interest in the acquisition and development of colonies, Centrist leaders found their general inclination to accommodate the government’s colonial requests potentially at odds with pressures from their constituents to minimize their tax burden. Still, this underlying conflict remained in abeyance as long as the Reich’s overseas ventures could be characterized to the Center as modest financial investments by a colonial administration exercising confessional impartiality. Indeed, even larger imperialist expenditures could find Centrist approval if the circumstances permitted Berlin to frame their justification in terms of a Christian moral imperative. Thus, in 1888/89 direct Reich intervention toward suppression of the Coastal Uprising in East Africa could be sold as the best means to combat slavery in the region, and the 1897/98 German acquisition of China’s Jiaozhou Bay and the 1900 dispatch of the enormous East Asian Expedition would both be pitched partly as deter- rence against further violence against the Christian missions. However, after 1903 the diverging colonial perspectives of the Berlin government, the Center Party leadership and its various constituents would be brought into stark relief by the enormous costs imposed upon the Reich by African resistance to German occupation.

61 Kosch, KD, 658. NDB 4:638. Schwarz, MdR, 305–6. Molt, Reichstag, 268n27, 313n10. Zeender, German Center Party, 101. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 86, 91n24. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete, 148–49. CHAPTER 2 Anticlericalism and the Scars of the Kulturkampf, 1864–1904

Besides seeking to limit the costs associated with the development and reten- tion of the Reich’s overseas possessions, the German Center Party was equally concerned with ensuring that the Roman Catholic missionaries in the colonies enjoyed the same degree of respect, accommodation, and protection from the imperial authorities as their Protestant counterparts. As long as the annual colonial budgets remained manageable, the attitude of the Catholic party toward such government requests was then largely driven by the missionaries’ relative satisfaction or discontent with the various individual colonial regimes. Thus, the confessional underpinning of the Center and the lack of Catholic economic interests in the colonies rendered religious, cultural, and ethical concerns of exceptional importance in party discussions of colonial issues. Precisely in this religious and cultural arena, however, government-Center relations were burdened with the legacy of the Kulturkampf and the traditions of popular and state-sanctioned anticlericalism. Indeed, the bitter struggle of the Kulturkampf discussed in this chapter left poorly healed scars on both sides that would re-open after 1903 under the strain of reverberations from African civil and military resistance.

Anticlericalism and the Brewing Church-State Conflict

The Kulturkampf had erupted in the newly created Kaiserreich of the 1870s as a result of a confluence of cultural, constitutional, political, and diplomatic factors that implicated the Roman Catholic Church as a logical rallying point for those displeased with the Prussian kleindeutsch solution to German disunity. As a general rule, German Catholics had endorsed the traditional leadership of Catholic Austria against the challenge of Protestant Prussia during the century-old contest between those two powers for ascendancy in German affairs. Consequently, both the Prussian government and German liberals interpreted the continual Catholic political support for South German and Hanoverian particularism after the Prussian military triumphs of 1866 and 1871 as an expression of disloyalty to the new nation-state. Nor were the official and liberal doubts regarding the loyalties of German Catholics in any

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004306875_004 38 CHAPTER 2 way alleviated by the nationalist aspirations of their Polish and Francophone coreligionists in eastern Prussia and newly-annexed Alsace-Lorraine. More over, the confessional allegiance German Catholics owed to a foreign religious authority in Rome only accentuated this problem as it tainted their every political stance with the implication of inspiration from south of the Alps, hence the anticlerical pejorative term ‘ultramontane’ (beyond the mountains) for politically engaged Catholics. Further compounding this purported dubi- ousness of German Catholic national loyalty was the irreconcilable opposition of Pope Pius IX to the national unification of Italy, Prussia’s recent ally in arms against Austria.1 Beyond these adverse diplomatic and political alignments, Roman Catholi- cism under the leadership of Pope Pius IX clashed still more fundamentally with both liberal and bureaucratic values as exemplified in his Syllabus of Errors of 1864. In this pronouncement to the world, the Pope flatly rejected the liberal constitutional principles of religious freedom and state independence from the church.2 He further claimed not only that the church had the right to exert direct power in temporal affairs, but also that no pope or ecumenical council had ever exceeded the proper limits of their authority. Pius IX thereby refused to entertain the slightest recognition of the potential legitimacy of common liberal and Protestant critiques of the Catholic Church. Indeed, according to the Syllabus, papal and conciliar transgressions against the rights of temporal sovereigns had not only never occurred, but were also essentially impossible because canonical law purportedly had precedence over civil law whenever these two came into conflict.3 In its defiant conclusion the Syllabus then categorically denied that “the Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile and harmonize himself with

1 Ernst Rudolf Huber, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte seit 1789, vol. 4: Struktur und Krisen des Kaiserreichs (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1969), 658–59. M.L. Anderson, Windthorst, 140–49, 157–60. Richard Blanke, Prussian Poland in the German Empire (1871–1900) (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), 17–25. Blackbourn, “Progress and Piety: Liberalism, Catholicism and the State in Imperial Germany,” History Workshop 26 (Winter 1988): 60–61. Róisín Healy, The Jesuit Specter in Imperial Germany (Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2003), 53–54. 2 Pius IX, “Syllabus, Embracing the Principal Errors of Our Time Which are Censured in Consistorial Allocutions, Encyclicals, and Other Apostolic Letters of Our Most Holy Father, Pope Pius IX (Syllabus),” XV, XVIII, XLII, LIV–LV, LXXVII–LXXIX, in The Year of Preparation for the Vatican Council, ed. Herbert Vaughan (London: Burns, Oates & Co., 1869), xxiv, xxix, xxxii, xxxvii. Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:653–54. 3 Syllabus, XXIII–XXIV, XLII, in Year of Preparation, ed. Vaughan, xxvi, xxix. Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:653. Anticlericalism and the Kulturkampf 39

progress, with liberalism and with modern civilization.”4 The breadth and rigidity of such language incensed liberals and bureaucrats alike, a reaction only exacerbated by the Vatican Council’s subsequent declaration in 1870 of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility. Nor did the limitation of the Pope’s alleged inerrancy to pronouncements on faith and morals reassure the new doctrine’s numerous critics given the extensive temporal implications that Pius IX had already woven into the Syllabus of 1864.5 However, even as German liberals and officials suspected the Roman Catholic Church of attempting to expand its powers at government expense, church authorities perceived a converse threat to ecclesiastical rights ema- nating from an anticlerical alliance of liberalism and the bureaucratic state. Subjected intermittently since the mid-eighteenth century to manifestations of this alliance, the Catholic Church of the 1860s had found itself again beset by government-liberal collaboration in the Grand Duchy of Baden as well as in Italy and Latin America.6 Hence, from the Catholic standpoint, the Syllabus of Errors was less an aggressive ecclesiastical thrust into temporal affairs than a vigorous defense of the church against what it deemed illegitimate government intrusion. For example, several points of the Syllabus attacked government-liberal efforts to draw a distinction between an allegedly optional Catholic sacra- ment of matrimony and a legally binding but dissoluble civil contract of marriage.7 Pius IX likewise denied that the state had the authority to establish and oversee public schools since the education of the young had lain within the ecclesiastical domain for centuries as a vital link for the propagation of the faith. Accordingly, liberal and official attempts to limit or wholly prevent clerical influence in the public schools provoked still greater papal indignation.8 Equally offensive to Rome were state claims to possess the authority to stipulate the methods of study in ecclesiastical seminaries and to participate in the direction of the instruction of theology.9 Finally, Pius IX condemned liberal and bureaucratic efforts to employ state power to intervene in the organization and government of the church, denying that the state had any authority

4 Syllabus, LXXX, in Year of Preparation, ed. Vaughan, xxxvii. Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:654. 5 Healy, Jesuit Specter, 54–55. 6 Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:753–54. 7 Syllabus, LXVI, LXXIII–LXXIV, in Year of Preparation, ed. Vaughan, xxxiv–xxxv. 8 Ibid., XLV, XLVII, in ibid., xxx. 9 Ibid., XXXIII, XLVI, in ibid., xxvii, xxx. Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:650. 40 CHAPTER 2 whatsoever to limit ecclesiastical rights.10 The Pope thus rejected official and liberal ideas that the state had the prerogatives to depose bishops, suppress religious orders, withhold validation of papal directives, or institute a higher court of appeal against alleged church injustices.11 Meanwhile, a recent surge in Catholic popular piety in the German lands had triggered latent liberal and Protestant fears of Catholic obscurantism flourishing at the expense of a purportedly more progressive and rational Protestantism. Newly re-admitted to Prussia in the aftermath of the Revolution of 1848, the Jesuits and other Catholic religious orders were organizing enormously successful popular missions in the German states in the 1850s and 1860s. Pitched so as not to offend Protestant sensibilities, these popular missions were drawing large crowds from both confessions. Appalled at this unexpected development, German Protestant leaders responded with a vigorous revival of traditional anti-Catholic and anti-Jesuit rhetoric so as to inhibit any rise of ecumenical sentiments in their congregations. During the same post- 1848 period, German liberals had concluded that the forces of monarchical reaction were attempting to employ the Catholic devotional movement as a tool in the establishment of a popular bulwark against the advocates of constitutional reform, economic liberalization, and national unification. As a result, liberals of all religious persuasions also embraced a heatedly anticlerical and anti-Jesuit rhetoric that largely converged with that of the alarmed Protestant church leadership.12 According to such liberal and Protestant stereotypes, Roman Catholicism by its very nature impeded social, economic, and political progress. Through obscurantist teachings, Catholic priests were allegedly keeping their parishioners in a permanent state of ignorance and tutelage, imprisoning their minds with superstition, emotionalism, and irrationality. Denied the tools for independent thought, the Catholic population was stagnating in an intellectual morass that stunted scientific inquiry, cramped the arts, and discouraged economic initiative. The same dilemma purportedly rendered Catholics slothful, subservient, and susceptible to priestly manipulation.13

10 Syllabus, XIX–XX, in Year of Preparation, ed. Vaughan, xxv. 11 Ibid., XLI, LI, LIII, in ibid., xxix, xxxi–xxxii. Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:649. 12 Blackbourn, “Progress and Piety,” 60–64. Healy, Jesuit Specter, 42–46. Michael B. Gross, The War Against Catholicism: Liberalism and the Anti-Catholic Imagination in Nineteenth- Century Germany (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004), 29–127. Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:656, 659, 704–5. 13 Blackbourn, “Progress and Piety,” 60–64. Gross, War Against Catholicism, 74–127. Anticlericalism and the Kulturkampf 41

This trope therefore characterized the popular missions spreading so effectively across the land as an enormous web cunningly woven by the Jesuits not only to befuddle Catholics, but also to ensnare unwary Protestants, enticing them into the Catholic fold in order to rob them of their spiritual birthright as independent, rational, and industrious Germans. As liberals and Protestants deemed women particularly vulnerable to Jesuit wiles, they charged that the order was targeting women as the chink in the armor of the German family, turning wives into tools and spies against their husbands or even seduc- ing them through the intimacy of the confessional. Using the alleged Jesuit axiom that “the ends justify the means,” these ruthless soldiers of the Pope were likewise employing deception to orchestrate an ultramontane conspiracy of world domination through intrigue, seduction, blackmail, and murder, including regicide. According to this theory, the religious reconquest of Germany figured as a leading Jesuit objective given the nation’s role as the cradle of the Reformation. Having already inflicted the excesses of the Counter- Reformation and the Thirty Years War upon Germany, the Jesuits now stood ready to betray the fatherland once again to their master in Rome.14

The Eruption of the Kulturkampf

Tapping into longstanding anticlerical prejudices, the joint liberal and Protes- tant campaign proved extremely successful in fanning the flames of confessional hatred and suspicion against the Catholics, even sparking a riot in 1869 over the rumored establishment of a cloister in a working-class district of Berlin.15 Having internalized the anticlerical legends, many Germans saw the vigorous new Catholic regional parties, associations, and newspapers of the 1860s as merely the public political manifestations of the ultramontane conspiracy spearheaded by the Jesuits. The Catholics’ prompt establishment of the German Center Party in early 1871 and its success in electing sixty-three delegates to the first Reichstag then suggested a comparable menace to the newborn Protestant Reich.

14 Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 9:269–85. Blackbourn, “Progress and Piety,” 62–63. Gross, War Against Catholicism, 89–96. Healy, Jesuit Specter, 21–27, 35–50, 54–55, 59–60, 62. 15 The ‘cloister’ turned out to be a planned Franciscan orphanage. Gross, War Against Catholicism, 173–76. Ronald J. Ross, The Failure of Bismarck’s Kulturkampf: Catholicism and State Power in Imperial Germany, 1871–1887 (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1998), 26. Healy, Jesuit Specter, 58. 42 CHAPTER 2

Meanwhile, the conduct of the German bishops seemed to vindicate official suspicions regarding Catholic allegiance to state authority during this critical period of unification. Archbishop Hermann von Vicari of Freiburg, for example, had refused in 1867 to concede to Baden the legitimacy of state-run academic qualifying examinations for clerical candidates, a conflict that resulted in a hiring freeze for young Catholic clergy in the grand duchy.16 Similarly, Vicari’s de facto successor Vicar Capitular Lothar Kübel excommunicated the mayor of Constance in 1869 for his promotion of a merger of confessional elementary schools in the city.17 In 1870 Kübel then joined seven of the eight Bavarian bishops in publishing the new doctrine of Papal Infallibility, thereby defying Badenese and Bavarian government assertions of a right to withhold legal validation of the dogma within their borders.18 Likewise in Prussia, Archbishop Paul Melchers of Cologne, Prince-Bishop Heinrich Förster of Breslau, and Bishop Philipp Krementz of Ermland all clashed with Bismarck’s government over the administrative ramifications of the doctrinal change even as the state largely reconciled with the liberals in the name of German national unity. While the bishops demanded that various Catholic theology professors and religion teachers be stripped of their government posts for refusing to accept Papal Infallibility, the Prussian Ministry of Culture declined to recognize the charge as even remotely adequate grounds for dismissal of government employees. Indeed, the administration was inclined to protect the freedom of conscience of these individuals, many of whom would soon coalesce into the schismatic Old Catholic Church.19 In the course of these conflicts, the bishops excommunicated several dissident educators in defiance of the statutory stipulation that a public excommunication (excommunicatio major) required prior state consent.20 In the meantime, the Prussian cabinet discovered to its dismay that prominent Catholic officials leading the Catholic

16 Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:754. 17 Hermann Baumgarten and Ludwig Jolly, Staatsminister Jolly: Ein Lebensbild (Tübingen: Verlag der H. Laupp’schen Buchhandlung, 1897), 141–42. Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:754–55. Karl Josef Rivinius, “Lothar von Kübel,” BBKL 4:732–737. Considering Kübel too ultramontane to succeed Vicari as archbishop, Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden had struck his and other names from the Freiburg cathedral chapter’s list of candidates. As the cathedral chapter refused either to elect the one candidate acceptable to the grand duke or to produce a new list of nominees, the vacant archdiocese remained under Kübel’s administration as vicar capitular. Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:755–56. Rivinius, “Kübel,” BBKL 4:733–34. 18 Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:747–48, 755–56. 19 Ibid., 4:673, 679–85. M.L. Anderson, Windthorst, 167. 20 Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:685–86, 691. Erwin Gatz, “Melchers, Paul” in: NDB, 17:5. Anticlericalism and the Kulturkampf 43

Department of the Ministry of Culture were consistently supporting the bishops’ position against Minister Heinrich von Mühler.21 Indeed, Berlin found that the threat of ultramontane insubordination extended into the Prussian military itself in the guise of the army provost (Feldpropst) Vicar Apostolic Franz Adolf Namszanowski who refused to relay an order to his military chaplains to share worship facilities with the Old Catholics.22 In response to such instances of Catholic defiance, the Prussian government under Bismarck began freezing the salaries of recalcitrant bishops, abolished both the Catholic Department and the entire Catholic military chaplaincy, and in January 1872 replaced Culture Minister Mühler with the unequivocally anticlerical Adalbert Falk.23 By late 1871 the cauldron of converging state, liberal, and Protestant anticlericalism had meanwhile reached the boiling point. Distressed by an increasingly ultramontane episcopate and by Centrist success at the polls, congresses of the Protestant Association (Protestantenverein) and the Old Catholics called for the expulsion of the Jesuit order from the Reich, a measure that Minister Mühler had also recommended privately to Bismarck that same October. To this end, a coalition of Protestants, liberals, Old Catholics, and Freemasons orchestrated the collection of thousands of signatures on anti-Jesuit petitions that reached the Reichstag the following spring.24 Likewise alarmed by the extensive clerical mobilization of the Catholic electorate in Bavaria, Munich secured approval for the Pulpit Law of December 1871 from the Reichstag’s anticlerical majority. This special revision of the imperial penal code stipulated a prison sentence of up to two years for any clergyman convicted of political agitation in a church or other public religious venue.25 In the same October memorandum advocating the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Reich, Mühler had also proposed to Bismarck that Prussia’s public and private elementary schools, like its secondary schools, should all be subject solely to state supervision. Enacted in March 1872 after Mühler’s fall, the Prussian School Supervision Law ordained that the local clergyman was no longer automatically entitled to the office of school inspector. While Protestant pastors were nonetheless generally retained in that capacity under the Ministry of Culture, Catholic priests were thereupon frequently relieved of such inspectorates, allegedly for a lack of dedication to the state’s educational

21 Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:674–75. 22 Ibid., 4:687–89. M.L. Anderson, Windthorst, 167. 23 Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:675–76, 689, 699. 24 Ibid., 4:704–6. Healy, Jesuit Specter, 47–49, 52–53, 55–57, 59–63. 25 Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:700–701. M.L. Anderson, Windthorst, 151–52. Healy, Jesuit Specter, 58. 44 CHAPTER 2 interests or for neglect of German language instruction in the Polish regions. In addition to secularizing school oversight, the law also stipulated the exclusion of clergy from all instructional duties apart from religion classes. That June Minister Falk therefore barred a thousand members of Catholic religious orders from providing instruction in the Prussian public schools despite an absence of qualified teachers to replace them.26 During the same period, the vigorous petition campaign against the Jesuits came to fruition in the Anti-Jesuit Law of July 4, 1872. While the Prussian government had sought to expel foreign Polish-speaking Jesuits in March for conducting unauthorized popular missions in Posen, the impetus behind a general ban of the order arose from liberals in the Reichstag as they responded in May to the popular outcry of the anti-Jesuits. Although petitions favoring the Jesuits outnumbered those against by a factor of more than ten to one, the anticlerical Reichstag majority requested a government bill to address the Jesuit menace. Uncharacteristically prompt in its response to the national parliament, the federal council (Bundesrat) of German governments endorsed a Bavarian motion in June that would authorize the expulsion of foreign Jesuits from the Reich and permit the imposition of movement and residence restrictions upon individual German members of the order. In both instances, no further offense beyond membership in the Jesuit order would be required to justify police action.27 As yet dissatisfied, the Reichstag designated the Bundesrat concept as Article 2 and inserted as Article 1 a complete ban of the Societas Jesu from the territory of the German Reich, including any related orders and similar congregations. Swiftly embracing the revisions, the Bundesrat completed enactment of the Anti-Jesuit Law and stipulated on the basis of its interpretive authority that the ban included every activity of the order, whether in churches, schools, or the conducting of missions. In September the Prussian cabinet clarified further that such prohibited Jesuit activity encompassed everything of a pastoral nature, whether giving a sermon, receiving confession, granting absolu- tion, reading mass, or administering sacraments. The following February the Bundesrat further determined that the orders described in Article 1 as related to the Jesuits and therefore likewise banned included the Redemptorists, the Lazarists, the Spiritans, and the Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.28

26 Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:702–4. 27 Ibid., 4:705–6. Healy, Jesuit Specter, 61–67. 28 Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:705–7. M.L. Anderson, Windthorst, 166–67. Healy, Jesuit Specter, 67–70, 75. Anticlericalism and the Kulturkampf 45

Despite loud papal, episcopal and popular protest, the Kulturkampf accelerated over the next several years, sowing bitterness among German Catholics and filling anticlericals with the joy of at last having solid state support in the battle against ultramontanism. As German-Vatican relations grew steadily icier, the clauses of the Prussian constitution pertaining to religious freedom were modified in April 1873 to permit passage of the May Laws the following month. The law of May 11 regarding the education and appointment of the clergy followed the Badenese example of the late 1860s with similar adverse results for aspirants to the priesthood. The act established that a clerical appointment in Prussia required a German academic education, including three years of theological study at a state institution with concluding qualifying examinations in philosophy, history, and German literature as well as theology. Study at a Prussian episcopal seminary could be substituted in lieu of a state university provided that the Ministry of Culture recognized the equivalency. In addition, all ecclesiastical institutions for education of the clergy were now subjected to state oversight. Finally, the bishop was required to report all clerical appointments to the provincial governor, who also retained a veto over any nomina- tion if there was reason to believe that the candidate would disobey state laws or otherwise disturb the peace.29 However, like Archbishop Vicari of Freiburg in 1867, the Prussian bishops challenged the legitimacy of this state intrusion into the internal personnel decisions of the Roman Catholic Church. They therefore refused to request recognition of the equivalency of their episcopal seminaries with Prussian state universities, with the result that the seminaries were all declared non-equivalent and denied state funding. The bishops likewise instructed their graduating seminarians not to sit for the state examinations, rendering legal clerical appointments impossible. The bishops also rejected state oversight over their seminaries, forbidding the authorities’ entrance to the facilities, which the Ministry of Culture then proceeded to close outright in Fulda, Hildesheim, Limburg, Posen, Gnesen, and Trier. Meanwhile, the theological faculties at the state universities were either riven by the Old Catholic schism or wholly in Old Catholic hands. This combination of factors sorely disrupted the study of Catholic theology in Prussia and brought to a halt all legal appointments of Catholic clergy. While the most immediate problem the bishops could address by appointing priests as hitherto without legal sanction or notification, clerical salaries had to be organized through voluntary collections, and

29 Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:677–78, 712. M.L. Anderson, Windthorst, 170–72. Ronald J. Ross, “Enforcing the Kulturkampf in the Bismarckian State and the Limits of Coercion in Imperial Germany,” Journal of Modern History 56, no. 3 (Sep. 1984): 460. 46 CHAPTER 2 the shortage of theology students appeared to threaten the long-term health of the church in Prussia.30 Meanwhile, the Prussian laws of May 12 and 13 attempted to establish state regulation of the disciplinary powers of the church. Proclaiming that German citizens could not be subjected to the disciplinary decisions of foreign ecclesiastical authorities, the law of May 12 set limits on the temporal penalties permissible for ecclesiastical use and demanded church notification of the government of disciplinary decisions. It also established the Prussian Royal Court for Ecclesiastical Affairs as a secular court of appeal that could overturn church decisions, a dead letter in the event since Catholics refused to avail themselves of this right. More importantly, however, the new court also received the authority to remove clergy from office on the basis of violations of state laws or regulations. As a further limit to the disciplinary powers of the church, the law of May 13 included an explicit prohibition against the imposition of the excommunicatio major in Prussia.31 Since Pius IX and the Prussian bishops refused to recognize the legitimacy of the May Laws, thousands of Catholic parishes throughout the kingdom confronted the challenges of long pastoral vacancies. Thousands more faced the difficulties of hiding and providing sustenance for priests whose ministries were in defiance of the law. Meanwhile, the Grand Duchy of Baden continued to be the Reich’s trailblazer in anticlerical legislation, often providing the model for Prussian measures that were then replicated in Hesse and, less extensively, in Bavaria and Saxony. German Catholics rallied boldly to their clergy, however, and expressed their solidarity with the church at the polls by returning ninety-one Center delegates to the Reichstag in 1874, almost thirty more than they had elected in 1871.32 Unsuccessful in securing compliance with the May Laws of 1873, Berlin collaborated with the liberals over the next several years in attempting to develop legislative, judicial, and administrative measures capable of forcing compliance. First, in December 1873 a royal revision of the episcopal inaugural oath of allegiance rendered it henceforth impossible for any new bishop or diocesanal administrator to receive Prussian recognition without explicitly vowing to obey all state laws.33 Meanwhile, as each unauthorized and unreported clerical

30 Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:717–19. Ross, “Enforcing the Kulturkampf,” 461–62. Barbara Wolf-Dahm, “Ledochowski (Halka-Ledóchowski), Mieczyslaw,” BBKL 4:1338–39. 31 Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:713–14, 720. 32 Ibid., 4:748–52, 756–60, 763–65. Ross, “Enforcing the Kulturkampf,” 461–63, 466–67, 472, 474. Blackbourn, “Progress and Piety,” 65–66, 68. Healy, Jesuit Specter, 76–77. 33 Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:722. Anticlericalism and the Kulturkampf 47 appointment constituted a new episcopal transgression, charges were repeatedly brought against each of the Prussian bishops, with the cumulative fines for a given prelate typically reaching around 90,000 marks. Since the bishops declined to pay such fines, the police resorted to the seizure and auctioning of their palatial furnishings, but such measures still failed to cover the costs imposed. Therefore, beginning in early 1874, the government authorized the arrest and sentencing of one bishop after another such that five of Prussia’s eleven living bishops spent time behind bars over the next two years, and a sixth only evaded arrest by slipping into the Austrian corner of his diocese. Also in early 1874, Berlin began exercising the purported authority of the Royal Court of Ecclesiastical Affairs to dismiss the bishops from office. As a result, by mid-1877 only four of the twelve Prussian sees were still officially occupied. Of the other eight bishops, six had been officially stripped of their position and salary, and two had died without a successor agreeable to church and state.34 While launching these enforcement measures, the Prussian government had meanwhile turned to the Reichstag for passage of the Expatriation Law to punish bishops and priests convicted of ignoring either their dismissal from office or their non-appointment thereto. Enacted in May 1874, the Expatriation Law authorized the German states to ban such convicted clergy from proximity to their ecclesiastical posts, to compel them to reside in specific places, or even to expatriate and deport them from the Reich. This harshest pen- alty of expatriation would not be imposed upon any other group of offend- ers in the history of the Kaiserreich, not even socialists or Jesuits, but both Archbishop Cardinal Mieczyslaw Ledochowski of Posen-Gnesen and Bishop Konrad Martin of Paderborn were stripped of their German citizenship. In any case, all six Prussian bishops deposed by Berlin found it necessary to escape Germany and administer their dioceses indirectly from exile.35 Also in May 1874 the Prussian Landtag set forth in the Law for the Administration of Vacant Bishoprics that even the ecclesiastical appointment of an administrator for a vacant diocese would be subject to all the May Law stipulations and that the appointee would also be required to take the revised episcopal oath to the crown. On the other hand, if no acceptable diocesanal administrator was chosen within ten days of a vacancy, the Minister of Culture was empowered

34 Ibid., 4:727–29. M.L. Anderson, Windthorst, 173–75. Ross, “Enforcing the Kulturkampf,” 480. 35 Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:724–25. M.L. Anderson, Windthorst, 176–77. Ross, “Enforcing the Kulturkampf,” 462–63, 466–67. Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz, “Brinkmann, Johann Bernard,” BBKL 1:751. Wolf-Dahm, “Ledochowski,” BBKL 4:1338–39. Erich Naab, “Martin, Konrad,” BBKL 5:931–35. 48 CHAPTER 2 to appoint a state commissar to administer the property of the bishopric. A similar measure was established for individual parishes whereby the burden of proof of May Law compliance was placed upon the clergy even as parish assets were to be confiscated by a state commissar at the mere suspicion of an illegal appointment.36 Meanwhile, as Berlin was unwilling to recognize the matrimo- nial services performed by the numerous unsanctioned priests, it again followed the Badenese example when it secured passage of Prussian and Reich laws in 1874 and 1875 mandating civil marriage.37 In early 1875 official and liberal outrage against the Roman Catholic Church reached a new height in response to the papal encyclical of February 5. In that missive to the Prussian bishops, Pius IX ordered all Catholics to refuse cooperation with the anticlerical laws and pronounced the excommunicatio major against those originating and enforcing them. In reply, Bismarck and the Prussian Landtag agreed to ban all non-nursing religious orders from the kingdom, to terminate all state subventions to the Catholic Church, and to strip the guarantees of religious freedom out of the state constitution entirely.38 Moreover, in the ensuing months, Catholic distribution of the February encyclical so incensed the liberals and the government that the Reich’s Pulpit Law was expanded in early 1876 to include prison sentences not only for incendiary speeches, but also for the distribution by clergy or religion teachers of inflammatory publications.39

Retreat from the Kulturkampf

The Kulturkampf traumatized German Catholics for decades to come, but it also failed miserably in nearly all its objectives. While most liberals and outspoken Protestants remained committed to the anticlerical cause, more conservative Protestants and higher state officials generally concurred with Bismarck’s decision in 1878 to seek reconciliation with the Catholic Church. Far from having suffered a grievous defeat, the Pope, the bishops, and the Center Party all enjoyed a still greater degree of commitment from the Catholic populace than they had before the anticlerical onslaught. The ferocity of the legal assault had merely exposed the inadequacy of the administrative tools available to enforce

36 Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:726–27. M.L. Anderson, Windthorst, 175. 37 Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:723–24, 734. M.L. Anderson, Windthorst, 175–76. 38 Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:732–38. M.L. Anderson, Windthorst, 177. 39 Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:742–43. Anticlericalism and the Kulturkampf 49 those desires.40 Meanwhile, the Prussian state had been undermining its own authority from several directions at once. In attacking the Catholic Church, Berlin was simultaneously discrediting itself with a key constituency, fostering social instability, and risking a decline into parliamentarization by delivering itself unequivocally into the hands of the liberals. Bismarck’s devel- oping perception of the desirability of economic protectionism and social welfare legislation also necessitated a shift away from political collaboration with laissez faire liberals. Nor could the Prusso-German state effectively combat the perceived rising threat of socialism as long as it remained locked in a bitter struggle with the Catholic Church.41 For all these reasons, Bismarck abandoned the Kulturkampf in a manner that the anticlericals considered a disgraceful retreat. With the accession of the more conciliatory Pope Leo XIII in February 1878, the Prussian state gained an avenue for a settlement short of complete humiliation. Berlin succeeded, for example, in retaining in Prussian law the principles of obligatory civil marriage and state oversight over elementary schools. Otherwise, however, the church yielded remarkably little to the sustained state intrusion of the Kulturkampf into internal ecclesiastical affairs. In its most important concession in eight years of negotiation, the Vatican recognized an episcopal duty to report to the Prussian state each permanent appointment of a parish priest and granted Berlin the right to raise objections thereto. However, the government would have no veto, and its objections to a candidate had to be based upon verifiable facts within the civil realm. If the bishop and the state then proved unable to reach an agreement in such a case, the Vatican reserved to itself the right to settle the matter.42 More symbolically, Leo XIII agreed that the bishops could submit to the Ministry of Culture a request for state recognition of the university equivalency of theological study at their episcopal seminaries.43 Apart from these two points, the Pope’s concessions lay primarily within the realm of personnel decisions. Leo XIII was much more inclined than his predecessor to heed government preferences regarding episcopal nominees, and, when Berlin indicated in the mid-1880s its inability to pardon the exiled Archbishops Melchers of Cologne and Cardinal Ledochowski of Posen-Gnesen, the Pope

40 For extensive discussions of this argument, see Ross, “Enforcing the Kulturkampf,” 456–82, and Ross, The Failure of Bismarck’s Kulturkampf. 41 Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:772–73. 42 Ibid., 4:795, 803. 43 Ibid., 4:787. 50 CHAPTER 2 secured their resignations while simultaneously raising Melchers likewise to the cardinalate and displaying great favor to both men in Rome.44 Despite the importance of the foregoing church concessions, the Prussian state for its part was compelled to relent on the overwhelming majority of issues. After the resignation of Falk from the Ministry of Culture in 1879, the three Mitigation Laws of 1880, 1882 and 1883 and the two Peace Laws of 1886 and 1887 progressively dismantled the bulk of the Kulturkampf legislation, usually with the unenthusiastic assistance of the Prussian Center. Apart from securing the aforementioned important voice in clerical appointments, Berlin backed away from its efforts to control and oversee the Prussian episcopate. For example, the first two mitigation laws and the First Peace Law of 1886 authorized the Ministry of Culture to exempt the church’s diocesanal administrators from taking the controversial bishops’ oath of allegiance to the crown. The first two laws also enabled the Minister of Culture to relinquish commis- sarial administration of diocesanal property, and the Second Peace Law of 1887 abolished outright most of the stipulations of the Law for the Administration of Vacant Bishoprics of 1874. Likewise, empowered by the Second Mitigation Law of 1882 to reinstate ‘dismissed’ bishops at his royal discretion, Wilhelm I pardoned and restored state recognition and subventions to the bishops of Limburg and Münster.45 By early 1884, ten of the twelve Prussian bishops enjoyed official acceptance and funding after successful church-state negotiations for appointments to five genuinely vacant sees, each settlement of which included a royal waiver of the episcopal oath of obedience. This arrangement regarding the oath persisted until early 1887 when the unobjectionable pre-1873 wording was entirely restored. The Catholic military chaplaincy was also reestablished in 1887 and a new army provost appointed the following year. Meanwhile, the Third Mitigation Law of 1883 had begun to restrict the jurisdiction of the reviled Royal Court for Ecclesiastical Affairs until it was completely abolished through the First Peace Law. Furthermore, the two Peace Laws removed virtually all other limitations and state oversight that the May Laws had imposed upon ecclesiastical disciplinary powers, and by 1891 all 16 million marks of suspended state funds were restored to the Catholic Church.46 No less thorough was the Prussian state’s retreat from its attempt to oversee the education of individual clergy. Since conservative Protestant as well

44 Ibid., 4:781–82, 788–89, 796. Wolf-Dahm, “Ledochowski,” BBKL 4:1338–39. Norbert M. Borengässer, “Melchers, Paul Ludolf,” BBKL 5:1192–93. M.L. Anderson, Windthorst, 322–24. 45 Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:775, 779, 784, 788, 794, 803–4. 46 Ibid., 4:780–82, 787–88, 794–96, 803–5. Anticlericalism and the Kulturkampf 51 as Catholic clergy had consistently objected to the May Laws’ establishment of extensive qualifying examinations for Prussian parish appointments, the Second Mitigation Law excused from such scrutiny all candidates with both an academic high school diploma and documentation of having applied themselves diligently in philosophy, history, and literature while earning their degree in theology. In addition, the Ministry of Culture was entitled to waive the 1873 requirements in individual cases at its own discretion until 1886 when the First Peace Law simply abolished the cultural exams outright. By early 1887 even the stipulation barring candidates with foreign theology degrees was dropped, thereby permitting the employment in Prussia of graduates of the more ‘ultramontane’ institutes of Rome, Innsbruck, and Leuven. Meanwhile, the First Peace Law had fully restored the freedom of ecclesiastical preparatory education in Prussia. Not only were the cultural exams abolished, but nearly all the episcopal seminaries and similar institutions were re-opened and freed of all state oversight. The Third Mitigation Law and the Peace Laws also gradually lifted virtually all aspects of the ban on unauthorized pastoral activity.47 Finally, the Peace Laws of 1886 and 1887 re-admitted nearly all the religious orders and congregations expelled from Prussia by the Congregations Law of 1875. This re-admission naturally did not extend to the Jesuit and related orders banned from the entire Reich in 1872. Nevertheless, of the roughly nine hundred religious houses still in Prussia after the Jesuit expulsion, approximately one third had then endured dissolution as a result of the Congregations Law. Originally, only the numerous nursing orders had been exempted from this Prussian expulsion of 1875, but the First Peace Law extended this exception to allow the return of orders engaged in social work. The Second Peace Law then re-admitted all those expelled orders dedicated either to pastoral care, Christian charity, the instruction of older girls, or a contemplative life.48 Most importantly for this study, the Second Peace Law also authorized the Ministry of Culture to permit existing or re-admitted orders to establish houses for the training of missionaries for service abroad.49

47 Ibid., 4:785, 787, 794–95, 803. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 4:55. 48 Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:794, 803. Ross, “Enforcing the Kulturkampf,” 469, 471–72. 49 Horst Gründer, Christliche Mission und deutscher Imperialismus: Eine politische Geschichte ihrer Beziehungen während der deutschen Kolonialzeit (1884–1914) unter besonderer Berücksichtigung Afrikas und Chinas (Paderborn: F. Schöningh, 1982), 62n72. It should be noted that the Second Peace Law did not authorize the establishment of missionary houses by societies that had never previously operated in Prussia, a potential source of complication for entirely new or hitherto foreign orders whose missionaries might end up within the German colonies. 52 CHAPTER 2

The Anti-Jesuit Law and the Parity Question

Given the magnitude of these state concessions to the Catholic Church, anticlerical liberals and Protestants deemed the Prussian retreat from the Kulturkampf an ignominious surrender to ultramontanism, a capitulation that was then largely replicated in Baden, Hesse, and Bavaria. Outrage over passage of the First Peace Law in May 1886 galvanized Protestant anticlericals into establishing the Protestant League (Evangelischer Bund) that October to combat the forces of ultramontanism more effectively than had the more narrowly- based Protestant Association. For anticlericals generally, the Reich’s remaining Kulturkampf legislation, particularly the Anti-Jesuit Law, now represented the last bastion holding the line against a renewed ultramontane assault on the fatherland. For Catholics, on the other hand, the survival of such legislative rel- ics served as a continuous reminder of their status as second-class Germans.50 As Centrist influence then grew within the Reichstag, the Bundesrat and Kaiser Wilhelm II became the primary guarantors of the preservation of legislation the anticlericals deemed vital. For example, a Centrist motion for repeal of the most offensive Expatriation Law met with Reichstag approval four times between 1882 and 1890 before the Bundesrat finally agreed to its revocation.51 Since at the Reich level the Center could only hope to secure one major concession at a time, Bundesrat evasiveness on the Expatriation Law served to shield the more critical Anti-Jesuit Law during the 1880s.52 Similar stonewall- ing techniques were then used to still greater effect when the Center did turn its attention after 1890 towards the repeal of the Anti-Jesuit Law. Between 1890 and 1904 the Catholic party introduced a motion for repeal of the law nine separate times, and the Reichstag plenum approved the resolution on each of the five occasions that the Center actually brought the measure to a vote. Three times beginning in 1897, the Reichstag also passed resolutions supporting the revocation of at least Article 2, the measure that authorized the limitation of the freedom of movement of German Jesuits and the expulsion of foreign members of the order.53

50 Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 4:299. Healy, Jesuit Specter, 79–88. 51 Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 4:293. 52 For this reason, the likewise insulting Pulpit Law remained in the penal code even though its terms, seldom successfully applied even during the Kulturkampf, resulted in only four convictions during the entire period between 1894 and 1904. A criminal law commission recommended its repeal in 1906, but it was not voided from the German penal code until 1953. Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:701. 53 Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 5:145–46, 246, 257–58, 339, 341–42, 9:266–67, 287, 301–2, 306, 314–15, 319. Anticlericalism and the Kulturkampf 53

The Bundesrat, however, alternately rejected or ignored all such resolutions for repeal, thanks to anticlerical influence in some German state governments and to Berlin’s desire to maximize the horsetrading potential of the law’s revision. When it could not entirely avoid making a concession in acknowledgment of Centrist parliamentary services, the Bundesrat elected to grant the minimum imaginable. Thus, in 1894 it decided that the Spiritans and Redemptorists were no longer related to the Jesuits as they had allegedly been in 1873, and in 1897 the Lazarists and the Daughters of the Sacred Heart very nearly lost their ‘Jesuit’ categorization as well. Only after the Center’s indispensable assistance during the bitter ordeal of passage of the 1903 tariff law did the Bundesrat finally take a meaningful step. Even then, however, it was limited to just the repeal of Article 2 in March 1904, a relatively minor decision that would nevertheless help contribute to an anticlerical firestorm central to this study.54 In the years after the Kulturkampf, the attention of the Centrist leadership was also drawn to the lack of confessional parity in the civil services in Prussia and the Reich. Although Catholics comprised roughly one third of the population in both cases, they did not hold anywhere near that share of offices. Only ten percent of the chancellors, Reich state secretaries, and Prussian ministers serving between 1888 and 1914 were Catholic, but even some of these, like the liberal Catholic chancellor Chlodwig Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, had actively supported the Kulturkampf and the Anti-Jesuit Law. In any case, the lack of proportional representation ran far deeper than the top ranks of government. In 1893 there was not a single Catholic among all of Prussia’s state ministers, under state secretaries, ministerial department heads, provincial governors, chiefs of police, and police marshals. The lone Catholic superior court chief justice Karl Heinrich von Schönstedt did rise to Minister of Justice the following year, but his exceptional status did not change the general trend. Catholics comprised only seven percent of the expert councilors (Vortragende Räte) in the civilian Prussian state ministries, and at the Reich level prominent Catholic civil servants were still harder to find apart from State Secretary Rudolf Arnold Nieberding at the Justice Office. Even within the slightly more accessible Foreign Office, Catholics held none of the four departmental director- ates and occupied just two out of twenty-five expert councilorships and three out of twenty assistantships.55 Given such institutionalized anti-Catholicism

54 Ibid., 5:348–50, 9:287, 294–95, 301–3, 307–8, 319–30. 55 Ibid., 5:326–28, 364–372, 376, 387–88, 448–49, 9:67–68, 288–90. J.C.G. Röhl, “Higher Civil Servants in Germany, 1890–1900,” Journal of Contemporary History 2, no. 3, Education and Social Structure (July 1967): 109–10, 110n26. Röhl, The Kaiser and His Court: Wilhelm II and the Government of Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 139, 153–54. 54 CHAPTER 2 throughout the German and Prussian bureaucracies, few checks existed that might inhibit chronic official discrimination against Catholic missionary interests in the colonies or prevent a resurgence of anticlerical sentiments among colonial bureaucrats operating far from Berlin’s restraining hand. Liberal and Protestant anticlericalism provided critical popular inspiration for the Kulturkampf, but the state promotion of the Kulturkampf in turn legitimized those anticlerical sentiments well beyond the lifespan of the legislative campaign itself. Once vindicated by the assistance of state power in the 1870s, the anticlerical fervor subsequently experienced a resurgence every time Berlin retreated another step from the conflict with Rome. The continuing pervasiveness of such anticlerical attitudes among civil servants, including colonial officials, then laid the groundwork for the re-enactment of aspects of the Kulturkampf in the Reich’s overseas territories outside the immediate range of Berlin’s supervision. By the same token, the bitter memory of the Kulturkampf both promoted confessional solidarity within a diverse Center Party and strengthened the hand of those missionaries and Centrists mistrust- ful of state power, whether at home or in the colonies. Subsequent civilian African resistance to oppressive colonial policies would therefore mesh readily with an existing narrative framework familiar to Catholics and anticlericals alike, thus amplifying the impact of that resistance upon the German domestic political situation. CHAPTER 3 The German Colonies: Topography, Resistance, and the Catholic Missions

Established in two waves of annexations, the Reich’s formal colonial empire included four African territories, six island groups in the South Pacific, and Kiautschou, the leasehold around the Chinese port of Qingdao on Jiaozhou Bay in Shandong. The first wave of the mid-1880s engulfed Southwest Africa, Togo, Kamerun, German East Africa, German New Guinea, the Marshall Islands, and Nauru. A second smaller wave of German colonial acquisitions followed in the late 1890s. First, the Chinese government was induced in 1898 to acknowledge Germany’s special economic interests in Shandong as a whole and to grant the Reich a ninety-nine-year leasehold at Kiautschou. Then, in mid-1899 the Spaniards sold the Germans their colonial sovereignty over the Caroline, Palau, and Mariana Islands minus Guam. Finally, German-Anglo- American tripartite rule over Samoa was brought to an end that November through an agreement which conferred the two larger western islands Savai’i and Upolu upon the Reich. While colonial enthusiasts propounded the acquisition of overseas territories either as a patriotic solution to the perceived problem of excessive German emigration or as a protectionist vehicle for guaranteeing the Reich access to natural resources and consumer markets, Bismarck himself had long doubted that these purported benefits would actually outweigh the risks that an expansionist colonial policy would pose to Germany’s diplomatic position in Europe.1 Therefore, the chancellor’s unexpected conversion to the cause of colonialism in the early 1880s has exercised historians for decades. Whether one sees his colonial campaign as a diplomatic strategy designed to encourage Anglo-French discord, as a domestic political diversion to distract bourgeois or petty bourgeois reformers, or as a genuine belated subscription to the necessity of empire, it is clear that Bismarck believed that responsibility for colonial administration ought to devolve upon the interested corporations, rather than upon the limited fiscal resources of the Reich.2 However, the prospective

1 Woodruff D. Smith, The German Colonial Empire (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978), 3–27. 2 A.J.P. Taylor, Germany’s First Bid for Colonies, 1884–1885: A Move in Bismarck’s European Policy (London: Macmillan & Co., 1938). William O. Aydelotte, Bismarck and British Colonial

chartered companies either withdrew from the arrangement, as in East Africa and later New Guinea, or they failed to materialize entirely, as in Southwest Africa, Kamerun, and Togo. Only the Jaluit Gesellschaft succeeded in turning a profit that consistently covered the cost of the Reich’s administration of the Marshall Islands.3 Therefore, in spite of Bismarck’s original designs, by the year 1900 German imperial governors sat at Windhoek (Southwest Africa), Lome (Togo), Buea (Kamerun), Dar-es-Salaam (East Africa), Herbertshöhe (New Guinea and the South Seas), Apia (Samoa), and Qingdao (Kiautschou). While Kiautschou was administered through the Imperial Naval Office, oversight over the affairs of all the other territories lay within the jurisdiction of the Colonial Department of the German Foreign Office. The department’s colonial director and his rather limited staff were therefore responsible for the governance of a far- flung, heterogeneous empire with twelve to fourteen million inhabitants and encompassing roughly five times the area of the German Reich.4 Furthermore, due to the preoccupation of the foreign secretary with the demands of his regular diplomatic duties, the Colonial Department had also come to occupy an anomalous jurisdictional position. Namely, as of the early 1890s colonial affairs no longer fell within the purview of the foreign secretary; rather, the colonial director was instructed to report directly to the chancellor on all matters

Policy: The Problem of South West Africa, 1883–1885 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1937; reprint, Westport, CT: Negro Universities Press, 1970). Henry Ashby Turner, Jr., “Bismarck’s Imperialist Venture: Anti-British in Origin?” in Britain and Germany in Africa: Imperial Rivalry and Colonial Rule, ed. Prosser Gifford and William Roger Louis (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), 47–82. Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann and Alison Smith, “The German Empire in Africa and British Perspectives: A Historiographical Essay,” in ibid., 709–17. Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Bismarck und der Imperialismus (Cologne: Kiepenheuer und Witsch, 1969). Wehler, “Bismarcks Imperialismus 1862–1890,” in Krisenherde des Kaiserreichs 1871–1918: Studien zur deutschen Sozial- und Verfassungsgeschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970). Paul M. Kennedy, The Samoan Tangle: A Study in Anglo-German-American Relations, 1878–1900 (Dublin: Irish University Press, 1974), 25–27. Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism 1860–1914 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1980), 167–78. W.D. Smith, German Colonial Empire, 27–34, 238n42. 3 W.O. Henderson, “Chartered Companies in the German Colonies,” in Studies in German Colonial History (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1962), 11–32. 4 Hans Meyer, ed., Das Deutsche Kolonialreich: Eine Länderkunde der deutschen Schutzgebiete (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 1909–1910) 1:406, 508–10, 512–13, 2:59–60, 110–11, 313, 486, 528–29, 531. Helmuth Stoecker, ed., Drang nach Afrika: Die deutsche koloniale Expansionspolitik und Herrschaft in Afrika von den Anfängen bis zum Verlust der Kolonien, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1991), 36–37, 45, 161. The German Colonies 57 except personnel issues within his department.5 Since the chancellor was similarly subject to innumerable other demands for his attention, this left the lowly colonial director with neither adequate staff nor effective supervision, an ill-starred combination once African uprisings and other forms of protest brought the activities of the department under close parliamentary scrutiny. Given the size and complexity of the four African colonies, each will be discussed below in a separate short introduction covering the territory’s topography and the resistance of its inhabitants to German occupation from 1884 to 1906. Of the South Sea islands, however, only New Guinea and Samoa witnessed resistance dramatic enough to attract the attention of Germans in the Reich. The remaining island groups will therefore receive correspondingly little treatment in this study. In New Guinea the most relevant issues to the present inquiry pertain to official anticlericalism in Herbertshöhe and to the anti-missionary thrust of the Baining Uprising of 1904; therefore, that colony will be introduced in the section below devoted to the Catholic missions. For similar reasons Shandong and Samoa will likewise receive initial treatment in the section on the missions and then form the subject of more detailed discussions in chapters 5 to 7.

Southwest Africa

In April 1884 the German consul in Capetown conveyed Bismarck’s declaration to the British authorities that the Reich had extended its protection over a section of the Southwest African coast north of the Oranje River. The Bremen entrepreneur Franz Adolf Lüderitz had recently purchased this 900 square-kilometer tract of land from Joseph Fredericks (!Khorebeb-||Naixab) of the Bethanian (!Âman) Nama in hopes of finding sources of mineral wealth along the inhospitable coast. From Bismarck’s declaration of protection over Lüderitz’s venture, the German colonial empire was born.6

5 W.D. Smith, German Colonial Empire, 46. 6 J.H. Esterhuyse, South West Africa 1880–1894: The Establishment of German Authority in South West Africa (Cape Town: C. Struik, 1968), 10–16, 24, 29–32, 36–42. W.D. Smith, German Colonial Empire, 35. Horst Drechsler, Südwestafrika unter deutscher Kolonialherrschaft, Band 1, Der Kampf der Herero und Nama gegen den deutschen Imperialismus (1884–1915), 2d ed. (Berlin (O): Akademie Verlag, 1984), 33–34, 127. Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 26. Andreas Heinrich Bühler, Der Namaaufstand gegen die deutsche Kolonialherrschaft in Namibia von 1904–1913 (Frankfurt a.M.: IKO Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation, 2003), 39–49. Having assimi- lated significant elements of Boer and British Protestant culture, most Nama clans utilized Boer Christian personal, family, clan, and place names for their interactions with whites, not 58 CHAPTER 3

By 1890 German Southwest Africa (present-day Namibia) had grown to encompass an area of approximately 824,000 square kilometers, second only to East Africa in size among Germany’s overseas possessions. However, with just 270,000 inhabitants in the late nineteenth century, the colony’s population density (0.3/km2) was only a quarter of that of sparsely populated German New Guinea. The most hospitable lands of the Southwest African plateau were bounded in the east by the Kalahari Desert and in the west by steep cliffs, the Namib Desert, and a treacherous Atlantic coast. The habitable plateau had thus been approached from the north by the Bantu-speaking Herero and Ovambo and from the south by the Khoekhoegowab-speaking Nama. Although comprising about half of the colony’s population, the Ovambo in the forests of the extreme north will receive virtually no attention in this work as the Germans did not succeed in penetrating their lands during the period under investigation.7 The next most populous group at some eighty thousand as of the 1880s, the seminomadic cattle-herding Herero had entered the northwestern Kaokoveld in the sixteenth century. They ultimately pressed into the grass steppes immediately north of present-day Windhoek, displacing or enslaving the aboriginal Damara and San in the process. The Ovaherero, the stronger western branch of the Herero, established settlements at Okahandja, Otjimbingwe, Omaruru, and Waterberg while the eastern Mbanderu Herero settled Otjihaenena and Epukiro. At the time of the first German claims, the Herero possessed the best grazing land in the region, and their cattle herds numbered in the hundreds of thousands, far in excess of those held by their Nama rivals. Indeed, the Ovaherero chief Maharero had originally accepted Reich ‘protection’ in 1885

least because the latter found the various clicks of Khoekhoegowab unpronounceable. The convention of such Boer names is retained for this study, but the Khoekhoegowab names are provided in parentheses where available, based upon the orthography of the late Klaus Dierks (“Namibia Library of Dr. Klaus Dierks: Data Base of Namibian Biographies,” http:// www.klausdierks.com/FrontpageMain.html, June 29, 2012). I am most indebted to Professor Wilfrid Haacke of the University of Namibia for his linguistic assistance. Any errors in my rendering of Khoekhoegowab remain my own. Wilfrid H.G. Haacke and Eliphas Eiseb, eds., Khoekhoegowab-English English-Khoekhoegowab Glossary/Mîdi Saogub (Windhoek: Gamsberg Macmillan, 1999). 7 Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:27–28, 97–98, 113–15. Esterhuyse, South West Africa, 1–2. Helmut Bley, South-West Africa under German Rule 1894–1914, trans. and ed. Hugh Ridley (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1971), xxi. W.D. Smith, German Colonial Empire, 53–54. K. Weule, “Völkerkarte von Deutsch-Südwestafrika vor den Aufständen 1904–05,” map, in Das Deutsche Kolonialreich: Eine Länderkunde der deutschen Schutzgebiete, ed. Hans Meyer (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 1910), 2:298–99 unnumbered. The German Colonies 59 based upon the expectation of German assistance in warding off the incessant attacks of the Nama. When by 1888 the Herero had still not received a single allied German soldier but only a run of abusive gold prospectors, Maharero annulled the ‘protection treaty,’ forced Imperial Commissioner Heinrich Göring to retreat to British Walvis Bay, and refused for another two years to recognize German suzerainty. Meanwhile, once German ambitions for the rapid accumulation of mineral wealth proved misplaced, the abundant cattle and pastures of the Herero became a target of colonial acquisitiveness. Initially, however, German intrusions and confiscations impinged less upon the Ovaherero than upon the Mbanderu, whose abortive uprising in Spring 1896 ended with the execution of their leaders Nikodemus Kavikunua and Kahimemua Nguvauva. Maharero’s son Samuel Maharero, by contrast, practiced a conciliatory policy toward the Germans after 1890, tapping their increased military strength to foil his rivals for the paramount chieftainship.8 Still, over the years the increasing subjection of the Ovaherero to German encroachment, expropriation, and brutality ultimately persuaded the younger Maharero to unleash the Herero Uprising. Once the Bondelswart Uprising of 1903 had sharply reduced the German military presence in the north, the united Ovaherero and Mbanderu opened hostilities in January 1904 with the slaying of 123 whites. The Herero retained the military advantage through May, but they were finally defeated in August at the Battle of Waterberg and driven with their women, children, and cattle into the waterless wastes of the Omaheke Desert, the western extension of the Kalahari. Having occupied all the waterholes on the German side of the desert, the genocidal Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha refused to allow even women and children to approach, thereby condemning tens of thousands of Herero to death by thirst.9 While this crime

8 Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:28–29, 45–46, 50–52, 89–102, 110. Bley, South-West Africa, xxi–xxii, 16–27, 50–62, 128. Esterhuyse, South West Africa, 2–4, 104–5, 124–25, 127–28, 132–33, 135–138. W.D. Smith, German Colonial Empire, 53–58. Bühler, Namaaufstand, 54–55, 59–61. George Steinmetz, The Devil’s Handwriting: Precoloniality and the German Colonial State in Qingdao, Samoa, and Southwest Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 179–90. South- West Africa Administrator’s Office, Report on the Natives of South-West Africa and Their Treatment by Germany, Cd. 9146 (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1918), 42–46. Weule, “Völkerkarte,” in Kolonialreich, ed. Meyer, 2:298–99 unnumbered. Commissioner Göring’s son Hermann Göring (1893–1946) would become Adolf Hitler’s ally and Reich minister of the air force. 9 Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:127, 131–71. Bley, South-West Africa, 86, 91–98, 132–50, 152–54, 163–69, 175–78. W.D. Smith, German Colonial Empire, 63–65. Bühler, Namaaufstand, 101–46. Steinmetz, Devil’s Handwriting, 190–202. South-West Africa Administrator’s Office, Report on the Natives, 46–67. 60 CHAPTER 3 The German Colonies 61 Southwest Africa Southwest Eine Deutsche Kolonialreich: in Das Deutsch-Südwestafrika,” von “Säugetierverbreitungsgebiete Matschie, Paul Source: 1910), 2:298–99 n.p. Hans Meyer (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, Länderkunde der deutschen Schutzgebiete , ed. permission of the publisher. by with modifications Reproduced 1910 © Bibliographisches Institut, MAP 1 62 CHAPTER 3 attracted scant Centrist attention in Germany, it will be shown that the fiscal burden imposed by the Herero Uprising forced the Center to take African grievances more seriously, an attitude that then aggravated the party’s relations with Berlin in the burgeoning colonial crisis.10 Less numerous at just twenty thousand, the likewise pastoral Nama had clashed with the Herero throughout the nineteenth century for control of precious pastures roughly along the Windhoek-Gobabis axis. Known to the world until relatively recently by the disparaging Boer epithet ‘Hottentots,’ the Nama began spreading themselves across the habitable portions of the southern half of what became Southwest Africa no later than the seventeenth century. Their numbers were meanwhile periodically reinforced over the next two hundred years by the subsequent immigration of Nama clans crossing the Oranje River to escape Boer and British domination. These later arrivals known as the Orlam brought with them Protestant Christianity and extensive experience in the use of modern breech-loading rifles as a result of prior cooperation with Boer farmers or the Cape authorities.11 Nearly all of the Nama clans engaged in military resistance against the German colonial regime at some point between 1893 and 1906, and the general uprising the Nama launched in 1904 had particularly dramatic consequences for the Reich. The strongest of the thirteen clans, the Witboois (|Khowesin) were based around Gibeon and Rietmont on the Great Fish River and at Hoornkrans west of Rehoboth. By the 1880s their captain Hendrik Witbooi (!Nanseb gaib |Gâbemab) had risen to preside over a loose Nama federation that waged war against the Herero until 1892. As Witbooi was unwilling to accept Reich ‘protection,’ the territorial commander (Landeshauptmann) Captain Kurt von François opened hostilities against the Witboois in April 1893 with a pre- dawn assault at Hoornkrans that cost the lives of seventy-eight women and children. News of the massacre and the effectiveness of Witbooi’s retaliatory raids then inspired hundreds of Nama warriors from other clans to join his campaign against the invaders. Only after the Battle of Naukluft of September 1894 did Witbooi finally surrender conditionally to François’s successor, Major Theodor Leutwein. Under the terms of the peace, the Nama captain accepted German ‘protection’ and forfeited Hoornkrans, but the Witboois retained both their weapons and their rights to Gibeon and its environs. The following year

10 On the impact of the Herero Uprising upon government-Center relations in Berlin, see chapters 9 to 11. 11 Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:28–29. Bley, South-West Africa, xxii–xxiii. Esterhuyse, South West Africa, 3. Bühler, Namaaufstand, 15, 17–21. The epithet ‘Hottentot’ mocks the characteristic consonantal clicks of the Nama language, Khoekhoegowab. The German Colonies 63

Witbooi even pledged to provide the Germans with a fighting contingent to assist with the suppression of unrest among other populations, a commitment he kept faithfully up through mid-1904.12 German provocations meanwhile spurred uprisings in turn by the Khaua (Kai|khauan) Nama in the east and the Swartbooi (‖ Khau | gôan) Nama in the northwest. The Khaua of Gobabis endured two major affronts in 1894. When in March their captain Andreas Lambert (!Nanib) preferred flight over a treaty of ‘protection,’ Leutwein executed him on dubious murder charges, installed his reluctant brother Eduard Lambert, and extracted the desired treaty from the new captain. Six months later, Field Cornet Henrik and two other members of an unarmed Khaua delegation were slain at Aais when the German station chief Sergeant Bohr attempted to arrest his guest. As the surviving delegates had driven off the station’s horses, a joint German-Witbooi punitive expedition the following January compelled the Khaua to forfeit Gobabis and resettle to Witbooi country. Not surprisingly, Eduard Lambert and those Khaua who eluded resettlement joined their Herero neighbors in the Mbanderu Uprising of 1896. In the wake of this unsuccessful campaign, the Khaua were then perma- nently resettled to forced labor camps near the German capital at Windhoek.13 In a similar case involving the Swartboois (‖ Khau | gôan) at Fransfontein, the German district official at Outjo, Captain Ludwig von Estorff, deposed and imprisoned Captain David Swartbooi (!Hanamûb !Âbemab) in May 1897 in favor of his cousin and accuser Lazarus (!Kharab !Hanamûmab). Since the clan majority rejected Lazarus Swartbooi’s authority, Estorff found occasion in December to declare the Swartboois in rebellion against Germany. Led by David Swartbooi’s brother Samuel, the ensuing Swartbooi Uprising of 1897/98 was also joined by the Topnaar (!Gomen) Nama of Sesfontein under Captain Jan Uichamab (Aniba|=khami |Uixamab) and a small segment of the Ovaherero under Chief Kambatta. Although in the aftermath the more inaccessible Topnaars managed to retain claims to Sesfontein, the Swartboois and their Herero allies faced the same fate as the Khaua—namely, permanent removal from their lands and indefinite internment in forced labor camps engaged

12 Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:70–78, 80–87, 107, 110. Bley, South-West Africa, 3–4, 27–38, 42–43, 128. Bühler, Namaaufstand, 49–52, 61–69, 71–73. Steinmetz, Devil’s Handwriting, 146–68. Dierks, “Data Base of Namibian Biographies.” 13 Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:78–79, 86–87, 99, 102–3. Bley, South-West Africa, 8–13, 34, 41, 60–61. Bühler, Namaaufstand, 69–70. South-West Africa Administrator’s Office, Report on the Natives, 79–82. Dierks, “Data Base of Namibian Biographies.” 64 CHAPTER 3 in railroad construction.14 It was the persistence in peacetime of these labor camps for Khaua and Swartbooi prisoners that the moderate Center populist Richard Müller-Fulda would then indict in early 1901 as tantamount to government slaveholding.15 Meanwhile, far to the south in the vicinity of Warmbad, Captain Wilhelm Christian (|=Nao Xab Xau‖ômab) of the Bondelswart (!Gami |=nûn) Nama had imprudently committed in 1889 to the incremental sale of nearly 44,000 square kilometers of land to the Kharaskhoma Syndicate. As the syndicate’s recurring confiscations of the best parcels of land incensed the Bondelswarts, Christian required Leutwein’s intervention in 1895 to retain captaincy of the clan. After Jan Abraham Christian (!Nanseb Kaib |=Naoxamab) succeeded his father as captain in 1901, German intrusions and abuses only multiplied. These culminated in October 1903 with an attempt by the district official at Warmbad, Lieutenant Walter Jobst, to intervene in the jurisdiction of the new captain. Although the German-Bondelswart treaty of 1890 reserved to Christian final authority in disputes not involving whites, Jobst claimed the right to overturn a judgment and summon the captain in the matter. When Christian did not comply with the summons, Jobst insisted on having the captain arrested, and both men were shot dead in the resulting skirmish. Led by the slain captain’s brother Johannes Christian (!Nanseb |=Khami |=Naoxamab), the ensuing Bondelswart Uprising drew hundreds of German troops out of Herero country southward to the inaccessible lands between the Karas Mountains and the Oranje River. The outbreak of the Herero Uprising in January 1904 then forced Governor Leutwein to conclude a treaty with the Bondelswarts at Kalkfontein, stipulating their disarmament and some loss of territory but otherwise allowing them to remain in their homeland under Johannes Christian’s continued leadership.16 As for the Witboois (|Khowesin), a decade of consistent military support for the government had done little to protect them from intrusions and abuses by German traders and settlers. Moreover, even before the full suppression

14 Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:108–11. Bley, South-West Africa, 132. South-West Africa Admin istrator’s Office, Report on the Natives, 86–89. Dierks, “Data Base of Namibian Biographies.” 15 See chapter 7. 16 Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:87–89, 115–19. Bley, South-West Africa, 132–33, 152–53. Bühler, Namaaufstand, 97–100. Dierks, “Data Base of Namibian Biographies.” South- West Africa Administrator’s Office, Report on the Natives, 90–94. Großer Generalstab, Kriegsgeschichtliche Abteilung, Die Kämpfe der deutschen Schutztruppe in Südwestafrika (Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler und Sohn, 1907), 2:1–2. The Bondelswart agreement with the Kharaskhoma Syndicate stipulated the sale of 512 farms of 10,000 Cape morgen each. 5.12 million Cape morgen = 4.39 million hectares = 43,900 square kilometers. For the Centrist critique of Jobst in the Reichstag, see chapter 10. The German Colonies 65 of the Herero, numerous Germans were arguing openly for the extension of disarmament measures to the Nama. Recognizing that Windhoek’s commitment to the German-Witbooi treaty was swiftly evaporating, Hendrik Witbooi (!Nanseb gaib |Gâbemab) issued the call in October 1904 for a general Nama uprising. Joining the Witboois in waging war on the Germans were the Fransmans (!Kharakaikhoen) of Gochas under Simon Kopper (!Gomxab), the Red Nation (Kai‖khaun) of Hoachanas under Manasse Noreseb (!Noreseb Gamab), the Velskoendragers (‖Haboben) of Koes under Hans Hendrik (!Hao- khom gaib !Nanimab), and about two-thirds of the Bethanians (!Âman) under Cornelius Fredericks. Meanwhile, three months before Witbooi’s call to arms, about sixty primarily Bondelswart fugitives under Jakob Morenga had already resumed attacks upon the Germans in the vicinity of Schambok Mountain. Morenga’s successes soon drew to his banner dozens of additional fighters, but at Warmbad the Bondelswart captain Johannes Christian and his men were taken into preemptive custody in October before he could answer Witbooi’s call. However, the erroneous release of Christian and his men in April 1905 finally enabled them to join the uprising just as Lieutenant General von Trotha was initiating policies against the Nama only moderately less draconian than those applied against the Herero.17 Even at the peak of the uprising, the Nama as a whole scarcely exceeded two thousand fighters, but their mastery of guerrilla warfare in arid and forbidding terrain placed the Germans in a quandary. Given the elusiveness and tenacity of the Nama and the inaccessibility of their homeland, suppression of the uprising entailed deployment by early 1906 of over fourteen thousand German troops whose supply lines extended over hundreds of kilometers of mountains and deserts. With hundreds of millions of marks pouring into the campaign, Centrist patience wore thin when subsequent proposed troop reductions appeared incommensurately modest relative to Witbooi’s death and a run of key Nama capitulations. As will be seen, increased Centrist skepticism of the dimensions of the remaining Nama threat then clashed fiercely with the continued military wariness of Bondelswart capabilities in particular, thereby

17 Bühler, Namaaufstand, 157–88, 199–217, 243–44, 247. Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:171–220. Bley, South-West Africa, 41–43, 114–16, 128, 144, 150. Steinmetz, Devil’s Handwriting, 169–79. Dierks, “Data Base of Namibian Biographies.” South-West Africa Administrator’s Office, Report on the Natives, 94–98. Großer Generalstab, Kämpfe der Schutztruppe, 2:2–3, 5–12, 15–16, 107, 118, 186. Haacke and Eiseb, Khoekhoegowab-English Glossary. For Matthias Erzberger’s defense of Lieutenant General von Trotha against socialist criticism of his April 1905 proclamation to the Nama, see chapter 9. 66 CHAPTER 3 contributing substantially to the Reichstag dissolution of December 1906 and the ensuing ‘Hottentot elections.’18

Togo

Founded in July 1884 on a narrow fifty-kilometer West African coastline between competing British and French interests, the German colony of Togo ultimately acquired a hinterland extending some 560 kilometers north by northwest, including not only present-day Togo but also a slice of Ghana east of the Volta River. The smallest of Germany’s African colonies at 87,000 square kilometers, it was also the most densely populated with about 940,000 inhabitants in 1909, or 10.8 per square kilometer, a density that was still only a fraction of that of the German Reich.19 Possessing no major river delta of its own, this arbitrary slice of West Africa was bisected from southwest to northeast by a largely continuous range of mountains. Northwest of this range commerce gravitated toward the Volta basin dominated by the British while in eastern Togo much trade flowed along the Mono River that emptied by Grand Popo in French-occupied Dahomey (Benin). Given these geographic disadvantages, German economic policy in Togo was geared toward steering trade toward its narrow coast through tariff inducements, control of the mountain pass at Misahöhe, and railroad construction.20 While Togo was soon designated Germany’s ‘model colony’ thanks to an artificially balanced budget and the absence of costly uprisings, Togolese resistance to German occupation was far from negligible. The colony’s reputation for tranquility arose not only from the fact that some privately-funded military campaigns never burdened the colonial budget, but also from the frequency with which the colonial regime disguised its military ventures as mere scientific expeditions in order to tap the resources of the Africa Fund. The use of

18 For a fuller discussion of these issues and their impact upon government-Center relations in Berlin, see chapters 9 to 11 of this work. 19 Meyer, Kolonialreich, 2:60. Peter Sebald, Togo 1884–1914: Eine Geschichte der deutschen “Musterkolonie” auf der Grundlage amtlicher Quellen (Berlin (O): Akademie-Verlag, 1988), 2, 153. Sebald, “Togo 1884–1900,” in Drang nach Afrika, ed. Stoecker, 75–77, 83. Arthur J. Knoll, Togo Under Imperial Germany, 1884–1914: A Case Study in Colonial Rule (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1978), 18–21. 20 Knoll, Togo Under Imperial Germany, 32–36, 51–53. Sebald, Togo, 2–3, 81–82, 85, 87, 89, 108, 115–17, 330–31. Sebald, “Togo 1884–1900,” in Drang nach Afrika, ed. Stoecker, 78, 80, 82–83. Sebald, “Togo 1900–1914,” in ibid., 154. The German Colonies 67 a paramilitary police force in Togo, rather than a colonial army, also helped obscure the violence and keep expenditures down.21 Togolese military resistance peaked between the years 1894 and 1900. In the mid-1890s, for example, the German administration responded to resistance among the Ewe at Kpandu and the Ga at Agotime by launching punitive campaigns, razing the towns, and confiscating property. Likewise, the Tove inter- rupted the caravan trade between Lome and Misahöhe for several weeks in 1895 until the Germans retaliated with a massacre and the destruction of villages, farms, and the local pottery industry. In 1896 the Dagomba ruler Andani II refused the Germans passage north through his territory in the aftermath of their burning of his neighbor’s capital at Salaga. Defeated at the Battle of Adibo in late 1896, the Dagomba could not prevent the destruction of their own capital at Yendi but still retained control of the road to Sansanne Mangu until the following year. The Konkomba to the northeast likewise rose in arms in 1896, thwarting German penetration of their territory until a larger punitive expedition of late 1897 to 1898 ravaged their land. Altogether, the Germans deemed it necessary to launch thirty-six such military expeditions against the Togolese between 1895 and 1900, engaging in over fifty battles and destroying numerous towns.22 In the years after 1900, however, Togolese civil resistance predominated and ultimately proved more consequential for Germans at home in the Reich than had the military conflicts. Thanks to Togo’s small size, resistance through emigration to British or French territory rendered population loss a matter of constant concern to the colonial regime. Togolese petitions to the government constituted a more overt reaction to the accumulation of grievances. For example, the Ho of southwestern Togo submitted an extensive petition to Lome in April 1901 complaining of excessive labor demands and the prohibition of their traditional slash-and-burn cultivation techniques.23 In another case of civil protest, the Ewe chieftains near Mount Agu claimed that they had been swindled in 1897 into selling 450 square kilometers to Friedrich Hupfeld,

21 Knoll, Togo Under Imperial Germany, 29–31, 36–40, 42–43. Sebald, Togo, 78–80, 82–89, 153–57, 161, 184, 279. Sebald, “Togo 1884–1900,” 77–78, 80–82. Sebald, “Togo 1900–1914,” 152–53. 22 D.E.K. Amenumey, “German Administration in Southern Togo,” Journal of African History 10, no. 4 (1969): 625. Sebald, Togo, 153–204. Sebald, “Togo 1884–1900,” 82–83. Andrew Zimmerman, Alabama in Africa: Booker T. Washington, the German Empire and the Globalization of the New South (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 131–32. Knoll, Togo Under Imperial Germany, 38–39. 23 Knoll, Togo Under Imperial Germany, 55–56. Amenumey, “German Administration,” 636–38. Sebald, Togo, 212–13. Sebald, “Togo 1900–1914,” 152, 160. 68 CHAPTER 3 The German Colonies 69 Togo Eine Länderkunde der deutschen Deutsche Kolonialreich: Das Hans Meyer, ed., Source: 1910), 2:127–28 n.p. Schutzgebiete (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, permission of the publisher. Reprinted by 1910 © Bibliographisches Institut, MAP 2 70 CHAPTER 3 agent of the wealthy industrialist Hugo Sholto Graf von Douglas. By 1902 the Ewe position had garnered the support not only of Protestant missionaries, but also of small traders threatened by Hupfeld’s imposing new Deutsche Togo Gesellschaft. In 1904 this controversy then reached the Reichstag, contributing to the initial phases of the German colonial crisis.24 Far more critical for this study, however, Anago and Dahomey civil appeals in 1902 and 1903 against the brutal and licentious regime of District Official Geo Schmidt in Atakpame precipitated the bitter ‘Kulturkampf in Togo’ between a clique of anticlerical colonial officials and the German Catholic missionaries of the Societas Verbi Divini (SVD). The consequences of this clash between church and state in Togo reverberated for years out of the public eye until its revelation proved to be a critical factor in the explosion of the parliamentary crisis in December 1906.25

Kamerun

Claimed by the Reich in July 1884 on the basis of treaties with the Duala and other coastal peoples, the colony of Kamerun in West Africa had acquired borders a decade later that included present-day Cameroon, a long slice of eastern Nigeria northeast of the Donga River, and a small section of present-day Chad between the lower reaches of the Logone and Chari Rivers. With about 2.7 million people in 1908 and an area of around 498,000 square kilometers, Kamerun was second only to East Africa in population and third in area among Germany’s colonial possessions. However, with about 5.4 inhabitants per square kilometer, its population density was only half that of Togo.26 From 1894 until 1911 the borders of Kamerun resembled an imperfect right triangle facing northwest with its perpendicular legs corresponding approximately to 2º latitude North and 15º longitude East. The hypotenuse of this triangle ran northeast from the Bight of Biafra (Bonny) to Lake Chad, some distance northwest of a range of highlands that extended from the coast, through the Bamenda Highlands, to the northern reaches of Adamaua. Consequently,

24 See chapter 9. See also A. Ahadji, Les plantations allemandes du Mont Agou (1884–1914) (Lome: Université du Benin, Institut national des sciences de l’éducation, 1983), 26–43. Sebald, Togo, 363–71, 377–81. Sebald, “Togo 1900–1914,” 155–56. Horst Gründer, Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2004), 133–34. Amenumey, “German Administration,” 633. 25 See chapter 9, and succeeding chapters, passim. Knoll, Togo Under Imperial Germany, 56–60. 26 Meyer, ed., Kolonialreich, 1:510. The German Colonies 71 the streams of north central and western Kamerun flowed not southwest through German-claimed territory, but rather northwest into British Nigeria as components of the Benue and Cross river systems. Likewise, the heavily forested lowlands of southeastern Kamerun fed their waters not westward to the German coast, but southeastward into the Congo River basin occupied by the French and the Belgians. In both cases, the river systems flowing into the jurisdictions of rival colonial powers could be readily ascended whereas the Njong, Sanaga, and Wuri (Cameroon) Rivers that did empty along the German coast were navigable upstream for only a few miles. Moreover, these latter rivers passed through dense jungle in their lower reaches, and the coastal populations jealously guarded the passable routes in order to preserve their monopoly as middlemen in the profitable rubber and ivory trades.27 Due to the immediate threat posed to the commercial livelihood of African middlemen, German efforts at penetration into Kamerun’s hinterland frequently met with vigorous resistance, a trend only aggravated by the colonial regime’s subsequent voracious appetite for laborers and porters. In most cases this resistance took military form, but there were exceptions among some groups, most notably the Duala of the Wuri estuary. Unlike most Africans in Kamerun, the Duala possessed some familiarity with Western political norms thanks to centuries of trade with Europeans. Therefore, apart from the 1884 December Uprising of the more Anglophile Bonaberi and Bonapriso clans against their Germanophile king Ndumbe Bell, the Duala typically resorted not to violence, but to petitions to various German authorities. Thus, in 1892 the Duala elite submitted a list of grievances to Governor Eugen von Zimmerer concerning the loss of their trade monopoly as well as protesting official disrespect and brutality.28 A decade later, the two Duala kings Manga Bell of the Bonadoo and Dika Akwa of the Bonambela each sent a delegation to Berlin to appeal to the Kaiser and Colonial Department against the arbitrariness

27 Harry R. Rudin, Germans in the Cameroons, 1884–1914: A Case Study in Modern Imperialism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1938), 76–78, 92–93, 102–9. Neville Rubin, Cameroun: An African Federation (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971), 4–7. Tambi Eyongetah and Robert Brain, A History of the Cameroon (London: Longman, 1974), 1–6, 66. 28 Andreas Eckert, Die Duala und die Kolonialmächte: Eine Untersuchung zu Widerstand, Protest und Protonationalismus in Kamerun vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg (Münster: Lit, 1991), 121–29. Hans-Peter Jaeck, “Die deutsche Annexion,” in Kamerun unter deutscher Kolonialherrschaft: Studien, ed. Helmuth Stoecker (Berlin (O): Rütten & Loening, 1960), 1:36–37, 71–77. Adolf Rüger, “Die Duala und die Kolonialmacht 1884–1914: Eine Studie über die historischen Ursprünge des afrikanischen Antikolonialismus,” in Kamerun unter deutscher Kolonialherrschaft: Studien, ed. Helmuth Stoecker (Berlin (O): VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1968), 2:181–201. Smith, German Colonial Empire, 79–80. 72 CHAPTER 3 The German Colonies 73 Kamerun Eine Länderkunde der Deutsche Kolonialreich: in Das Kamerun,” von “Säugetierverbreitungsgebiete Matschie, Paul Source: 1909), 1:635–36 n.p. Hans Meyer (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, deutschen Schutzgebiete , ed. permission of the publisher. by with modifications Reproduced 1909 © Bibliographisches Institut, MAP 3 74 CHAPTER 3 and brutality of the German officials under Governor Jesko von Puttkamer.29 Finally, in 1905 the Bonambela Duala submitted a still more emphatic petition to the Reichstag requesting the recall from Kamerun of Puttkamer’s entire regime, thereby contributing substantially to the German colonial crisis central to this work.30 Otherwise, the best-known instances of resistance in Kamerun took the form of military confrontation. Since the coastal peoples were thwarting German penetration inland even as the British and French each pressed their claims toward Lake Chad, the Colonial Department secured the Reichstag’s reluctant authorization of a larger expedition into Kamerun’s interior in early 1891, justified partly on the grounds that its success would undermine the slave trade. With a portion of these resources Captain Karl Freiherr von Gravenreuth purchased several hundred slaves from King Behanzin of Dahomey in June, ‘emancipating’ them in exchange for a five-year contract of unpaid service in Kamerun as either laborers or armed police.31 Gravenreuth himself was slain scant months later on Mount Cameroon during a November expedition against the Kpe (Bakweri) led by Kuva Likenye. Although the immediate German retaliation succeeded in recovering Gravenreuth’s head, the Kpe were not subjugated until a second expedition in 1894, whereupon their land was seized and labor used for the construction of Kamerun’s future capital Buea on the temperate mountain slopes.32 Meanwhile, to the south the Bakoko Basa had been continuously foiling German penetration along the Sanaga until 1892 when Probationary Judge Karl Wehlan led the Dahomey police troops against the Bakoko Basa and Mabea. However, while on this lengthy campaign, Wehlan ordered the burning of numerous villages, the massacre of women and

29 Eckert, Duala und Kolonialmächte, 136–44. 30 See chapter 10. 31 Rudin, Germans in the Cameroons, 77–86, 192–93. Adolf Rüger, “Der Aufstand der Polizeisoldaten (Dezember 1893),” in Kamerun unter deutscher Kolonialherrschaft, ed. Stoecker, 1:103–11. Elizabeth M. Chilver, “Paramountcy and Protection in the Cameroons: The Bali and the Germans, 1889–1913,” in Britain and Germany in Africa: Imperial Rivalry and Colonial Rule, ed. Prosser Gifford and William Roger Louis (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), 486–87. Edwin Ardener, Kingdom on Mount Cameroon: Studies in the History of the Cameroon Coast, 1500–1970, ed. Shirley Ardener (Providence: Berghahn Books, 1996), 80, 89. Eckert, Duala und Kolonialmächte, 131. Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 59. 32 Ardener, Kingdom, 80–150. Rudin, Germans in the Cameroons, 86, 193. Rubin, Cameroun, 31, 36. Eyongetah and Brain, History of the Cameroon, 74. Smith, German Colonial Empire, 79. The German Colonies 75 children, and the mutilation of prisoners to death, atrocities that would soon gain him notoriety in Germany.33 Soon thereafter in December 1893 much of the Dahomey police force itself rose up against the regime of Chancellor Karl Theodor Heinrich Leist, then acting governor of Kamerun at Duala. Unpaid and poorly provisioned, the experienced Dahomey troops resented both the wages of their Beti trainees and their own subjection to floggings for minor transgressions. The same harsh discipline applied to the Dahomey women who endured not only forced labor without remuneration, but also regular sexual abuse by Leist and other German officials. Assisted by a Duala interpreter, the Dahomey under their leader Mamadu had submitted a petition in March requesting wages and improved rations, but instead Leist had simply deepened the crisis by cutting the latter. Nine months later, the purported indolence of some twenty Dahomey women so infuriated Leist that he ordered them publicly stripped and flogged in front of their men. That evening about one hundred armed men and women under Mamadu stormed the government building in Duala and forced all the Germans to retreat to their boats. While the Germans soon regained the upper hand and Leist proceeded to hang the men who participated, even the temporary loss of German authority in Kamerun focused domestic attention upon the circumstances of the Dahomey Uprising. As the details emerged, accounts of the atrocities perpetrated by Leist and Wehlan appalled the German public, and in early 1895 these appeared for a time to threaten the government’s efforts to secure Reichstag approval of the creation of a more professional military force for the colony.34 Although reaching beyond the coast by the 1890s, German attempts to penetrate to the commercial wealth of Adamaua were still encountering stiff resistance. The route to the north through Kamerun’s Bamenda Highlands was thwarted in January 1891 when Bafut and Mankon (Bandeng) forces over- whelmed the Germans and their Bali allies. Four of the five German officers perished, and the results of the devastating Battle of Mankon were not overturned

33 Adolf Rüger, “Der Aufstand der Polizeisoldaten (Dezember 1893),” in Kamerun unter deutscher Kolonialherrschaft, ed. Stoecker, 1:144–45. Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 59–60. Rudin, Germans in the Cameroons, 212. 34 Rüger, “Aufstand der Polizeisoldaten,” in Kamerun unter deutscher Kolonialherrschaft, ed. Stoecker, 1:106–47. Eckert, Duala und Kolonialmächte, 130–35. Rudin, Germans in the Cameroons, 193–94, 210–12. Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 60. Frederick E. Quinn, “Rain Forest Encounters: The Beti Meet the Germans, 1887–1916,” in Introduction to the History of Cameroon: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, ed. Martin Njeuma (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990), 92. 76 CHAPTER 3 until a particularly brutal punitive campaign of 1901 led by Lieutenant Colonel Kurt von Pavel.35 Meanwhile along the southern route via Jaunde, caravans were continuously subject to Beti raids, and the Bulu resolve to maintain their trade monopoly on the Njong east of Kribi proved particularly fierce.36 Only with British logistical cooperation in 1893 was a German expedition able to reach Adamaua via the Benue, thereupon conquering the Fulani state of Bubandjidda. By the end of 1898, however, Captain Oltwig von Kamptz considered southwestern Kamerun secure and launched a major expedition from Jaunde, leading the bulk of the colony’s professional troops north to Adamaua to subjugate the Fulani state Tibati and depose its ruler. Taking advantage of this prolonged German military absence, however, the Bulu surged to the coast in September 1899 and destroyed much of Kribi, initiating an uprising that continued to cost lives and disrupt trade in Kamerun into 1901. As the Bulu Uprising then drew many colonial troops back to the south, the Fulani of Tibati rebelled in turn in early 1900 against the puppet the Germans had installed. As vassals of the Emir Zubairu of Yola, most Fulani princes refused to acknowledge German suzerainty until the successful Adamaua campaign of 1901 to 1902 led by Pavel and Lieutenant Hans Dominik, an officer subsequently accused in the Reichstag of encouraging the mutilation of the enemy dead.37 In the late 1890s the Germans were also attempting to establish their authority in the forests of southeastern Kamerun where the Belgians, Dutch, and French were already harvesting an abundance of rubber and ivory without paying export duties. In response, the Germans not only established a border presence on the Dja (Ngoko) River, but also granted a monopolistic trade and development concession covering nearly 82,000 square kilometers to the newly established Gesellschaft Südkamerun (GSK) in 1898. Under the terms of this concession of one-sixth of the colony, all land that was not currently

35 Chilver, “Paramountcy and Protection,” in Britain and Germany in Africa, ed. Gifford and Louis, 485–86. Elizabeth M. Chilver, Zintgraff’s Explorations in Bamenda, Adamaua and the Benue Lands, 1889–1892 (Buea, Cameroon: Langaa RPCIG, 1966; reprint, Oxford, 1996), vii–viii, 52–56. Eyongetah and Brain, History of the Cameroon, 68–70, 73–74. Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 62, 65. 36 Quinn, “Rain Forest Encounters,” 89. Frederick E. Quinn, In Search of Salt: Changes in Beti (Cameroon) Society, 1880–1960 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2006), 17, 46–49. Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 61. 37 Rudin, Germans in the Cameroons, 87, 91, 95, 110–11. Eyongetah and Brain, History of the Cameroon, 68, 70–71, 73–74, 77. Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 61–65. Rubin, Cameroun, 32. Bruno Ablaß, December 15, 1905, Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Deutschen Reichstags (RTSB), 347B. August Bebel, December 1, 1906, RTSB, 4067C/D. Bebel, December 4, 1906, RTSB, 4139C. The German Colonies 77 under cultivation was declared company property, a provision that the GSK likewise interpreted as ownership of all the rubber and ivory present within the vast region. The following year the new Gesellschaft Nordwest-Kamerun (GNK) received a comparable concession encompassing another 80,000 square kilometers in the Cross River basin, the Bamenda Highlands, and southern Adamaua.38 Having granted these enormous land tracts for corporate exploitation, the colonial regime proceeded to launch harsh military campaigns into those areas in order to establish the state authority requisite for such private development. Determined to maintain their rubber trade monopoly, however, the peoples of the Cross River basin put up substantial resistance to official and GNK penetration, opposition that culminated in the Anyang Uprising of 1904. When Chief Mpawmanku of Bachama decimated a German punitive expedition from Ossidinge in January, the triumph inspired not only the Anyang, but also the Banjang, Boki, and Ekoi (Ejagham) to overrun German positions throughout the Cross valley.39 Similarly, as colonial troops were relocated from southern Kamerun to the Cross valley in the northwest, sporadic attacks upon GSK agents in the Njong and Dja valleys in late 1904 grew within months into a multiethnic uprising across the south, including the Ndsimu, Bombassa, Kunabembe, Njem, Maka, Esso, Jebekolle, and Bulu.40 Like the Reichstag petition of the Bonambela Duala of 1905, these two separate major uprisings in Kamerun also exacerbated the German colonial crisis at the core of the present study.

38 Jolanda Ballhaus, “Die Landkonzessionsgesellschaften,” in Kamerun unter deutscher Kolonialherrschaft, ed. Stoecker, 2:130–73. Rudin, Germans in the Cameroons, 92–94. Eyongetah and Brain, History of the Cameroon, 81–82, 85. Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 61, 68–69. 39 Ballhaus, “Landkonzessionsgesellschaften,” in Kamerun unter deutscher Kolonialherrschaft, ed. Stoecker, 2:150–61. Wilson Ebi Ebai, “The Anyang and the Mpawmanku Wars, 1904– 1906,” in La politique de la mémoire en Allemagne et au Cameroun / The Politics of Colonial Memory in Germany and Cameroon: Actes du colloque à Yaoundé, octobre 2003 / Proceedings of a Conference in Yaoundé, October 2003, ed. Stefanie Michels and Albert-Pascal Temgoua (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2005), 59–74. Eyongetah and Brain, History of the Cameroon, 72–73. Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 61–62, 70, 73. 40 Rudi Kaeselitz, “Kolonialeroberung und Widerstandskampf in Südkamerun (1884–1907),” in Kamerun unter deutscher Kolonialherrschaft, ed. Stoecker, 2:46–54. Adolf Rüger, “Die Duala und die Kolonialmacht 1884–1914: Eine Studie über die historischen Ursprünge des afrikanischen Antikolonialismus,” in ibid., 2:201–2. Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 61–62, 70, 72. 78 CHAPTER 3

East Africa

Encompassing present-day mainland Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi, German East Africa was both the Reich’s largest colony and by far its most populous. However, with an estimated seven million inhabitants in 1908 occupying just under a million square kilometers, the colony’s population density was but a small fraction of that of the contemporary German Reich. Furthermore, since nearly half the colony’s population resided in the small kingdoms of Rwanda and Burundi in the remote mountainous northwest, population density in the remainder of German East Africa came to fewer than four persons per square kilometer.41 Such a sparse population would have been a welcome circumstance for potential German settlers had it not itself been a reflection of the generally unfavorable climate and soil conditions of most of the colony. Lying astride the wishbone-shaped fork of the Great Rift Valley fault system, the heart of German East Africa resembled “a bowl of a fairly harsh environment at the centre, surrounded by a series of better-watered and relatively more fertile areas along the broken rim.”42 In the extreme west of the colony, the area least accessible to the Germans, the southern and western branches of the Great Rift Valley had produced well-populated highlands along Lakes Nyassa, Tanganyika, and Kivu. Diverging from the western fault line at the northern tip of Lake Nyassa, the Eastern Rift had formed a northeasterly arc of highlands that swung steadily closer to the Indian Ocean before passing into British territory beyond Usambara and Mount Kilimanjaro. Somewhat less hospitable than its western counterpart, this eastern arc of uplands still offered more favorable conditions for human habitation than did the central plateau. Even so, no more than a fifth of the bowl’s entire rim received sufficient rainfall for dependable agriculture.43 As for the wide expanses between the arms of the rift system, only the shores of Lake Victoria-Nyanza in the north could reliably support farming. Otherwise, most of the arid central plateau offered sustenance for little more

41 Having stood at 7 million inhabitants in 1908, the official German East African population estimate was raised to 10 million in 1909 and then corrected downward again to 7.5 million in 1913. Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 161. Rainer Tetzlaff, Koloniale Entwicklung und Ausbeutung: Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte Deutsch-Ostafrikas 1885–1914 (Berlin (O): Duncker & Humblot, 1970), 16, 40, 193. 42 Abdul M.H. Sheriff, “Tanzanian Societies at the Time of Partition,” in Tanzania under Colonial Rule, ed. M.H.Y. Kaniki (London: Longman, 1980), 13. 43 Ibid. The German Colonies 79 than thorn bushes, grassland, and miombo groves, and all cultivation of the impoverished soil was short-term at best. Meanwhile, the tsetse fly infesting these regions threatened humans and cattle alike with deadly trypanosomiasis. These same hostile conditions also applied to most of the belt of the lower hinterlands that extended eastward from the Eastern Rift until the transition to the humid coastal zone some twenty to sixty kilometers from the ocean.44 Thanks to the reliable rhythm of the monsoons, the well-watered and populous coastal belt had been connected to the Indian Ocean trade for centuries, attracting Arab and Indian merchant immigrants whose intermingling with the local Africans had engendered the largely Muslim Afro-Arab cultural blend known as Swahili. However, the lack of navigable rivers into the hinterland meant that any trade between the inland peoples and the Arab-dominated Swahili coast was entirely dependent upon the passage of costly caravans through very forbidding territory.45 This limitation impeded significant commercial interaction across the thornbush belt until Arab and Swahili profits soared with the northward expansion of the French slave trade in the 1770s and the ensuing nineteenth-century explosion of world demand for Central and East African ivory and Zanzibari cloves. As both the conveyance of ivory to the coast and the plantation cultivation of cloves involved extensive slave labor, the East African hinterlands endured a century of voracious Arab and African slavetrading under the loose commercial hegemony of the Omani sultan of Zanzibar and a cohort of Indian investment houses. The resulting depopula- tion and disruption in the interior were meanwhile compounded by the cas- cade of intertribal wars following the Ngoni invasion of the southern highlands in the 1840s and by the incessant Masai raids in the northeast.46

44 Ibid. John Hatch, Tanzania: A Profile (New York: Praeger, 1972), 4–9, 11–12. 45 Sheriff, “Tanzanian Societies at Partition,” 36–38. David Arnold, “External Factors in the Partition of East Africa,” in Tanzania under Colonial Rule, ed. Kaniki, 52. Hatch, Tanzania, 4–9, 11–12. John Iliffe, Tanganyika under German Rule, 1905–1912 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 12–13. Tetzlaff, Koloniale Entwicklung, 12, 19, 63. Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 84–85. 46 Tetzlaff, Koloniale Entwicklung, 12–17, 21. Hatch, Tanzania, 6–8, 48–50. Sheriff, “Tanzanian Societies at Partition,” 31–35, 38–48. Arnold, “External Factors,” 52–54, 62–63. A.J. Temu, “Tanzanian Societies and Colonial Invasion, 1875–1907,” in Tanzania under Colonial Rule, ed. Kaniki, 86–87. Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 84–85. Iliffe, Tanganyika under German Rule, 12–13. W.D. Smith, German Colonial Empire, 92–93. Judith Listowel, The Making of Tanganyika (New York: London House & Maxwell, 1965), 11–12. Lorne Larson, “The Ngindo: Exploring the Center of the Maji Maji Rebellion,” in Maji Maji: Lifting the Fog of War, ed. James Giblin and Jamie Monson (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2010), 72–73. 80 CHAPTER 3 The German Colonies 81 East Africa (Leipzig: Eine Länderkunde der deutschen Schutzgebiete Deutsche Kolonialreich: Das Hans Meyer, ed., Source: 1910), 1:400–401 n.p. Bibliographisches Institut, permission of the publisher. Reprinted by 1909 © Bibliographisches Institut, MAP 4 82 CHAPTER 3

Despite the prevalence of such factors of disorder, resistance to German encroachment and occupation began soon after the 1886 Anglo- German partition of East Africa at Zanzibari expense. Based upon a set of dubious ‘protection treaties’ that the German adventurer Carl Peters had secured in 1884 from chieftains of Uzigua, Nguru, Usagara, and Ukami in the hinterland of Dar-es-Salaam, the Reich’s initial protectorate of 1885 was exercised indirectly through Peters’s Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Gesellschaft (DOAG) and included a continued recognition of a narrow ten-mile strip of Zanzibari sovereignty along the mainland coast.47 Unable to earn a profit from its inland acquisitions, however, a reorganized DOAG proceeded to overreach the terms of a coastal customs collection treaty it had extracted from Sultan Khalifa in early 1888. Angered by the rash of new DOAG taxes and a company bid for all undocumented property, large sectors of the coastal population rose up in arms that September in order to drive out the German intruders. Led by the Arab sugar plantation owner Abushiri ibn Salim al-Harthi of Pangani and the Zigua governor of Sadani, Bwana Heri, the Coastal Uprising of 1888–90 was supported not only by the Arab commercial elite and Swahili townsfolk, but also by the populations of Uzigua, Usagara, and parts of eastern Usambara in the north and by thousands of Yao and Mbunga warriors in the south. Nevertheless, Berlin hastened to characterize the war as an overwhelmingly Arab uprising in order that its suppression and the ensuing direct imperial annexation of the entire territory might more easily be justified to the Reichstag as vital for the suppression of the East African slave trade.48 Of the dozens of Afro-German confrontations that then erupted in the colony between 1891 and 1905, the following warrant particular mention for their persistence, extent, or notoriety. In the south-central highlands southwest of Usagara, Chief Mkwawa of the Hehe launched his long struggle against the Germans in September 1891 with the nearly complete annihilation of an expedition led by Captain Emil von Zelewski. Not until 1894 were the Germans able to take Mkwawa’s capital at Kalenga, and his continued guerrilla cam-

47 Arne Perras, Carl Peters and German Imperialism, 1856–1918: A Political Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 31–66. Tetzlaff, Koloniale Entwicklung, 25–26. Hatch, Tanzania, 72–75. Arnold, “External Factors,” 77–79. Temu, “Tanzanian Societies and Colonial Invasion,” 94–95. Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 85. Listowel, Making of Tanganyika, 14–17. 48 Tetzlaff, Koloniale Entwicklung, 26–32. Robert I. Rotberg, “Resistance and Rebellion in British Nyasaland and German East Africa, 1888–1915: A Tentative Comparison,” in Britain and Germany in Africa, ed. Gifford and Louis, 667–70. Temu, “Tanzanian Societies and Colonial Invasion,” 95–101, 104. Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 86–90. Iliffe, Tanganyika under German Rule, 13. Hatch, Tanzania, 76. The German Colonies 83 paign remained effective until 1898.49 Further north in the central plateau, the majority of the Nyamwezi under Isike of Unyanyembe had also fought bitterly against the Germans from 1892 to 1893 in order to maintain control of the main caravan route to both Lake Tanganyika and the southern shores of Lake Victoria-Nyanza.50 In the northeastern highlands, the Chagga of Kilimanjaro likewise presented an impressive but disunited front from 1891 to 1893 under Chiefs Sina of Kibosho and Meli of Moshi. Military conflict with the latter arose in part as a result of summary executions and reckless raids that Peters had committed during his brief term as imperial commissar at Kilimanjaro, actions for which the explorer would be called to account in the Reichstag in 1896.51 Similarly plagued by disunity, the Haya on the western shores of Lake Victoria-Nyanza offered frequent but uncoordinated resistance to the Germans throughout the 1890s under Chiefs Mutatembwa and Mutahangarwa of Kiziba, Kayoza of Bukoba, and Mukotani of Kiamutwara.52 Still further west, King Mwezi Gisabo of Burundi also repeatedly fought the German invaders from the late 1890s until he was finally compelled to accept Reich sovereignty in 1903.53 Closer to the coast, the imposition of the hut tax in 1898 unleashed a rash of uprisings that would catch the attention of the Hessian Centrist, Richard Müller-Fulda. In the southeast, these included Yao and Makonde defiance under the leadership of Machemba of Mikindani as well as a tax rebellion of the Matumbi, both in 1899.54 The following year, tax resistance on Mount Kilimanjaro coincided with unrest among the Masai and Arusha to the west. Convinced of the existence of a conspiracy, Captain Kurt Johannes responded

49 Rotberg, “Resistance and Rebellion,” 671–72. Iliffe, Tanganyika under German Rule, 17. Tetzlaff, Koloniale Entwicklung, 17, 37n6. Hatch, Tanzania, 20–21. Temu, “Tanzanian Societies and Colonial Invasion,” 103–5. Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 92–3. 50 Rotberg, “Resistance and Rebellion,” 671. Temu, “Tanzanian Societies and Colonial Invasion,” 105–6. Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 92, 94. Tetzlaff, Koloniale Entwicklung, 37n5. 51 Perras, Carl Peters, 185–230. Rotberg, “Resistance and Rebellion,” 671. Iliffe, Tanganyika under German Rule, 14–15, 157. W.D. Smith, German Colonial Empire, 95–96. Temu, “Tanzanian Societies and Colonial Invasion,” 102–3. Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 93–94. Tetzlaff, Koloniale Entwicklung, 37n5. 52 Temu, “Tanzanian Societies and Colonial Invasion,” 108–10. Iliffe, Tanganyika under German Rule, 171–73. 53 Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 95. 54 Iliffe, Tanganyika under German Rule, 17–18. Tetzlaff, Koloniale Entwicklung, 37n5. Hatch, Tanzania, 77. Temu, “Tanzanian Societies and Colonial Invasion,” 100. Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 97. 84 CHAPTER 3 by hanging nineteen Chagga chiefs and elders of Kibosho and Moshi.55 These events would form the basis of Müller-Fulda’s 1901 critique of the hut tax in the Budget Committee of the Reichstag.56 Most important for this study, however, the millenarian Maji Maji Uprising erupted in the southeast in July 1905 among the Matumbi and Ngindo over the imposition of forced labor on communal cotton fields and over heavy taxation, routine government brutality, and the excesses of ruthless rubber traders. Kinjikitile Ngwale ‘Bokero’ and his brother-in-law Ngameya, both Matumbi priests of the serpent spirit Kolelo, were the first to popularize the idea that the sacred water (maji) bestowed invulnerability to European bullets. Ngindo proselytization, however, proved most crucial under the charismatic and military leadership of Abdullah Mapanda and Omari Kinjalla. Within a few weeks, the Matumbi and Ngindo call to slay all foreigners had galvanized most of the peoples of the Rufiji, Kilombero, Matandu, and Lukuledi valleys, including the Zaramo, the Sagara, the Mbunga, the Pogoro, and numerous Makonde. Most importantly, Kinjalla approached the rival Ngoni chieftains Chabruma, Mputa, and Songea near Lake Nyassa and persuaded them to put aside their differences to cast their considerable military weight into the uprising. When the Bena at the northern end of the lake then joined the war in September, the movement had reached its maximum extent.57 While clearly of greatest moment for Tanzanian history, this Maji Maji Uprising in East Africa also had unforeseeably far-reaching consequences for German domestic politics as will be discussed in the concluding chapters of this work.58

Missions in West Africa

Since anticlerical suspicions during the Kulturkampf had early been directed against the Catholic missions active within Germany, the orders and societies prohibited in the Reich and its various states included houses that might have otherwise also trained and sent German Catholic missionaries overseas.

55 Iliffe, Tanganyika under German Rule, 157. Tetzlaff, Koloniale Entwicklung, 50. Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 97. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 221–22. 56 See chapter 7. 57 Rotberg, “Resistance and Rebellion,” 680–82. Iliffe, Tanganyika under German Rule, 18–26, 150–56. Temu, “Tanzanian Societies and Colonial Invasion,” 116–19. Listowel, Making of Tanganyika, 36–43. Tetzlaff, Koloniale Entwicklung, 37. Hatch, Tanzania, 79–80. Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 100–101. Giblin and Monson, eds., Maji Maji. 58 See chapters 9 to 11, passim. The German Colonies 85

As a result, fewer German Catholics became overseas missionaries in the 1870s and 1880s than might otherwise have been the case, and those with such a vocation necessarily pursued training outside of Germany and were absorbed into foreign, typically French, missions. This initial dearth of German Catholic missionaries created a dilemma for both Berlin and the Catholics. To promote the continuing de-escalation of the Kulturkampf, Bismarck needed to handle Catholic colonial missions on a par with the Protestant, yet he mistrusted their foreign leadership and members. On the other hand, the Catholic missionary orders and societies could not readily recruit and train adequate German personnel unless they were first admitted into the Reich itself. Fortunately for both parties, Roman Catholic and German national interests converged in quite a number of cases, facilitating the establishment of the preconditions necessary for a transition to a predominance of Germans among the Catholic missions in the Reich’s colonial empire. More by chance than design, the three West African colonies claimed by Bismarck in 1884 had had no sustained Roman Catholic missionary presence of any sort prior to the declaration of the German protectorate. Protestant missions, by contrast, had been proselytizing in each region for decades. Thus, in the sparsely populated territory which became Southwest Africa, Congregationalists of the London Missionary Society had been intermittently active since 1806 among the Bondelswart (!Gami=nûn| ), Bethanian (!Âman), and Afrikaner (‖Aixa‖aen) Nama until German Protestants of the Rhenish Mission Society relieved them in 1842. British Methodists had also gained influence among the Afrikaner Nama beginning in the 1820s while the Rhenish Mission initiated work among the Herero in 1844. The Orlam Nama in the south had in any case already had considerable prior cultural contact with Boer and English Protestants even before their northward migration from British-dominated territory in the early nineteenth century. The Protestants’ resulting headstart gave their creed just short of a monopoly in the subsequent German colony. Indeed, the colony’s founder Franz Adolf Lüderitz even attempted to make such a monopoly official via a private contract between his company and the Rhenish Mission Society pledging to exclude all Catholic missions.59 Not until 1888 did Southwest Africa receive its first Catholic missionaries when French Oblates of St. Francis de Sales crossed the Oranje from British territory in order to work among the Bondelswart Nama in the far south. As the Colonial Department objected to their French character, however, the

59 Gründer, Christliche Mission, 27, 51, 115–16. Esterhuyse, South West Africa, 8–9. Bley, South-West Africa, xxiii–xxiv. Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 24. Haacke and Eiseb, Khoekhoegowab-English Glossary. 86 CHAPTER 3

Salesian Oblates began training German-speaking missionaries at a new mission house in Vienna. In 1893 a second Catholic mission was established in the colony as the likewise ‘French’ but increasingly Dutch-German Oblates of Mary Immaculate received permission to work in the far northeast and among refugees from British Bechuanaland along the easternmost border.60 Still, the Catholic missionary effort remained on the geographic fringes of the colony during the period under consideration although the Salesian Oblate priest Johann Malinowski would prove instrumental in late 1906 in brokering the fatefully slow Bondelswart surrender at Heirachabis.61 While much less decisive for the religious affiliation of Togo’s largely animist population, English Methodists and Hanseatic North German Protestants had already secured footholds in that region by 1850, the former on the coast at Anecho and the latter inland among the western Ewe near the Volta River. This Protestant edge was nevertheless offset by the strong Afro-Brazilian coastal community which established a Roman Catholic presence in the area even before 1862 when priests of the Society of African Missions of Lyons began making periodic visits from their stations in neighboring French Dahomey. Therefore, despite their late arrival in 1892 the German Catholic missionaries of the SVD found a viable Catholic community already present at the coast, and the wealthy Afro-Brazilian entrepreneur Oktaviano Olympio in particular proved an important patron of the mission. Not until 1900, however, did the mission establish its first inland station at Atakpame, where by 1903 Anago and Dahomey civil resistance to the malfeasance of the colonial regime would precipitate the so-called ‘Kulturkampf in Togo’ against the SVD.62 While Protestant missionaries also enjoyed an initial headstart in what became Kamerun, the case was different insofar as the English Baptists active on that coast since 1841 refused to reconcile themselves to the declaration

60 Gründer, Christliche Mission, 68–69, 75–76. Hubert Mohr, Katholische Orden und deutscher Imperialismus (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1965), 56, 58, 60n89. Jakob Baumgartner, “Die Ausweitung der katholischen Missionen von Leo XIII. bis zum Zweiten Weltkrieg,” in Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte, vol. VI/2, Die Kirche in der Gegenwart, ed. Hubert Jedin (Freiburg: Herder, 1973), 552, 577. 61 See chapter 11. 62 Gründer, Christliche Mission, 28, 62–63, 169–70, 173. Karl Müller, Geschichte der katho lischen Kirche in Togo (Kaldenkirchen, Rheinland: Steyler Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1958), 24, 26. Mohr, Katholische Orden, 57. Baumgartner, “Ausweitung der katholischen Missionen,” 552, 570. Alcione M. Amos, “Afro-Brazilians in Togo: The Case of the Olympio Family, 1882–1945,” Cahiers d’Études africaines, 162 (2001), http://etudesafricaines.revues.org/ document88.html, August 17, 2004. On the ‘Kulturkampf in Togo,’ see chapter 9 of the present work. The German Colonies 87 of German sovereignty in July 1884, desiring that it be overturned in favor of British protection. Suspecting that Baptist intrigues lay behind the unrest among the Bonaberi and Bonapriso Duala later that year, Admiral Eduard Knorr, Consul Gustav Nachtigal, and Governor Julius Freiherr von Soden all strongly but unsuccessfully advocated that Berlin counter English influence by admitting to the colony the French Catholic Fathers of the Holy Spirit based in nearby Gabon. This request of 1885 was all the more striking as the Spiritans had been expelled from the Reich in 1873 as an order akin to the Jesuits. Ultimately the Vatican re-assigned the mission region in 1890 to a new chapter of German Pallottines favored by the Protestant commercial magnate Adolph Woermann. With Woermann’s encouragement, the Pallottines began their work at Edea on the lower Sanaga and soon expanded further inland to Jaunde and to the southern coastal towns of Kribi and Kampo.63 Compared to the various Protestant missionaries in Kamerun, the Pallottines enjoyed good relations with the colonial regime at Buea. As will be seen, however, the period from 1901 to 1903 witnessed several instances of Kamerunese civil resistance that placed the Pallottines and colonial officials at odds until Catholic Centrist influence in the Reichstag contributed directly to the resolution of the conflicts in the Africans’ favor.64

Missions in East Africa

In contrast to the West African colonies, the territories the Reich acquired in East Africa and New Guinea had both seen significant prior Roman Catholic missionary activity as had nearly all of those lands it later claimed in the South Pacific and China. When the German protectorate was declared over East Africa in 1885, the elder of the region’s two Catholic missions belonged to another vicariate of the French Spiritans, also known as the Black Fathers. Having arrived at Zanzibar in 1862, they had established their first mainland station in the city of Bagamoyo in 1868 and spread gradually westward into Ukami, Uzigua, and Usagara, the very regions where Carl Peters would successfully ply his first German ‘protection treaties.’65

63 Gründer, Christliche Mission, 49–52, 58, 62, 64–67, 135–37, 153–54. Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 25–27. Mohr, Katholische Orden, 56–57, 59. Baumgartner, “Ausweitung der katholischen Missionen,” 552. 64 See chapter 8. 65 Gründer, Christliche Mission, 180–81. 88 CHAPTER 3

This German annexation presented the Spiritans with immediate problems which rendered it questionable whether they would even be permitted to remain in the colony. Not only were they ‘Jesuit’ and French, but they were also comprised to a significant degree of Alsatians who had specifically opted for French over German citizenship after 1871. While the Alsatian missionaries generally spoke excellent German, their new colonial lords would not readily forget that, in Alsace-Lorraine itself, the Catholic clergy were playing a pivotal role in the region’s anti-German agitation.66 It could therefore hardly be comforting to the DOAG or to the subsequent Reich administration that in the hinterland French Alsatian Spiritans had successfully ensconced themselves as pseudo-chiefs, complete not only with administrative and juridical jurisdiction over their lands and initial converts, but also with fortified stations, their own armed troops, and an extensive vassalage system with suzerainty over dozens of neighboring chieftains.67 Conversely, the aggressive methods applied by the DOAG in its political and economic penetration of the region stirred Spiritan disapproval such that the Coastal Uprising of 1888–90 initially inspired the missionaries to a sympathetic neutrality.68 However, as in Kamerun, the interests of the French Spiritans and the Germans on the ground in East Africa tended to converge in spite of their natural mutual distrust. The Coastal Uprising itself played a key role in this process once a Spiritan-brokered ceasefire ended in mid-1889 with a German surprise attack upon the base of Abushiri ibn Salim al-Harthi. While the Arab leader concluded that the mission had betrayed the location of his fort, the Spiritans found his recruitment methods repugnant and feared his latest calls for Muslim holy war. Abandoning any semblance of neutrality from that point onward, the Spiritans provided the German troops with intelligence and allowed them to use the fortified mission stations as military bases.69 Roman Catholic and German national interests also converged along the border with British East Africa. The German administration deemed the activity of the Anglican Church Mission Society around Mount Kilimanjaro to be a British wedge threatening its authority. The fact that it was German insistence that prompted the Spiritans to come to Kilimanjaro in 1890 is almost certainly

66 Ibid., 52, 56, 181–82, 202. 67 Ibid., 203–4. 68 Ibid., 183. 69 Ibid., 183–85. Rotberg, “Resistance and Rebellion,” 668–70. Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 87–90. The German Colonies 89 to be understood in this anti-English context.70 France, by contrast, had neither an adjacent staging ground nor inclination to trouble German colonial claims, having already been amicably diverted by Bismarck toward acquisition of Madagascar and the Comoros.71 Finally, just as the Gabon Spiritans impressed Admiral Knorr with their emphasis upon physical labor as a form of spiritual discipline, so, too, did German officials in East Africa prefer the obvious material benefits of Catholic pedagogy to the perceived dangers of the more intellectual religious education emphasized by many Protestants.72 Equally French, often Alsatian but not comparably stigmatized as ‘Jesuit,’ the Missionaries of Our Lady of Africa came to terms with the German occupation of East Africa still more readily than had the Spiritans. Founded in Algiers in 1868 by Archbishop, later Cardinal, Charles Lavigerie, the society better known as the White Fathers sent its first missionaries to the shores of Lakes Victoria-Nyanza and Tanganyika in 1878 in what would become northwestern German East Africa and, ultimately British, Uganda. Although Berlin mistrusted Cardinal Lavigerie as a Frenchman and influential friend of Pope Leo XIII, the archbishop and ‘primate of Africa’ was far less a tool of Paris than an outspoken advocate of international cooperation in the abolition of the Arab-dominated slave trade in East Africa.73 As the Arab slave-owning and slave-trading elite were a key constituency in the Coastal Uprising of 1888–90, the latter conflict quickly created a clear community of interests between the invading German forces and the White Fathers. This occurred all the more readily since the distance of the latter from the coast meant that they, unlike the Spiritans, had observed neither the original German provocations nor any of the substantial non-Arab resistance.74 Most dramatically, in the late 1880s and early 1890s German nationalist and Roman Catholic ambitions again coincided in the sharply divided kingdom of Uganda where Catholic and Protestant missionary rivalry had helped spawn a bitterly bipolar political patronage system. As the less numerous converts of the Anglican Church Mission Society saw their future linked to the power

70 Gründer, Christliche Mission, 185–86. A.J. Temu, “Tanzanian Societies and Colonial Invasion 1875–1907,” in Tanzania under Colonial Rule, ed. M.H.Y. Kaniki (London: Longman, 1980), 88–89, 91, 102–3. Karim F. Hirji, “Colonial Ideological Apparatuses in Tanganyika under the Germans,” in ibid., 203. 71 Gründer, Christliche Mission, 182, 202–3. 72 Ibid., 53, 58, 65, 185, 204. 73 Ibid., 55–56, 180–81, 187–88. Baumgartner, “Ausweitung der katholischen Missionen,” 572–73. 74 Gründer, Christliche Mission, 188–89. 90 CHAPTER 3 of the British East Africa Company, the Catholic converts of the White Fathers, including King Mwanga himself, tended to seek the aid offered by Carl Peters and the DOAG. Thus, when the Catholic party lost the ensuing civil war of 1892 thanks entirely to the intervention of the British company, the retreating White Fathers enjoyed popular acclaim in the Reich as victims of British ruthlessness although Berlin had by then already waived its interest in Uganda.75 Two subsequent missionary arrivals in East Africa presented no nationality problem at all, the German Benedictines of Sankt Ottilien in Bavaria and the culturally German Trappists of Mariannhill in Natal, South Africa. The latter operated in Usambara in the northeast from 1897 to 1907 while the Benedictines had received permission in 1887 to work in the southern third of the colony. In contrast to the Spiritans, however, initial close collaboration between the Benedictines and the DOAG contributed to the murder and kidnapping of missionaries at Pugu in Uzaramo in January 1889 during the Coastal Uprising. Later, the Maji Maji Uprising of 1905 would also cost the life of the Benedictine bishop Cassian Spiess and his companions.76

Missions in New Guinea and Samoa

In the South Pacific, the French Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus arrived in what was then the New Britain Islands in 1882, just two years before the Reich claimed the group as the Bismarck Archipelago along with the neighboring northeast coast of New Guinea hailed as Kaiser-Wilhelms-Land. Categorized with the Spiritans as ‘Jesuit,’ the Sacred Heart missionaries found early relations with the local colonial administration continually strained partly because until 1899 control of the latter generally lay in the hands of the chartered Neuguinea-Compagnie. Believing that the mission ought to be banned from the colony on the basis of the Anti-Jesuit Law, the company’s anticlerical territorial commander Reinhold Kraetke prohibited the Sacred Heart from engaging in any mission activity for most of 1889 while he awaited a legal opinion from Berlin. With Bismarck’s approval, the Foreign Office replied that

75 Ibid., 190–200. Holger Bernt Hansen, Mission, Church and State in a Colonial Setting: Uganda 1890–1925 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984), 12–20, 29–49. Ado K. Tiberondwa, Missionary Teachers as Agents of Colonialism: A Study of Their Activities in Uganda, 1877– 1925 (Kampala: Fountain Publishers, 1998), 15–33. 76 Gründer, Christliche Mission, 56–57, 76n92, 183, 205–6, 246. Mohr, Katholische Orden, 60. Baumgartner, “Ausweitung der katholischen Missionen,” 552, 574. The German Colonies 91 the Anti-Jesuit Law applied only to the territorial homeland and that there was thus no objection to the continuation of the Sacred Heart’s work in the colony.77 However, the same communication reassured the New Guinea administration that it still possessed unlimited authority to regulate or terminate disruptive missionary work. Kraetke’s similarly anticlerical successors therefore proceeded to impose a host of debilitating restrictions upon the Catholic mission. Although after 1884 numerous Alsatians entering the ranks of the Sacred Heart possessed not only German linguistic proficiency but also Reich citizenship, the authorities refused to consider these foreign-trained priests anything but French. The colonial administration’s restrictive regulations then worked directly to the advantage of the Australian and Polynesian Methodist missionaries, whom, oddly enough, neither the interim Reich commissioner (1889–92) nor the company’s subsequent territorial commanders (1892–99) perceived as a bridgehead for British imperial interests. Thus, in 1891 the Sacred Heart Mission was forced to immobilize or abandon three of its five stations in New Pomerania as these lay in the populous northern portion of the Gazelle Peninsula which the Reich and the company had agreed to make an exclusive field of the utterly non-German Methodists. Predictably, the district assigned to the Sacred Heart Mission lay in the relatively uninhabited lands to the south, nor would these limitations be lifted until the Reich assumed permanent sovereignty over the colony in 1899.78 Five years later Catholic conversion efforts in the southern part of the peninsula foundered as erstwhile Baining catechists massacred ten Sacred Heart missionaries in anger over increasing

77 Gründer, Christliche Mission, 58–59, 71–72. Hubert Linckens to Karl Bachem, April 30, 1896, with enclosures “Die Hoheitsrechte in der Deutschen Südsee” and “Die Hoheitsrechte durch eine Handelsgesellschaft ausgeübt”; Karl Hespers to Bachem, May 14, 1896; Linckens to Bachem, January 29, 1897, with enclosure “Pro Memoria,” Nachlaß Bachem, 83:2–5, 12–13, HASK. 78 See in addition to previous footnote: Hespers to Karl Bachem, May 29, 1896, Nachlaß Bachem, 83:8, HASK. Bülow to Wilhelm II, December 30, 1897, Direct Report, Zu K24128, Akten des Reichskolonialamts (RKA), 2942:63–66, Bundesarchiv Potsdam, now at Lichterfelde (BAP). Linckens, [circa March 7, 1898], Note; Linckens to Schmidt-Dargitz, July 8, 1898, Letter 504; Buchka to Government Herbertshöhe, March 27, 1899, Order K7321/18605, Copy. 1.9.1 Behörden: Auswärtiges Amt, 1895–1918, 1:11, 20, 26, Archiv der Hiltruper Missionare Münster. Eberhard Limbrock to Karl Bachem, January 31, 1899, with enclosure “Randbemerkungen über die Neu-Guinea-Compagnie und den Vertrag mit dem Reich,” Nachlaß Ernst Lieber, 82:12, Archivum Archidiecezjalne i Biblioteka Kapitulna we Wrocławiu, Poland (AABKW). 92 CHAPTER 3

MAP 5 New Guinea and the South Pacific Source: Hans Meyer, ed., Das Deutsche Kolonialreich: Eine Länderkunde der deutschen Schutzgebiete (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 1910), 2:496–97 n.p. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. © Bibliographisches Institut, 1910 The German Colonies 93 94 CHAPTER 3

German encroachment and the imposition of European norms of monogamy, agricultural labor, and public order.79 Elsewhere in the South Pacific, Germans in Samoa in the 1880s and early 1890s thoroughly distrusted both the highly successful Congregationalist London Missionary Society and the generally less influential French Catholic Fathers of the Society of Mary (Marists). In 1883 Theodor Weber of the Deutsche Handels- und Plantagen-Gesellschaft (DHPG) feared that the devoutly Con‑ gregationalist King Malietoa Laupepa might offer Britain an opportunity to annex Samoa, thereby perhaps evading enforcement of DHPG’s extensive but controversial land claims. Discovering that the beleaguered king had in fact been unsuccessfully requesting such British protection, Weber and the German consul Oskar Stuebel conspired to oust Malietoa entirely. They therefore instigated the rebellion of Vice King Tamasese Titimaea and, despite British and American protests, employed German marines in 1887 to depose and abduct Malietoa, removing him to the Marshall Islands. In the absence of the exiled king, Samoan opposition to the German regime gravitated to the Marist Fathers’ most eminent convert Mata’afa Iosefo whose personal influence and genealogical claim to the throne vied even with those of Malietoa himself. Throughout the ensuing civil war of 1888/89, however, the Germans in Samoa considered Mata’afa a mere tool and therefore suspected the French Marist bishop Jean-Armand Lamaze of having incited his protégé to revolt.80 Finally, after the defeat of Tamasese and the loss of dozens of German marines, first to a Samoan ambush and then to a hurricane, a much chastened Reich government nevertheless foiled the islanders’ choice of Mata’afa as their new king. Under the Berlin Act signed with Britain and the United States in June 1889, the Germans instead accepted the return and restoration of their Anglophile prisoner King Malietoa, to whom Germany as well as Britain subsequently lent military assistance in the capture of Mata’afa in 1893. The Roman Catholic contender for the Samoan throne was then exiled to the German Marshall Islands from whence his Congregationalist rival had only recently

79 Stadt Gottes, Steyl, Dec. 1904, 120–22. Ibid., Jan. 1905, 178–80. 80 J.W. Davidson, Samoa mo Samoa: The Emergence of the Independent State of Western Samoa (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1967), 59–62. R.P. Gilson, Samoa 1830 to 1900: The Politics of a Multi-Cultural Community (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1970), 376–90, 393–94. Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 30, 33–38, 44–45, 48, 54–55, 68–69, 74–75. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 74. Malama Meleisea, The Making of Modern Samoa: Traditional Authority and Colonial Administration in the History of Western Samoa (Suva, Fiji: Institute of Pacific Studies of the University of the South Pacific, 1987), 32–33, 38–40. The German Colonies 95 returned.81 As will be seen, however, within just a few years of Mata’afa’s depor- tation, German national and Roman Catholic interests would begin converging in Samoa along lines somewhat reminiscent of the Ugandan case, but with a more successful outcome for Berlin.82

Missions in Shandong

While German and Roman Catholic aspirations readily found common ground in the Chinese province of Shandong in the late 1880s, the particular configuration of national and confessional interests bore little resemblance to the scenarios hitherto discussed in Africa or the South Pacific. The eldest Christian mission in the province, the Italian Franciscans had been active since 1839 in the region surrounding Shandong’s northwestern capital Jinan. By the mid- 1860s six separate Protestant missions had also planted themselves on the northeastern coast, but the most successful of these proved to be American, rather than British. Moreover, Shandong was the only theater of the Reich’s emerging overseas empire where German Catholic missionaries, rather than French, had preceded the imperial flag. Ironically, however, the German priests of the SVD in southern Shandong and the Italian Franciscans in the north both stood under French protection in the 1880s, for the fury of the Kulturkampf and the Vatican’s hostility to Italy had enabled Republican France to retain the traditional royal mantle of guardianship over all Roman Catholic interests in ‘the Orient.’ Nor was Bismarck initially inclined in the mid-1880s to pursue rectification of this issue given the useful but fragile Franco-German colonial rapprochement against Britain.83 However, by the late 1880s German distrust of French ambitions in China had been aroused by Beijing’s multiple economic concessions to Paris in the aftermath of the Sino-French War of 1883 to 1885. Since opportunities to protest anti-missionary violence could easily be turned to the commercial

81 Davidson, Samoa mo Samoa, 62–66. Gilson, Samoa, 394–96, 416–22. Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 77–78, 85–86, 92–95, 98–99, 102. Meleisea, Making of Modern Samoa, 40. 82 See chapter 6. 83 Joseph Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 77–79. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 258–61. Karl Rivinius, Weltlicher Schutz und Mission: Das deutsche Protektorat über die katholische Mission von Südshantung (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 1987), 23–82, 215–57. Established during the height of the Kulturkampf, the SVD was based in the Dutch town of Steyl just across the German border from Kaldenkirchen. The mission was therefore able to maintain an overwhelmingly German character without being subject to the anticlerical laws. 96 CHAPTER 3 advantage of the protesting power, Berlin feared that a continuation of the French protectorate over all Catholic missions in China would simply foster the growth of French influence there at German expense. The Reich’s resulting interest in assuming the protectorate over the German Catholic mission in South Shandong then converged with the increasing dissatisfaction of its Bavarian bishop Johann Baptist Anzer with the seeming half-heartedness of French protection. Anzer was particularly frustrated that the French envoy did not demand SVD access to the closed city of Yanzhou near the birthplace of Confucius.84 Assured by the German envoy Max August von Brandt of more energetic support from the Reich, Anzer officially transferred the SVD mission from French to German protection in November 1890, a decision for which the bishop was lavishly feted in Berlin. In response, Brandt immediately censured the Beijing government for the inadequate protection afforded to the SVD and dispatched the German consul general Erwin Freiherr von Seckendorff from Tianjin to Shandong to secure the opening of Yanzhou. In January 1891 Seckendorff rode into the provincial governor’s palace in Jinan to demand satisfaction and proceeded to Yanzhou where he provoked a riot by smashing through the closed gates, barely escaping the city on the following day. Not until 1896, after China’s humiliating defeat in the Sino-Japanese War, did Germany’s forceful demands finally result in the establishment of Anzer’s coveted episcopal residence in Yanzhou.85 The current study then picks up the account with the 1897 murder of two German SVD missionaries at Zhangjiazhuang by members of the vigilante Big Sword Society (Dadaohui) as the consequences of this attack would greatly facilitate the rapprochement between the Reich government and the Center Party.86

84 Esherick, Boxer Uprising, 74–76, 79–81. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 261–67, 271. Rivinius, Weltlicher Schutz, 267–311. For a map of Shandong, see the final section of chapter 5. 85 Esherick, Boxer Uprising, 79–81. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 267–75. Rivinius, Weltlicher Schutz, 312–456. Richard Hartwich, Steyler Missionare in China: Beiträge zu einer Geschichte (St. Augustin: Steyler Verlag, 1983), 1:263–64. John Schrecker, Imperialism and Chinese Nationalism: Germany in Shantung (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), 12–13. 86 See chapter 5. CHAPTER 4 Prologue: The Catholic Center and German Colonial Politics, 1884–1897

As previously discussed, the German Center Party and its constituency lacked any particular economic interest in the acquisition and development of colonies, and the anti-Prussian tendencies of the South German wing of the party only accentuated a general Centrist proclivity toward colonial skepticism. Since colonial costs remained relatively low during the 1880s and 1890s, the attitude of the Center toward a given colonial measure depended chiefly upon confessional or ethical issues, most especially upon the official treatment of the Catholic missions overseas and the admission of their mother houses into the Reich. Since the annexation of the first German colonies coincided with the years of gradual de-escalation of the Kulturkampf, Centrists still had ample occasion to be less than satisfied with the degree of accommodation accorded to the missions by Berlin and the individual colonial regimes. As a result, the party’s attitude toward the government’s colonial objectives displayed a significant degree of ambivalence that at times bordered on hostility. Fortunately for Bismarck, however, the prevalence of anti-slavery sentiment among German Catholics could be easily exploited for the advancement of colonial ends.

Centrist Colonial Skepticism and the Mission Question

At the height of the Kulturkampf, the Reichstag Center Party had perceived parliamentary discussion of emerging colonial questions as little more than another opportunity for protesting anticlerical legislation in Germany. Thus, when the friendship treaties with the Pacific islands of Tonga and Samoa came up for debate in the Reichstag in 1876 and 1879, respectively, the Center spokesman attempted to tie the subject matter back to the lack of religious freedom at home and the necessity of repealing Kulturkampf legislation. Preoccupation with confessional issues also likely inspired the Center’s decision to reject the Samoa Bill of early 1880 that was designed to save extensive German investments there from bankruptcy.1

1 Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 12. Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 207.

However, by the time of the acquisition of the first German colonies in 1884, it was becoming apparent that at least some Centrists were receptive to arguments in favor of overseas expansion, a warming trend meanwhile facilitated by the attenuation of the Kulturkampf through the passage of Prussia’s three Mitigation Laws. In 1882 the prominent Westphalian Centrist and vice president of the Prussian Chamber of Deputies, Clemens Freiherr Heereman von Zuydtwyck (MdR 1871–1903) became a founding member of the German Colonial Association, sitting on the board of directors of that organization and then on that of its successor, the German Colonial Society.2 Likewise a board member in these successive colonial associations, the Nassauan tropical importer and banker Peter Paul Cahensly (MdR 1898–1903) co-edited the Centrist national daily Germania, which therefore reflected his generally sympathetic attitude toward colonial questions. Thus, in May 1884 Germania endorsed the acquisition of Southwest Africa, and in the succeeding months the paper was borne by the wave of colonial enthusiasm and Anglophobic nationalism then sweeping the country, a stance assumed partly out of conviction and partly out of a determination to forestall anticlerical accusations of a Catholic deficiency in patriotism.3 On the other hand, Centrists from Bavaria and the Rhineland generally expressed skepticism of the colonial enterprise. For example, on the occasion of the founding of the German Colonial Association, the Bavarian Centrist paper Das Bayrische Vaterland remarked that its readership would not be interested “unless one might find a colony where one could export two dozen million Prussians.”4 The same organ declared with exasperation in August 1885:

The fraud of colonial policy has so confused minds that the Liberals no longer see and no longer hear. “Bismarck, Bismarck, Bismarck!” they squawk like parrots while the costs grow over the heads of our people. We are supposed to contribute no less than 60 million marks for the shipping companies in Hamburg and Bremen while Bavaria gains nothing from it. Sixty million we give in order to create competition for our domestic agriculture.5

Speaking to the Reichstag in a similar vein in March, the Rhenish superior court justice Victor Rintelen (MdR 1884–1907) criticized a policy of exposing

2 Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 210. 3 Ibid., 208, 208n165, 210–11. Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 14–15. 4 Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 210n173. 5 Ibid., 208n163. The Center and Colonial Politics to 1897 99

Germany’s sons to the dangers of native uprisings merely for the profit of the great commercial houses.6 In his farewell address of 1884, even the generally more conciliatory senior Centrist, Appellate Court Justice August Reichensperger (MdR 1871–1884) of Koblenz, categorically rejected colonialism as perforce leading to a costly massive expansion of the navy and serious diplomatic complications with Britain and France.7 Given the division of opinion within the party, the Center’s 1884 electoral platform employed deliberately ambiguous language on the colonial question, declaring support for “a healthy colonial policy” if it seemed expedient after careful evaluation of such factors as more immediate tasks, constitutional constraints, and the fiscal strength of the Reich.8 As party leader, the Hanoverian jurist Ludwig Windthorst (MdR 1871–1891) generally concurred with the oppositional stance of the colonial skeptics as it also coincided with his own efforts to compel Berlin’s unconditional retreat from the remaining Kulturkampf legislation. Thus when the imminent closure of the Reichstag in June 1884 threatened a proposed subsidy for postal steamships to East Asia and Australia, Windthorst and Reichensperger ignored Bismarck’s unusual personal appeals and ensured that the measure died in committee.9 Similarly, in January 1885 the Center appeared to consider authorization of an increase in the budget for the exploration of Central Africa, but by the second reading Windthorst joined the Silesian baron Karl Freiherr von Hoiningen-Huene (MdR 1884–1900) in rejecting the measure on the basis of the Reich’s poor fiscal situation and the lack of contributions from the most interested economic circles.10 Still, Centrist acknowledgment of the validity of some colonial expenditures was becoming evident by early 1885. However begrudgingly, Windthorst acquiesced in the authorization of a coastal steamer for the governor of Kamerun, and Huene expressed a similarly tepid Centrist consent to salaries and residences for officials dispatched to Togo, Kamerun, and Southwest Africa. In March the Center also finally authorized the subsidy for the East Asian postal steamship line although it still rejected funding for the Australian. While Windthorst presented this decision as a trial run with the East Asian line, Rintelen argued that the Australian line subsidy in particular would have

6 Ibid., 208n164. 7 Ibid., 209n170. Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 16n9. 8 Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 7:446. Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 16. 9 Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 17–18. 10 Ibid., 20. 100 CHAPTER 4 facilitated Bismarck’s imprudent expansionism in the South Pacific, a policy likely to spark conflicts with foreign powers.11 Centrist ambivalence in colonial questions in 1885 reflected similar incongruities in official policy toward the Catholic missions. On the one hand, the Congo Conference in Berlin had produced an international accord in February pledging full religious freedom for the practice and propagation of all faiths in the Congo basin.12 On the other hand, word had meanwhile leaked out of the existence of a contract between Lüderitz’s company and the Rhenish Mission Society that included a pledge to exclude Catholic missionaries from Southwest Africa. This prompted Windthorst’s pointed inquiry in the Budget Committee whether the government knew of this contract, whether the principles of confessional parity would be maintained in the colonies, and whether the government planned to introduce the Prussian May Laws overseas. While alluding to the Congo Act as a likely precedent for arrangements elsewhere in Africa, the Foreign Office representative avoided making any commitment to do so and failed to acknowledge his unofficial awareness of the offending contract. This evasiveness then contributed to the Center’s lukewarm treatment of the government’s colonial bills, for which even Germania had lost its enthusiasm.13 Incongruities in official policy toward the Catholic Church and its missions reached new heights later the same year. Bismarck’s attempt in August 1885 to claim the Caroline Islands for Germany had provoked vigorous Spanish protest, thereby substantiating recent Centrist concerns about the diplomatic risks of colonial expansionism. However, the chancellor turned this crisis to good effect in September by unexpectedly submitting the Spanish-German dispute to the arbitration of Pope Leo XIII. What Bismarck thus appeared to lose in the Caroline Islands, he gained in a significant measure of political good will with the Vatican. This diplomatic capital then facilitated the negotiations for the First and Second Peace Laws of 1886 and 1887, which in turn granted the chancellor a less ignominious path of retreat from the Kulturkampf than he might have otherwise experienced.14 Bismarck’s decision to submit the Caroline conflict to papal arbitration naturally earned praise from German Catholics. However, Berlin squandered this positive effect upon domestic Catholic opinion through a simultaneous refusal to accommodate the French Spiritans’ interest in founding a mission

11 Ibid., 18–22. 12 Ibid., 25n43. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 5:54–55. 13 Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 21, 24–25. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 51. 14 Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 22–23. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 52. Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 4:790–91. M.L. Anderson, Windthorst, 323. The Center and Colonial Politics to 1897 101 in Kamerun and a mother house in Germany. Although unanimously recommended by Admiral Knorr, Consul Nachtigal, and Governor von Soden as a desirable counterbalance to the British Baptists, the Spiritans could not be re-admitted to the Reich as long as the Bundesrat maintained that they were ‘Jesuit.’ Nor yet could the mission effectively shed its suspiciously French character without a mother house in Germany. When the Spiritans’ requests were denied in October, Germania protested sharply in a series of articles accusing the government of systematically closing the Reich’s new colonies to Catholic missionaries. In November the Rhenish jurist Peter Reichensperger (MdR 1871–1892) raised similar objections in the Budget Committee of the Reichstag, inquiring whether the Anti-Jesuit Law was deemed applicable in the colonies and whether all Catholic missions were to be excluded. Bismarck claimed that no such prohibition was intended against Catholic missionaries generally but that the Spiritans had been excluded from Kamerun both as ‘Jesuits’ and Alsatian irredentists. Unmollified, Germania continued its indictment for weeks, charging that a Foreign Office representative had appeared at a missionary conference in Bremen to seek a Protestant mission willing to work in Kamerun as retroactive justification of the rejection of the Spiritans.15

The East African Coastal Uprising as Watershed

The dilemma surrounding the admission of Catholic missionaries into the German colonies and the doubts regarding the acceptability of their mother houses in the Reich both continued to irritate government-Center relations for some years to come, but the situation began to improve markedly in the late 1880s. First, Prussia’s Second Peace Law of 1887 stipulated that any existing or returning Catholic orders and congregations might be granted permission to establish institutes for training missionaries for overseas service. Unfortunately, the law still said nothing of the admissibility of missionary orders entirely new to Prussia, such as the Pallottines, nor did it alleviate the plight of the purportedly ‘Jesuit’ Spiritans.16 The following year proved more decisive. In late August 1888, at a time when Cardinal Lavigerie’s campaign to eradicate African slavery had been gaining momentum among European Catholics, the East African Coastal Uprising

15 Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 5:55. Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 26–31. Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 206. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 49–52. 16 Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 4:218. Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 45. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 61–62, 65. 102 CHAPTER 4 erupted against the DOAG’s attempted annexation of the Zanzibari seaboard. Although the uprising also enjoyed considerable support among non-Muslim Africans, its most conspicuous constituency were the Arab and Swahili communities whose commercial prosperity was intimately linked to the slave trade with the interior. Promptly admonished by Lavigerie that the acquisition of African colonies brought with it the responsibility of destroying the scourge of slavery, many German Catholics swung in favor of imperialism on the basis of this moral vision. The annual Congress of German Catholics (Katholikentag) in Freiburg endorsed Lavigerie’s abolitionist campaign in September, and in October a joint Catholic, Protestant, and liberal assembly in Cologne demanded an active colonial policy to extirpate slavery. Within weeks of the latter event, the Cologne Catholics also founded the Africa Association of German Catholics (Afrikaverein deutscher Katholiken) and established its organ Gott will es! to promote the work of missionaries. Within six months of its foundation, the association already possessed five hundred chapters around Catholic Germany.17 Windthorst naturally recognized that such Catholic zeal for the missionaries’ anti-slavery campaign would only render the Center vulnerable to the blandishments of the German chancellor, but the party leader could do little to halt the wave of popular enthusiasm. Indeed, although hitherto indifferent to Lavigerie’s abolitionist movement, Bismarck moved quickly to exploit the current political opportunity by characterizing the uprising in East Africa as the work of Arab and Swahili slavetraders. In December he was thereby able to maneuver the Center into sponsoring a successful motion requesting decisive government action to suppress African slavery, and in the same resolution the Reichstag committed itself to providing funding for all measures consistent with that goal. While Windthorst lent his name to this bill, he had argued against it in the Center caucus, for it tied the party’s hands to virtually any measure Bismarck might subsequently put forward in the name of suppressing the Coastal Uprising. Germania also repeatedly emphasized that the abolitionist Windthorst Resolution ought to have nothing to do with Berlin’s plans to compensate the DOAG and assume direct sovereignty over East Africa.18 Predictably, Bismarck presented the January 1889 request for funds for the suppression of the uprising as a direct response to the Reichstag’s anti-slavery

17 Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 5:52. Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 36. Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 206, 211–12. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 57–58. 18 Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 5:52–54. Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 36–38. Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 206, 211–12. M.L. Anderson, Windthorst, 382–83. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 57. The Center and Colonial Politics to 1897 103 resolution and only secondarily as a measure for the protection of German interests in East Africa. Two weeks earlier several German Benedictines had been murdered at Pugu and others kidnapped, so the planned campaign against Abushiri ibn Salim al-Harthi’s forces was now also readily depicted as an expedition for the protection of missionaries. With Lavigerie and his White Fathers likewise firmly in favor of German intervention against the Arabs and Swahili, German Catholic opinion generally concurred with the Center’s authorization of the military expedition against the Coastal Uprising despite Windthorst’s own private disinclination and the circumspect attitude of the Spiritans. Once Abushiri ceased to credit the neutrality of the latter, however, even the Spiritans joined the Benedictines and White Fathers in collaborating fully with the German military effort through the provision of intelligence and access to the mission stations as bases.19 Centrist support for suppression of the Coastal Uprising and Catholic missionary cooperation with the German military essentially ended the domestic political stalemate over the missions. By the end of 1889, Bismarck had agreed not only to the admission of all non-Jesuit Catholic orders to the German colonies, but also to the operation there of Jesuit and ‘Jesuit-related’ missions as well. While the chancellor remained firmly opposed to the readmission of the Jesuits into the Reich itself, Bismarck’s only requirement of the Catholic colonial missions as a whole was a steady transition to German personnel and leadership, a condition to which the Vatican readily consented. While this still represented a recruitment obstacle for such ‘Jesuit-related’ missions as the Spiritans in East Africa and the Sacred Heart missionaries in New Pomerania, it nevertheless eased their predicament by confirming their right to continue their work without official interference.20 Government-Center relations in colonial affairs were further eased by Bismarck’s departure in March 1890. His successor General Leo von Caprivi expressed a cautious skepticism of the value of the German colonies, an attitude the Center found a refreshing counterpoint to the boundless claims of the colonial enthusiasts. Caprivi also emphasized the importance of cooperation between the German military and the missionaries, and he stressed that support of the missions lay in the Reich’s own financial interest given their importance in the “moral and intellectual education” of the indigenous peoples.

19 Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 5:53–54. Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 39–40. Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 213. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 57, 183–84, 188–89, 204–6. 20 Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 5:56–58, 86. Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 41, 47. Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 213. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 58–59. 104 CHAPTER 4

Responding in the same conciliatory spirit, Windthorst reluctantly but firmly endorsed supplementary funding for East Africa in Spring 1890 as the necessary consequence of prior decisions taken in favor of the eradication of the slave trade and the exaction of retribution for affronts to the German flag. German Centrists also granted a warm reception to the otherwise unpopular Anglo-German Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty of July 1890. Much maligned by colonial enthusiasts for its territorial concessions to Britain in Africa, the treaty met with Centrist approval because it guaranteed religious freedom throughout German and British Africa and eliminated numerous points of friction between the rival colonial powers.21 While the years from 1890 to 1897 saw growing conflicts between Berlin and the Center over military and naval expansion, the same period generally constituted a hiatus in government-Center tensions over colonial affairs. Nearly all the Catholic missionary societies discussed in the previous section gained admission into the Reich and Prussia during this timeframe, even those like the Pallottines, Spiritans, and Sacred Heart Missionaries whose admissibility had hitherto been most subject to doubt. In most cases, the missionaries were granted such entry as a consequence of intercessions on their behalf in the Colonial Department and the Prussian Ministries of Culture and the Interior by Franz Prinz von Arenberg (MdR 1890–1907), an aristocratic career diplomat who soon became the Center’s leading colonial expert as well as vice president of the German Colonial Society from 1892 to 1907.22 In the 1890s the Center continued to pursue legislation to end slavery in the German colonies. Most notably, in February 1894 the Reichstag passed the Gröber Resolution requesting a government bill establishing sentences of hard labor for slave-raiding and slavetrading. As such a measure became law in 1895, a new Gröber Resolution called upon the government to introduce a bill that would prepare for the elimination of house slavery and debt bondage as well.23 As for colonial resistance movements of the early to mid-1890s, they did not yet cause sufficiently burdensome expenses to capture prolonged public attention during this period. In March 1892, for example, six months after the Hehe annihilation of the Zelewski expedition, the Rhenish aristocrat Wilhelm

21 Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 5:58–59. Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 50–51, 53–54. Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 217, especially 217n219 and 217n221. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 66. Nichols, Germany After Bismarck, 59, 102. 22 Gründer, Christliche Mission, 61–79. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 5:58. Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 7–8, 49. Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 210, 213. See also chapter 1, footnote 15. 23 Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 54–55. The Center and Colonial Politics to 1897 105

Graf von und zu Hoensbroech (MdR 1883–93) declared in the Reichstag that a couple million marks more for East Africa were of no account when Germany’s honor was on the line.24 However, the Dahomey Uprising of December 1893 in Kamerun did succeed in calling domestic attention to the atrocities committed by Leist and Wehlan. The Center reacted to the reports emerging from Kamerun with revulsion, yet these did not ultimately lead to the rejection of any portion of the colonial budget. Moreover, the Center leader Ernst Lieber (MdR 1871–1902) received a declaration from the Pallottine Apostolic Prefect Heinrich Vieter vouching for Leist’s character. Lieber then submitted this missionary declaration to the Potsdam disciplinary court reviewing Leist’s case, and the court expressly cited Vieter’s testimonial as grounds for the considerable clemency shown to the defendant.25 Likewise, although Chagga resistance to Carl Peters’s excesses on Mount Kilimanjaro in the early 1890s did lead to the eruption of an East African scandal in the Reichstag in 1896, the Peters Affair had virtually no impact upon government-Center relations apart from some sharp words that Lieber delivered against Colonial Director Paul Kayser for the inadequacy of the original official investigation.26 A decade later, however, the accumulated reverberations from African military and civilian resistance movements would contribute directly to the Reichstag dissolution of December 1906 and the ensuing ‘Hottentot elections’ waged by the government against the Center.

24 Ibid., 8. Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 217. 25 Gründer, Christliche Mission, 71, 154–57. Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 213, 218n223. Rüger, “Aufstand der Polizeisoldaten,” in Kamerun unter deutscher Kolonialherrschaft, ed. Stoecker, 1:137–46, especially 138, 143–45. Eckert, Duala und Kolonialmächte, 130–35. Rudin, Germans in the Cameroons, 193–94, 210–12. Stoecker, Drang nach Afrika, 60. 26 Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 55. Gottwald, “Zentrum und Imperialismus,” 214, 218.

Part 2

Chinese, Cuban, and Samoan Resistance: The Loom, 1897–1903

∵

CHAPTER 5 Big Swords and Battleships, 1897–1898

Although the Kulturkampf against the Roman Catholic Church in Prussia and the Reich had officially ended in 1886, the persistence of discriminatory legislation and practice in the ensuing Wilhelmine period ensured that relations between Berlin and the Center Party remained strained for years. Indeed, with the Center holding the crucial swing votes in the Reichstag from 1890 to 1906, the chauvinistic Protestantism of Kaiser Wilhelm II frequently gave a decidedly confessional edge to otherwise secular political conflicts between the imperial government and the national parliament. By the middle of the 1890s the resulting struggle between the autocratic Kaiser and the German Center Party had reached crisis proportions. Frustrated with the limited nature of Centrist cooperation in the Reichstag, Wilhelm yearned by 1895 to abandon all consideration for that party and wist- fully envisioned himself as the heroic leader of a new Thirty Years War against Catholic impudence.1 Nor did the monarch attempt to conceal his animosity from the party. For example, at a court ball the Kaiser refused to allow Foreign Secretary Adolf Freiherr Marschall von Bieberstein to bring Center leader Ernst Lieber into his presence and demonstratively engaged himself instead with the ex-Jesuit and anti-Catholic agitator Paul Graf von Hoensbroech.2 Likewise, while being guided through the Colonial Exhibition of 1896 by the Centrist colonial enthusiast and Reichstag delegate Franz Prinz von Arenberg, the Kaiser stopped before a depiction of an African king’s residence surrounded by the mounted skulls of his foes and remarked, “If I could only see the Reichstag lined up like that!”3 As a leading member of both the Reichstag and the party

1 Holstein to Bülow, Feb. 7, [1895], Nachlaß Bülow, 90:114–17, BAK. Bülow later marked this document “1896?” but its contemporary description of the Lieber-Hoensbroech court ball episode places its composition in February 1895. See following footnote. On the importance of Germany’s national historical memories of the Thirty Years War, see Helmut Walser Smith, German Nationalism and Religious Conflict: Culture, Ideology, Politics, 1870–1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 5, 24, 28, 33, 57. 2 Holstein to Bülow, Feb. 7, [1895], Nachlaß Bülow, 90:114–17, BAK. Hohenlohe to Kaiser, Feb. 12, 1895, Draft; Alexander zu Hohenlohe to Hohenlohe, Feb. 14, 1895; Eulenburg to Hohenlohe, Feb. 16, 1895, Secret, in Hohenlohe, Reichskanzlerzeit, 38–40. Isabel V. Hull, The Entourage of Kaiser Wilhelm II, 1888–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 93–94. On Hoensbroech, see H.W. Smith, German Nationalism, 128–30. 3 Holstein to Eulenburg, Nov. 30, 1896, Nachlaß Bülow, 92:40, 44, BAK. Also found in Nachlaß Holstein, 39 (Film 62243):127–32 (H192620), Bundesarchiv Potsdam (BAP).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004306875_007 110 CHAPTER 5 upon which virtually all the decisions of that body depended, Arenberg could only have found the monarch’s quip an appalling affront.

Deadlock: The Fleet vs. the Jesuits

For the Kaiser, the sorest point of contention lay in the Center’s unwillingness to authorize the entirety of his ambitious naval plans. Confronted in early 1897 with a government proposal to spend 129 million marks on the navy in the upcoming fiscal year, the Catholic party resolved to make cuts in this unanticipated fifty-percent increase over the previous year’s figure.4 In frustration Wilhelm urged Conservatives and National Liberals to support the fleet through a revival of Bismarck’s 1887 Kartell of national parties against the Center, a proposal the monarch even made at a banquet in the hearing of senior Centrist Clemens Freiherr Heereman von Zuydtwyck.5 The Kaiser further entertained plans to press the Bundesrat into dissolving the Reichstag or even abolishing the universal manhood suffrage guaranteed by the imperial constitution. However, word of such threats only hardened the resistance of the Center which proceeded to strike two cruisers from the naval budget on March 20, 1897.6 While the entreaties of the aged Chancellor Chlodwig Fürst zu Hohenlohe- Schillingsfürst helped restrain the Kaiser from pursuing his most drastic designs, relations between the Center and the monarch merely deteriorated further in succeeding months. In late April Prince Heinrich publicized a

4 Eckart Kehr, Schlachtflottenbau und Parteipolitik 1894–1901: Versuch eines Querschnitts durch die innenpolitischen, sozialen und ideologischen Voraussetzungen des deutschen Imperialismus (Berlin: Verlag Emil Ebering, 1930), 63–70. Röhl, Germany Without Bismarck, 215–17. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 64–65. 5 Holstein to Bülow, Feb. 17, Apr. 5, 1897, Nachlaß Bülow, 90:234–35, 298–302, BAK. 6 In addition to preceding footnote, see Holstein to Bülow, Feb. 4, 1897, Nachlaß Bülow, 90:215–17, BAK. Hertling to Anna von Hertling, Mar. 10, 18, 19, 1897, Nachlaß Hertling, 12:13–14, 17, BAK. Hohenlohe to Eulenburg, Mar. 19, 1897; Hohenlohe to Eulenburg, Mar. 27, 30, 1897, Journal entries, Nachlaß Hohenlohe, 1605:150–56, 162–63, BAK. Hohenlohe, Mar. 24, 25, 27, 1897, Journal entries in Hohenlohe, Reichskanzlerzeit, 321–23. Jonathan Steinberg, Yesterday’s Deterrent: Tirpitz and the Birth of the German Battle Fleet (New York: Macmillan, 1965), 106, 112–115, 164. Röhl, Germany Without Bismarck, 215–22. Wilhelm Deist, “The Kaiser and his military and naval entourage,” in Kaiser Wilhelm II: New Interpretations—The Corfu Papers, ed. John C.G. Röhl and Nicolaus Sombart (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 171–72. Förster, Doppelter Militarismus, 91–92. Lamar Cecil, Wilhelm II: Prince and Emperor, 1859–1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), 310–11. Big Swords and Battleships 111

telegram from his imperial brother in which the latter referred to Reichstag opponents of the two cruisers as those “rascals without a fatherland.” Outraged by this insult, the Center leadership stopped short of an interpellation in the Reichstag only when Hohenlohe made clear that such a step would likely result in the Kaiser’s dismissal of both Marschall and the chancellor.7 Meanwhile, Wilhelm also rejected a papal initiative that spring for revocation of at least part of the Anti-Jesuit Law enacted during the Kulturkampf, and the Center compounded its offense in the naval question by helping to defeat the anti- associations bill in the Prussian Landtag.8 Furthermore, two of the three imperial state secretaries dismissed by the Kaiser in mid-1897, Foreign Secretary Marschall von Bieberstein and Interior Secretary Karl Heinrich von Bötticher, had cultivated particularly friendly ties with the Center. The third, the hapless naval secretary Admiral Friedrich von Hollmann, was replaced by Rear Admiral Alfred Tirpitz, already suspected of being the author of fleet construction plans the Center considered boundless. Finally, in August enormous resentment arose in Protestant Germany over the chauvinistic rhetoric of the Vatican’s Canisius Encyclical commemorating the leader of the German Counter-Reformation.9 All of these developments thoroughly soured relations between the Center and the Kaiser’s government by the late summer of 1897. Still, there was no avoiding the fact that the party’s votes in the Reichstag were imperative for the passage of Tirpitz’s bold new seven-year naval plan. Accordingly, the Prussian cabinet proposed that Wilhelm consent to the repeal of at least part of the Anti-Jesuit Law in order to secure Centrist support for the naval

7 Kiderlen to Hohenlohe, Apr. 30, 1897; Wilhelm II to Hohenlohe, Apr. 30, 1897, Open telegram; Hohenlohe, [April 30, 1897 or shortly thereafter], Note; Hohenlohe, Apr. 29, 1897, Journal entry; Hohenlohe to Alexander zu Hohenlohe, Apr. 29, 1897, Nachlaß Hohenlohe, 1606:162–63, 173–74, 275, 279–81, 368, BAK. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 5:464–66. Steinberg, Yester day’s Deterrent, 118. Röhl, Germany Without Bismarck, 223–24. Zeender, German Center, 62. 8 Steinberg, Yesterday’s Deterrent, 119. Zeender, German Center, 62, 66. Röhl, Germany Without Bismarck, 228. 9 Zeender, German Center, 62–67. Röhl, Germany Without Bismarck, 210–17, 229–40. Volker Berghahn, Der Tirpitz-Plan: Genesis und Verfall einer innenpolitischen Krisenstrategie unter Wilhelm II. (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1971), 96, 122. Pauline Anderson, Anti-English Feeling, 3–4, 241–44. Stegmann, Erben Bismarcks, 66–67. Kennedy, Anglo-German Antagonism, 223–24. Hull, Entourage, 97–98. Cecil, Wilhelm II: Prince and Emperor, 216–18, 251–59, 293, 301–12. H.W. Smith, German Nationalism, 119. For the Latin text of the Canisius Encyclical with those passages most offensive to Protestants underlined, see “Nr. 140. Epistola encyclica Leonis PP. XIII. de memoria saeculari B. Petri Canisii,” Kirchlicher Anzeiger für die Erzdiözese Köln, Sep. 1, 1897, Nr. 17, Nachlaß Bachem, 25:12, HASK. 112 CHAPTER 5 bill. Despite the ministry’s unanimity, the Kaiser rejected this proposal out of hand, contending that the Canisius Encyclical had rendered such a concession inconceivable.10 However, Center leader Ernst Lieber impressed upon Chan cellor Hohenlohe in late October that the undiminished severity of the Anti- Jesuit Law represented a formidable obstacle to the realization of Tirpitz’s plans.11 Therefore, an impasse developed between the government’s political need to cultivate Centrist support for the naval bill and its unwillingness to meet Catholic demands for full parity and religious freedom. In the end, this deadlock was largely broken by the decision of the majority of the Center Reichstag deputies to vote for the Naval Law of 1898 without meaningful compensation. Given the importance of this choice for the onset of the Anglo-German naval arms race preceding World War I, the motives behind this retreat have been the subject of considerable historiographical debate. Arguments have ranged from Eckart Kehr’s postulate of a Centrist quest for political hegemony through the emphasis of Rudolf Morsey and Volker Berghahn upon the German Catholics’ desire for national self-integration to the insistence of historians Manfred Rauh and Wilfried Loth that the party was acting almost entirely in self-defense under the Kaiser’s threat of a coup.12 However, in all these explorations of the question, one important, albeit still secondary, factor has received virtually no attention at all—namely, the manner in which tense government-Center relations were eased in 1897/98 in part

10 Varnbüler to Mittnacht, Nov. 5, 1897, Report 1186, WüMAA, E50/03, 191:4–10, HSAS. Here Varnbüler relates the Kaiser’s account according to which the ministry’s unanimous proposal sought the repeal of the entire Anti-Jesuit Law. This appears to have been an example of the monarch’s pronounced tendency to exaggerate when excited. According to Hohenlohe’s memoirs, the Center itself was pressing at this juncture explicitly for repeal of the expulsion clause (Article 2), and Róisín Healy simply notes the ministry’s inability to take that step in the face of imperial resistance. Hohenlohe, Reichskanzlerzeit, 397. Healy, Jesuit Specter, 104. 11 Lieber, [circa Oct. 30, 1897], Note, Nachlaß Lieber, 59:10, AABKW. Hohenlohe, Reichs kanzlerzeit, 397. 12 Kehr, Schlachtflottenbau, 128, 148–51, 372. Pauline Anderson, Anti-English Feeling, 91–98. Rudolf Morsey, “Die deutschen Katholiken und der Nationalstaat zwischen Kulturkampf und Erstem Weltkrieg,” Historisches Jahrbuch 90 (1970): 54. Stegmann, Erben Bismarcks, 29–30. Berghahn, Tirpitz-Plan, 552–53. Zeender, German Center, 67–72. Ellen Lovell Evans, The German Center Party 1870–1933: A Study in Political Catholicism (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1981), 128. Manfred Rauh, Föderalismus und Parlamentarismus im Wilhelminischen Reich (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1973), 214–16. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 64–67, 72–73, 78–79. Röhl, Germany Without Bismarck, 250–51. Big Swords and Battleships 113 as a result of Chinese resistance to European cultural and political encroachment in the province of Shandong.13

Courting the Center via Zhangjiazhuang and Jiaozhou

The Chinese first made themselves unwitting actors upon the stage of German domestic politics on November 1, 1897. That night in southwest Shandong an armed band burst into the village missionary residence of Zhangjiazhuang near Juye and stabbed to death the German Catholic missionaries Richard Henle and Franz Nies of the Societas Verbi Divini (SVD).14 Receiving word of the murders five days later, the Kaiser immediately implemented his long- harbored plans to send part of the East Asian squadron to seize Jiaozhou Bay on the southern coast of the Shandong peninsula.15 Indeed, from the monarch’s standpoint the circumstances could hardly have been more opportune. On the

13 In 1976 the Marxist historian Herbert Gottwald provided one exception to this general neglect of the Jiaozhou action’s impact upon German domestic politics by citing it as a secondary factor. Wholly unconvincing, however, is his principle argument that by 1898 the Center had completed a transformation into an unequivocally imperialist party. Herbert Gottwald, “Der Umfall des Zentrums: Die Stellung der Zentrumspartei zur Flottenvorlage von 1897,” in Studien zum deutschen Imperialismus vor 1914, ed. Fritz Klein (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1976), 208. Horst Gründer also briefly treats the link between developments in Shandong and the Reichstag in his 1982 exploration of the relationship between Christian missions and German imperialism. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 279–80. 14 For a detailed account of the night of the slayings, see: Janssen, Jan. 3, 1898, R 17947, China 6, Bd. 35, Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Bonn (PAAA). Richard Hartwich, Steyler Missionare in China: Beiträge zu einer Geschichte (St. Augustin: Steyler Verlag, 1983), 1:324–25. 15 Koester to Bülow, Nov. 6, 1897, Very secret; Wilhelm II to Foreign Office, Nov. 6, 1897, Telegram; Francesow to Foreign Office, Nov. 6, 1897, Telegram, R 17946, China 6, Band 34, PAAA. Crailsheim, Dec. 23, 1897, Notation, MA 76012, Bayrisches Hauptstaatsarchiv (ByHSA). Wilhelm II, Memoirs, 64–68. Tirpitz, Erinnerungen, 61–65. Feng Djen Djang, The Diplomatic Relations Between China and Germany Since 1898 (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1936), 28–35. Jonathan Steinberg, Yesterday’s Deterrent: Tirpitz and the Birth of the German Battle Fleet (New York: Macmillan, 1965), 103–4, 154–55. Kuo-chi Lee, Die chine sische Politik zum Einspruch von Shimonoseki und gegen die Erwerbung der Kiautschou- Bucht: Studien zu den chinesisch-deutschen Beziehungen von 1895 bis 1898 (Münster: C.J. Fahle, 1966), 116–27. Röhl, Germany Without Bismarck, 208. Alan Palmer, The Kaiser: Warlord of the Second Reich (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1978), 69–70, 79, 82–83. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:327–29. 114 CHAPTER 5 one hand, the murder of missionaries standing under German imperial protection would appear to provide international and domestic public opinion with justification for the Reich’s seizure of a Chinese port as a coaling station, naval base, and economic foothold. On the other hand, the very fact that the murdered Germans were Catholic missionaries played directly into the Kaiser’s hands domestically, for the Center might be expected to look more favorably upon the dramatic expansion of a navy that had forced Beijing to render satisfaction to the SVD.16 From the outset the Kaiser and his government aimed to employ an avowed intervention on behalf of the Catholic missionaries to advance its campaign for the naval bill. Wilhelm’s order to seize Jiaozhou Bay was accompanied with the explanation to the Foreign Office that he would thereby prove to even his ultramontane subjects that they could count upon his protection as surely as the Protestants of the Reich.17 Convinced that the Pope was behind German Catholic resistance to naval expansion, the Kaiser also hoped that the Jiaozhou action would induce Leo XIII to lift his purported prohibition against Center support for the naval plan.18 Accordingly, while taking final leave of his previous diplomatic post in Rome, the new German foreign secretary Bernhard von Bülow sought to thwart Vatican intrigues against the naval bill by emphasizing to Leo that effective protection of the Shandong mission required a strengthened German fleet.19 In fact, the initial Vatican reception of the Jiaozhou

16 Initially far less sanguine than the Kaiser, Naval Secretary Tirpitz feared that the intervention might lead to war with Russia or China or that its boldness might jeopardize passage of the naval bill (Steinberg, Yesterday’s Deterrent, 155). 17 Wilhelm II to Foreign Office, Nov. 6, 1897, Telegram, R 17946, China 6, Band 34, PAAA. Also found in Auswärtiges Amt, Die Große Politik der europäischen Kabinette, 1871–1914: Sammlung der diplomatischen Akten des Auswärtigen Amtes, edited by Johannes Lepsius, Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy, and Friedrich Thimme (Berlin: Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft für Politik und Geschichte, 1924), Bd. 14/I, Nr. 3686 (hereafter Große Politik). Rotenhan, Nov. 15, 1897, Council protocol, Secret, Nachlaß Hohenlohe, 1607:28, 71–72, BAK. Benedicta Wirth, “Imperialistische Übersee- und Missionspolitik,” Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft 51 (1967): 334. Rivinius, Weltlicher Schutz, 481. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 279. 18 Varnbüler to Mittnacht, Nov. 5, 1897, Report 1186, WüMAA, E50/03, 191:4–10, HSAS. Hohenlohe to Bülow, Nov. 16, 1897, Telegram 152, Secret, R 17946, China 6, Bd. 34, PAAA. Anzer to Montel, Dec. 30, 1897, Gesandtschaft Rom (Vatikan)(Ges. Rom-V), 925, PAAA. Kopp to Bülow, Dec. 27, 1897, R 2278, Deutschland 138 Geheim, Bd. 1, PAAA. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 279. 19 Bülow to Wilhelm II, Nov. 16, 1897, Direct Report, Nachlaß Bülow, 112:26–28, 43, BAK. Bülow to Wilhelm II, Nov. 12, 1897, Telegram 245, R 17946, China 6, Bd. 34, PAAA. Hohenlohe, Reichskanzlerzeit, 404–6. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 279. Big Swords and Battleships 115 action was rather cool precisely because the Pope’s foreign secretary Cardinal Mariano Rampolla del Tindaro and other Francophile prelates suspected that the German intervention in Shandong constituted little more than a bid for Center votes for the navy.20 Indeed pursuing such support via China, the Kaiser enlisted the assistance in both Berlin and Rome of the nationalist bishop of the SVD mission in Shandong, Johann Baptist Anzer. Coincidentally present in Europe at the time of the murders, the bishop dined privately in Berlin with the imperial couple on November 17. On that occasion Anzer claimed to have already enjoyed success in predisposing several previously resistant Center delegates to endorse the imminent naval bill.21 Pleased by the bishop’s energetic back- ing, the Kaiser also complained to Anzer regarding the Pope’s supposed secret prohibition of Centrist endorsement of German naval expansion. The bishop thereupon accepted an informal imperial commission to overcome the alleged papal opposition to passage of the Tirpitz Plan. At the Vatican Anzer quickly discovered that Leo XIII had taken no position at all on the German naval bill, nor had he been consulted by the Center. However, Anzer’s lobbying in Rome nonetheless coincided with a dramatic warming of the Pope’s attitude toward the Jiaozhou action. Leo accordingly conveyed to the Kaiser via Anzer his complete sympathy in the fleet question, and Germany’s leading internal source at the Vatican, Johannes Edler Montel von Treuenfest, predicted that news of this declaration would soon have a positive influence in Center circles.22 In public the Kaiser and his officials likewise took pains to link the naval bill with the intervention on behalf of the SVD. Wilhelm’s speech opening the Reichstag on November 30 underlined the call for naval expansion and then climaxed with the justification of the Jiaozhou action solely in terms of the German protectorate over the nation’s missionaries.23 In an obvious reference to the recent interventions in China and Haiti, Admiral Tirpitz alluded during the first reading of the naval bill to the Reich’s interest in the “protection of German citizens in distant lands.”24 More significantly, in the same naval

20 Otto von Bülow to Foreign Office, Dec. 7, 15, 1897, Reports 106 and 109, R 17946, China 6, Bd. 34, PAAA. 21 Wilhelm II to Foreign Office, Nov. 17, 1897, Telegram, R 17946, China 6, Bd. 34, PAAA. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 280. Rivinius, Weltlicher Schutz, 489–90. 22 Otto von Bülow to Hohenlohe, Dec. 21, 1897, Report 113, R 17946, China 6, Bd. 34, PAAA. Anzer to Montel, Dec. 30, 1897, Ges. Rom-V, 925, PAAA. Kopp to Bülow, Dec. 27, 1897, R 2278, Deutschland 138 Geheim, Bd. 1, PAAA. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 280. Rivinius, Weltlicher Schutz, 489–90. 23 Wilhelm II, Nov. 30, 1897, RTSB, 1–3. 24 Tirpitz, Dec. 6, 1897, RTSB, 46. 116 CHAPTER 5 debate Foreign Secretary Bülow explained the occupation of Jiaozhou Bay as if its objectives had been purely “on the one hand to attain full expiation for the murder of German and Catholic missionaries, [and] on the other hand to gain greater security for the future against the recurrence of such incidents.”25 Nor did the public relations campaign halt there. On December 15 Wilhelm bade farewell to his brother Prince Heinrich as the latter prepared to set sail for China with a new contingent of ships for the East Asian squadron. The fan- fare of the occasion assumed a crusade-like quality as Cardinal Prince-Bishop Georg von Kopp of Breslau and Archbishop Florian von Stablewski of Gnesen and Posen telegraphed their blessings upon the action to protect the cross. In his well-known “mailed fist” speech on this occasion, the Kaiser again appealed to Catholic sympathies for the “frequently vexed and also often afflicted brethren” in Shandong while announcing a moment later that “imperial power means seapower, and . . . one cannot exist without the other.”26 Likewise, the Kaiser induced Prince Regent Luitpold of Anzer’s native Bavaria to raise the bishop to the nobility through bestowal of the Royal Grand Commander Cross.27 In commemoration of this occasion, Anzer received a personally autographed photograph of the Kaiser. Above his signature, Wilhelm wrote the single Latin word “tamen” meaning “nevertheless.” The liberal Münchner Neueste Nachrichten quickly and probably accurately interpreted the word’s significance: “Although the Center denied me the navy cruisers, nevertheless I am sending ships to China for the protection of German missionaries.”28 Invited to dine again with the Kaiser on December 28, Bishop von Anzer was thereupon also decorated with the Prussian insignia of the Red Eagle Order, Second Class with the Star. Soon thereafter, the Kaiser announced a gift to Anzer of a second picture of himself and also sent him a New Year’s postcard with a picture of the imperial cruiser Kaiserin Augusta.29 This whole story of Anzer’s honors appeared in great detail in the national Center paper Germania, and it seems certain that garnering Catholic support for the naval

25 Bülow, Dec. 6, 1897, RTSB, 60B/C. 26 “Die Ausfahrt des Prinzen Heinrich,” Germania, Dec. 17, 1897, Nr. 288. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 278. Wirth, “Imperialistische Missionspolitik,” 331–32. 27 Bülow to Wilhelm II, Dec. 19, 1897, R 17946, China 6, Bd. 34, PAAA. “Deutsches Reich: Bischof Johann von Anzer,” Germania, Dec. 28, 1897, Nr. 296. 28 “Zur Audienz des Bischofs Anzer beim Kaiser,” Germania, Dec. 25, 1897, Nr. 295. “Tamen,” Germania, Dec. 31, 1897, Nr. 299. Wirth, “Imperialistische Missionspolitik,” 335. 29 “Bischof von Anzer,” Germania, Dec. 30, 1897, Nr. 298. Richthofen, Dec. 29, 1897, Memorandum, AS1463; Anzer to Wilhelm II, Dec. 29, 1897, R 17946, China 6, Bd. 34, PAAA. Big Swords and Battleships 117 bill was the primary purpose behind all the attention showered upon the bishop.30 Meanwhile in Asia, the aftermath of the murders in Shandong kept Catholic missionary and German national interests closely aligned. For its part, the SVD demanded thorough satisfaction from Beijing for the slain priests. Materially, Anzer and his Austrian provicar Father Josef Freinademetz specified reimbursement for property damages, the fortification of seven mission residences, and the erection of three churches of atonement under the protection and at the expense of Beijing. Furthermore, the missionaries insisted upon the disciplinary transfers elsewhere of five county prefects and of their superior, the circuit intendant (daotai) of South Shandong at Yanzhou.31 The Reich, however, needed to be armed with expiation terms stern enough to obviate the possibility that the Chinese might comply too swiftly. Otherwise, the grounds for the continued occupation of Jiaozhou Bay would be dispelled before Berlin could extract Beijing’s consent to the coveted leasehold there at the harbor town of Qingdao. Consequently, the German envoy in Beijing, Edmund Freiherr von Heyking, pressed the Qing court with even tougher conditions than those put forward by the missionaries. Even before establishing contact with the SVD, Heyking demanded the dismissal of the militantly conservative Governor Li Bingheng of Shandong and subsequently secured his permanent degradation. The envoy also believed that Beijing should provide financial compensation for the slayings themselves, so he more than tripled the figure Freinademetz had provided as the value of the damaged property. He then elaborated upon the missionaries’ other conditions by pursuing and eventually obtaining the outright dismissal of the prefect of Juye and the degradation of yet an eighth official.32

30 “Zur Audienz des Bischofs Anzer beim Kaiser,” Germania, Dec. 25, 1897, Nr. 295. “Deutsches Reich: Bischof Johann von Anzer,” Germania, Dec. 28, 1897, Nr. 296. “Bischof von Anzer,” Germania, Dec. 30, 1897, Nr. 298. “Tamen,” Germania, Dec. 31, 1897, Nr. 299. 31 Anzer to Rotenhan, Nov. 23, 1897; Heyking to Foreign Office, Dec. 3, 1897, Telegram 86, R 17946, China 6, Bd. 34, PAAA. Heyking to Foreign Office, Dec. 30, 1897, Jan. 14, 1898, Telegrams 119 and 13, R 17947, China 6, Bd. 35, PAAA. Elisabeth von Heyking, Tagebücher, 243. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:330–32. Jacobus Kuepers, China und die katholische Mission in Süd-Shantung, 1882–1900 (Steyl, D.Div., 1974), 141–44. 32 Hohenlohe to Heyking, Nov. 7, 1897, Telegram 43, Secret; Heyking to Foreign Office, Nov. 10, 1897, Telegram 66; Rotenhan to Heyking, Nov. 14, 1897, Telegram 51, R 17946, China 6, Bd. 34, PAAA. Heyking to Foreign Office, Dec. 30, 1897, Jan. 14, 1898, Telegrams 119 and 13, R 17947, China 6, Bd. 35, PAAA. Rotenhan, Nov. 15, 1897, Council protocol, Secret, Nachlaß Hohenlohe, 1607:71–72, BAK. Heyking to Foreign Office, Nov. 21, 22, Dec. 4, 1897, Telegrams 73, 77 and 88; Hohenlohe to Wilhelm II, Nov. 21, 1897; Bülow to Heyking, Dec. 12, 1897, 118 CHAPTER 5

Besides buying time for the establishment of the leasehold of Kiautschou, this energetic approach yielded the additional benefit that the Reich could continue to curry Centrist goodwill toward the navy at no cost to itself.33 In a January speech to the Reichstag’s Budget Committee, Bülow emphasized his office’s close cooperation with the missionaries to underline the sincer- ity of Berlin’s defense of Catholic interests in China. He then concluded that the mission’s security enjoyed its best guarantee “in the continual presence of the German warships . . . at Jiaozhou Bay.”34 Here again, the government was angling for Center recognition of a linkage between the protectorate and a strong German navy. According to contemporaries of the most diverse persuasions, these multiple overtures via China could be expected to have considerable influence upon the Center’s attitude toward the new naval proposals. At the Vatican Rampolla and Montel respectively feared and anticipated this effect.35 Likewise, in February 1898 the Prussian minister of finance Johannes Miquel informed Tirpitz of his conviction that the seizure of Jiaozhou Bay had overcome popular opposition to the navy to such an extent that parties voting against the naval bill would be hurt in any ensuing elections.36 While the Social Democrat August Bebel took the opposite view regarding the public’s actual opinion, he still believed that Berlin’s action purportedly in defense of the SVD missionaries was contributing significantly to Centrist support for the naval bill.37 Even the Hamburger Nachrichten, mouthpiece of the erstwhile chancellor Otto Fürst von Bismarck,

Telegram, Große Politik, Bd. 14/I, Nr. 3712, 3713, 3716, 3722, 3729. Elisabeth von Heyking, Tagebücher, 243, 249, 256. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:330–32. Kuepers, China und die katholische Mission, 141–44. Wirth, “Imperialistische Missionspolitik,” 333. 33 The name ‘Kiautschou,’ the Germanization of ‘Jiaozhou,’ was applied to the ninety-nine- year German leasehold established by treaty of March 1898 over the town of Qingdao (German: ‘Tsingtao’ or ‘Tsintau’) and its immediate hinterland around Jiaozhou Bay. As the leasehold was a purely imperialist construct, its German spelling has been used in this work. Obviously, the Chinese appellations of the bay and the town themselves long preceded the Germans’ arrival and have been duly retained here in the currently most widely used Pinyin romanization. 34 Bülow, Jan. 24, 1898, Protokolle der Kommission für den Reichshaushalts-Etat (ProtBc), Reichstags-Akten (RTA), 1123:5–6, BAP. “Parlamentarisches,” Germania, Jan. 26, 1898, Nr. 20. 35 See footnotes 20 and 22 above. 36 Jagemann to Brauer, Feb. 11, 1898, Report 18, Großherzogliche Badische Gesandtschaft Berlin (BdGB), Abt. 49/2031:24, Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe (GLAK). 37 Bebel, Mar. 23, 1898, RTSB, 1707C. Bebel, Apr. 27, 1898, RTSB, 1988B. “Zentrum und Flottengesetz,” Vorwärts, Mar. 3, 1898, Nr. 52. Big Swords and Battleships 119 was openly dubbing Jiaozhou the noose laid around the neck of the Reichstag to make it more tractable for passage of the fleet law.38

The Jiaozhou Action and Centrist Approval of the Fleet

In fact, German Catholic opinion on the fleet question began responding favorably to the government’s courtship via Shandong almost immediately after the occupation of Jiaozhou Bay. At a meeting of the party’s Reichstag deputies regarding the naval bill in early December, the jurist leader of the Württemberg Center Adolf Gröber observed that Berlin’s exaction of restitution for the murder of the SVD missionaries had been received very warmly in broad Catholic circles. He accordingly reasoned that, if the Center took a strong stand against the naval bill, the government could readily rally Catholic popular opinion around itself under the banner of Jiaozhou.39 That same week one of Tirpitz’s parliamentary observers was likewise informed by one or more Center leaders that the intervention in China was proving particularly conducive to the creation of a more favorable climate for naval expansion.40 This shift in Catholic public opinion over the Jiaozhou action helps account for Bülow’s confidence by late December that the Center would no longer insist upon even partial repeal of the Anti-Jesuit Law in exchange for passage of the naval bill.41 This estimate of the political situation proved accurate. In January 1898 the populist Westphalian publisher and Reichstag delegate Johannes Fusangel observed that his election district of Olpe, once home to the slain missionary Franz Nies, now supported the naval bill with surprising solidity. The otherwise more oppositional Fusangel thereupon noted in a communication to party chief Ernst Lieber the necessity of taking such sentiment into account.42 Lieber also received a letter in late February from Chaplain Thönies of Scherfede who credited the Kaiser’s decisive defense of the Shandong mission with the

38 Bebel, Mar. 23, 1898, RTSB, 1707C. 39 Lieber, [Dec. 3, 1897 or shortly thereafter], Note, Nachlaß Lieber, 59, AABKW. For dating of the delegation meeting, see Hertling to Anna von Hertling, Dec. 3, 6, 1897, Nachlaß Hertling, 12:41–43, BAK. 40 Hoenig to Tirpitz, Dec. 6, 1897, Nachlaß Tirpitz, 4:199–205, Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv Freiburg (BMAF). 41 Varnbüler to Mittnacht, Dec. 24, 1897, Report 1404, WüMAA, E50/03, 191:3–5, HSAS. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 279. 42 Fusangel to Lieber, Jan. 20, 1898, Nachlaß Lieber, 59:1, AABKW. Max Schwarz, MdR: Biographisches Handbuch der Reichstage (Hannover: Verlag für Literatur und Zeitgeschehen, 1965), 190, 318. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 44, 82, 123–24. 120 CHAPTER 5 considerable popularity of the fleet among Catholics of eastern Westphalia and, he believed, all of northern Germany.43 Partly as a result of this trend, Center leaders outside Bavaria were approaching a consensus by early March according to which the now six-year naval bill could be endorsed if sufficient guarantees could be established that any future revenues to fund naval construction would not be raised through taxation of items of mass consumption. At this point the leading Centrists issued a declaration in the party bulletin Zentrums-Korrespondenz that justified their position as “the lesser of two evils.”44 Of the six reasons presented, five were rather passive in nature. It was pointed out, for example, that Tirpitz had generated widespread favor by demanding less than expected and that the sextennial law would at least create peaceful intervals on the fleet question. Furthermore, the 1887 elections had taught that the German populace would not vindicate the Reichstag if it precipitated a conflict over a purely constitutional issue by balking at multi-year military appropriations. This would be still more true in 1898 as the pattern of multiennial army laws had become even more well- established over the years. A conflict on this issue moreover presented a serious risk of an executive coup against the constitution without offering much likelihood of securing a cheaper solution to the naval question.45 The only actually positive incentive the declaration offered to justify a Centrist vote for the naval bill appeared as the second of its six points: “The events in Jiaozhou and the new hopes for commerce and the missions have increased the readiness to make sacrifices for the navy.”46 Unfortunately, it is not possible to quantify the weight various Centrist deputies attached to these six considerations, nor even to establish that the list is truly complete. However, a Reichstag speech delivered by the Rhineland jurist Peter Spahn on March 24 should be noted here. In the face of socialist attacks, Spahn defended the majority Centrist decision to sanction the naval bill and concluded his remarks with an acknowledgment that the navy’s function of protecting missionaries in

43 Thönies to Lieber, Feb. 24, 1898, Nachlaß Lieber, 35, AABKW. 44 “Zentrum und Flottengesetz,” Vorwärts, Mar. 3, 1898, Nr. 52. Jagemann to Brauer, Mar. 8, 1898, Report 36, BdGB, Abt. 49/2031:46–47, GLAK. Gustav Oldenhage, “Die deutsche Flottenvorlage von 1897 und die öffentliche Meinung” (Ph.D. diss., Universität Münster, 1935), 74–75. 45 See previous footnote. 46 See footnote 44. Big Swords and Battleships 121 the colonies generally, and in Shandong in particular, had in fact figured in the Catholic party’s deliberations.47 Immediately after Spahn’s speech, the Reichstag approved the six-year naval plan in its second reading by a vote of 212–139. Given the political constellation in parliament, the measure could not have passed that day without at least twenty-three Centrists leaving the opposition. In the end, the naval bill enjoyed the support of fifty-nine of the eighty-nine Centrists present thanks to the near unanimity of the party’s delegations from Prussia, Baden, and Württemberg, states where bourgeois professionals and aristocrats still occupied some sixty percent of the Center’s Reichstag seats. Outside Bavaria, only three Centrists voted with the opposition, the most notable being the maverick superior court judge Hermann Roeren representing Saarburg in the Eifel-Hunsrück region of Rhenish Prussia. On the other hand, the more populist Bavarian Center, which consisted primarily of agrarians, artisans, and lesser clergy, voted en bloc against the naval bill. The lone affirmative ballot from Bavarian Swabia belonged to an outsider, the Prussian-educated Hessian professor at Munich, Georg Freiherr von Hertling.48 As for the Center’s constituency, the results of the ensuing Reichstag elections in June appeared to vindicate the party majority’s perception that of late the fleet had won considerable sympathy among German Catholics. Less than three months after the naval vote, the electorate increased the party’s Reichstag delegation by four seats, all of them Prussian, and returned six more professionals, two additional aristocrats, and four fewer artisans than had sat in the delegation during the previous session.49 As noted above, recent historians have overwhelmingly attributed the cast- ing of the fifty-nine Centrist votes for the first fleet law to purely domestic considerations. Within this framework, the debate has generally focused upon whether the decision of the bulk of the Center to vote for the sextennial naval law reflected the desire of a religious minority to achieve integration into a mis- trustful nation or the fear of a parliamentary party that a bitter conflict with the state might risk the loss of important constitutional rights. The foregoing presentation of evidence regarding the influence of events in Shandong does not call into question the thesis that domestic considerations predominated

47 Spahn, Mar. 24, 1898, RTSB, 1756C. See also: Anzer to Hohenlohe, Nov. 10, 1898, R 17948, China 6, Band 36, PAAA. 48 Roll Call Vote, Draft Law concerning the German Fleet, Article 1, Mar. 24, 1898, RTSB, 1761–63. Georg von Hertling, Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben (München: Verlag der Josef Köselschen Buchhandlung, 1920), 2:202–3. Schwarz, MdR, 139–506. Morsey, Lebensbildern, 43–44. E.L. Evans, German Center, 128. 49 Schwarz, MdR, 139–506. 122 CHAPTER 5 in the Center’s calculations of 1898. However, nearly all the existing literature errs in its failure to recognize the considerable role that Catholic appreciation of the Jiaozhou action also played in the passage of the naval bill. The Chinese murders at Zhangjiazhuang greatly facilitated the enactment of the histori- cally momentous Tirpitz Plan and the concomitant easing of tensions between the Center and the Berlin government. Furthermore, the slaying of the SVD missionaries marked the beginning of a period of several years during which resistance to Western imperialism in North China, Cuba, the Philippines, and Samoa exerted a noteworthy influence upon the course of German domestic politics. The Zhangjiazhuang attack itself facilitated the birth of the government-Center rapprochement, and the convergence of Catholic and German national interests at those four locations on the globe generally meant that indigenous resistance movements there further reinforced the nascent political partnership in Berlin. Occasionally, however, Chinese opposition to foreign incursions threatened to disturb relations between the German Catholic party and the Reich. The ambivalence of this Chinese factor for the improvement of government-Center relations may best be understood through an examination of the German Catholic missionaries’ own imperialist practices in southern Shandong and the nature of Chinese resistance thereto.

The Context of the Big Sword Murders at Zhangjiazhuang

From its very inception in 1882, German Catholic cultural and political encroachment in Shandong met with determined Chinese opposition. Such resistance took the form of threats from Confucian literati, urban crowds, rural bandits, and maverick vigilante bands. For the German government, the consequent instability of the Vicariate of South Shandong proved a two-edged sword. On the one hand, Germany’s protectorate over its Catholic missionaries provided a convenient alibi for the economic and political penetration of China. On the other hand, outbreaks of popular resentment against the missions could threaten German economic interests established via prior penetration, and military intervention to restore order could jeopardize the cordial relations essential for commerce. For these reasons, Catholic missionary appeals for Berlin’s intervention could either unite government and Center interests or divide them. The central mountains of the Shandong peninsula form the divide between the northern and southern courses of the Yellow River. To the west of these highlands extends the broad North China plain, across which the Grand Canal Big Swords and Battleships 123 cuts its path from the Lower Yangzi delta to Beijing, intersecting the Yellow River about one hundred kilometers southwest of Shandong’s provincial capital Jinan. Between the catastrophic floods and periodic droughts, life for the peasant farmers of western Shandong was extremely precarious at the turn of the century, and famine induced by natural disasters led to heightened social instability and unrest. Moreover, where the hills approached the Grand Canal in the southwestern regions of Jining and Caozhou, relatively stable and pros- perous areas lay in close proximity to marshy areas prone to flooding and thus offered accessible targets for the socially integrated banditry that had plagued southwestern Shandong for centuries. Since complaints against bandits lodged through the bureaucracy took an interminable length of time, the local gentry organized extralegal martial-arts bands of their own in self-defense, of which the best-known was the Big Sword Society (Dadaohui).50 Two other major components of western Shandong’s culture warrant mention. Confucius, the founder of Chinese philosophical orthodoxy, was born near the city of Yanzhou in southwest Shandong. Many of the inhabitants of the province took special pride in this fact and resisted heterodoxies passion- ately, whether native or foreign. However, the long history of natural disasters and political instability had also made western Shandong a hotbed for the syncretic heterodoxy of the millennialist White Lotus Sect. This sect faced the determined efforts of the government to eradicate it because of its seditious history dating back to the fourteenth century.51 Into this volatile milieu had entered the German Catholic missionaries of the SVD to establish by 1885 the independent Apostolic Vicariate of South Shandong under the newly anointed Bishop Anzer. Increasingly dissatisfied with French unwillingness to force open Yanzhou for missionary activity, Anzer had heeded promises of the German envoy in Beijing of more energetic exertions on his behalf and effected the transfer of the mission from French to German protection in 1890. After the German consul general and Bishop Anzer had each precipitated a riot by entering Yanzhou in 1890 and 1895, respectively, Germany’s forceful demands in the wake of China’s defeat by Japan finally resulted in September 1896 in the establishment of an episcopal residence in

50 Esherick, Boxer Uprising, 7–24, 96–112. 51 Ibid., 40–54. For more on the White Lotus Sect, see Yung-deh Richard Chu, “An Introductory Study of the White Lotus Sect in Chinese History,” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1967). Susan Naquin, Millenarian Rebellion in China: The Eight Trigrams Uprising of 1813 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976). 124 CHAPTER 5 Shandong Province, China Shandong Province, Uprising (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 8. Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Joseph W. Source: permission of the publisher. Reprinted by © University of California Press Books, 1988 MAP 6 Big Swords and Battleships 125 the city.52 This relentless and ultimately successful campaign to penetrate the “holy city” of Confucianism sowed resentment among the Chinese against the German Catholic missionaries and contributed to the readiness of certain literati to condone attacks upon the missions, both before and after 1897. Once these and similar facts finally became known in Germany, a debate developed about whether targets of such attacks were martyrs worthy of German protection or simply victims of the natural consequences of their own insensitivity. A similar question emerged out of the missionaries’ practice of intervening in Chinese judicial proceedings on behalf of their converts. During the same ten-year period from 1885 to 1895, the SVD missionaries had successfully enhanced their authority in the province by establishing a de facto equation of the Catholic ecclesiastical and the Chinese bureaucratic hierarchies. As Anzer, then provicar, remarked in his very first annual report from Shandong: “Wherever there are Christians, there are lawsuits.”53 When a dispute between Chinese Christians and non-Christians arose, the former ultimately had the more powerful recourse. This stemmed from the fact that each member of the Catholic hierarchy, from the local parish head to the bishop, enjoyed great influence with Chinese bureaucrats of comparable rank because behind the bishop stood the German envoy and, potentially, the German navy. The hier- archic correlations were even gradually institutionalized by means of constant foreign pressure upon the Qing court. Thus, in 1893 the Chinese emperor bestowed upon Anzer the same rank of Mandarin, Third Class, held by the province’s chief judicial commissioner. Then, two years later as the Sino- Japanese War was winding down, the court raised the bishop to the rank of Mandarin, Second Class, placing him on the same footing as the provincial governor himself.54 With the incursion of this influential independent Catholic hierarchy into the Chinese legal system, sectarians and bandits who stood in fear of the native authorities gravitated toward conversion to the foreign faith as a means of evading punishment. Contemporary SVD accounts freely acknowledge the

52 Esherick, Boxer Uprising, 79–81. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 271–75. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:263–64. Rivinius, Weltlicher Schutz, 225–50, 430–55. John Schrecker, Impe rialism and Chinese Nationalism: Germany in Shantung (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), 12–13. 53 John Thauren, The Mission Fields of the Society of the Divine Word, vol. 1, The Missions of Shandong, China, trans. by Albert Paul Schimberg (Techny, IL: Mission Press, 1932), 58, quoted in Esherick, Boxer Uprising, 82. 54 Esherick, Boxer Uprising, 84. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 288. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:229, 262. 126 CHAPTER 5 attractiveness Christianity held for White Lotus sectarians, both in terms of certain similarities between the two religions and in terms of the legal protection afforded to this new heterodoxy by the foreigners’ treaties and gunboats.55 Indeed, no sooner had the SVD missionaries arrived in the early 1880s than thousands of sectarians began requesting entry into the Catholic Church in the wake of a government crackdown after a small White Lotus uprising. In the words of SVD historian Clifford King, the missionaries considered this mass appeal “too good an opportunity to miss.”56 Likewise, when Chinese law threatened to catch up with bandit villages, the inhabitants could gain sanctuary through conversion. One SVD missionary described such an instance of a condemned bandit village:

When all but one of the families residing there decided to embrace the Catholic religion, the missionary pleaded effectively with the Mandarin for clemency on their behalf. Thus Changkiao escaped destruction. Tamed by their Christian faith these former brigands became law-abiding farmers and exemplary Catholics—another conquest of Divine Grace.57

Similarly, an official Shandong account relates how many of the three thousand followers of the bandit Rice-Grain Yue II (Yue Er-mi-zi) joined the Catholic church out of fear of arrest after Yue’s defeat at the hands of the vigilante Big Swords in 1895.58 Such examples naturally raise questions about the missionaries’ awareness of their converts’ activities and their ability to prevent their flocks from continuing in socially and politically disruptive roles under the sign of the Cross. As will be seen, such questions were in fact raised in Germany but only very slowly. Under the circumstances, the remarkably rapid growth in the number of Christians in South Shandong appears far more mundane than miraculous. Indeed, it points toward the hypothesis that the missionaries were in no position

55 For White Lotus affinities with Christianity, see Henry Porter, “Secret Sects in Shantung,” Chinese Recorder 17.1–2 (January/February 1886): 4–9, 64–71. Henry Porter, “A Modern Shantung Prophet,” Chinese Recorder 18.1 (January 1887): 18. Georg Stenz. Twenty-five Years in China, 1893–1918 (Techny, IL: Mission Press, 1924), 38–39. Daniel Bays, “Christianity and the Chinese Sectarian Tradition,” Ch’ing-shih Wen-t’i IV, 7 (June 1982): 33–46. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1: 323. 56 Clifford King, A Man of God: Joseph Freinademetz, Pioneer Divine Word Missionary (Techny, IL: Divine Word Publications, 1959), 71–72, 74. Esherick, Boxer Uprising, 87. 57 King, Man of God, 119–20. Esherick, Boxer Uprising, 89–90. 58 Su Yuzhang, Shandong Yihetuan Diaocha Ziliao Xuanbiquan (Jinan: Shandong Daxue Lishixi Jindaishi Jiaoyanshi, 1980), 22, quoted in Esherick, Boxer Uprising, 113. Big Swords and Battleships 127 to evaluate accusations against their converts. In October 1886, shortly after the establishment of the vicariate, there were reported to be only 634 baptized Christians and 2,150 catechists under the care of eighteen missionaries. This manageable ratio was soon disrupted, for by Easter 1896 there were just forty- three priests tending a total flock of 26,459 Christians and catechists. Three years later the latter figure had doubled to 53,039 while the SVD mission’s personnel had grown to just fifty-four.59 In light of the fact that these tens of thousands of converts were nearly all scattered across the rugged countryside in small congregations, it was humanly impossible for the missionaries to be sure that accusations made against Christians were false. Nonetheless, the SVD missionaries consistently intervened in court cases on behalf of the converts. Father Richard Henle, one of those murdered in November 1897, sometimes received as many as twenty messengers in one day, all seeking his intervention in one dispute or another.60 Thus, by combining inordinate legal influence with a lack of adequate means to oversee the behavior of converts, the missionaries had introduced a new friction into an already explosive sociopolitical situation. It is therefore hardly surprising that the vigilante martial-arts bands of the Big Sword Society clashed with the adherents of the new foreign heterodoxy which harbored both the potentially seditious White Lotus sectarians and the allegedly reformed bandits. All the evidence would suggest that the attack upon Zhangjiazhuang of November 1897 was perpetrated by a group of Big Swords with a grievance against the local missionary Father Georg Stenz, whose good fortune it was to have yielded his bedroom that night to his two visiting colleagues.61 Still, at that time Berlin had as yet no desire to look beyond the fact that the martyrdom of German Catholics was a windfall for the navy, both on the Yellow Sea and in the Reichstag. Nonetheless, this positive effect of Chinese resistance upon government-Center relations could and would reverse itself once German secular interests had established themselves on the Shandong peninsula.

59 Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:115–16, 279, 304, 367, 398. 60 Georg Stenz, Life of Father Richard Henle, S.V.D., translated by Elizabeth Ruft (Techny, IL: Mission Press, 1915), 102. Esherick, Boxer Uprising, 82. 61 Kuepers, China und die katholische Mission, 132–136. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:323–25. CHAPTER 6 Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the New Naval Law, 1898–1900

Before the continuation of Chinese hostility to the German presence in Shandong could unexpectedly cloud the government-Center rapprochement, three other non-European resistance movements in the Caribbean and South Pacific precipitated a pair of international crises more favorable to that relationship. The Cubans, engaged since 1895 in a bitter war against Spanish rule, had made sufficient progress by early 1898 to raise the prospect of their achieving independence in the foreseeable future without enlisting the dubious aid of a covetous United States.1 Meanwhile, a roughly concurrent Filipino uprising had inadvertently contributed to Cuban successes by diverting Spanish troops away from the Caribbean theater.2 In April 1898 President William McKinley therefore led the United States into a war against Spain in order to forestall the creation of a genuinely independent Cuban Republic and to exploit the unique opportunity of war to annex the economically strategic Philippines, which Berlin had also been eyeing.3 The second crisis occurred a year later when widespread Samoan objections to an ill-chosen king triggered a serious dispute between the Reich’s representatives at Apia and their Anglo-American counterparts.4 By-products in both cases of indigenous resistance movements, the Spanish-American War and the Samoan crisis had consequences for government-Center relations in Berlin analogous to those of the Zhangjiazhuang attack in Shandong.

1 Philip S. Foner, The Spanish-Cuban-American War and the Birth of American Imperialism, 1895–1902 (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972), 1:119–50, 247–49. Louis A. Pérez, Jr., Cuba and the United States: Ties of Singular Intimacy (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1990), 82–100. 2 Foner, Spanish-Cuban-American War, 1:123–25. 3 Foner, Spanish-Cuban-American War, 1:226–29, 242–43, 247–53, 255, 261–63, 293–310. Pérez, Cuba and the United States, 90–95. Jules R. Benjamin, The United States and the Origins of the Cuban Revolution: An Empire of Liberty in an Age of National Liberation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 39–51. Holger H. Herwig, Politics of Frustration: The United States in German Naval Planning, 1889–1941 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1976), 25–26, 28–30, 32–33, 35. 4 Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 145–88.

Cubans, Filipinos, and the Spanish-American War

The Cubans had initiated their second war for independence in February 1895, and by April 1898 the roughly 30,000 revolutionary soldiers had gained undis- puted control of three-fourths of the island. From east to west outside the fortified areas still held by the Spaniards, the Republic of Cuba collected taxes, distributed mail, operated schools, and held elections with impunity. Wholly on the defensive, the Spanish troops now faced the prospect of yet another summer of epidemics that promised to devastate their own ranks while dealing the resistant Cubans considerably more manageable losses. Indeed, although Madrid had poured 225,000 men into Cuba, only thirty to forty percent of these were still alive and fit for duty when the United States declared war.5 While couched in largely humanitarian terms for public consumption, the intervention of the United States in this conflict resulted primarily from fears in Washington of the establishment of a radical government in Havana and from the expectation that American involvement in the collapse of the remaining Spanish colonial empire would yield benefits for the economic penetration of Latin America and East Asia.6 By provoking the Spanish-American War, the Cubans—and, less directly, the Filipinos—set in motion events which produced in Germany a configuration in government-Center relations parallel to the consequences of the Big Sword attack on Zhangjiazhuang. On the one hand, just as the Kaiser and the German Catholics both aligned themselves with the SVD missionaries in Shandong, the monarch and the Centrists found themselves sympathizing in the war of 1898 with the same party—namely, the Spanish. Wilhelm II wished in any case to see the traditional Spanish monarchy triumph over the North American republic, but his close personal friendship with the Austrian brothers of the Queen Regent Maria Cristina rendered this moral support all the more emphatic.7 For the Centrists, it was simply a matter of confessional partisanship for an eminent Catholic nation facing a superior and predominantly Protestant foe. Hence, for once even the Prussophobic editors of the Augsburger Postzeitung, then the leading journal of the populist Bavarian Center, found themselves of one mind with the Kaiser.8

5 Foner, Spanish-Cuban-American War, 1:20–21, 120–23, 136–38, 248–49, 266. Pérez, Cuba and the United States, 82, 85, 87–94. 6 Foner, Spanish-Cuban-American War, 1:293–310. Pérez, Cuba and the United States, 90–102. Benjamin, United States and the Origins, 39–51. 7 Bülow, Denkwürdigkeiten, 1:147–48, 219–20. Herwig, Politics of Frustration, 21, 25–26. 8 Monts to Hohenlohe, Apr. 13, 1899, Report 41, R 19498, Südsee 5, Bd. 2, PAAA. 130 CHAPTER 6

At the same time, by late 1898 the course and consequences of the Spanish- American War had greatly disturbed the calculations of both the German naval leadership and the Kaiser. From the outset Tirpitz regretted that the conflict had come so early that the imperial navy was not yet in a position to exercise any influence upon the outcome. Even so, in March 1898 he had advocated the dispatch of a number of ships to the South Pacific theater in hopes that such a presence would persuade a victorious United States to consent to the compensation of Germany with Samoa, the Carolines, the Sulu Archipelago, or some or all of the Philippines proper.9 Indeed, the Kaiser initially imagined in April that the Philippines as a whole would “fall into our lap like a ripe fruit,” for he was convinced that the Spanish were capable of defeating the Americans by sea but not of subduing the Filipino insurgents.10 In fact, Wilhelm’s intelligence regarding Filipino strength proved correct, yet, to the monarch’s chagrin, superior American naval guns demolished the Spaniards’ Pacific squadron near Manila on May 1 and their Caribbean flo- tilla at Santiago two months later.11 Suddenly, the United States had emerged upon the world stage as a major naval power of such potency that the German Admiralty staff deemed it necessary to formulate its first plans for operations against that republic.12 Worse still, the assemblage of five German warships in Manila Bay provoked American suspicions of Berlin’s intentions, and an ominous altercation arose in July between Admiral George Dewey and Vice Admiral Otto von Diederichs over the right of American warships to halt and board those flying the neutral German flag.13 Even as this dispute resulted in the arousal of American public opinion against the Reich, the likewise officially neutral British took every opportunity both to accommodate Washington’s conduct of the war and to fuel American distrust of the Germans. This raised the highly unsettling, albeit still distant prospect of an Anglo-American alliance capable of thwarting the expansionist ambitions of the Reich in every corner of the globe. This was particularly true in the Pacific, where Spain’s cession in December of Wake Island, Guam,

9 Bülow, Denkwürdigkeiten, 1:188. Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 138–40. Herwig, Politics of Frustration, 26, 28, 32. David F. Trask, The War with Spain in 1898 (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1981), 377–79. 10 Bülow, Denkwürdigkeiten, 1:221. 11 Ibid. Foner, Spanish-Cuban-American War, 2:361, 411. Herwig, Politics of Frustration, 28. 12 Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 134, 139. Herwig, Politics of Frustration, 43–54, 57–66. 13 Walther Hubatsch, Die Ära Tirpitz: Studien zur deutschen Marinepolitik 1890–1918 (Göttingen: Musterschmidt Verlag, 1955), 35–40. Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 139–41. Herwig, Politics of Frustration, 29–34. Trask, War with Spain, 377–80. Berghahn, Tirpitz-Plan, 229. Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the Navy 131 and the Philippines to the United States and the latter’s concurrent annexation of Hawaii provided the expanded American navy with the logistical means to exert decisive influence in East Asia alongside Britain and Japan.14 By comparison, the Reich’s simultaneous purchase of the Carolines and remaining Marianas from Spain represented only negligible gains. Given this meteoric rise in seapower of an increasingly hostile United States, the Kaiser concluded that the Naval Law of 1898 was already outdated just months after its passage. Likewise, although Tirpitz was composed enough at that point to calm the monarch’s fears regarding the immediate viability of the existing law, the Spanish-American War and its consequences ensured that the naval secretary could at least anticipate the ready justifiability of demands for authorization of construction of a third battleship squadron a full year before the sextennial naval law expired in 1904.15 Thus, the inadvertent provocation of the Spanish-American War by Cuban insurgents not only placed the Center and the Kaiser on the same side of an international crisis, but also generated a disturbing new naval constellation that Berlin would subsequently use to prod the Center toward acceptance of a program to construct still more warships.

The Samoan Civil War and German-Anglo-American Tensions

Shortly after Washington and Madrid ended their conflict by signing the Treaty of Paris in December 1898, resistance to Western domination in Samoa became the epicenter of another diplomatic crisis with similar implications for the Reich government’s relations with the Center Party. On these South Pacific islands under joint German-Anglo-American control, Roman Catholic and German national interests were beginning to coincide in the late 1890s in the face of the success of the Congregationalist London Missionary Society among the majority of Samoans. French Marist missionaries recognized that an eventual annexation of the islands by either of the overwhelmingly Protestant Anglo-Saxon powers would eliminate virtually all Catholic influence among the Samoans. Viewing the situation in terms of his country’s interest, the German consul Fritz Rose perceived that the inordinate cultural influence of the British missionaries upon the Samoan elite posed an oblique but definite

14 Bülow, Denkwürdigkeiten, 1:221. Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 135, 137–38, 141–43. Herwig, Politics of Frustration, 29, 34. Trask, War with Spain, 381, 467. 15 Tirpitz, Dec. 11, 1899, RTSB, 3296A. Tirpitz, Erinnerungen, 101, 103. Kehr, Schlachtflottenbau, 172. Berghahn, Tirpitz-Plan, 160–65, 215, 229. Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 141. Herwig, Politics of Frustration, 29–30, 34. 132 CHAPTER 6 threat to the predominant German commercial interests in the group. Residual German mistrust of the Marists was meanwhile eased by the death of Bishop Lamaze whom an earlier consul had accused of encouraging Mata’afa Iosefo’s anti-German revolt of 1888/89.16 Consul Rose and the new bishop Pierre Broyer therefore entered into negotiations in the summer of 1896 regarding the possibility of a gradual replace- ment of the French Marists with Germans of the same order. This would take place in exchange for a secret Reich subsidy for the establishment of a Catholic school for Samoans that would feature German language instruction. However, as Rose impressed upon his superiors in Berlin, the Marists would have difficulty embarking upon this pro-German course without having also satisfied their Samoan clientele with a fundamental concession. Namely, to enjoy continued credibility with the Samoans, the Marists would have to secure the return from exile of their most eminent convert, Mata’afa Iosefo.17 A talented leader with an excellent genealogical claim to the kingship of all Samoa, Mata’afa had headed a major rebellion in 1888/89 against Germany’s puppet ruler Tamasese Titimaea and another in 1893 against King Malietoa Laupepa, the compromise candidate of the three Western powers. The latter campaign then ended with Mata’afa’s capture and exile to the German Marshall Islands.18 As Mata’afa partisans were now pressing urgently for his return, Broyer, Rose, and Governor Georg Irmer of the Marshalls hoped that a successful combination of Catholic intercession and German clemency would raise Samoan regard for these two interest groups over their Anglo-Saxon Protestant rivals.19 This argument likewise enjoyed the support of the Center’s leading colonial enthusiast Franz Prinz von Arenberg, who provided Broyer with the necessary introductions at the Colonial Department of the Foreign Office during the missionary bishop’s visit to Berlin in early 1897. Still, Foreign Secretary Marschall feared at that time that Mata’afa’s return would precipitate unrest in Samoa; he therefore declined to initiate the necessary diplomatic steps with Great Britain and the United States.20

16 Rose to Hohenlohe, July 14, 1896, Report 83; Rose to Hohenlohe, Dec. 28, 1897, Report 128, Secret, Reichskolonialamts-Akten (RKA), 2602/1:51–57, 75–78, BAP. Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 147–48. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 74–75. 17 See previous footnote. 18 Davidson, Samoa mo Samoa, 62–66. Gilson, Samoa, 384–87, 393–95, 416–22. Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 69–78, 92–93, 102. Meleisea, Making of Modern Samoa, 40–41. 19 Rose to Hohenlohe, July 14, 1896, Report 83, RKA, 2602/1:51–57, BAP. Gilson, Samoa, 423–24. Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 145, 147–48. 20 Broyer’s German secretary to Richthofen, [late January 1897]; Richthofen to Hohenlohe and Marschall, Jan. 29, 1897, Memorandum; Broyer to Arenberg, Nov. 2, 1897; Schmidt-Dargitz, Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the Navy 133

In a shrewd move the Mata’afans abandoned their opposition to Malietoa in October 1897 in return for a place in his government. From this strategic position, they redoubled their efforts to bring their leader home to Samoa through direct pressure upon the king and renewed appeals to the Catholic missionaries to intercede for Mata’afa in Berlin. Accordingly, in early November Bishop Broyer again wrote to Prinz von Arenberg on behalf of the exile.21 The Centrist aristocrat in turn employed his influence with his longtime friend Foreign Secretary Bülow who agreed in early 1898 to court Samoan opinion via cooperation with the Marists and magnanimity toward their popular protégé.22 Meanwhile, the Mata’afan party had convinced the new British and American consuls of its loyalty to the Malietoa administration. The Mata’afans then prevailed upon the aging Samoan king to petition the tripartite government for the return of his former adversary, a motion to which all three powers gave their consent in July 1898.23 No sooner had this decision been made, however, than King Malietoa fell ill and died. Consequently, when Mata’afa first set foot upon Samoan soil in September, he arrived not as Malietoa’s sworn vassal, but as a serious contender for the now vacant throne. Indeed, by the end of the year Mata’afa enjoyed not only Germany’s endorsement, but also the support of the majority of Samoans against his chief rival, Malietoa Tanumafili, the nineteen-year-old son of the previous king. Even the American and British consuls recognized that Mata’afa was the better candidate. Nonetheless, as succession arbitrator under the terms of the Berlin Act of 1889, Chief Justice William Chambers, an American, ruled on December 31 in favor of the younger Malietoa’s claim to the throne.24 In answer to this questionable verdict, Mata’afa marshalled his superior forces, compelled Malietoa Tanumafili to flee to the British warship Porpoise, and seized control of the Samoans’ capital at Mulinu’u. This victory induced the British and American consuls to recognize for the moment a provisional Mata’afan government with the condominium’s bellicose German president

Dec. 8, 1897, Note, RKA, 2602/1:60–62, 73–74, BAP. Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 148. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 74–75. 21 Broyer to Arenberg, Nov. 2, 1897; Schmidt-Dargitz, Dec. 8, 1897, Note, RKA, 2602/1:73–74, BAP. Gilson, Samoa, 424. Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 145. 22 Schmidt-Dargitz, Dec. 8, 1897, Note; Richthofen to Bülow, Mar. 19, 1898; Richthofen to Hespers, May 17, 1898, RKA, 2602/1:73, 80–83, 86–87, BAP. Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 148. 23 Gilson, Samoa, 424. Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 145–46. 24 Große Politik, Bd. 14/II, Nr. 4028, n. **. Gilson, Samoa, 424–28. Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 146–51. Meleisea, Modern Samoa, 40–41. Steinmetz, Devil’s Handwriting, 312–13. 134 CHAPTER 6

Johannes Raffel as its chief executive. However, aboard the Porpoise Chief Justice Chambers announced his refusal to countenance the new arrangement, a declaration which prompted Raffel to attempt to oust the judge by closing the vacant courthouse. Deeming this a breach of the Berlin Act, the British and American consuls then led their marines to reopen the court. Therefore, when word reached Washington of the Mata’afans forcible disregard for Chambers’s ruling and of German complicity therein, the U.S.S. Philadelphia under Rear Admiral Albert Kautz was dispatched to Samoa to enforce an Anglo-American solution to the succession problem. Accordingly, within a week of his arrival in early March 1899, Kautz upheld Chambers’s decision for Malietoa and forcefully disbanded the provisional government at Mulinu’u.25 Mata’afa, however, refused to yield and attempted to retake Mulinu’u by sea. The American admiral thereupon opened fire on the Mata’afans, driving them back, while the British bombarded several of their villages. Immediately Mata’afa replied with fierce attacks upon Anglo-American positions in the municipality of Apia. In the ensuing conflict American and British warships bombarded the hinterland of Apia and in the process damaged the German consulate and the private property of Reich citizens. Having installed their minority candidate Malietoa as king, the Anglo-American forces then proceeded with their bombardment of Mata’afan villages and conducted punitive expeditions along the coast with their Malietoan allies. On the other hand, on April 1, 1899, an Anglo-American-Malietoan force venturing inland beyond shelling range of the warships was nearly overpowered at Vailele by thousands of Mata’afan warriors.26 By the time Mata’afa agreed to a ceasefire some three weeks later, the Samoans’ struggle to settle their own affairs had unleashed a major crisis in Germany’s relations with Great Britain and the United States. The Anglo- American officials in Samoa and the press in their countries blamed the war upon German intrigues while Berlin protested the damage inflicted by Anglo- American shells upon German diplomatic and private property. Public opinion in the Reich was also incensed by the Anglo-American detention of a German citizen accused of having assisted the Mata’afans at Vailele. Furthermore, the Kaiser and naval authorities were particularly outraged by reports that Admiral Kautz had threatened to fire upon the only German cruiser in Samoan waters,

25 Alfred Zimmermann, Geschichte der Deutschen Kolonialpolitik (Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler und Sohn, 1914), 297. Gilson, Samoa, 428–29. Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 152–53, 159–60. Meleisea, Modern Samoa, 41. Steinmetz, Devil’s Handwriting, 312–13. 26 Zimmermann, Deutsche Kolonialpolitik, 297. Große Politik, Bd. 14/II, Nr. 4053, n. *. Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 153–54. Herwig, Politics of Frustration, 36. Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the Navy 135 the Falke. Given the utter indignation of the Kaiser, the navy, and the German public, Bülow insisted unequivocally that the proposed tripartite plenipoten- tiary commission for Samoa should reach its decisions upon the basis of unanimous consent. While Washington readily approved this proposal, the British prime minister Salisbury temporized on the subject for so long that Berlin came within a hairsbreadth of breaking off diplomatic relations with London in protest.27 Like the Spanish-American War precipitated by the Cubans and further complicated by the Filipinos, the international crisis triggered by the Mata’afan majority in Samoa accentuated Berlin’s perception of the need for more rapid naval expansion. The Reich had been unable to reinforce the Falke largely because of the concurrent military intervention in Shandong aimed at discour- aging continuing Chinese attacks upon German missionaries and engineers.28 The ensuing apparent humiliation of the solitary German cruiser and the British disregard for the principle of consensus now convinced the Kaiser that the fleet foreseen in the Naval Law of 1898 was already obsolete. Exasperated with “the oxen in the Reichstag” who for ten years had failed to recognize the necessity of a strong navy, the monarch believed that a further expansion of the German fleet was essential to curbing Salisbury’s arrogance.29 Nor did the monarch conceal such plans from the British. Two days after vehemently attacking the prime minister’s Samoan policy in a tactless letter to his grand- mother Queen Victoria, the Kaiser warned the British ambassador that a day would come when the size of the German fleet would render it impossible for London to treat the Reich with the disrespect it had shown at Samoa.30 Scarcely less perturbed than the Kaiser, Naval Secretary Tirpitz deemed that the worsening relations with Britain and the United States over Samoa

27 Lehr, Apr. 14, 1899, RTSB, 1755A/C. Bülow, Apr. 14, 1899, RTSB, 1757C/D. Gilson, Samoa, 429– 30. Berghahn, Tirpitz-Plan, 228–29. Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 158–60, 163–67. Kennedy, Anglo-German Antagonism, 238, 241. Pauline Anderson, Anti-English Feeling, 289–90. Herwig, Politics of Frustration, 36. Palmer, Kaiser, 94–95. Cecil, Wilhelm II: Prince and Emperor, 324–26. 28 Hammann, Mar. 31, 1899, Secret Memorandum, R 19498, Südsee 5, Bd. 2, PAAA. Lehr, Apr. 14, 1899, RTSB, 1756C. See also the following section regarding the Rizhao Expedition in Shandong. 29 Wilhelm II, Apr. 2, 1899, Marginalia on Bülow to Wilhelm II, Apr. 1, 1899, Telegram 9, R 19498, Südsee 5, Bd. 2, PAAA. Also found in Große Politik, Bd. 14/II, Nr. 4053. Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 181. Herwig, Politics of Frustration, 36–37. 30 Wilhelm II to Victoria, May 22, 1899, Große Politik, Bd. 14/II, Nr. 4074. Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 183–84. Palmer, Kaiser, 94–95. Thomas A. Kohut, Wilhelm II and the Germans: A Study in Leadership (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 151–53. 136 CHAPTER 6 rendered a prompt revision of the sextennial law absolutely necessary. He was painfully aware that the German navy was not in a position to face even the American fleet without the benevolent neutrality of the British, a premise he knew to be of negligible likelihood.31 Indeed, according to Bülow’s memoirs, Tirpitz had suspected Britain and the United States of deliberately pursuing war over Samoa in April 1899 in order to crush the still vulnerable German navy.32 No longer willing to entertain the prospect of waiting until 1904 for warship construction beyond current limits, Tirpitz encouraged the Kaiser’s ambition to revise the naval law, and the admiral sounded out industrial leaders that spring to verify the logistical feasibility of accelerated production. British and American hostility to the Reich as exemplified during the Spanish-American and Samoan crises was to provide the justification for the measure in parliament. On the other hand, Tirpitz also believed that the introduction of the new naval bill would have to wait until the autumn of 1900. This was because the Kaiser was still in no mood as of 1899 to consent to the repeal of the Anti-Jesuit Law, the likely price of Centrist cooperation in the fleet question.33 Again, however, the Chinese of Shandong and the Mata’afans of Samoa inadvertently contributed to the acceleration of German naval expansion through the key role they had played in the events leading to the isolation and purported humiliation of the Falke. Indeed, the Kaiser bore the fate of the small cruiser close to his heart for months, ordering it to hasten home in September to witness the launching of the S.M.S. Karl der Große on October 18. On that day Wilhelm spent an entire hour conversing with the crew of the Falke, whom he cheered with the prospect that, in the not too distant future, a much more powerful German navy would command the respect of other nations.34 Likely excited by these painful memories of Samoa as much as by the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War nine days earlier, the Kaiser then disregarded the warnings

31 Monts to Holstein, Mar. 31, 1899, in Monts, Erinnerungen, 387. 32 Bülow, Denkwürdigkeiten, 1:283. Bülow’s memoirs are often less than reliable, yet here they can be corroborated with the fact that a year later Tirpitz also suspected that Britain was seeking a casus belli with the Reich. The Naval Office was haunted by the fear of a British preemptive strike against the expanding German fleet in the manner of the destruction of the Danish fleet in 1807. Berghahn, Tirpitz-Plan, 221. Palmer, Kaiser, 88. 33 Hohenlohe, May 1, 1899, Note, Nachlaß Hohenlohe, 1611:129–30, BAK. Bülow to Hohenlohe, Oct. 25, 1899, Telegram, Quite secret, Nachlaß Hohenlohe, 1614:1, BAK. Tirpitz, Dec. 12, 1899, RTSB, 3326A. Richter, Dec. 14, 1899, RTSB, 3365C, 3367A. Schaedler, Feb. 8, 1900, RTSB, 3958A. Tirpitz, Erinnerungen, 101–4. Berghahn, Tirpitz-Plan, 213, 228–29. Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 269–70. Herwig, Politics of Frustration, 35, 37–38. 34 Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 225–26. Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the Navy 137 of Tirpitz and Bülow and announced prematurely to the German public that evening: “Dire is our need of a strong German fleet.”35 Unable to disavow the monarch’s words as a mere rhetorical flourish, Tirpitz was compelled to begin a campaign on the spot for a still poorly defined new naval plan.36 In the end, however, passage of the second naval bill was considerably simplified as a result of the imperial outburst, for the measure’s introduction in January 1900 enabled its parliamentary authorization to take place before the drastic economic downturn of mid-1900 could make itself felt.37 Thus, the determination of the majority of Samoans to crown Mata’afa precipitated a series of events that spurred the German government into a considerable acceleration of its fleet expansion program. Meanwhile, although the Samoan crisis had not instilled many Centrists with naval enthusiasm, the alignment of Roman Catholic and German national interests during the clash in the South Pacific placed the party solidly in the government camp on this issue as in the case of the Spanish-American War. When news of the March fighting in Samoa first reached Germany, the Catholic populist Augsburger Postzeitung again surprised the Prussian envoy to Munich with the degree of its patriotic indignation against Britain and the United States.38 The reception of Bülow’s firm yet tempered Reichstag speech of April 14 regarding the Samoan conflict was correspondingly warm in the Centrist press, even in South Germany.39 Likewise, two months later Center leader Ernst Lieber expressed in the Reichstag the party’s utter confidence in the foreign secretary’s handling of the Samoan question.40 Finally, Bülow’s success in November in securing British and American consent to German annexation of the western Samoan islands received the commendation of the Centrist press throughout the Reich, albeit somewhat begrudgingly in Bavaria.41 Hence, like the Big Sword murder of the German Catholic missionaries, the Cuban precipitation of the Spanish-American War, the Filipino contribution to

35 Tirpitz, Erinnerungen, 104. Kennedy, Samoan Tangle, 225–26. Herwig, Politics of Frustration, 38. Cecil, Wilhelm II: Prince and Emperor, 332–33. 36 Tirpitz, Erinnerungen, 104–5. Berghahn, Tirpitz-Plan, 211–12. 37 Kehr, Schlachtflottenbau, 205–7. 38 Monts to Hohenlohe, Apr. 13, 1899, Report 41, R 19498, Südsee 5, Bd. 2, PAAA. Herwig, Politics of Frustration, 37. 39 Monts to Hohenlohe, Apr. 17, 1899, Report 43; Eisendecher to Hohenlohe, Apr. 18, 1899, Report 24, R 19498, Südsee 5, Bd. 2, PAAA. 40 Lieber, June 19, 1899, RTSB, 2636A. 41 Monts to Hohenlohe, Nov. 10, 1899, Report 129, R 19503, Südsee 5, Bd. 7, PAAA. Erckert to Hohenlohe, Nov. 16, 1899, Report 65; Eisendecher to Hohenlohe, Nov. 12, 1899, Report 59, R 19508, Südsee 5, Nr. 1, Bd. 1, PAAA. Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 57. 138 CHAPTER 6

Cuban successes and German ambitions, and the Mata’afan stimulation of a crisis between the Reich and the Anglo-Saxon powers all generated government- Center accord on issues that could readily be used to justify German naval expansion. However, Chinese resistance in Shandong, once so convenient for the parliamentary prospects of the Tirpitz Plan, was meanwhile becoming a considerably more ambivalent factor in government-Center relations and hence in the outlook for German naval expansion in 1900.

Rizhao, Red Fists, and Church-State Resentments

As previously delineated, the German government appeared to have found in China a convenient solution to the problem of gratifying the Catholic Center without disrupting the confessional status quo in the Reich. Not long after Berlin’s naval and diplomatic interventions on behalf of the SVD, Prince Heinrich’s much celebrated visit to a Jesuit mission near Shanghai and his considerable graciousness toward Bishop von Anzer at Qingdao helped carry the new spirit in government-Center relations well past the passage of the 1898 naval bill and the Reichstag elections of that June.42 No doubt the German government’s pretense of entertaining Catholic sympathies would have continued in this fashion in the Chinese theater had not the Chinese themselves so forcefully intervened. Initially, the fresh outbreak of anti-foreign unrest in Shandong in late 1898 appeared to be bringing the SVD missionaries and the German authorities in China into still deeper cooperation. As in 1897, the mission was soon enjoying the negotiating leverage of German military pressure upon the Qing bureaucracy while the Reich was exploiting its purportedly sacred alibi for further penetration of the Chinese interior. However, this time the angry populace of Shandong posed a considerably more sustained threat to both German economic and Catholic confessional interests. Meanwhile, Chinese officialdom had succeeded in securing the ear of the German government regarding the dubious nature of SVD proselytizing methods. Together, these two forms of Chinese resistance to cultural, political, and economic encroachment managed to drive a wedge between the Catholic missionaries and the representatives of

42 “Prinz Heinrich über die Jesuiten,” Germania, July 7, 1898, Nr. 151. “Die Jesuiten in China und in Deutschland” and “Zi-ka-wei,” Germania, July 8, 1898, Nr. 152. “Deutsche Jesuiten in Paris,” Germania, July 14, 1898, Nr. 157. “Prinz Heinrichs Reise durch Süd-Shantung,” Germania, Aug. 19, 1898, Nr. 188. “Bischof von Anzer,” Germania, Sep. 17, 1898, Nr. 213. “Über die katholische Mission in Süd-Shantung,” Germania, Oct. 28, 1898, Nr. 248. Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the Navy 139 the Reich in Qingdao and Beijing. This breach in turn had potentially serious ramifications for the continuation of the domestic political rapprochement between the Center Party and the imperial government in Berlin. The new crisis began in early November 1898 when Bishop von Anzer transferred the distraught Father Stenz from the beleaguered Zhangjiazhuang mission in southwestern Shandong to the district of Rizhao in the southeast near the coast, just over one hundred kilometers southwest of Qingdao. Within a week of his arrival at his new post, Stenz became embroiled in a longstanding quarrel between the Christians and non-Christians of the hamlet of Jietouzhuang. On November 9 armed villagers seized Stenz, beat and stripped him, tore out his beard, and mocked the “would-be conqueror of our land” as he was forced to run a gauntlet naked. Although deterred from hanging Stenz by local official intercession, the people of the area refused to release the missionary and his several similarly mistreated Chinese parishioners until two days of abuse had extracted the German priest’s pledge to forsake the county as well as his consent to the flogging of his converts by the subprefect of Rizhao.43 Heartened by the imposition of these humiliating terms upon the Christians and by the prevailing xenophobic current in the Chinese bureaucracy since September, the populace of Rizhao county then deemed it to be open season on Christians and foreign intruders. Within ten days of the perceived triumph at Jietouzhuang, armed bands had begun destroying entire Christian communities in the eastern counties of Rizhao and Ju. From there the antiforeign, anti- Christian uprising proceeded to sweep westward across southern Shandong until it finally began to subside through most of the southwest in November 1899, twelve months after it first erupted.44

43 Heyking to Hohenlohe, Dec. 10, 1898, A245, Enclosures 1–2 (Stenz, Nov. 19, 1898, Protocol; Lerche, undated [circa Nov. 18, 1898], Medical report); “Ein Notschrei aus China,” Kölnische Volkszeitung (KVZ), Feb. 5, 1899, R17949, China 6, Bd. 37, PAAA. Hermann auf der Heide, Die Missionsgesellschaft von Steyl (Steyl: Missionsdruckerei Steyl, 1900), 287–92. Kuepers, Katholische Mission, 149–55. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 286–87. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:356, 359–64. 44 Thimme to Bülow, Jan. 17, 1899, A41, R 17948, China 6, Band 36, PAAA. Heyking to Hohenlohe, Dec. 10, 1898, Jan. 19, 1899, A245 and A10; Tirpitz to Wilhelm II, Mar. 29, 1899, Telegram, R 17949, China 6, Bd. 37, PAAA. Heyking to Foreign Office, Jan. 15, Feb. 20, 23, 1899, Telegrams 6, 16 and 21, R 18239, China 22, Bd. 1, PAAA. Heyking to Foreign Office, Mar. 13, 20, 1899, Telegrams 37 and 46; Jaeschke to Naval Office, Mar. 10, 1899, Telegram, R 18240, China 22, Bd. 2, PAAA. “Neue Überfälle auf Deutsche in Shantung,” Nachrichten aus Kiautschou, Apr. 3, 1899, Nr. 26, R 18241, China 22, Bd. 3, PAAA. “Die Unruhen in Shantung,” Germania, May 16, 1899, Nr. 110. “Zu den Christenverfolgungen in Süd-Shantung,” Germania, May 17, 1899, Nr. 111. “Bischof von Anzer,” Germania, June 25, 1899, Nr. 143. Auf 140 CHAPTER 6

Like the Cuban and Samoan resistance movements against foreign imperialist domination, the Jietouzhuang attack and the ensuing Chinese popular uprising against Western encroachment contributed to Berlin’s decision to accelerate German naval expansion. In late 1898 German engineers were active in the inland Shandong counties of Weixian and Yizhou, laying the groundwork for the opening of coalmines and for the construction of railroads. However, by early December engineers were being threatened in Weixian while in Yizhou the antiforeign revolt had waxed so menacing by early 1899 that the engineers were compelled to cease their work.45 Given that the abandonment of such projects was intolerable for German investors and naval administrators alike, a limited military action to restore order began to appear attractive. Meanwhile, for Heyking and Bülow the disturbances and the potential for military intervention represented an opportunity to gain leverage over the Qing government in the stalled Tianjin-Zhenjiang Railroad talks in Beijing.46 Finally, the unrest was seriously threatening the American Protestant missionaries in

der Heide, Missionsgesellschaft Steyl, 293–99. Kuepers, Katholische Mission, 148–49, 156– 80. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 287. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:365, 368–73, 377–79, 382, 386–92. 45 Heyking to Foreign Office, Dec. 5, 8, 23, 1898, Telegrams 172, 174 and 183, R 17948, China 6, Band 36, PAAA. Heyking to Foreign Office, Jan. 15, Feb. 20, 23, 1899, Telegrams 6, 16 and 21, R 18239, China 22, Bd. 1, PAAA. Heyking to Foreign Office, Mar. 16, 25, 1899, Telegrams 41 and 48; Jaeschke to Naval Office, Mar. 10, 1899, Telegram; Tirpitz to Bülow, Mar. 25, 1899, Secret, R 18240, China 22, Bd. 2, PAAA. “Die feindselige Haltung der Chinesen in der Provinz Shantung gegen die Fremden,” Germania, May 17, 1899, Nr. 111. Schrecker, Imperialism and Nationalism, 95. Kuepers, Katholische Mission, 163n3, 164. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 286, 290–91, 293. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:377. 46 Heyking to Foreign Office, Dec. 7, 13, 15, 1898, Telegrams 173, 176 and 178; Klehmet, Dec. 10, 1898, Secret memorandum; Bülow to Heyking, Dec. 11, 1898, Telegram 132; Bülow to Wilhelm II, Dec. 24, 1898, Direct Report, R 17948, China 6, Band 36, PAAA. Bülow to Heyking, Feb. 11, 1899, Telegram 10, R 17949, China 6, Band 37, PAAA. Heyking to Bülow, Jan. 14, 1900, A580, R 17952, China 6, Band 40, PAAA. Jaeschke to Heyking, Mar. 3, 1899, Secret, Reichsmarineamts-Akten (RMA), RM3, 6744, BMAF. Jaeschke to Naval Office, Mar. 10, 1899, Telegram; Heyking to Foreign Office, Mar. 16, 25, 1899, Telegrams 41 and 48, R 18240, China 22, Bd. 2, PAAA. Heyking to Foreign Office, Apr. 17, 1899, Telegram 61, R 18241, China 22, Bd. 3, PAAA. Heyking to Foreign Office, May 19, 1899, Telegram 88; Richthofen to Bülow, May 19, 1899, Telegram 7; Jaeschke to Tirpitz, Apr. 5, 1899, Secret, R 18242, China 22, Bd. 4, PAAA. Schrecker, Imperialism and Nationalism, 95. Kuepers, Katholische Mission, 157n1, 164–65. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 290–91, 293. Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the Navy 141 the region, raising the unwelcome prospect of an intervention by Washington if the Germans failed to act to restore order themselves.47 Under these circumstances Wilhelm II was most eager to act although by March 1899 Tirpitz and Bülow had also managed to bring the Kaiser to an appreciation of the potential risks. The naval secretary in particular was concerned that a police action to end the unrest in southeast Shandong might be interpreted as an act of aggression against China and thereby precipitate either a Sino-German war or a general international crisis.48 In recognition of the potential for complications, the Kaiser had therefore ordered virtually the entire German East Asian squadron from the Philippines to the Chinese coast before March 27, the day he authorized a military expedition from Kiautschou into Rizhao county. Ironically, it appears to have been this Chinese engagement of the squadron which ended up stranding the Falke at Samoa without possibility of timely reinforcement, the news of the Anglo-American participation in the Samoan civil war not having broken in Europe until March 30.49 Thus, Chinese resistance to German encroachment in Shandong seems to have contributed indirectly to the Reich’s weak showing at Samoa, a lapse which in turn played a key role in the early introduction of the second naval bill. However, unlike in Cuba and Samoa, the popular resistance in Shandong which accelerated the introduction of the second naval bill did not simultaneously facilitate government-Center accord. In fact, the opposite resulted. Agents in China of both the SVD and the Reich came to the conclusion by mid-1899 that their counterparts’ self-serving response to the Stenz Affair and the ensuing Chinese uprising had improperly exploited the church-state

47 Heyking to Foreign Office, Jan. 15, 1899, Telegram 6; Bülow to Heyking, Jan. 17, 1899, Telegram 2, R 17948, China 6, Band 36, PAAA. Schrecker, Imperialism and Nationalism, 95. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 289–91. 48 Bülow to Wilhelm II, Nov. 27, Dec. 8, 24, 1898, Direct reports; Tirpitz to Bülow, Dec. 13, 1898, Secret, R 17948, China 6, Band 36, PAAA. Heyking to Foreign Office, Jan. 15, 1899, Telegram 6, R 18239, China 22, Bd. 1, PAAA. Bülow to Wilhelm II, Mar. 11, 1899, Urgent; Bülow to Wilhelm II, Mar. 26, 1899, Direct report; Wilhelm II to Bülow, Mar. 21, 1899, Telegram; Bülow to Heyking, Mar. 21, 1899, Telegram 30; Heyking to Foreign Office, Mar. 25, 1899, Telegram 48, R 18240, China 22, Bd. 2, PAAA. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 286, 290. 49 See in addition to footnote 28: Heyking to Foreign Office, Mar. 25, 1899, Telegram 48; Bülow to Wilhelm II, Mar. 26, 1899, Direct report; Tirpitz to Wilhelm II, Mar. 28, 1899, A3179, R 18240, China 22, Bd. 2, PAAA. “Über die deutsche Strafexpedition nach Süd-Shantung,” Germania, Apr. 5, 1899, Nr. 76. “Zu dem kriegerlichen Vorgehen der Deutschen in Süd- Shantung,” Vorwärts, Apr. 5, 1899, Nr. 79. 142 CHAPTER 6 partnership inaugurated with the Jiaozhou action. Word of the missionaries’ disillusionment with the cooling attitude of the German authorities then reached the Centrist press, threatening to complicate Berlin’s relationship with the Catholic party even as the second naval bill was appearing on the horizon. From the mission’s perspective, Berlin interceded too slowly in southeast Shandong and then left the SVD in the lurch after having again taken advantage of the sacred alibi. On the one hand, while Anzer had already requested German military intervention in December 1898, no action was taken until the end of March 1899.50 On the other hand, as in the case of the seizure of Jiaozhou Bay, the economically motivated eight-week occupation of the city of Rizhao required the kind of pretext which the brutal mistreatment of Father Stenz offered. As Bülow, Heyking, and Governor Paul Jaeschke of Kiautschou saw it, the Stenz Affair provided the alibi necessary both to justify and to limit the occupation of Rizhao while still making the desired impression upon the Chinese locally and in the railroad talks in Beijing.51 While Bishop Anzer did not object to Berlin’s instrumentalization of the Stenz Affair, he expected that the mission’s interests would in turn receive full consideration in the eventual Sino-German settlement of accounts. Indeed, in his view Berlin was responsible for ensuring that Beijing compensated the Chinese Christians for the severe property losses they had suffered in the course of the uprising. The bishop grounded this position on two points. From the legal angle, he contended that the German protectorate over the mission and its free functioning in China would be entirely meaningless if it did not also extend to compelling Beijing to accept responsibility for alleviating the

50 Schrecker, Imperialism and Nationalism, 94. 51 Heyking to Foreign Office, Dec. 7, 15, 1898, Telegrams 173 and 178; Klehmet, Dec. 10, 1898, Secret memorandum; Bülow to Heyking, Dec. 11, 1898, Telegram 132; Bülow to Wilhelm II, Dec. 24, 1898, Direct Report, R 17948, China 6, Band 36, PAAA. Bülow to Heyking, Feb. 11, 1899, Telegram 10, R 17949, China 6, Band 37, PAAA. Heyking to Bülow, Jan. 14, 1900, A580, R 17952, China 6, Band 40, PAAA. Jaeschke to Heyking, Mar. 3, 1899, Secret, RMA, RM3, 6744, BMAF. Wilhelm II to Bülow, Mar. 21, 1899, Telegram; Bülow to Heyking, Mar. 21, 1899, Telegram 30; Heyking to Foreign Office, Mar. 22, 25, 1899, Telegrams 47 and 48, R 18240, China 22, Bd. 2, PAAA. Heyking to Foreign Office, Apr. 17, 1899, Telegram 61, R 18241, China 22, Bd. 3, PAAA. Heyking to Foreign Office, May 19, 1899, Telegram 88; Richthofen to Bülow, May 19, 1899, Telegram 7; Jaeschke to Tirpitz, Apr. 5, 1899, Secret, R 18242, China 22, Bd. 4, PAAA. Bülow to Richthofen, Mar. 29, 1899, Telegram 1, R 19498, Südsee 5, Bd. 2, PAAA. Kuepers, Katholische Mission, 157n1, 164–65. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 292–93. Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the Navy 143 material sufferings of Chinese Christians illegally persecuted for their faith.52 Moreover, the uprising had begun near Rizhao in a region that contained few Christians but lay in close proximity to Kiautschou; hence, the bishop argued, the bands attacking the Christians, missionaries, and engineers in the east were comprised not of religious zealots, but of embittered patriots avenging the seizure of Jiaozhou Bay. Morally, therefore, Berlin had an obligation to ensure that the expropriated Christians were compensated.53 Several of Anzer’s subordinates, but most especially Father Stenz, believed that the best method to bring these arguments home to the Reich government was by activating domestic Catholic opinion through press reports. Already distressed as a firsthand witness and the intended target of his colleagues’ murder the previous year, Stenz had been thoroughly traumatized at Jietouzhuang. Together, these experiences had had a tremendous impact upon a missionary with direct personal ties to oppositional elements of the Center through his elder cousin, the pugnacious populist Father Georg Dasbach. The founding editor of the Trierische Landeszeitung and a newly minted Reichstag delegate, Dasbach was highly resistant to what he deemed his party’s ill-considered com- promises with an anticlerical government. He appears in particular to have resented Berlin’s exploitation of the Zhangjiazhuang murders to secure passage of the first naval law.54 This resentment could only have increased upon learning from Stenz in late summer 1898 that, despite Berlin’s ostentatious and self-serving intervention, local Chinese authorities had still avoided bringing

52 “Aus der Mission von Süd-Shantung,” KVZ, Jan. 26, 1900, R 17952, China 6, Band 40, PAAA. Kuepers, Katholische Mission, 167n2. For the French practice, the minimum standard according to the Reich’s 1890 agreement with the SVD, see Heyking to Hohenlohe, May 14, 1899, A75, R 17950, China 6, Band 38, PAAA. 53 Ketteler to Hohenlohe, Aug. 25, 1899, Report A135, Confidential; “Brief aus China,” Westdeutsche Volkszeitung, Oct. 27, 1899; Anzer to Ketteler, Sep. 8, 1899, R 17951, China 6, Band 39, PAAA. “Aus der Mission von Süd-Shantung,” KVZ, Jan. 26, 1900, R 17952, China 6, Band 40, PAAA. Anzer to Richthofen, Apr. 28, 1900, R 17953, China 6, Band 41, PAAA. Schrecker, Imperialism and Nationalism, 94. Kuepers, Katholische Mission, 148–50, 158. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:378–79. 54 Ketteler to Hohenlohe, Aug. 25, 1899, Confidential; Bülow to Ketteler, Oct. 12, 1899, A112, R 17951, China 6, Band 39, PAAA. Regarding the kinship between Dasbach and Stenz, see for example Stenz to Dasbach, June 18, 1899, Copy; Dasbach to Bülow, Aug. 16, 1899, R 17950, China 6, Band 38, PAAA. Stenz to Dasbach, Aug. 8, 1896; Dasbach to Lieber, Oct. 27, 1896, Nachlaß Lieber, 60:1–2, AABKW. On Dasbach generally, see Hubert Thoma, Georg Friedrich Dasbach: Priester-Publizist-Politiker (Trier: Paulinus-Verlag, 1975). Ulrich Fohrmann, Trierer Kulturkampfpublizistik im Bismarckreich: Leben und Werk des Preßkaplans Georg Friedrich Dasbach (Trier: Paulinus-Verlag, 1977). Zeender, German Center, 3, 40, 69–70. 144 CHAPTER 6 the true killers to justice and even allowed missionary security to be further undermined.55 The bridge from Stenz to Dasbach and the Centrist press thus proved a key channel for the inadvertent influence of the angry Shandong peasants upon domestic affairs in Berlin. In late December 1898 Stenz was still convalescing at Qingdao when Chinese Christian refugees from ravaged Rizhao county reported their woes to the priest.56 Outraged by their horrible tales, Stenz initiated his inflammatory press campaign to mobilize Catholic opinion in Germany and thereby pressure the Berlin government into a broad interpretation of the protectorate in Shandong.57 In his letters to the Kölnische Volkszeitung of December 23 and 25, the distraught missionary lamented that the known murderers of Nies and Henle remained free men and then proceeded to recount his own bitter suffering at Jietouzhuang. Turning to the current unrest, Stenz related accounts of the burning of Christian homes and churches, the stoning to death of a sleeping Christian, and the kidnapping of Christian women and girls. He further reported that on Christmas Eve refugees from the last remaining Christian community in the region had described the grisly torture and death of a number of Christians. When these two letters arrived in Germany in early February 1899, they were immediately published in the Centrist paper with a caustic critique of Berlin’s ineffectiveness in defending the mission: “So this is the protection that was promised us!”58 Having finished recuperating in Yanzhou, Stenz returned to Qingdao in March under Anzer’s instructions to join the mission staff there and to work alongside Provicar Freinademetz in urging the leasehold’s governor Captain Jaeschke to occupy Rizhao. Although soon successful in securing intervention, Stenz later claimed that Anzer had also ordered him to resume his agitation in the German Catholic press to render it impossible for Berlin to treat further SVD pleas for help in a dilatory fashion.59 While the bishop himself submitted a lurid account to Germania of the persecution of Christians at

55 “Der ungesühnte Mord der deutschen Missionare in China,” Germania, Aug. 20, 1898, Nr. 189. “Der Hilferuf der deutschen Missionare in Shantung,” Germania, Sep. 15, 1898, Nr. 211. “Chinesische Greuel,” Trierische Landeszeitung, Sep. 13, 1898, Nr. 418. Stenz to Dasbach, June 18, 1899, Copy, R 17950, China 6, Band 38, PAAA. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:347. 56 Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:368. Auf der Heide, Missionsgesellschaft Steyl, 298–99. 57 This was unquestionably Stenz’s motivation in March 1899, and it was almost certainly in December 1898 as well. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:380–81. 58 “Ein Notschrei aus China,” KVZ, Feb. 5, 1899, R 17949, China 6, Band 37, PAAA. 59 Schrecker, Imperialism and Nationalism, 94–95. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:368–69, 377, 380–81. Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the Navy 145 the hands of Chinese “hyenas,” Stenz took the tactic a step further.60 Besides continuing his attempts to stimulate Centrist outrage against the attacks upon Chinese Catholics, the young missionary also began to depict the behavior of the Kiautschou Germans toward the Chinese as arrogant and scandalous. For example, in March he called attention to the case of a German marine who had murdered a Chinese with his bayonet and to Freinademetz’s key role in ensuring that the administration treated the slaying seriously.61 A month later he referred to a similar case in which a marine had injured—indeed, supposedly killed—a Chinese through an accidental blow to the head.62 Throughout the spring Stenz continued in this vein, dispatching articles to the Kölnische Volkszeitung regarding public drunkenness among the Kiautschou Germans and the sexual abuse of Chinese women, all of which were duly published in the Centrist paper upon their arrival from May to July 1899.63 Presumably such reports were intended to make the Kiautschou administration appear morally responsible for Chinese animosity toward the missionaries and their converts, thereby prompting more effective protection for the entire mission and swift compensation for the expropriated Christians of southeast Shandong. Several months earlier it had in fact appeared that the German legation in Beijing would provide a guarantee of reparations for persecuted Christians within the German protectorate. Responding to Anzer’s telegram of February 19, 1899, regarding the destruction of twenty Christian villages and the murder of four converts in Tancheng county, Envoy Heyking had directed the bishop to make his demands known and then entrust their satisfaction to the legation. This Anzer did although he deemed it advisable during the propitious moment of the Rizhao occupation to resume his own pressure for reparations at the Chinese provincial level as well.64 After all, Heyking might not press the SVD

60 “Zu den Christenverfolgungen in Süd-Shantung,” Germania, May 17, 1899, Nr. 111. Kuepers, Katholische Mission, 162. 61 “Stimmungsbild von Tsingtau,” KVZ, May 10, 1899. Bülow to Tirpitz, Jan. 16, 1899, Secret; Klehmet, Jan. 23, 1899, Note, R 18239, China 22, Bd. 1, PAAA. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:381. 62 “Zu den Unruhen in Deutsch-China,” KVZ, June 16, 1899, Nr. 551, R 18242, China 22, Bd. 4, PAAA. “P. Stenz,” Deutsch-Asiatische Warte, July 28, 1899, R 17951, China 6, Band 39, PAAA. “Aus Kiautschou,” Germania, Sep. 8, 1899, Nr. 206. 63 “Zu den Unruhen in Deutsch-China,” KVZ, June 16, 1899, Nr. 551, R 18242, China 22, Bd. 4, PAAA. “Die Deutschchina-Politik in fremder Beleuchtung,” KVZ, July 7, 1899. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 295. 64 Heyking to Foreign Office, Feb. 20, 1899, Telegram 16, R 18239, China 22, Bd. 1, PAAA. Schrecker, Imperialism and Nationalism, 95. Kuepers, Katholische Mission, 165–66. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 287, 292. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:376–77. 146 CHAPTER 6 mission’s cause with his usual vigor if he simultaneously saw an opportunity to secure the railroad concession from Tianjin through a more amicable stance. However, since Shandong’s new governor as of April was the mission’s Manchu nemesis Yuxian, the bishop made only the slowest headway with his argument that a satisfactory reparations settlement would hasten the withdrawal from Rizhao. Not until May 23 did he manage to persuade an immediate subordinate of the governor, the friendly Circuit Intendant Peng Yusun of South Shandong, to risk his superior’s wrath and accompany the bishop on a damage-assessment tour in the east. Anzer and Peng were therefore both quite chagrined to learn en route that the Germans had already withdrawn from Rizhao on May 25, the day after a Chinese imperial edict had granted Berlin its coveted railroad concession.65 Seeing this prompt departure from Rizhao in the continued absence of any Chinese commitment on the reparations question, Anzer concluded that Heyking had been neglecting the SVD mission’s concerns in order to secure optimal terms on the railroad agreement.66 From the standpoint of the Kiautschou administration, however, it was Anzer and his missionaries who had reprehensibly exploited the German protectorate in their response to the unrest of late 1898 and early 1899. On December 26, 1898, seven weeks after the attack upon Stenz in Rizhao county, Bishop Anzer and Circuit Intendant Peng had already negotiated a settlement of that affair at Yanzhou. Besides prompt punishment of the culprits and compensation for the suffering of the victims, the agreement involved a Chinese commitment to the construction of an atonement chapel at Jietouzhuang and of a full-fledged mission station in the city of Rizhao at a cost of roughly seventy-five thousand marks, a sum that was paid out to Anzer on the spot or soon thereafter. Finally, the agreement stipulated that, upon the completion of

65 Stenz to Dasbach, June 18, 1899, Copy, R 17950, China 6, Band 38, PAAA. “Aus der Mission von Süd-Shantung,” KVZ, Jan. 26, 1900, R 17952, China 6, Band 40, PAAA. Richthofen to Bülow, May 19, 1899, Telegram 7; Heyking to Foreign Office, May 19, 27, 1899, Telegrams 88 and 92, R 18242, China 22, Bd. 4, PAAA. Kuepers, Katholische Mission, 165–66, 169–70. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:377. 66 Ketteler to Hohenlohe, Aug. 25, 1899, Report A135, Confidential; Rotenhan to Foreign Office, Dec. 23, 1899, Telegram 50, Secret; Rotenhan to Hohenlohe, Dec. 27, 1899, Report 229, R 17951, China 6, Band 39, PAAA. Rotenhan to Hohenlohe, Jan. 6, 1900, Report 8; Rotenhan to Privy Councillor [Holstein?], Jan. 7, 1900, Private letter; Ketteler to Foreign Office, Jan. 10, 1900, Telegram 4; Heyking to Bülow, Jan. 14, 1900, A580, R 17952, China 6, Band 40, PAAA. Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the Navy 147 the station at Rizhao, the subprefect would formally apologize to the mission before a full assembly of the county’s literati.67 As a personal favor to Peng, Anzer had not insisted upon the dismissal of Subprefect Lü of Rizhao. Nevertheless, when presented with the remaining terms of the agreement in late January, the latter official declared himself unable to fulfill them without further direction and support from above.68 This was because by that time Peng and his superior, the reformist governor Zhang Rumei, were being arraigned in Beijing for inordinate accommodation to the foreigners. As both men were in danger of being dismissed, neither was in a position to see to it that Lü implemented the distasteful agreement with Anzer. Indeed, the beleaguered governor even went so far as to withdraw the troops he had only just dispatched in December against the anti-Christian, anti-foreign uprising in the southeast. In so doing, he encouraged the local populace in its conviction that the Qing court approved of the uprising, thereby fanning the flames of the unrest. To the extent that the indictment of Zhang and Peng was in fact motivated by Beijing’s distaste for the officials’ more subtle approach to the German problem, it appears to have reflected a will at the Chinese court to resist imperialism more directly.69 In any case, in southeast Shandong Zhang and Peng’s arraignment reinforced the existing popular and official resolve to thwart Western cultural, political, and economic encroachment. This Chinese resistance in turn played a key role in undermining the standing of the SVD mission with the Kiautschou administration. In the Stenz Affair, Lü’s refusal to execute the Anzer-Peng settlement and the impotence of his superiors in early 1899 left the bishop without recourse within the Chinese

67 Kuepers, Katholische Mission, 156–57. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:365. Prince Heinrich to Wilhelm II, Apr. 12, 1899; Heyking to Hohenlohe, Apr. 26, 1899, R 18242, China 22, Bd. 4, PAAA. 68 Kuepers, Katholische Mission, 151, 157. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:368. 69 Kuepers, Katholische Mission, 159, 168–69. Heyking to Foreign Office, Feb. 23, 1899, Telegram, R 18239, China 22, Bd. 1, PAAA. Unlike Zhang, Peng managed to retain his post, but in late May he was still under fire at court for accommodating and flattering the Germans to excess (Kuepers, Katholische Mission, 166n1). Other critical charges leveled against Zhang pertained to alleged negligence and corruption in his management of the riverworks, failings which may have contributed to Shandong’s catastrophic flooding in the summer of 1898 when the Yellow River breached its dikes at three points (Esherick, Boxer Uprising, 177–80, 383nn64–65). The Qing court’s primary motivation for dismissing Zhang in March 1899 and replacing him with Yuxian has been the subject of some historiographical debate. For a more ideological explanation than Esherick’s, see Schrecker, Imperialism and Nationalism, 92–93. 148 CHAPTER 6 hierarchy. Meanwhile, the popular plundering of convert communities continued unabated, and Zhang’s withdrawal of troops convinced Anzer that there was no hope of the Chinese authorities even putting a stop to the destruction of his mission, let alone compensating the Christian victims of the unrest.70 It was for this reason that in mid-February the bishop had redoubled his pressure upon Envoy Heyking and Governor Jaeschke for German military intervention.71 Beseeching the governor in person in early March, Provicar Freinademetz and Stenz found Jaeschke agreeable for the largely economic reasons noted earlier. However, during this period the bishop and his priests failed to disabuse the governor of his impression that no progress whatsoever had been made in the Stenz Affair. Whether a genuine oversight or a deliberate bid to procure security for the Chinese Christians by any possible means, this omission created the impression that the military intervention could be readily grounded on the complete failure of the Chinese to render satisfaction for the kidnapping and maltreatment of a German citizen.72 Only after having taken possession of Rizhao at the end of March did Jaeschke learn to his chagrin from Governor Zhang himself that the alleged rationale for the occupation was far less cogent than the missionaries had led him to believe. Responding to Qingdao’s official justification of the incursion into his province, the outgoing Chinese governor informed his German counterpart concerning the Anzer-Peng agreement and the dubious role of the SVD mission in Shandong society. Formerly on amicable terms with the missionaries, Zhang now took them to task for having intervened indiscriminately in the Chinese courts on behalf of their converts until Chinese Christian inso- lence had finally reached a level intolerable to the populace. Hoping to persuade Jaeschke not to be so ready to heed missionary complaints in the future, Zhang now found a willing audience.73 Indeed, once acquainted with the existence and terms of the December settlement, Jaeschke was incensed that Anzer and his missionaries had maneuvered the German Imperial Navy into

70 Heyking to Foreign Office, Mar. 20, 1899, Telegram 46, R 18240, China 22, Band 2, PAAA. 71 Anzer to Heyking, Feb. 16, 19, 20, 21, Mar. 5, 6, 1899, R 17949, China 6, Band 37, PAAA. 72 Jaeschke to Naval Office, Mar. 10, 1899, Telegram; Heyking to Foreign Office, Mar. 25, 1899, Telegram 48, R 18240, China 22, Band 2, PAAA. Jaeschke to Tirpitz, Apr. 5, 1899, R 18242, China 22, Band 4, PAAA. Schrecker, Imperialism and Nationalism, 94–95. 73 Zhang Rumei to Jaeschke, Apr. [1], 4, 1899; Jaeschke to Zhang Rumei, Mar. 29, [Apr. 2], 1899, R 18242, China 22, Band 4, PAAA. Anzer to Ketteler, Sep. 8, 1899, R 17951, China 6, Band 39, PAAA. Schrecker, Imperialism and Nationalism, 95. Kuepers, Katholische Mission, 181–82. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:380. Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the Navy 149 taking precipitate and disproportionately aggressive action simply to enforce an existing accord of debatable merit.74 Thus, already by April 5 the articulate communications from Zhang Rumei had prompted Jaeschke to report to Tirpitz that the Chinese really had ample grounds to desire an exodus of the foreigners:

This reason lies . . . primarily in the behavior of the Catholic missionaries. Already prone to infringements of all customs and rights of the Chinese even before the occupation of the Kiautschou region, they are now trying to exploit the temporal power standing behind them to win new converts.75

Similarly, on April 10 Governor Zhang took the unprecedented step of presenting to his German counterpart a formal memorandum accusing the SVD missionaries of incurring the hatred of the populace, a document which Kiautschou’s German commissar for Chinese civilian affairs would cite at length two months later in the journal Deutsch-Asiatische Warte in a bitter anticlerical rebuttal to Stenz’s press attacks upon the Qingdao Germans.76 Likewise in early April, Zhang had also drafted a version of his memorandum for submission to the Kaiser’s brother Prince Heinrich, who was present at Qingdao in his capacity as a commander of the East Asian squadron. It is not clear whether this second brief was actually dispatched and received.77 However, if it was not, Jaeschke apparently quickly acquainted the prince with the nature of Zhang’s memorandum, for on April 12 Heinrich wrote to his brother in a similar vein, enhanced with a healthy dose of homegrown anticlericalism:

There is no doubt that a not insignificant obstacle for our peaceful expansion in Shandong may be found in the Catholic missionaries who are the best-hated of all foreigners among the Chinese. . . . The Catholic missionaries meddle unbidden in the Chinese judicial system, whereby they

74 Jaeschke to Tirpitz, Apr. 5, 1899, R 18242, China 22, Band 4, PAAA. George W.F. Hallgarten, Imperialismus vor 1914, 2nd ed. (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1963), 511. Schrecker, Imperialism and Nationalism, 95, 102. 75 Jaeschke to Tirpitz, Apr. 5, 1899, R 18242, China 22, Band 4, PAAA. 76 “P. Stenz,” Deutsch-Asiatische Warte, July 28, 1899; Ketteler to Hohenlohe, Aug. 25, 1899, Report A135; “Brief aus China,” Westdeutsche Volkszeitung, Oct. 27, 1899; Anzer to Ketteler, Sep. 8, 1899, R 17951, China 6, Band 39, PAAA. “Die katholische Mission in Süd-Shantung und die deutschen Interessen,” Berliner Neueste Nachrichten, Sep. 15, 1899, R 17950, China 6, Band 38, PAAA. Kuepers, Katholische Mission, 181–82. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:380–81. 77 Kuepers, Katholische Mission, 181. 150 CHAPTER 6

cause much vexation. . . . Anzer exploits every incident of a thrashed missionary to garner money for his ends; besides in every case he still calls on the protection of the Qingdao government. The spread of German culture is of no consequence to Anzer; here as at home it is a matter of the expansion of the power of Catholicism.78

Several weeks later Prince Heinrich also had a conversation regarding the Rizhao occupation with the influential Governor-General Zhang Zhidong of Hunan/Hubei. The latter likewise called attention to the SVD missionaries’ frequent interference in the Chinese courts and to their propensity to gather converts with “promises of personal advantage, thereby . . . sowing discord . . . within the Chinese rural population.”79 Reporting to his imperial brother, Heinrich assured Wilhelm that the governor-general’s remarks were undeniably true and that the Catholic missionaries were indeed a primary cause of the disturbances in Shandong.80 Having received such communications from his brother, the Kaiser ordered Tirpitz to direct Jaeschke to employ the greatest caution in his dealings with the missionaries.81 Although no imperial marginalia appear on the Foreign Office copies of these documents, an indication of the anticlerical monarch’s indignation may be inferred from a marginal note of January 1901 in which the Kaiser declared of the bishop he had feted and decorated just three years earlier: “Anzer has been two-faced from the very outset!”82 Tirpitz’s own displeasure emerges clearly from his instructions to Jaeschke of late June 1899 in which he urgently charged the Kiautschou governor to refrain from rendering any further assistance to the SVD mission. The naval secretary declared that “there can indeed be no doubt that the movement in Shandong may be traced to the conduct of the Catholic mission in general and the provocative behavior

78 Prince Heinrich to Wilhelm II, Apr. 12, 1899, R 18242, China 22, Bd. 4, PAAA. 79 Prince Heinrich to Wilhelm II, “Bericht über die Yangtse-Reise von Wusung nach Hankow vom 23. April bis 7. Mai 1899,” May 17, 1899, Secret, R 17950, China 6, Band 38, PAAA. 80 Ibid. 81 Tirpitz to Jaeschke, June 27, 1899, R 18243, China 22, Bd. 5, PAAA. Hallgarten, Imperia lismus, 513. 82 Wilhelm II, Jan. 3, 1901, Marginalia on Mumm von Schwarzenstein to Bülow, Nov. 12, 1900, R 17956, China 6, Band 44, PAAA. Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the Navy 151 of the Christianized Chinese in particular” and that the missionaries therefore represented “a serious danger” for the development of Kiautschou.83 Tirpitz further contended that even the attacks upon the engineers had been purely a function of their excessive reliance upon the SVD missionaries for guidance in the unfamiliar region. Therefore, the former should be discreetly advised henceforth to emancipate themselves from the influence of the latter. It should also be borne in mind that all of the recent Chinese outrages had been perpetrated against other Chinese with the exception of those against Stenz and Freinademetz, missionaries whom Tirpitz suspected of deficiencies in prudence and composure. “As much as it lies in our—domestic as well as foreign—interest to treat the missions well, this must not, as you yourself have said, lead to the point that the governor is reduced to being a blind tool of the missions.”84 As for the Anzer-Peng agreement, “I can only partly guess why you were not told when I note that compensation took the form of money and ‘land to build churches.’ . . . You can see how extremely careful you must be toward the missionaries, and what weight you should give to their complaints and demands.”85 Recently assured by Bülow that Chinese Christians possessed essentially no claim upon German diplomatic, still less military, intervention, Tirpitz instructed Jaeschke to direct the missionaries to bring no further complaints to Qingdao, but rather to take up all questions solely with the German legation in Beijing.86 Similarly, on May 27 Foreign Secretary Bülow had dispatched strictly confidential instructions to Heyking’s Catholic successor, Clemens Freiherr von Ketteler, then en route to China from Mexico, informing the new envoy that he should personally protest only against offenses against German citizens. In the case of offenses committed against Chinese Christians, he should generally leave making protests to the missionary societies. Beyond that, Ketteler need support such missionary protests in Beijing only insofar as the offense against the Christians impeded the freedom of missionary activity guaranteed by treaty.87

83 Tirpitz to Jaeschke, June 27, 1899, R 18243, China 22, Bd. 5, PAAA. See also Hallgarten, Imperialismus, 512–13. Schrecker, Imperialism and Nationalism, 102–3. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 294. 84 Tirpitz to Jaeschke, June 27, 1899, R 18243, China 22, Bd. 5, PAAA. 85 Ibid. 86 Ibid. Bülow to Tirpitz, June 20, 1899, A7150, Very confidential, Urgent, R 18242, China 22, Bd. 4, PAAA. 87 Bülow to Ketteler, May 27, 1899, Order 60, R 17949, China 6, Band 37, PAAA. Bachem, [early 1901], Note, Strictly confidential, Nachlaß Bachem, 157, HASK. Rivinius, Mission und Politik, 132–33. 152 CHAPTER 6

Tensions between the German government and the SVD came to a head as a result of a second round of anti-Christian unrest in South Shandong. In late May, even as the occupation of Rizhao was drawing to a close in the east, the Red Fists in the west rose up around Jiaxiang and Jining, not far from the territory of the Big Swords. As armed bands plundered the Christian communities in rural southwest Shandong, the three major mission stations of that region filled with refugees and were then besieged by the Red Fists from late June to late August 1899.88 During this period Anzer’s frustration with the German legation burgeoned into outright distress as the new envoy, Ketteler, had failed to reply to all but one of a dozen desperate SVD communications as of mid-August. In these telegrams and letters, the missionaries attributed the ravaging of the Christian communities to the deliberate machinations of Governor Yuxian and to the popular bitterness over the seizure of Jiaozhou Bay. Nevertheless, the SVD’s pleas for yet another military intervention met with no apparent response from the German envoy.89 In fact, in accordance with Bülow’s instructions, Ketteler had simply been passing the SVD complaints along to the Chinese government without particular emphasis.90 Indeed, unbeknownst to the SVD, the Catholic diplomat even reported to Berlin his assessment that Anzer was “extremely excitable” and that the missionaries were too prone to ignore the ulterior motives of their

88 District magistrate of Kaldenkirchen to Foreign Office, Aug. 11, 1899, Telegram; Stenz to Dasbach, June 18, 1899, Copy; “Aus Süd-Shantung (China),” Germania, Sep. 16, 1899, Nr. 213, R 17950, China 6, Band 38, PAAA. “Über Unruhen in Shantung,” Germania, Sep. 13, 1899, Nr. 210. “Brief aus China,” Westdeutsche Volkszeitung, Oct. 27, 1899, R 17951, China 6, Band 39, PAAA. Auf der Heide, Missionsgesellschaft Steyl, 293–99. Kuepers, Katholische Mission, 171–80. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 295. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:386–92. Culturally speaking, the Red Fists or Red Boxers were distant relatives of the Spirit Boxers or Yihetuan of northwest Shandong who descended upon Beijing the following year (Esherick, Boxer Uprising, 194–96, 206–40). 89 Ketteler to Foreign Office, Aug. 13, 1899, Telegram 112, R 18243, China 22, Bd. 5, PAAA. Ketteler to Hohenlohe, Aug. 20, 1899, Report A134; “Unruhen in Shantung,” Ostasiatischer Lloyd, Aug. 5, 1899; “Brief aus China,” Westdeutsche Volkszeitung, Oct. 27, 1899; Janssen to Klehmet, Nov. 21, 1899, R 17951, China 6, Band 39, PAAA. “Über Unruhen in Shantung,” Germania, Sep. 13, 1899, Nr. 210. “Christenverfolgung in China,” Trierische Landeszeitung, Oct. 17, 1899, Nr. 478. Kuepers, Katholische Mission, 170, 172–180. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:386, 388–89, 397. 90 Ketteler to Foreign Office, Aug. 13, Sep. 18, 1899, Telegrams 112 and 118, R 17950, China 6, Band 38, PAAA. Ketteler to Hohenlohe, Aug. 20, 1899, Report A134; Ketteler to Hohenlohe, Aug. 25, 1899, Report A135, Confidential, R 17951, China 6, Band 39, PAAA. Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the Navy 153

converts’ alleged grievances.91 Perplexed and angered in any case by the envoy’s silence, Anzer resorted to presenting the mission’s case in person to Ketteler in the weeks of late August and early September. When the envoy declined to press the Qing government for Yuxian’s removal or to insist upon protection and recompense for the Christians, the bishop then resolved to bring his case to Europe and arranged to set sail in late December.92 Meanwhile, his subordinates had already been very active calling the attention of Catholic Germany to the mission’s desperate plight. Stenz had written to his cousin Dasbach in June to report on the outbreak of the Red Fist uprising, the continued impunity of the Zhangjiazhuang murderers, and the resolute hostility of Governor Yuxian toward the mission. Upon receiving this letter from China in August, the outspoken priest-publicist of Trier had then conveyed its contents to Bülow, apparently with the intent to call the foreign secretary to account.93 In the meantime, a telegram from the besieged central missionary station of Jining had arrived at the mission’s mother house in Steyl on August 11, announcing: “Half the mission annihilated.”94 This set off speculation and expressions of alarm in both Germania and the Kölnische Volkszeitung.95 Indeed, at this point the generally more governmental Germania even challenged Berlin’s interpretation of the inapplicability of the Reich’s protectorate to the Chinese Christians.96 During the following month the July letters from the distraught SVD missionaries of southwest Shandong were published in the Catholic press, revealing

91 Ketteler to Foreign Office, Aug. 13, 1899, Telegram 112, R 17950, China 6, Band 38, PAAA. Ketteler to Hohenlohe, Aug. 25, 1899, Report A135, Confidential, R 17951, China 6, Band 39, PAAA. 92 Ketteler to Hohenlohe, Aug. 25, 1899, Confidential; Janssen to [Arenberg], Nov. 10, 1899, R 17951, China 6, Band 39, PAAA. Janssen to Ketteler, Nov. 20, 1899; Klehmet, Mar. 28, 1900, Secret memorandum, R 17952, China 6, Band 40, PAAA. Rotenhan to Hohenlohe, Mar. 15, 1900, Report 54, Ges. Rom-V, 921, PAAA. Kuepers, Katholische Mission, 178–79. Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:397. 93 Stenz to Dasbach, June 18, 1899, Copy; Dasbach to Bülow, Aug. 16, 1899; Klehmet, Aug. 26, 1899, Secret memorandum, R 17950, China 6, Band 38, PAAA. 94 District magistrate of Kaldenkirchen to Foreign Office, Aug. 11, 1899, Telegram, R 17950, China 6, Band 38, PAAA. 95 “Über die in Süd-Shantung ausgebrochene Christenverfolgung,” Germania, Aug. 13, 1899, Nr. 184. “Die schlimmen Nachrichten aus China,” Germania, Aug. 15, 1899, Nr. 185. “Bei der letzten Christenverfolgung in Süd-Shantung,” Germania, Aug. 16, 1899, Nr. 186. “Zur neuen Christenverfolgung in Süd-Shantung,” Germania, Aug. 18, 1899, Nr. 188. “Welt und Wissen: Das Schicksal der Christen in China,” KVZ, Aug. 16, 1899, R 17950, China 6, Band 38, PAAA. 96 “Bei der letzten Christenverfolgung in Süd-Shantung,” Germania, Aug. 16, 1899, Nr. 186. 154 CHAPTER 6 their growing consternation over Ketteler’s unresponsiveness. At first, the missionaries expressed the suspicion that their communications to the envoy had been maliciously intercepted by the Chinese authorities.97 However, publication of the late August letters in October 1899 divulged that Ketteler had received all their communications but failed to take them seriously. Indeed, he was accused in one such letter to the Westdeutsche Volkszeitung of not having even so much as desired an end to the persecution of the Chinese Christians.98 Thus, by late 1899 the persistent resistance of the Shandong populace to all forms of imperialism had exposed to both the missionaries and their German Catholic supporters in the Reich the opportunistic nature of Berlin’s earlier support of the SVD. Meanwhile, the combination of Chinese popular and official resistance had dramatically cooled the relationship between the SVD missionaries and German government agents in Beijing and Qingdao. With Anzer en route to Europe and the Catholic press well abreast of developments in China, this cooling in turn threatened to undermine government-Center relations in Berlin on the eve of the Reichstag deliberations concerning the plans to double the very battlefleet which the Catholic party had only just authorized in 1898 in the wake of the Jiaozhou action.

The Fleet Law of 1900: The Conundrum of Centrist Approval

Even without its growing awareness of the discord between the SVD and the German government, the Center had ample grounds to reject the new naval bill. To begin with, authorization of the additional sixteen battleships and six cruisers involved the parliament’s full commitment to an estimated expen- diture of nearly two billion marks over the course of the next sixteen years.99 Nor could the Catholic workers expect to derive all that much economic benefit from the enormous government contracts to be awarded to the generally Protestant barons of industry; still less could the Center’s largely artisan and agrarian constituencies hope to profit. Indeed, the tepid to hostile attitude of non-Centrist agrarians toward naval expansion amplified the oppositional

97 “Über Unruhen in Shantung,” Germania, Sep. 13, 1899, Nr. 210. “Aus Süd-Shantung,” Germania, Sep. 16, 1899, Nr. 213. “Aus Süd-Shantung,” KVZ, Sep. 17, 1899, Nr. 870. “Zu den Unruhen in Süd-Shantung,” KVZ, Sep. 25, 1899, R 17950, China 6, Band 38, PAAA. 98 “Brief aus China,” Westdeutsche Volkszeitung, Oct. 27, 1899, R 17951, China 6, Band 39, PAAA. “Christenverfolgung in China,” Trierische Landeszeitung, Oct. 17, 1899, Nr. 478. 99 Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:25, 34, 38–39, 41. Tirpitz, Erinnerungen, 107–8. Zeender, German Center, 83. Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the Navy 155 tendencies of many Center delegates, particularly those representing Bavarian and Upper Silesian farmers.100 In addition, as the economy was already beginning to show signs of slowing down in early 1900, the Centrists were anxious that Tirpitz’s expanded program might undercut the effectiveness of their 1898 stipulation to protect their constituency against naval financing by taxation of mass consumption.101 Furthermore, the introduction of a new naval bill less than two years after passage of the ostensibly mutually binding sextennial law called into question the good faith of the administration. This was especially true given that as late as January 1899 Naval Secretary Tirpitz had assured the Budget Committee that no one within the government was contemplating a revision of the naval program prior to the expiration of the existing law in 1904.102 Berlin’s abrupt reversal particularly offended Center leader Ernst Lieber, the fleet’s strongest advocate within the party. While coaxing reluctant colleagues in 1898 to accept the first naval bill without meaningful compensation, Lieber had emphasized the mutually binding nature of the sextennial provision. Consequently, the unexpected inauguration of the new naval campaign in late 1899 exposed the Center leader to charges of credulity from within the ranks of his own party.103 Thus compromised, Lieber also objected strenuously to the government’s disregard for his past services, the latest campaign having been publicly announced without consulting him regarding its timing or form. Indeed, the Kaiser’s effort to circumvent the Reichstag through a direct appeal to German popular patriotism offended the Catholic party as a whole, including such otherwise reliable aristocratic friends of the navy as Franz Prinz von Arenberg

100 Hohenlohe, Mar. 3, 1900, Note, Nachlaß Hohenlohe, 1615:135, BAK. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:25–27, 41. 101 Schaedler, Feb. 8, 1900, RTSB, 3960A–3961B. Gröber, June 7, 1900, RTSB, 5858D–5859A. Hohenlohe, Mar. 3, 1900, Note; Tirpitz to Hohenlohe, Apr. 27, 1900, Telegram, Nachlaß Hohenlohe, 1615:135, 121, BAK. Hertling to Anna von Hertling, Feb. 15, 1900, Nachlaß Hertling, 14:3–4, BAK. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:27, 38–41. Kehr, Schlachtflottenbau, 206. Berghahn, Tirpitz-Plan, 246. 102 Lieber, Reporter, Jan. 30, 1899, RTSB, 518B/C. Lieber, Dec. 12, 1899, RTSB, 3304C–3305A. Schaedler, Feb. 8, 1900, RTSB, 3957D–3958D, 3959C. Tirpitz, Dec. 11, 1899, RTSB, 3295B, 3296A. Tirpitz, Dec. 12, 1899, RTSB, 3325C/D. “Zur Flottenfrage,” Germania, Oct. 29, 1899, Nr. 250. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:24–25. Berghahn, Tirpitz-Plan, 218, 228. 103 Hohenlohe, Nov. 15, 1899, Note, Nachlaß Hohenlohe, 1614:132–33, BAK. Holstein to Bülow, Nov. 26, 1899, Nachlaß Bülow, 91:91–95, BAK. Varnbüler to Mittnacht, Dec. 3, 1899, Report 1393, WüMAA, E50/03, 193:6–8, HSAS. 156 CHAPTER 6 and Georg Freiherr von Hertling.104 An analogous government stratagem to exert pressure upon the party via clumsy diplomatic overtures at the Vatican did nothing to allay Centrist indignation.105 In fact, by early 1900 Centrists of every persuasion had become thoroughly dissatisfied with the failure of the government to recognize their services in the passage of such critical legislation as the Civil Code, the Military Criminal Procedure Code, the first Navy Law of 1898, and the Army Law of 1899. Despite Berlin’s periodic assurances of concessions to be secured through the party’s continued cooperation, no action had ever been taken on such key Centrist desiderata as communal suffrage reform, the establishment of full coalition rights for trade unions, or the repeal, even partially, of the Anti-Jesuit Law.106 Indeed, exasperation over the lack of movement on this last point had reached such a state by February 1900 that the Center coolly rejected the Kaiser’s secret proposal of a horsetrade of the new naval bill for abrogation of the odious law. After a few days of deliberation, the party leadership informed the monarch’s chosen intermediary that no such bargain was possible:

The Jesuit Law ought to have fallen after the Fleet Bill of 1898 at the latest. It is simply atrocious that that did not happen. If the Kaiser now wants to make a trade, then he is forgetting that he still has not paid his debts from 1898 and 1899.107

104 Holstein to Bülow, Nov. 26, 1899, Nachlaß Bülow, 91:91–95, BAK. Varnbüler to Mittnacht, Dec. 3, 1899, Report 1393, WüMAA, E50/03, 193:6–8, HSAS. Lieber, Dec. 12, 1899, RTSB, 3305A. Hertling to Anna von Hertling, Feb. 15, 1900, Nachlaß Hertling, 14:3–4, BAK. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:33–34. 105 Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:30–33. 106 Holstein to Bülow, Nov. 26, 1899, Nachlaß Bülow, 91:91–95, BAK. Hohenlohe, Mar. 3, June 16, 1900, Notes, Nachlaß Hohenlohe, 1615:135, 159, BAK. Lieber, Dec. 12, 1899, RTSB, 3307C. Bachem to Franz Bachem, Oct. 27, 1900, Nachlaß Bachem, 170, HASK. Tirpitz, Erinnerungen, 109. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:25. Zeender, German Center, 81–82. E.L. Evans, German Center, 129. 107 Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:29–30. For a less confrontational interpretation of the lack of closure on the parliamentary deal, see H.W. Smith, German Nationalism, 121–22. Citing Tirpitz’s account to Bachem, Peter Winzen assigns responsibility for the government failure in early 1900 to pursue repeal of the expulsion clause to Bülow, not to the principled opposition of the Kaiser. Peter Winzen, Bülows Weltmachtkonzept: Untersuchungen zur Frühphase seiner Außenpolitik 1897–1901 (Boppard am Rhein: Harald Boldt Verlag, 1977), 111. Healy takes the opposite position but makes no mention of the secret overture of February 1900. Healy, Jesuit Specter, 104–5. Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the Navy 157

Ironically, far from at least relaxing enforcement of the Anti-Jesuit Law, the government proceeded to irritate the Center still further on that point. In May 1900, a month before the decisive naval vote in the Reichstag, the Prussian Superior Administrative Court ruled that the law’s ban upon the activity of the order extended to a prohibition of any individual Jesuit’s holding a public lecture with any religious content, regardless of the secular or ecclesiastical context of the address.108 Nonetheless, contrary to what might be expected in view of all these adverse factors, sixty-two of eighty-two Center delegates present in the Reichstag on June 12 voted for the fleet bill as amended by the Budget Committee, thereby again providing the essential swing votes to carry the government’s naval program by a margin of 199–107.109 The interwar historian Eckart Kehr offered the explanation, now quite prevalent in various forms, that the Centrists’ positive decision was a function of the government’s Sammlungspolitik or “policy of concentration.” According to this argument, the Reich government persuaded the spokesmen of heavy industry and agrarian interests to grant one another their respective economic desiderata—namely, an expanded fleet and higher grain tariffs—even as they colluded to contain the Social Democrats.110 In Kehr’s original argument, the Center provided the necessary votes to seal this pact between primarily National Liberal and Conservative interests simply in order to secure its own political hegemony in the Reichstag:

Passage of the second law in the Reichstag was made possible not by consideration of the foreign political situation of the nation, still less by a profound effect of the fleet agitation, but rather solely . . . by Miquel’s Sammlungspolitik with its triple intention: for industry, the fleet, Weltpolitik, and expansion; for the agrarians, the tariffs and the maintenance of the social preeminence of the Conservatives; and, as a result of this social and economic compromise, political hegemony for the Center.111

108 Hohenlohe, June 16, 1900, Note, Nachlaß Hohenlohe, 1615:159, BAK. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:34. 109 Roll Call Vote, Draft Law concerning the German Fleet, Article 1, June 12, 1900, RTSB, 6040–42. Schwarz, MdR, 139–506. 110 Kehr, Schlachtflottenbau, 189–207, 262. Berghahn, Tirpitz-Plan, 235–36. Wehler, German Empire, 165–68. 111 Kehr, Schlachtflottenbau, 205. 158 CHAPTER 6

More recently, it has been pointed out that the Catholic party itself possessed a vocal agrarian constituency of its own which demanded higher grain tariffs and that therefore the party’s role in the pact was probably more economically motivated than by a desire for parliamentary hegemony.112 There is certainly something to be said for Kehr’s interpretation of the passage of the second naval bill. In the Budget Committee naval debates of late March 1900, the moderately populist Centrist spokesman Richard Müller- Fulda did indeed call upon the government to put forward plans to compensate German agriculture for its consent in authorizing a greatly expanded fleet. Working in concert on this point, Conservative and Centrist committee members demanded a binding declaration from the government that the upcoming grain tariff revisions, to be introduced upon expiration of the existing commercial treaties in 1903, should reflect a commitment to the protection of a struggling German agricultural sector.113 Accordingly, such a declaration was delivered to the Budget Committee by Treasury Secretary Maximilian von Thielmann on May 1, 1900, four days after that committee’s second reading of the naval bill had concluded with the passage of Müller-Fulda’s officially sanctioned motion approving all sixteen battleships but postponing consideration of the six cruisers until closer to the scheduled initiation of their construction in 1906.114 Two weeks later the same Centrist motion was carried in the committee’s third reading and then passed in the second and third Reichstag readings in June.115 However, few historians today would subscribe to Kehr’s original claim that the ‘iron-rye pact’ effected the passage of the second naval law to the essential exclusion of all other factors. It has already been shown that, despite its decisive position in the Reichstag, the Center was painfully aware of the limits of its ability to influence the government on issues that truly mattered to its constituency. To postulate that the Center endorsed the new naval plan to secure

112 Stegmann, Erben Bismarcks, 30–31, 86–87. Zeender, German Center, 83–84. Loth, Katholiken im Kaisserreich, 71. 113 Kehr, Schlachtflottenbau, 202. Berghahn, Tirpitz-Plan, 238–39. 114 Tirpitz to Hohenlohe, Apr. 27, 1900, Telegram, Nachlaß Hohenlohe, 1615:121, BAK. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:39–40. Kehr, Schlachtflottenbau, 203. Berghahn, Tirpitz-Plan, 239–40, 247. Thielmann had also made a similar statement before the Bundesrat on April 26, the day before the Budget Committee reached its decision. As the Bundesrat customarily met in closed session, however, definitive confirmation may or may not have reached members of the Reichstag committee. Nevertheless, it appears beyond doubt that the commitment to higher grain tariffs was an expected government concession for passage of the fleet bill. Stegmann, Erben Bismarcks, 84. 115 Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6: 40–41. Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the Navy 159 its parliamentary hegemony would be to ignore the obvious ineffectiveness of the Reichstag as a power base under the Kaiserreich. Moreover, the more plausible adaptation of the Kehrite argument—namely, that the Center supported the fleet to secure assurances of higher tariffs for its own agrarians—still lacks the explanatory power of a prime factor in the party’s decision. This can be illustrated through an examination of the voting patterns of the Center during the two naval roll call votes of June 1900 and a comparison of these with that of March 1898. The first task here is to identify a set of Centrist agrarians who, in their own economic interest and that of their constituents, may have considered employing their influence upon the passage or defeat of the second naval bill to extract grain tariff concessions from the government. Of the eighty-nine Center Reichstag delegates who voted at either the second or the third reading of the naval bill in 1900, twelve are listed in Bernd Haunfelder’s biographical index of Center delegates as founders or activists within the regional Catholic Peasants Associations. Most of these were themselves farmers although the dozen also included men like ‘peasants’ doctor’ Georg Heim, a schoolteacher by profession. Of the remaining electoral districts with more than half of their population employed on the land, another twelve delegates gave their primary occupation as farmer or landowner. It may be reasonably assumed here that the resulting set of twenty-four Centrist delegates represented the core of the agrarian vote within the party in June 1900.116 When the same criteria are applied to those Centrists present for the naval vote of March 1898, a similar group of twenty-five agrarians emerges.117 A comparison of the voting behavior of these agrarian Center Reichstag delegates in 1898 and 1900 proves revealing. Although by May 1900 passage of the naval bill had become explicitly linked to government consent to the enactment of satisfactorily high grain tariffs, the twenty-four Centrist agrarians split 9–15 in June as against 11–14 in 1898 at a time when no compensation was being offered to agriculture. Of the thirteen present in both 1898 and 1900, five reversed their votes in 1900, but only one of these, a Bavarian, swung from

116 Roll Call Vote, Draft Law concerning the German Fleet, Article 1, June 6, 1900, RTSB, 5839– 40. Roll Call Vote, Draft Law concerning the German Fleet, Article 1, June 12, 1900, RTSB, 6040–42. Bernd Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete der deutschen Zentrumspartei 1871– 1933: Biographisches Handbuch und historische Photographien (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1999). Jürgen Schmädeke, Wählerbewegung im Wilhelminischen Deutschland, 2. Band (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1995), Karte 11, “Wirtschaftsstruktur der Wahlkreise, 1890–1898.” Schwarz, MdR, 139–506. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 43. 117 Roll Call Vote, Draft Law concerning the German Fleet, Article 1, Mar. 24, 1898, RTSB, 1761–63. Schwarz, MdR, 139–506. Haunfelder, Reichstagsabgeordnete. Schmädeke, Wählerbewegung, Karte 11. 160 CHAPTER 6 opposition to support of the navy. The other four formerly supportive Prussian agrarians actually abandoned the fleet in 1900 in spite of the government’s assurances of May 1. Likewise, of the eleven Centrist agrarians considering the naval issue for the first time in 1900, the majority voted with the opposition. Thus, although the margin of Centrist support for the fleet increased from 59–30 in 1898 to 67–22 in 1900, the net gain of eight votes came not as a function of the Catholic agrarians’ anticipation of economic benefits, but rather in spite of their increased rancor.118 However, this is not to argue that the government’s tariff declaration of May 1 had no bearing upon the Center majority’s decision to sanction the second naval law. The Catholic agrarians might well have voted in still greater numbers against the fleet in the absence of Thielmann’s assurances. Moreover, his declaration probably played an important role in securing the positive votes of a number of populist Center leaders who were not themselves farmers or unequivocally agrarian spokesmen, but who enjoyed considerable favor in the countryside. For example, this would almost certainly apply to the aforementioned Hessian textile manufacturer Richard Müller-Fulda, the Mainz lawyer Adam Schmitt, the Bavarian customs official Karl Speck, and the two leading Eifel-Hunsrück populists, Superior Court Judge Hermann Roeren and Trier publicist Father Georg Dasbach.119 The explanatory power of the ‘iron-rye pact’ of 1900 ought not to be altogether disregarded where the Center is concerned, yet neither should it be exaggerated. If Thielmann’s assurances of satisfactorily high grain tariffs failed to halt the Catholic agrarian defection from the cause of naval expansion, they likewise did nothing to enamor those Rhenish and Westphalian delegates

118 The 67–22 margin is a composite of the Center votes at the bill’s second and third readings. Seven Centrists were present in the Reichstag on June 6 but not on June 12; hence, their votes have been added to the 62–20 margin of the third reading. 119 Müller-Fulda voted for the fleet in 1898 and 1900, but both times against his own initial predilection (Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:38. Zeender, German Center, 70–71). Roeren and Schmitt were two of the three non-Bavarian Centrists to vote against the fleet in 1898, yet both reversed themselves in 1900, the former on April 27 in the Budget Committee, the latter in the plenum on June 6 (Tirpitz to Hohenlohe, Apr. 27, 1900, Telegram, Nachlaß Hohenlohe, 1615:121, BAK. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:25, 40). Not yet a delegate in 1898, Dasbach still managed to reverse himself between the second and third readings in 1900, voting against the fleet on June 6 and for it on June 12. On Roeren’s participation in subsequent party controversies, see Ronald J. Ross, Beleaguered Tower: The Dilemma of Political Catholicism in Wilhelmine Germany (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1976). Margaret Lavinia Anderson, “Interdenominationalism, Clericalism, Pluralism: The Zentrumsstreit and the Dilemma of Catholicism in Wilhelmine Germany,” Central European History 21.4 (December 1988): 350–78. Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the Navy 161 whose working-class constituents would thereby face higher bread prices. The non-agrarian elements of the Center still possessed an abundance of reasons to reject the new naval bill, yet they voted for it more consistently than the obsti- nate agrarian spokesmen. This conundrum therefore cannot be solved without reference to the foreign political issues of which Kehr and his emulators have written so dismissively, issues which the Cuban, Filipino, and Samoan drives for self-determination had done much to raise.120 In the first place, Berlin relied heavily upon the ramifications of the Spanish- American War and the Samoan crisis to demonstrate the necessity of the new naval bill. The government presented the Reichstag with two arguments derived from the course of the former conflict. First, Tirpitz, Bülow, and Hohenlohe all contended that the devastating defeat of the Spanish navy and the ensuing collapse of Madrid’s remaining overseas empire spoke volumes regarding the necessity of maintaining a powerful modern fleet.121 Furthermore, alluding tacitly to the rapid American expansion at Spanish expense in both the Pacific and the Caribbean, Bülow reminded the parliament that Germany could not afford to stand powerless to one side during future reapportionments of the global “cake.” However, securing a healthy slice for “a Greater Germany” absolutely required possession of a strong navy.122 Similarly, the Berlin government employed the Samoan crisis exactly as Tirpitz had envisioned the previous May—namely, to illustrate to the Reichstag the ease with which war might erupt with Britain or the United States.123 Diplomatic and strategic exigencies naturally placed constraints upon open discussion of possible hostilities, but the allusions of the government spokesmen were unmistakable. Justifying the upcoming naval bill before the Reichstag in December 1899, Bülow extrapolated chiefly from the course of the Samoan crisis in his contention that unforeseen international disputes were currently emerging with unprecedented rapidity and swiftly assuming ominous dimensions. Accordingly, the foreign secretary argued that Germany had to insure itself against surprises at sea as well as on land.124 On the same day Tirpitz

120 As one of Kehr’s emulators, Dirk Stegmann does not entertain even for an instant the idea that international issues might have been among Centrist concerns in 1900. Indeed, after attributing the Center’s generally governmental line after 1898 to a purported continued predominance within the party of aristocratic industrial and agrarian magnates, Stegmann devotes relatively little attention to the Center in spite of their decisive parliamentary position. Stegmann, Erben Bismarcks, 30–31, 69, 77–78, 84. 121 Tirpitz, Dec. 11, 1899, RTSB, 3296A. Tirpitz, Feb. 8, 1900, RTSB, 3955C. Bülow, Dec. 11, 1899, RTSB, 3292D, 3294B. Hohenlohe, June 12, 1900, RTSB, 6036A. 122 Bülow, Dec. 11, 1899, RTSB, 3293A/B. 123 Hohenlohe, May 1, 1899, Note, Nachlaß Hohenlohe, 1611:129–30, BAK. 124 Bülow, Dec. 11, 1899, RTSB, 3293C, 3294B. Berghahn, Tirpitz-Plan, 222–23. 162 CHAPTER 6 alluded in the Reichstag to the navy’s inability that spring to reinforce the Falke at Samoa during the simultaneous expedition in Shandong.125 Several days later the naval secretary underlined that developments in early 1899— “I hardly need elaborate further upon the circumstances”—had proved decisive in the determination of the necessity of a revision of the fleet law.126 While as a rule such references were diplomatically phrased to avoid offending London or Washington, this was not uniformly the case. On December 14 Imperial State Secretary of the Interior Arthur Graf von Posadowsky-Wehner presented the Reichstag with the prospect of a well-nigh global Anglo-American trade compact to throttle German competition. Observing the “sudden” com- prehension of the German people for further naval expansion, Posadowsky attributed it to their very recent recognition that it was imperative for the Reich to be able to “appear upon the still remaining portion of the globe, if necessary, with forces equal to England’s, to America’s.”127 Reference to the sudden- ness of this popular realization as well as to the likelihood of Anglo-American collusion could only remind Posadowsky’s listeners of the recent unexpected friction with both nations in the South Pacific. Indeed, Bülow made this justification of the naval bill in the light of Samoa quite explicit in his confidential speeches to the Budget Committee in late March 1900. The British having meanwhile further spurred naval agitation in the Reich through the detention of two German mailboats off the coast of South Africa in January, the foreign secretary delineated the ominous significance of the two crises with Britain since 1898:

If we do not take the two warnings to heart which we received early last year in Samoa and this past January in the East [sic] African waters, we could find ourselves a third time in a situation where we have only the choice between a severe humiliation or an ill-fated war. If we wish to develop further merely in peaceful competition with England, . . . we must at least be capable of defending ourselves vis-à-vis England. In the nature of things that is only possible through the strengthening of our naval forces.128

125 Tirpitz, Dec. 11, 1899, RTSB, 3296A. 126 Tirpitz, Dec. 14, 1899, RTSB, 3373D, 3374A. 127 Posadowsky, Dec. 14, 1899, RTSB, 3388A. 128 Bülow, “Sitzung der Kommission für den Reichshaushalt am 27.3.00,” Mar. 27, 1900, Notes, Nachlaß Bülow, 24, BAK. See also Bülow, “Budgetcommission, 28.3.00,” Mar. 28, 1900, Notes, Ibid. Elisabeth von Heyking, Tagebücher, 315–16. Kehr, Schlachtflottenbau, Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the Navy 163

Needless to say, while the patriotic outrage erupting over the mailboat episode of January 1900 must not be downplayed, it was the Samoan imbroglio which Bülow’s audience must have recognized as the more relevant justification for the Reich’s most recent naval expansion campaign as the launching of the latter preceded the January incident by several months. The far-reaching international consequences of the Samoan, Cuban, and Filipino resistance movements accordingly lay at the heart of the government’s argumentation in favor of the second naval bill. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine how in late 1899 Berlin could have launched a credible naval campaign on the basis of the Anglo-Boer War alone, even granting that the popular anti-British sentiment fueled by that conflict unquestionably facilitated the bill’s passage.129 Without the Spanish-American War and the Samoan crisis, the German government would scarcely have been able to speak as it did in terms of alarming adverse shifts in international affairs over the preceding eighteen months. For example, under such hypothetical circumstances the United States would presumably have remained off the transoceanic imperialist stage for at least a few more years, thereby eliminating German alarm on that front. Likewise, given the recentness of the Anglo-French clash over Fashoda and the imminence of war in South Africa, it is unlikely that London would have otherwise found occasion to offend Berlin in early 1899 in the absence of the grave altercations which Mata’afa’s bid for the Samoan throne set off between their respective agents at Apia. Thus, if in this counterfactual scenario the German government of late 1899 had nonetheless still dared to announce a bill to double the new battlefleet, it would have required far more creativity to produce any credible international justifications for the measure. Finally, on the domestic front, it has been noted that Tirpitz’s standing with the Reichstag was seriously undermined in 1899 by the stark contrast between

201–2. On the mailboat affair, see Berghahn, Tirpitz-Plan, 240–42. Pauline Anderson, Anti- English Feeling, 308–17. 129 Lieber advised Hohenlohe in late October 1899 that it was too early to be attempting to capitalize upon popular outrage over the Anglo-Boer War. He believed it would take another twelve months of British warfare in South Africa to create a public atmosphere in the Reich conducive to a significant revision of the fleet law. Hohenlohe to Bülow, Oct. 27, 1899, Secret, Nachlaß Bülow, 89:291–92, BAK. Editor’s note in Hohenlohe, Reichskanzlerzeit, 535. Ellen Lovell Evans ascribes the government’s return to intransi- gence on the Jesuit question after February 1900 to the surge in patriotism fostered by the Anglo-Boer War and by the outbreak of the Yihetuan (Boxer) Uprising in China. E.L. Evans, German Center, 130. While the former certainly played a role in the government’s calculus, it will be shown below that the initial news of the anti-Christian uprising in fact posed a threat to the naval bill. 164 CHAPTER 6 his solemn parliamentary declaration in January of continuing adherence to the sextennial law and the announcement of the new naval bill in the fall. His only remotely plausible defense lay with the eruption of the confrontation in the South Pacific in the intervening months.130 It would seem most improbable, then, to suppose that the extremely reluctant Center could have still swal- lowed such a flagrant reversal on the part of the naval secretary if the Samoan majority had never fought to determine its own king. In that case, although unable under any circumstances to force Tirpitz’s resignation, the Catholic party would most likely have had little compunction about rejecting the costly naval bill. While such counterfactual argumentation can only be intuitive, there is in fact considerable evidence indicating the indispensability of the inadvertent Samoan, Cuban, and Filipino contributions to the parliamentary viability of Tirpitz’s second naval bill. As in the case of the Jiaozhou action and the sextennial law, prominent statesmen believed that overseas developments would do much to carry the fleet through the Reichstag. For example, observing Lieber’s anger over the launching of the new naval campaign and noting the resolutely oppositional mood of the Center, the Württemberg envoy to Berlin, Theodor Freiherr von Varnbüler, concluded in early December 1899 that the naval bill’s only real chance for passage lay not in the domestic, but in the foreign political situation.131 As previously noted, Centrist outrage against Britain and the United States at the time of the Spanish-American and Samoan conflicts was quite pronounced, even in Bavaria, and South German hostility toward England remained very strong as of December 1899.132 Varnbüler accordingly anticipated that Berlin’s success the previous month in securing Anglo-American consent to German annexation of western Samoa might be effectively used to garner Reichstag support for the fleet if portrayed as an early fruit of the mere threat of naval expansion.133 Indeed, Colonial Director Gerhard von Buchka explained the German rejection of Britain’s handsome Afro-Pacific alternate proposal, which did not include Samoa, in terms of the government’s prefer- ence for the heightened domestic prestige it accrued through the annexation, prestige which Buchka argued would redound to the benefit of the naval bill.134

130 See footnote 102 above. 131 Varnbüler to Mittnacht, Dec. 3, 1899, Report 1393, WüMAA, E50/03, 193:6–8, HSAS. 132 Monts to Hohenlohe, Apr. 13, 1899, Report 41, R 19498, Südsee 5, Bd. 2, PAAA. Monts to Holstein, Dec. 14, 1899, Nachlaß Holstein, 60 (Film 62246: H194633–34), BAP. 133 Varnbüler to Mittnacht, Dec. 3, 1899, Report 1393, WüMAA, E50/03, 193:6–8, HSAS. 134 Jagemann to Brauer, Nov. 18, 1899, Report 152, BdGB, Abt. 49/2032:260, GLAK. Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the Navy 165

In fact, international developments since spring 1898 and their impact upon German public opinion played a significant role in the Center’s deliberations on the second naval bill. On the most immediate level, Centrists generally linked their attitude toward the proposed fleet expansion to their perception of the merits of the government’s arguments regarding the significance for the Reich of recent global events. Thus, as the very first of its fourteen questions for the administration in the confidential Budget Committee debates of Spring 1900, the Catholic party asked: “What events have occurred since the issuance of the fleet law of April 10, 1898, which make its revision necessary?”135 Leading Centrists also drew precisely the lesson from the Spanish-American War which Berlin propounded—namely, that the failure to maintain a strong modern fleet could cost a nation valuable colonies.136 Likewise, Judge Adolf Gröber, deputy to the ailing party leader Lieber, came out in support of the new naval bill because he had concluded from the recent course of Anglo-German relations that a serious clash was inevitable. A close associate in the party leadership, the Rhenish jurist Alois Fritzen, held similar views of the likelihood of a future war with Britain.137 Although the mailboat incident was doubtless a factor in such pessimism, it surely also owed much to the bitter mutual recriminations that had erupted over Samoa on both shores of the North Sea the previous year. Equally important for the Center leadership’s ultimate decision, however, was its awareness of the Anglophobic agitation within the general populace over these back-to-back crises with London. It was correctly assumed by the Center that the Kaiser aimed to dissolve the Reichstag if it rejected the creation of the third and fourth battleship squadrons.138 In that case, however, the contemporary widespread antipathy towards Britain over Samoa and South Africa might be expected to bring significantly more governmental voters to the polls in a fleet election waged against the Center.139 The Catholic party could then anticipate losing seats in the Reichstag; in the worst-case scenario suggested by historian John Zeender, the three Kartell parties on the Right might even have

135 Motion Müller-Fulda, Mar. 26, 1900, Kommissions-Drucksachen (KDS) 548, Nachlaß Bülow, 24, BAK. 136 Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:36. 137 Ibid., 6:37–38. Bachem to Franz Bachem, Oct. 27, 1900, Nachlaß Bachem, 170, HASK. Zeender, German Center, 82. 138 Wilhelm II to Hohenlohe, Nov. 29, 1899, Telegram 181; Hohenlohe, Nov. 15, 1899, Note, Nachlaß Hohenlohe, 1614:15, 132–33, BAK. Wilhelm II, Jan. 1, 1900, Speech, Nachlaß Hammann, 66:7, BAP. Bülow to Holstein, Nov. 24, 1899, Telegram, Secret, Nachlaß Bülow, 91:88–90, BAK. Monts to Holstein, Dec. 14, 1899, Nachlaß Holstein, 60 (Film 62246: H194633–34), BAP. Berghahn, Tirpitz-Plan, 227. 139 Monts to Holstein, Dec. 14, 1899, Nachlaß Holstein, 60 (Film 62246: H194633–34), BAP. 166 CHAPTER 6 secured a majority and excluded the Center from its existing strategic parliamentary position for the next five years.140 This latter fear may have been too pessimistic to have been seriously entertained at that time. Nevertheless, the prospect of noticeably diminished Centrist representation as the result of such electoral circumstances was probably real enough, and that of a difficult election campaign absolutely certain. Consequently, the Prussian envoy to Munich, Anton Graf von Monts, was already predicting in December 1899 that in the spring the largely oppositional Bavarian Centrists would sooner absent some of their number from the parliamentary vote on the naval bill rather than risk defeating the measure.141 In fact, the observations of Karl Bachem, a key member of the Center’s jurist leadership, confirm that the Catholic party as a whole shared his opposition to the naval bill but did not have the heart to fight it.142 Facing the prospect of an uphill electoral battle as an ‘anti-national’ party at a moment of popular patriotic fervor, the Center simply preferred to acquiesce to the Kaiser’s wishes. That same general national fervor had, however, arisen in no small part from the clash with London and Washington over the Samoans’ choice of king, and a significant portion of the burst of Anglophobia in the Center’s constituency was a product of the congruence of Roman Catholic and German national sympathies for the Mata’afan party. Likewise, the Center’s acknowledgment of the admissibility of discussion of a drastic revision of the mutually binding sextennial law was largely predicated on its recognition that the geopolitical reverberations of Samoan, Cuban, and Filipino resistance had substantially increased the chances of a conflict with a major naval power in the twenty- odd months since March 1898. This strongly suggests that, in the absence of these resistance movements, the Center would have had considerably less reason to vote for the naval bill of 1900 and considerably less cause to fear the consequences of voting against it. Since the party already possessed an abundance of reasons to reject the measure, it is reasonable to assume that it would then have done so regardless of any concessions offered to its agrarians, who in any case voted against the fleet in somewhat greater numbers than in 1898. Nonetheless, this remains an argument of necessity, not sufficiency. Neither Thielmann’s grain tariff declaration nor the Anglo-Boer War can be factored out of the Center’s ultimate decision any more than can the distant campaigns of Samoan, Cuban, and Filipino warriors. Still, it has been the tendency of his-

140 Zeender, German Center, 82. 141 Monts to Holstein, Dec. 14, 1899, Nachlaß Holstein, 60 (Film 62246: H194633–34), BAP. Berghahn, Tirpitz-Plan, 227. 142 Bachem, [1901], Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 112:1, HASK. Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the Navy 167 torians to neglect the importance of these latter for the party’s fateful choice to authorize creation of the Reich’s third and fourth battleship squadrons, a decision which in turn contributed substantially to the deterioration of Anglo- German relations in the prewar years.

Red Fist Violence, Catholic Indignation, and Berlin’s Retreat

The reverberations of Chinese resistance to German and Catholic imperialism in Shandong appear, on the other hand, to have fallen just short of jeopardizing the passage of Tirpitz’s second naval law. Bishop Anzer’s annual New Year’s greeting to the supporters of his mission arrived at the Kölnische Volkszeitung within a day of the naval bill’s introduction to the Reichstag.143 Published on January 26, 1900, the bishop’s message proclaimed a catastrophe: “So the entire missionary work in the center and the west of the mission is momen- tarily destroyed, a region of approximately 30,000 Christians and catechists.”144 Anzer then proceeded to argue that the motivation behind the Red Fist attacks had arisen not from popular hatred provoked by missionary activity, “as has been asserted,” but from patriotic bitterness over the German occupation of Jiaozhou Bay.145 At considerable length Anzer compared conditions before and since the occupation and claimed that the uprisings endured since the German annexation were qualitatively different from the local disturbances experienced previously:

[Before the occupation] the missionary was loved by the Christians, respected by the heathens, and often even befriended by the mandarins. Even the murder of the two missionaries Nies and Henle was only an isolated act of revenge by a few sect leaders. . . . [Now, however,] it is no longer a matter of local outbreaks of xenophobia, but rather of a general persecution methodically staged against the entire mission as such and protected by the officials. . . . The first and most important cause of the persecution was . . . the occupation of Jiaozhou.146

143 “Aus der Mission von Süd-Shantung,” KVZ, Jan. 26, 1900, R 17952, China 6, Band 40, PAAA. Dasbach, “Schutz der einheimischen Christen in China,” May 21, 1900, Declaration, Nachlaß Bachem, 157, HASK. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:25. 144 “Aus der Mission von Süd-Shantung,” KVZ, Jan. 26, 1900, R 17952, China 6, Band 40, PAAA. 145 Ibid. 146 Ibid. 168 CHAPTER 6

Anzer argued further that the relative lack of bloodshed clearly betrayed the official Chinese conspiracy to confound the missions without provoking German retaliation:

That the governor and the other officials had the courage to proceed in such a way . . . arose from the fact that within the Chinese bureaucracy of South Shandong the opinion formed, whether correct or not, that the German government was not concerned with the native Christians. . . . But the Christians have been guaranteed religious freedom by treaty. If they are hindered in this respect and find no protection with the Chinese officials, then the power exercising the protectorate has the right and the duty to receive the Christians. This duty falls even more clearly to the protecting power if the Christians are driven from house and home and robbed of all their possessions simply because they are Christians.147

Suddenly, the same protectorate against Chinese anti-Christian violence that had so facilitated passage of the first two battleship squadrons in 1898 had become a potentially disruptive factor with respect to the second pair in 1900. Indeed, the celebrated German seizure of Jiaozhou in defense of the SVD, once the most positive of the Center’s six justifications for supporting the naval bill of 1898, was now alleged to have occurred at the grave expense of the mission. Significantly, the Berlin government took immediate steps to head off the potential threat to both the new naval bill and relations with the Vatican by attempting to mollify Anzer. On February 4, three weeks before the missionary bishop reached Europe, Bülow dispatched copies of the former’s provocative article to the legations at Beijing and the Vatican and informed both Ketteler and Rotenhan that Anzer’s views generally corresponded to those of the Foreign Office. The foreign secretary merely qualified this with the observation that German state intercession for Chinese Christians could only be indirect through diplomatic channels.148 This shift expressed a notable softening of the resistance of the Foreign Office to representing Christian interests although it did not alter the legal basis of its discretion.

147 Ibid. 148 Bülow to Ketteler, Feb. 4, 1900, Order A12, Urgent; Bülow to Rotenhan, Feb. 4, 1900, Order 27, Urgent, R 17952, China 6, Bd. 40, PAAA. The copy of the latter document actually dispatched to Rome may be found in Ges. Rom-V, 921, PAAA. Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the Navy 169

Then, with Anzer due to arrive in Italy in late February, Bülow sent an oblig- ing letter to the bishop via the Prussian legation in Rome.149 In this communication of February 9 the foreign secretary assured the bishop that Ketteler had been newly advised and specially instructed to “intercede no less to assure that the missionary work is not confounded by the oppression and abuse of native Christians and that the losses suffered by the latter are made good.”150 The extent of this intercession was merely to be limited by the constraints of international law and the interests of the mission itself.151 Receiving this letter the day after his arrival in Rome, Anzer indicated his satisfaction and gratitude to Rotenhan and assured the Prussian envoy that he would refrain from revealing his differences with Ketteler to his superiors during his month’s stay at the Vatican.152 There the matter might have rested, but the contents of Anzer’s New Year’s greeting had meanwhile sparked the outrage of Father Stenz’s Centrist cousin Georg Dasbach. The outspoken Reichstag delegate had namely found his suspicions thereby confirmed regarding the questionable value of the German protectorate over the missions in China. Remembering the importance the Center had attached to the Jiaozhou action in its approval of the sextennial law, Dasbach was evidently determined that Berlin should not secure authorization of another naval bill unless it recognized the rightful claims of the SVD mission. The Trier populist accordingly shocked his pro-navy senior party colleagues Adolf Gröber and Franz Prinz von Arenberg when on March 8 he unilaterally took the offensive against Tirpitz in the Budget Committee deliberations regarding the 1900 funds for Kiautschou. As the discussion turned to the budget for the troops stationed there, Dasbach asked the naval secretary whether the Zhangjiazhuang atonement funds had been collected from the Chinese government, an issue which in fact lay solely within the portfolio of the Foreign Office. Continuing to disregard such jurisdictional niceties, the populist priest then produced Anzer’s New Year’s greeting and repeated its arguments lamenting the Jiaozhou action’s disastrous consequences for the mission and reproaching Berlin for its reluctance to protect the indigenous Christians.

149 Bülow to Rotenhan, Feb. 9, 1900, Order 37, R 17952, China 6, Bd. 40, PAAA. Also found in Ges. Rom-V, 921, PAAA. 150 Bülow to Anzer, Feb. 9, 1900, R 17952, China 6, Bd. 40, PAAA. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 296–97. 151 See the previous footnote. 152 Rotenhan to Hohenlohe, Mar. 2, 1900, Report 44, R 17952, China 6, Bd. 40, PAAA. Also found in Ges. Rom-V, 921, PAAA. 170 CHAPTER 6

Dasbach thereupon demanded an account of whether diplomatic complaints had been lodged by the German legation on behalf of the Chinese Catholics.153 Taken out of context, this barrage of apparently misdirected questions would appear rather strange. However, the course of events in Germany and China since November 1897 makes clear that Dasbach was less interested in obtaining authoritative replies than in discomfiting Tirpitz by unmasking for Catholic Germany the true spirit and consequences of the original Jiaozhou action, the golden aura of which had encouraged Centrists to vote for the last naval bill. In the Budget Committee this first offensive by Dasbach fell rather flat because Bülow had already coopted Gröber and Arenberg into accepting the official interpretation of both the protectorate and the relative insignifi- cance of the Red Fist uprising. The two Centrist leaders therefore intercep ted their colleague’s challenge while the unruffled Tirpitz simply concurred with their views.154 Far from being intimidated, however, Dasbach quickly sounded the confessional alarm. That very day he wrote letters to Anzer and SVD General Superior Arnold Janssen. Moreover, he submitted a report on the Budget Committee’s debate to Germania, an account the paper duly published as authoritative the following day. In all three cases, Dasbach misrepresented Gröber and Arenberg as having asserted that international law denied the German government the right to intercede diplomatically for the Chinese Christians whereas the two men had merely questioned Berlin’s supposed legal obligation to do so.155 As a consequence of Dasbach’s measures, Janssen wrote indignant letters demanding explanations from the chairman of the Center Party, Alfred

153 Dasbach, “Schutz der einheimischen Christen in China,” May 21, 1900, Declaration; Gröber to Hompesch, July 26, 1900, Nachlaß Bachem, 157, HASK. Dasbach, Mar. 8, 1900, ProtBc, RTA, 1055:85, BAP. “Aus den Kommissionen,” Neue Preußische Zeitung, Mar. 8, 1900, Nr. 113. “Die Budgetcommission des Reichstags,” Germania, Mar. 9, 1900, Nr. 55. Stolberg- Wernigerode, Reporter, Mar. 21, 1900, RTSB, 4856B/C. Rivinius, Mission und Politik, 94–95, 99–105. 154 See in addition to previous footnote: Gröber, Arenberg, Mar. 8, 1900, ProtBc, RTA, 1055: 85–86, BAP. Bachem, [after April] 1900, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 157, HASK. Rivinius, Mission und Politik, 89–90. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 297. In his 1934 dissertation Hans Pehl inexplicably places Gröber in alignment with Dasbach and thereby concludes that the complaint on behalf of the mission was launched by the party. This reading flies in the face of all the evidence, including the Budget Committee protocol cited by Pehl (Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 52–53). 155 See in addition to the previous two footnotes: Dasbach to Anzer, Mar. 8, 1900, Copy, Nachlaß Bachem, 157, HASK. Rivinius, Mission und Politik, 108–9. Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the Navy 171

Graf von Hompesch-Rurich, and from Franz Bachem, coeditor of the Kölnische Volkszeitung.156 Meanwhile, Dasbach’s communication to Anzer reached the bishop immediately before his audience with the Pope, to whom he then submitted its contents in great alarm. The Pope himself surmised that there had been a mis- understanding, yet his foreign secretary Cardinal Rampolla believed that the interpretation endorsed by Tirpitz, Gröber, and Arenberg rendered the German protectorate entirely worthless.157 The sparks from the clash between Chinese, Catholic, and German national interests in Shandong thus ignited a small brushfire in Europe. Moreover, all of this was transpiring at the very moment when the governmental Centrist Professor Georg Freiherr von Hertling was admonishing Chancellor Hohenlohe that the mood in the Center was so bad that the naval bill would most likely be defeated unless the Kaiser immediately brought about the abrogation of the entire Anti-Jesuit Law.158 Matters came to a head two weeks later when Bishop Anzer arrived in Berlin. Having paid an initial visit to the Foreign Office on March 27, which happened also to be the opening day of the Budget Committee’s lengthy naval deliberations, Anzer promptly entered into consultations with Dasbach. During their meeting the bishop brought out Bülow’s conciliatory February 9 explication of the German protectorate over the mission as it pertained to the Chinese Christians. Dasbach considered the formula less than optimal and recommended that Anzer seek to secure a more favorable statement from the Foreign Office. Should such not be forthcoming, the outspoken Centrist then intended to make ample use of the Chinese issue against the naval bill.159

156 Janssen to [Franz] Bachem, Mar. 18, 1900; Franz Bachem to Karl Bachem, Mar. 31, 1900, Nachlaß Karl Bachem, 157, HASK. Janssen to Hompesch, Mar. 14, 1900, 4960c/Tr. 26, 179–82, Archivum Generalatus SVD Roma, quoted at length in Rivinius, Mission und Politik, 83n4. Ibid., 81–86, 88. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 297. Both Rivinius and Gründer erro- neously identify the addressee of Janssen’s letter of March 18 as the Reichstag delegate Karl Bachem. However, the original recipient was doubtless the newspaper editor Franz Bachem who forwarded the letter to his brother on March 31. 157 Bachem, [after April] 1900, Note; Gröber to Hompesch, July 26, 1900, Nachlaß Bachem, 157, HASK. Rotenhan to Hohenlohe, Mar. 14, 1900, Report 51; Rotenhan to Hohenlohe, Mar. 15, 1900, Report 53, Secret, R 17952, China 6, Bd. 40, PAAA. The legation’s original copies of these two reports may be found in Ges. Rom-V, 921, PAAA. 158 Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:33–34. Hertling’s declaration was dated March 8, the same as Dasbach’s foray in the Budget Committee. 159 Anzer to [Franz] Bachem, Mar. 20, 1900; Dasbach, “Schutz der einheimischen Christen in China,” May 21, 1900, Declaration, Nachlaß Karl Bachem, 157, HASK. Klehmet, Mar. 28, 1900, Secret memorandum, R 17952, China 6, Band 40, PAAA. Anzer to Klehmet, Apr. 1, 172 CHAPTER 6

Thus fortified, Anzer returned to the Foreign Office on March 29 to press for an improvement on Bülow’s earlier statement. On that occasion the missionary bishop appears to have refrained from stating the possible adverse consequences for the naval bill if his request were denied and to have simply grounded the necessity for a revision upon the misgivings which Dasbach’s letter had aroused at the Vatican. Consideration was given to Anzer’s request, and the decision was made to convey a revised statement of Berlin’s protectorate to the bishop at the conclusion of his audience with the Kaiser and Bülow the following day.160 Meanwhile, the Kaiser himself was apparently aware that key votes for the fleet might be at stake if the brushfire of Catholic indignation over China should spread, for he set aside for the moment his antipathy towards the SVD mission regarding the events of the previous spring and received the bishop most cordially. Indeed, during the audience itself the monarch commissioned Bülow to instruct Ketteler immediately that the Chinese Christians were to enjoy Germany’s full protection.161 Afterwards, however, Anzer was dis- appointed to find that the new Foreign Office position on the protectorate still contained no specific reference to the mission’s converts.162 Complaining to Bülow that very evening, the bishop appears to have advised the foreign secretary at that point that he was privy to the intention of a segment of the Center to exploit the Chinese Christian issue in a campaign against the fleet’s expansion.163 It appears to have been this admonition which induced the foreign secretary to acquiesce to the de facto protectorate over the

1900; Bülow to Rotenhan, Apr. 10, 1900, Order 65, R 17953, China 6, Band 41, PAAA. “Bischof Johann Baptist von Anzer, Apostolischer Vicar von Süd-Shantung in China,” Germania, Mar. 27, 1900, Nr. 70. “Commissionsverhandlungen über die Flottenvorlage,” Germania, Mar. 28, 1900, Nr. 71. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:39. Rivinius, Mission und Politik, 86–87, 96–97. Here again the addressee of Anzer’s letter of March 20 was Franz Bachem, not Karl (Franz Bachem to Karl Bachem, Mar. 31, 1900, Nachlaß Karl Bachem, 157, HASK). 160 Klehmet, Mar. 29, 1900, Secret memorandum, R 17952, China 6, Band 40, PAAA. Dasbach, “Schutz der einheimischen Christen in China,” May 21, 1900, Declaration, Nachlaß Karl Bachem, 157, HASK. Rivinius, Mission und Politik, 97. 161 “Der Hochwürdige Herr Bischof von Anzer,” Germania, Apr. 1, 1900, Nr. 75. 162 Bülow to Anzer, Mar. 30, 1900, A3942/I, R 17952, China 6, Band 40, PAAA. Dasbach, “Schutz der einheimischen Christen in China,” May 21, 1900, Declaration, Nachlaß Karl Bachem, 157, HASK. Rivinius, Mission und Politik, 97. 163 Anzer’s linkage of the Chinese Christian issue to the fate of the naval bill may be found in his April 1 communication to Privy Councillor Reinhold Klehmet. Although not certain, it is reasonable to assume from the brief follow-up nature of this document that the bishop had already raised the same point in his conversation with Bülow himself roughly thirty-six hours earlier. Anzer to Klehmet, Apr. 1, 1900; Bülow to Rotenhan, Apr. 10, 1900, Order 65, R 17953, China 6, Band 41, PAAA. Dasbach, “Schutz der einheimischen Christen Cubans, Samoans, Red Fists, and the Navy 173

Chinese Christians despite his resistance to the adoption of such a position the previous year and, indeed, his decision to omit reference to the converts the previous day. The key passage of the new statement read:

The German protectorate accordingly includes . . . by definition that measures will be taken against the impairment of the missionary work which, in violation of the treaties, results from attacks on the Chinese Christians—namely, to no lesser extent than this is done by France in similar cases.164

Two weeks later Bülow advised his envoy to the Vatican that, while a formal and public protectorate over the converts was politically impossible, “materially and practically the intervention we have promised against violations of the Chinese Christians is aimed in its intent at nothing other than a protectorate over the same.”165 Also in mid-April, Bülow had Privy Councillor Reinhold Klehmet send a private letter to Ketteler in connection with Anzer’s recent observations regarding the envoy’s lack of energy and his reluctance to leave his summer residence to attend to affairs in Beijing. In this context, the bishop had contrasted the French envoy’s success in effecting Yuxian’s dismissal in December 1899 with Ketteler’s refusal to press for the same at Anzer’s request several months earlier. Ketteler was accordingly admonished privately that his superiors expected him to intercede energetically on behalf of the mission’s interests and that he could only hope for a transfer to a European post after multiple years of meri- torious service in Beijing.166

in China,” May 21, 1900, Declaration, Nachlaß Karl Bachem, 157, HASK. Rivinius, Mission und Politik, 97. 164 Bülow to Anzer, Mar. 30, 1900, Clean draft, ad A3942/I, R 17952, China 6, Band 40, PAAA. The date given for this document is in fact misleading since precisely this crucial sentence was drafted on April 1 in response to Anzer’s objection to Bülow’s original version of March 30. The bishop did not receive the final version until April 3. (Anzer to Klehmet, Apr. 1, 1900; Klehmet to Bülow, Apr. 1, 1900, Secret memorandum, Urgent; Bülow to Anzer, Mar. 30, 1900, A3942, with Anzer’s marginalia for suggested amendment, R 17953, China 6, Band 41, PAAA. Dasbach, “Schutz der einheimischen Christen in China,” May 21, 1900, Declaration, Nachlaß Karl Bachem, 157, HASK. Rivinius, Mission und Politik, 97). 165 Bülow to Rotenhan, Apr. 10, 1900, Order 65, R 17953, China 6, Band 41, PAAA. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 298. 166 Klehmet, Mar. 28, 1900, Secret memorandum, R 17952, China 6, Band 40, PAAA. Klehmet to Bülow, Mar. 31, 1900, Secret memorandum, Urgent; Klehmet to Ketteler, Mar. 31, 1900, R 17949, China 6, Band 37, PAAA (These last two documents were misfiled by 174 CHAPTER 6

Given that Bishop Anzer had received full satisfaction, Dasbach was no longer in a position to employ the Chinese Christian issue as ammunition against the naval bill. The counterfactual question arises, however, whether Catholic indignation over a less accommodating response to the mission would have sufficed to have altered a crucial forty-six of the sixty-two affirmative Centrist votes cast on June 12, 1900, in favor of the creation of a third and fourth battleship squadron. It is impossible to answer this question with any degree of certainty; nevertheless, it is significant to note that neither the Kaiser nor Bülow was prepared to risk finding out whether Catholic disillusionment over the issue that had once expedited passage of the first naval law might not sink the second. Certainly, however crucial the issue was to the Chinese and the missionaries, it could not by itself and under ordinary circumstances have been described as particularly weighty when viewed from Berlin. Still, from its own standpoint, the Center already had more reasons than not to reject the naval bill, and reports of the first Yihetuan massacres of Christians in Zhili province in May 1900 might well have heightened the seriousness which the Roman Catholic Centrists attached to the problem.167 In any case, rather than discover whether or not the Chinese Christian issue would break the back of the Centrist camel, the Berlin government simply abandoned the highly circumspect approach to the SVD mission that its negative experiences in 1899 had induced it to adopt.

contemporaries in Volume 37 covering January through May 1899). Bülow to Rotenhan, Apr. 10, 1900, Order 65, R 17953, China 6, Band 41, PAAA. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 297. For a glimpse into Ketteler’s personal view of the demands of his assignment, see Ketteler to Friedrich von Ketteler, Jan. 12, 1900, Nachlaß Friedrich Freiherr von Ketteler, NL III, 21:26, Archiv des Freiherrn von Ketteler. 167 Esherick, Boxer Uprising, 283–88. CHAPTER 7 Jesuit Collision to Yihetuan Diversion, 1900–1901

Within weeks of the Foreign Office concession to the SVD on protection for its converts, Chinese popular resentment against Western economic, political, and cultural imperialism erupted in a massive xenophobic and anti-Christian uprising by the Yihetuan, better known in English and German by the misno- mer ‘the Boxers.’1 The consequences of this movement reverberated around the world, not least in German domestic politics. By precipitating the Kaiser’s dispatch of nearly nineteen thousand men on the East Asian Expedition, the Yihetuan forced the Reich to borrow a total of 276 million marks in 1900/01, a sum eight times the cost of the entire official colonial enterprise of that year. The resulting unanticipated burden upon the imperial treasury during a con- temporaneous general economic downturn seriously aggravated the finances of the German government and hence jeopardized the administration’s relationship with the national parliament. The factor of expense was particularly complicated by the heated controversy over the military campaign’s inauguration without the consent of the Reichstag to its budgetary and constitutional ramifications. With Chancellor Hohenlohe’s credibility with the Center already at ebbtide, the inauspicious circumstances surrounding the initiation of the East Asian Expedition precipitated his resignation in October 1900. However, thanks to the restored alignment of German national and Catholic missionary interests in the Chinese theater as well as to the readiness of the new chancellor Bernhard von Bülow to seek a parliamentary indemnity, the Yihetuan Uprising generally helped consolidate government-Center relations on the domestic front in the face of strong leftist attacks upon both partners. As yet relatively limited in scope, African resistance to German rule nevertheless prompted a few Center populists around Richard Müller-Fulda to take principled stands in

1 The British term ‘Boxers’ does not have any immediate connection with the proper Chinese name ‘Yihetuan,’ which means ‘Militia United in Righteousness.’ Moreover, the layperson is easily misled by the common term into imagining an army of pugilists. Today the term ‘boxers’ is not even applied to unarmed practitioners of the Asian martial arts, much less to fighters who use spears, swords, or knives as the Yihetuan actually did (Esherick, Boxer Uprising, xiii, 250, 253, 288, 297, 308). Indeed, for this very reason even such an unsympathetic contemporary as Bishop Johann Baptist von Anzer deemed the British appellation misleading to his German audience (“Der Boxeraufstand in China,” Germania, June 12, 1900, Nr. 132).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004306875_009 176 CHAPTER 7 early 1901 against the government’s ‘native policy.’ Still, with Chinese violence facilitating a government-Center rapprochement that might bring long-sought domestic concessions, the leading jurist and aristocratic factions of the Center preferred to refrain from criticizing the administration regarding its treatment of Africans.

Centrist Defiance, Yihetuan Ferocity, Imperial Audacity

Although three-fourths of the Center eventually voted in favor of Tirpitz’s second naval bill, resistance to this course had emerged in the spring of 1900 not only among such outspoken populists as Hermann Roeren, Georg Dasbach, and Georg Heim, but also within the party’s jurist leadership. Most notably, the Cologne lawyer Karl Bachem, a key voice in the Rhineland Center, had objected strenuously to the enormous financial consequences of the new naval bill and to the failure of the Hohenlohe administration to satisfy any of the party’s desiderata in recognition of its many past services. Finding himself unable to rally the party into taking a stand on the fleet question in the face of widespread anti-British sentiment, Bachem had nonetheless informed his pro- fleet jurist and aristocratic colleagues in the party leadership that this was his last concession. If the Anti-Jesuit Law did not fall in response to passage of the second naval law, then further legislative requests of the Hohenlohe administration would have to be ruthlessly spurned.2 Moreover, by June Bachem had succeeded in winning over to this hard line the influential leader of the Württemberg Center, Judge Adolf Gröber. Accordingly, in the days immediately following the June 12 passage of the naval law, the two Center jurists approached Hohenlohe, Tirpitz, and Bülow to secure a commitment to the revocation of the expulsion article of the Anti-Jesuit Law at the very least. However, although a horsetrade involving the entire Jesuit law had been possible in February while the fate of the naval bill was still uncertain, the statesmen felt no need to reward the Center after June 12 and treated the petition dismissively. Rebuffed, Gröber and Bachem then explicitly threatened the government with a termination of the party’s cooperation.3 Indeed, even Ernst Lieber, Centrist leader and architect of the pro-government line, admonished Hohenlohe on June 16 that there would be

2 Bachem to Franz Bachem, Oct. 27, 1900, Nachlaß Bachem, 170, HASK. 3 Ibid.; Dahlmann to Cardauns, Aug. 16, 1900, Nachlaß Bachem, 170, HASK. Bachem, Nov. 30, 1901, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 173, HASK. Kopp to Hutten-Czapski, June 20, 1900, Nachlaß Hutten-Czapski, 144:7, BAP. Tirpitz to Senden, Aug. 30, 1900, Nachlaß Senden, 5:24–25, BMAF. Jesuit Collision To Yihetuan Diversion 177 no peace with the Catholic party until the expulsion clause fell. However, when confronted with the Center’s indispensability in the passage of the Civil Code, the Military Criminal Procedure Code, and the Naval Laws of 1898 and 1900, Hohenlohe merely objected that he could hardly disavow his anti-Jesuit past. Since the chancellor had first secured the Center’s cooperation in 1894 through just such an apparent disavowal, even the jurist Centrists were incensed by his duplicity.4 The Catholic party had had enough. Meanwhile, popular Chinese resentment against years of Western political, economic, and cultural imperialism had burst forth in northwest Shandong in the form of the xenophobic Yihetuan. Sweeping across the plains of Zhili province into Beijing in Spring 1900, the angry peasants killed Christians, tore up railroads, burned mission and railway stations, cut telegraph lines, and seriously threatened the security of the Western communities in northern China. Then, just four days after Lieber met with Hohenlohe, the German envoy to China, Clemens Freiherr von Ketteler, was assassinated by the Manchu officer Enhai in answer to the allied Western seizure of the Dagu Forts at Tianjin. Meanwhile, the Yihetuan, now officially recognized by the Qing as a people’s militia for expelling foreigners and exterminating Christians, vented its fury freely in the northern provinces of Zhili, Shanxi, Henan, and Inner Mongolia.5 While definitive news of Ketteler’s assassination did not reach Germany for almost two weeks, the tidings were grim enough that two marine battalions were ready to depart for China from Wilhelmshaven when the confirmation arrived on July 2. Outraged by the murder of ‘his’ envoy, Wilhelm II announced there that he would quickly dispatch two full army infantry divi- sions to exact exemplary revenge upon the Chinese.6 As the Kaiser construed the ensuing East Asian Expedition as a purely executive measure to obtain imperial satisfaction from Beijing, he considered it devoid of all budgetary and

Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:28–30, 42–43. For a much more congenial interpretation of the exchange with Tirpitz, see H.W. Smith, German Nationalism, 121–22. 4 Hohenlohe, June 16, 1900, Note, Nachlaß Hohenlohe, 1615:159, BAK. Kopp to Hutten-Czapski, June 20, 1900, Nachlaß Hutten-Czapski, 144:7, BAP. Dahlmann to Cardauns, Aug. 16, 1900, Nachlaß Bachem, 170, HASK. Hohenlohe’s conciliatory reference to the Jesuits in his first speech to the Reichstag as chancellor had been composed by Lieber himself (Bachem, Nov. 21, 1900, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 116, HASK). 5 Esherick, Boxer Uprising, 284–89, 302–306. Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York: W.W. Norton, 1990), 231–34. Zhili province corresponds to Hebei today. 6 Lerchenfeld to Crailsheim, July 4, 1900, MA 76017, ByHSA. Bebel, Nov. 19, 1900, RTSB, 29A. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:89. Palmer, Kaiser, 98–99. John C.G. Röhl, “The emperor’s new clothes: a character sketch of Kaiser Wilhelm II,” in Kaiser Wilhelm II, ed. Röhl and Sombart, 31. Röhl, Kaiser and His Court, 13–14. Kohut, Wilhelm II and the Germans, 145, 153. 178 CHAPTER 7 constitutional implications.7 Nor did the Reich’s leading statesmen possess the conviction to gainsay the Kaiser. With Hohenlohe’s authority already waning, the aged chancellor exerted only a negligible influence from his remote Swiss resort. While his deputy Posadowsky warmly advocated a special Reichstag session to authorize a lump sum for the expedition, Foreign Secretary Bülow disregarded the counsel of both men in the face of the monarch’s total disinclination to consider summoning the parliament. Rather, Bülow persuaded his colleagues that it would suffice to negotiate the Kaiser down from one division to a brigade of volunteers.8 Although the Kaiser agreed to the smaller force by the morning of July 3, within a few days he revised the single brigade upward again to two brigades of four battalions each, accompanied by a cavalry regiment, an engineer bat- talion, a telegraph and railroad department, and an artillery regiment of five batteries. As this was nearly the strength of a wartime division, the Imperial Treasury was already estimating it would require nearly 100 million marks.9 Nonetheless, the reversal did not lead to a revival within the government of arguments for a special Reichstag session. The indolent Hohenlohe simply countersigned the imperial order and continued taking his cure. Meanwhile, Bülow banked on the voluntary nature of enlistment and the docility of the non-socialist press to shield the administration from charges of violating the constitution. The purely semantic maneuver of supplanting the division

7 Bülow to Hohenlohe, July 3, 1900, Telegram; Posadowsky to Hohenlohe, July 6, 1900, Telegram, Reichskanzlei-Akten (RKzA), 934:7–8, BAP. Bebel, Nov. 19, 1900, RTSB, 29A. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:89. 8 Posadowsky to Hohenlohe, July 2, 1900, Telegram; Bülow to Hohenlohe, July 3, 1900, Telegram; Posadowsky to Hohenlohe, July 6, 1900, Telegram, RKzA, 934:4–5, 7–8, BAP. Hohenlohe to Bülow, July 3, 1900, Telegram, Nachlaß Hohenlohe, 1616:133, BAK. Holstein to Bülow, July 2, 1900, Nachlaß Bülow, 91:113–22, BAK. Lerchenfeld to Crailsheim, July 2, 6, 1900, Reports 340 and 348, Königliche Bayrische Gesandtschaft Berlin (ByGB), 1072, ByHSA. Cf. also MA 76017, ByHSA. There is evidence suggesting that Bülow not only indulged, but strengthened Wilhelm’s aversion to the emergency session and that he thereby may have been laying a deliberate trap for the chancellor (Bülow, [circa 1909–11], Note, Nachlaß Bülow, 153:85, III, 22, BAK. Lerchenfeld to Crailsheim, July 6, 1900, Report 348, ByGB, 1072, ByHSA. Bülow, Nov. 20, 1900, RTSB, 61D. Hohenlohe, Oct. 15–17, 1900, Notes, Nachlaß Hohenlohe, 1616:103–6, BAK. Jagemann to Brauer, Sep. 17, 1900, Report 121, BdGB, Abt. 49/2033, 180, GLAK). 9 Lerchenfeld to Crailsheim, July 4, 8, 1900, Report (unnumbered) and Report 349. ByHSA, MA 76017. Wilmowski to Hohenlohe, July 4, 1900, Nachlaß Hohenlohe, 1616:25, BAK. Jagemann to Brauer, July 6, 1900, Report 114, BdGB, Abt. 49/2033, 171, GLAK. Draft bill (DB), Third Supplementary Budget (SupB) 1900, Nov. 14, 1900, Reichstags-Drucksachen (RDS) 8, RKzA, 934:92–96, BAP. Jesuit Collision To Yihetuan Diversion 179 with two large brigades had successfully allayed the government’s sleepy constitutional conscience.10

Government and Centrist Vulnerabilities in China

Although by mid-August the Center’s national paper Germania was sharply criticizing Berlin’s failure to summon the Reichstag, over the next months both government and party proved comparably vulnerable to leftist attacks concerning the roots of the Yihetuan Uprising and German policy toward China.11 On the one hand, the Kaiser’s continuing bombast and the reports of German atrocities in China compromised the government. On the other hand, the German Catholic missionaries of the SVD in South Shandong were accused by Social Democrats and left liberals of having provoked the Chinese uprising through cultural insensitivity and judicial meddling. Furthermore, both the government and the mission were charged with joint responsibility for Chinese embitterment over the recent German seizure of the Kiautschou region. The resulting common defensive posture arising from the Yihetuan crisis would promote a rapprochement of government and Center, once the latter was appeased by the resignation of the discredited Hohenlohe. If the Kaiser’s vengeful rhetoric in Wilhelmshaven had embarrassed the Hohenlohe administration, still worse was to follow. On July 27 Wilhelm roused the departing expeditionary force in Bremerhaven with the infamous Hun speech:

10 Bülow to Hohenlohe, July 3, 1900, Telegram; Posadowsky to Hohenlohe, July 6, 1900, Telegram, RKzA, 934:7–9, BAP. Varnbüler to König-Warthausen, July 5, 1900, Report 851, WüMAA, E50/03, 194, HSAS. Lerchenfeld to Crailsheim, July 6, 1900, Report 348, ByGB, 1072, ByHSA. Cf. also MA 76017, ByHSA. Jagemann to Brauer, July 6, 1900, Report 115, BdGB, Abt. 49/2033, 172, GLAK. “Erinnerungen an den Fürsten Hohenlohe,” Nordrheinische Volkszeitung, Sep. 26, 1907, Nr. 745, Nachlaß Bachem, 170, HASK. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:88–89. 11 “Die Kosten der Truppenexpedition nach China,” Germania, July 29, 1900, Nr. 171. “Graf Waldersee und die Wirren in China,” Germania, Aug. 11, 1900, Nr. 182. “Eine dritte ostasiatische Infanteriebrigade,” Germania, Aug. 14, 1900, Nr. 184. “Die Frage der Einberufung des Reichstags,” Germania, Aug. 15, 1900, Nr. 185. “Die Einberufung des Reichstags,” Germania, Aug. 16, 1900, Nr. 186. “Der Geldbedarf für die Expedition nach China,” Germania, Aug. 21, 1900, Nr. 190. “Keine Einberufung des Reichstags!” Germania, Aug. 28, 1900, Nr. 196. “Die Kosten der China Expedition,” Germania, Aug. 29, 1900, Nr. 197. “Als ob es keinen Reichstag gäbe,” Germania, Aug. 30, 1900, Nr. 198. 180 CHAPTER 7

Pardon will not be granted! Prisoners will not be taken! Let whoever falls into your hands perish! Just as a thousand years ago the Huns under King Attila made a name for themselves . . ., so too may you imprint the name of Germany in China for a thousand years to come in such a way that never again will a Chinese dare so much as to look askance at a German.12

Ten days later at Bielefeld, the monarch proclaimed that the dispatch of the East Asian Expedition shows that “the arm of the German Kaiser also reaches into the most remote regions of the world.”13 Finally, at Saalburg in early October, Wilhelm invoked Germany’s destiny “to become so mighty, so firmly unified and so authoritative as once the Roman World Empire [was], that the statement ‘I am a German citizen’ may one day carry the same weight as in ancient times ‘civis romanus sum.’ ”14 The imperial oratory blending bloodlust with pompous ambition compounded the government’s politically exposed position following the decisions taken in the first week of July. Meanwhile, the exorbitant expedition had already nearly outlived its purpose before even reaching China. Beijing fell on August 15 to an international expedition of primarily Japanese, Russian, and British Indian troops even as the original German sea battalions were merely arriving in the Allied-occupied forts of Dagu. Similarly, by the time the first ten ships of the German East Asian Expedition proper finally reached China in mid-September, little organized resistance to the Western occupation remained.15 Nevertheless, the Kaiser still dispatched a third infantry brigade of eighteen companies, four additional companies for the first two brigades, another five batteries, and more cavalry and engineers. When these eight ships of reinforcements reached China in mid-October, the size of the German expeditionary

12 Jagemann to Brauer, Nov. 20, 1900, Report 151, BdGB, Abt. 49/2033, 220, GLAK. Lerchenfeld to Crailsheim, Aug. 4, 1900, Report 378, MA 76017, ByHSA. Bülow, Denkwürdigkeiten, 1:359– 60. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:44–45. Bülow had attempted to suppress reporting of the above words, but had failed to reach one Bremerhaven reporter. 13 Wilhelm II, “Enthüllung eines Denkmals des Großen Kurfürsten,” Aug. 6, 1900, Speech, Nachlaß Hammann, 66:9, BAP. 14 Wilhelm II, “Reichs-Limes-Museum,” Oct. 11, 1900, Speech, Nachlaß Hammann, 66:10, BAP. 15 DB, Third SupB 1900, Nov. 14, 1900, RDS 8, RKzA, 934:92–96, BAP. Foreign Office, [between July 3 and 13, 1900], A8972, Secret, WüMAA, E50/03, 194, HSAS. Goßler, Dec. 4, 1900, ProtBc, RTA, 1216:18, BAP. “Über den Beginn des Vormarsches auf Peking,” Germania, Aug. 4, 1900, Nr. 176. “Wann werden die deutschen Expeditionstruppen in Taku eintreffen?” Germania, Aug. 7, 1900, Nr. 178. Among the approximately fifteen thousand troops involved in the capture of Beijing, there were only 1700 Germans. Jesuit Collision To Yihetuan Diversion 181 corps swelled to 18,700 men, thereby becoming the largest contingent in the International Expedition. Two weeks earlier, however, Emperor Guangxu had asked for peace terms. This had prompted the British and the Americans to redirect their reinforcements to Hong Kong and the Philippines, respectively, and the French to rescind the dispatch of theirs entirely.16 Nonetheless, despite the burden upon the German treasury, the Kaiser adhered to the original scope of what he called “this fresh merry Viking campaign to distant seas.”17 The absurd spectacle of increasing the expeditionary corps by seventy-five percent against a beaten foe could only heighten the government’s vulnerability to public criticism. The recent memory of the seizure of Jiaozhou Bay in Shandong province, the cradle of the Yihetuan movement, also exposed Berlin to heavy criticism for driving the Chinese to revolt. This predicament was further aggravated by the veritable flood of ‘Hun letters’ from soldiers in China reporting atrocities committed against the populace. The failure to summon the Reichstag, the indiscretions of the Kaiser, the excessive reinforcements, and the news of German outrages in China together thrust the government into a politically defensive posture, making the cooperation of the Center especially desirable. As it happened, the configuration of forces in China likewise placed German political Catholicism in a vulnerable position and made the Berlin government its most natural ally. The birthplace of the Yihetuan movement lay not far to the north of Bishop Anzer’s vicariate. Having already basked in the public limelight for a decade, the bishop had gained a reputation for mixing his missionary vocation with German national politics. The public was entirely familiar with Anzer’s forceful campaign to establish his residence in the Confucian “holy city” Yanzhou and with his mission’s links to both the German seizure of Jiaozhou Bay in 1897 and the occupation of Rizhao in 1899. Consequently, as news reached Germany of Ketteler’s assassination and of Yihetuan violence against Westerners and Chinese Christians, the SVD mission came under heavy fire from the Social Democrats and left liberals for having provoked the Chinese population to the breaking point through cultural arrogance, judicial intrusions, and the encouragement of German military intervention. In the face of these powerful attacks on the Catholic missions, the Center in turn activated its press to refute the charges that the missionaries had provoked the Yihetuan Uprising.

16 DB, Third SupB 1900, Nov. 14, 1900, RDS 8, RKzA, 934:92–96, BAP. Eulenburg to Bülow, Sep. 29, 1900, Nachlaß Bülow, 77:77, BAK. Richter, Mar. 15, 1901, RTSB, 1873B. 17 Varnbüler to Soden, Nov. 17, 1900, Report 1308, WüMAA, E50/03, 194, HSAS. 182 CHAPTER 7

In the Chinese context, therefore, both the government and the Center Party had to cope with major political liabilities being exploited by the Left. At the same time, the interests of both government and Center in China were quite congruent. The Center desired maximum protection for the Catholic missions in China, and the Kaiser’s interventionist policy promised just that. Moreover, the aftermath of Dasbach’s foray in the Budget Committee debate over Kiautschou in March 1900 had produced the renewed commitment by the Foreign Office to provide diplomatic intervention on behalf of Chinese Catholics. Thus, although the Centrists’ patience did not extend to the snub to the Reichstag at home, the constellation of interests in East Asia enabled them to assume a more indulgent attitude toward Wilhelm’s bombast and the vindictiveness of German soldiers in China. Conversely, since the assassination of Ketteler had provoked the Kaiser to plunge the Reich headlong into a constitutional quandary, the government needed the Center to help extricate it from its predicament. Berlin therefore curried Catholic favor through a conspicuously pro-missionary policy in China. Hence, the government was prepared to turn a blind eye to the bishop’s questionable policies vis-à-vis the Chinese bureaucracy and population.18 Common vulnerability and congruent interests in the Chinese arena thereby discouraged deviation from the previous course of government-Center cooperation although these considerations alone could not neutralize Catholic exasperation with the government’s unresponsiveness on the Jesuit issue.

Hohenlohe’s Fall, Parliamentary Concessions, Socialist Attacks

Before the Yihetuan’s cohesive influence upon government-Center relations could bear fruit, Hohenlohe had to address the Center’s primary desiderata or else atone for his responsibility for the violation of the Reichstag’s prerogatives. With the Center and its constituents already at the brink of exasperation since June, the callous snub of the Reichstag in July gave the party both the opportunity and the imperative to appease its voters in some fashion, beyond merely pointing to Berlin’s goodwill toward the missionaries in China.19 While

18 Hugo Jacobi to Bülow, Aug. 3, 1900, Nachlaß Bülow, 108:1–6, BAK. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 305. The government was also continuing to gratify Anzer to minimize any possible risk of his returning to the French protectorate. 19 The chancellor’s son Alexander von Hohenlohe interpreted the Center’s position in this manner: “Even though it actually is not sorry to see our involvement in China, the Center owes it to its voters to assume the pose of the opposition and to break a lance for the Jesuit Collision To Yihetuan Diversion 183 the Center was not directly seeking Hohenlohe’s resignation, its determination to press its advantage in the constitutional aspect of the China crisis left the chancellor little choice. As Centrist cooperation was essential and the Kaiser intransigent on both the Anti-Jesuit Law and per diem remuneration for Reichstag delegates, the path of least resistance led to Hohenlohe’s fall and the apparent fresh start with Bülow. While it was hardly surprising that an increasingly deaf octogenarian caught in such a predicament would resign, this outcome was not a foregone conclusion. In the months between July and October the Center operated under the assumption of Hohenlohe’s continued chancellorship and sought concessions for its collaboration in the China affair. As both Lieber and Hohenlohe were convalescing in Switzerland in July, the Center leader initiated negotiations with the chancellor in his Alpine resort. On this occasion Lieber evidently repeated the demand for the repeal of Article 2 of the Anti-Jesuit Law and urged the introduction of per diem compensation for Reichstag delegates, a proposal that would render parliamentary office more accessible to less affluent Germans.20 While these discussions proved inconclusive, Lieber held enough hope of success to make a conspicuous re-affirmation at the 1900 Katholikentag of his unpopular course of unflinching cooperation with Berlin. He declared in Bonn that the Center as the decisive party must “for the general good . . . often forgo the luxury of an independent political conviction in seemingly indifferent matters.”21 Lieber’s demands of Hohenlohe were urgent, however, for resistance to the party leader’s cooperative political line had not diminished. In a private letter to Hermann Cardauns, coeditor of the Kölnische Volkszeitung, the prominent Jesuit Joseph Dahlmann reproached “the gravediggers of the Center” who were rendering unflagging support to Chancellor Hohenlohe.22

allegedly violated rights of the Reichstag.” (Alexander von Hohenlohe to Holstein, Oct. 16, 1900, Nachlaß Hammann, 22:19–22, BAP). 20 Lieber to Bülow, July 12, 1900, Nachlaß Bülow, 107:19–20, BAK. Lieber to Hohenlohe, July 10, 1900, Nachlaß Hohenlohe, 1616:23–24, BAK. Bachem to Gröber, Oct. 26, 1900, Nachlaß Bachem, 114, HASK. Bachem to Franz Bachem, Oct. 27, 1900, Nachlaß Bachem, 170, HASK. Jagemann to Brauer, Sep. 17, Oct. 19, 1900, Reports 121 and 132, BdGB, Abt. 49/2033, 180, 196, GLAK. Hohenlohe to Holstein, Sep. [13 or 15], 1900, Nachlaß Holstein, 54, Film 62245: H194053, BAP. Hermann Butzer, Diäten und Freifahrt im Deutschen Reichstag: Der Weg zum Entschädigungsgesetz von 1906 und die Nachwirkung dieser Regelung bis in die Zeit des Grundgesetzes (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1999), 202–205. 21 Lieber, Dec. 11, 1900, RTSB, 452A/B. Bachem, Oct. 29, 1900, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 170, HASK. 22 Dahlmann to Cardauns, Aug. 16, 1900, Nachlaß Bachem, 170, HASK. 184 CHAPTER 7

In this critique of the governmental line Karl Bachem fully concurred, and he and Gröber were now quite prepared to disavow Hohenlohe if the Jesuit expulsion clause did not fall.23 Meanwhile, Hohenlohe doubted he could even suggest to the Kaiser that the expulsion clause be repealed or per diems introduced. Unable to appease the Reichstag and frustrated at being constitutionally responsible for decisions he had not made, Hohenlohe ordered a draft of his resignation on September 16. For a time, however, he preferred to await more positive developments in East Asia. A quick resolution in China would substantially decrease Berlin’s vulnerability to criticism and thereby the Center’s leverage for concessions.24 By mid-October, however, Hohenlohe realized that in any case he would cut a very sorry figure in the Reichstag, for among the government-friendly parties he could count only upon the firm support of the small Imperial Party. The agrarians were then waging a bitter campaign against the Prussian mid- land canal project, and the National Liberals, like the Center, could not condone transgressions against parliamentary prerogatives without concessions. Under such circumstances, the very real possibility of Hohenlohe’s being forced to resign in the wake of the China debates would have set a parliamentarizing precedent, a dangerous prospect from the standpoint of the imperial establishment.25 Upon Hohenlohe’s resignation on October 16, the government’s tactical position vis-à-vis the Center substantially improved. The resignation of a frail elder statesman between Reichstag sessions could not be construed as a victory for parliamentary principles. Furthermore, the new chancellor Bülow could not be held directly responsible for the constitutional transgressions of his predecessor. Also, a new administration dictated a measure of patience on the Center’s part for the satisfaction of difficult concessions like the repeal

23 Bachem to Franz Bachem, Oct. 27, 1900, Nachlaß Bachem, 170, HASK. 24 Jagemann to Brauer, Sep. 17, Oct. 19, 1900, Reports 121 and 132, BdGB, Abt. 49/2033:180, 196, GLAK. Hohenlohe to Holstein, Sep. [13 or 15], 1900, Nachlaß Holstein, 54, Film 62245: H194053, BAP. Wilmowski to Hohenlohe, Sep. 17, 1900; Hohenlohe to Alexander von Hohenlohe, Sep. 18, 26, Oct. 4, 10, 1900; Hohenlohe, [Sep./Oct. 1900], Note; Alexander von Hohenlohe to Hohenlohe, Oct. 6, 1900, Nachlaß Hohenlohe, 1616:47, 120, 116, 147–48, 129–30, 107, 182–83, BAK. 25 Hohenlohe to Alexander von Hohenlohe, Oct. 10, 1900; Hohenlohe, Oct. 15–16, 1900, Notes; Hohenlohe, [Sep./Oct. 1900], Note; Alexander von Hohenlohe to Hohenlohe, Oct. 12, 1900, Nachlaß Hohenlohe, 1616:129–30, 103–7, 145–46, BAK. Alexander von Hohenlohe to Holstein, Oct. 16, 1900, Nachlaß Hammann, 22:19–22, BAP. Guttenberg to Crailsheim, Oct. 14, 1900, Report 468; Lerchenfeld to Crailsheim, Oct. 20, 25, 1900, Reports 476 and 487, ByGB, 1071, ByHSA. Bachem, Oct. 29, 1900, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 170, HASK. Jesuit Collision To Yihetuan Diversion 185 of the Anti-Jesuit Law, particularly since Bülow had previously indicated his personal opposition to such exceptional laws. A close friend of Centrist Franz Prinz von Arenberg since youth and married to an Italian Catholic, Bülow could reasonably hope to reach accord with the Center, provided that the remaining constitutional irregularities could be satisfactorily addressed.26 No immediate improvement occurred in government-Center relations, however, for the change in chancellors alone could not dispel the suspicions of Bachem and Gröber about government faithlessness. In late October these two Centrists still stood ready to pursue the tough line they had initiated in June. In fact, their suspicions that Bülow wished to keep the Center docile with mel- lifluous words alone were well-founded. During his first months in office the chancellor conveyed to Württemberg’s envoy that his policy toward the Center would involve keeping the party in a good mood through cordiality and conceding as little as possible materially. In Bülow’s view, the cooperation of the Center to that point did not warrant the repeal of the Anti-Jesuit Law. Indeed, he considered it crucial to leave the Center begging in this area for as long as politically possible, for the removal of the Jesuit issue would merely shift the point of contention to the irreconcilable public schools question.27 In highly uncertain political circumstances during the four weeks between Bülow’s appointment and the opening of the Reichstag in mid-November, key Centrists wondered whether Bülow might attempt a horsetrade involving the abrogation of the Anti-Jesuit Law in return for easy passage of the Chinese expeditionary funds. Lieber’s unexpected departure for Italy left the second- string leadership completely at sea when, a week after Bülow’s appointment, the zealously anticlerical Tägliche Rundschau sounded the alarm that repeal of the Anti-Jesuit Law was imminent. Germania’s editor-in-chief had caught wind of the same news, and the two papers entered into a public discussion of the merits of repeal.28 Half crediting the reports, Bachem speculated to Gröber in a letter of October 26: “The most awful thing would be if they now intend to use the Jesuit issue to gag us in the China affair.”29 The proposal of such a deal

26 Bachem, Nov. 23, 1900, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 116, HASK. Lerchenfeld to Crailsheim, Oct. 20, 1900, Report 476, ByGB, 1071, ByHSA. 27 Bachem to Franz Bachem, Oct. 27, 1900, Nachlaß Bachem, 170, HASK. Gröber to Bachem, Nov. 9, 1900, Nachlaß Bachem, 114, HASK. Varnbüler to Soden, Jan. 16, 1901, Report 1, WüMAA, E50/03, 195, HSAS. 28 Bachem to Gröber, Oct. 26, 1900; Bachem to Cahensly, Nov. 2, 1900; Bachem to Müller- Fulda, Nov. 5, 1900; Cahensly to Bachem, Nov. 5, 1900, Nachlaß Bachem, 114, HASK. Bachem to Franz Bachem, Oct. 27, 1900; Bachem, Oct. 29, 1900, Notes, Nachlaß Bachem, 170, HASK. 29 Bachem to Gröber, Oct. 26, 1900, Nachlaß Bachem, 114, HASK. 186 CHAPTER 7 would have confounded the Centrists between their parliamentary and their confessional objectives. However, Bachem eventually elicited from Secretary of Justice Rudolf Nieberding the admission that there had been no progress on the Jesuit issue.30 Frustrated yet again in the Jesuit question but nonetheless reluctant to press a new administration directly on this volatile partisan issue, the re- assembling Centrists resolved to make Berlin’s willingness to seek a parliamentary indemnity for the East Asian Expedition the litmus test for their attitude toward the Bülow government in the near future. However, as the Kaiser considered the case inconsequential in comparison to the Prussian Constitutional Conflict of the 1860s, Bülow hoped to convince the Reichstag party leaders to accept a few conciliatory remarks from the throne. At the Reichstag opening the Kaiser declared that he would have gladly summoned the parliament in July had it not been impossible to arrive at even approximate financial estimates of the expedition’s anticipated total costs at that time.31 The Reichstag received this explanation with icy silence, and Lieber met with Bülow later that day to make clear that the Center would settle for nothing less than a request for indemnity. Just as he had specified the clause pertaining to the Jesuits in Hohenlohe’s inaugural speech of 1894, Lieber stipulated to Bülow that a request for an East Asian Expedition indemnity would be essential for the Center’s support in 1900.32 The impression of a new beginning was then engendered through the combination of Bülow’s request for indemnity for the East Asian Expedition and the congruency of government-Center interests in China. If certain members of the Center were anticipating serious friction with the government in November, they were mistaken. On the one hand, the new Bülow administration proved very accommodating to the desiderata of the Reichstag and the Center regarding China. On the other hand, the Social Democrats launched an exhaustive attack upon Bishop Anzer’s SVD mission in the Reichstag plenum. Under these circumstances, a less cooperative Centrist

30 See previous note. Bachem to Franz Bachem, Oct. 27, 1900; Bachem, Oct. 29, 1900, Notes, Nachlaß Bachem, 170, HASK. 31 Arenberg to Lieber’s wife, Nov. 11, 1900, Nachlaß Lieber, 139:2, AABKW. Lerchenfeld to Crailsheim, Nov. 14, 1900, Report 519, MA 95494, ByHSA. Lerchenfeld to Crailsheim, Nov. 21, 1900, Report, ByGB, 1072, ByHSA. Wilhelm II, Nov. 14, 1900, RTSB, 1–2. Jagemann to Brauer, Nov. 14, 1900, Report 149, BdGB, Abt. 49/2033:218, GLAK. 32 Lerchenfeld to Crailsheim, Nov. 14, 1900, Report 519, MA 95494, ByHSA. Lerchenfeld to Crailsheim, Nov. 21, 1900, Report, ByGB, 1072, ByHSA. Jagemann to Brauer, Nov. 14, 1900, Report 149, BdGB, Abt. 49/2033:218, GLAK. Bülow, Nov. 19, 1900, RTSB, 15A. Bülow, Nov. 20, 1900, RTSB, 62A. Jesuit Collision To Yihetuan Diversion 187 line toward the government was impractical, and the stormclouds that had appeared ready to break receded again to the horizon. The Bülow government accommodated the Center conspicuously on both the parliamentary and confessional aspects of the China controversy. In the former area the Center was joined in its demands by most of the other parties, but the Center’s position as the swing vote in the Reichstag generally placed it at the head of any successful charge. Lieber’s resolute insistence upon a China indemnity in his meeting with Bülow on November 14 induced the chancellor to take an unusual gamble. As he confided to Lieber on November 19, he had laid the indemnity question before Wilhelm again but had as yet received no instructions. He was nonetheless resolved to seek the indemnity under his own authority that day, even at the risk of the Kaiser’s disfavor. It must be remembered here, however, that Bülow’s subservience to the Kaiser in July had contributed to the violation of parliamentary prerogatives in the first place.33 Beyond protesting the unauthorized expenditures themselves, the Center, the left liberal parties, and the Social Democrats also demanded indemnity for infringements against the constitution and military laws. They objected first to the unauthorized increase in the strength of the peacetime army, a question that was linked intimately to the absence of a state of declared war against China. A declaration of war in July would have required the summoning of the Bundesrat and thereby risked the undesirable invigoration of public debate concerning the summoning of the Reichstag. Therefore, the government had preferred to frame the action as a police-military expedition to protect German interests in an anarchical state.34 However, since the size of the standing army in peacetime could not be increased without Reichstag approval, Ernst Lieber of the Center, Eugen Richter of the Radical People’s Party, and August Bebel of the Social Democratic Party charged Berlin with overstepping the constitution in filling vacancies left by the volunteers for the expedition. Leftist parlia- mentarians were particularly disturbed by leaks regarding the Kaiser’s hopes

33 Bülow to Lieber, Nov. 19, 1900, Nachlaß Lieber, 50:2, AABKW. Bachem, Nov. 20, 21, 23, 1900, Notes, Nachlaß Bachem, 116, HASK. See footnote 8 above. 34 Varnbüler to Württemberg Ministry of State, July 11, 1900, Report 868, Württembergisches Staatsministerium (WüSM), E130a, 4, HSAS. Lerchenfeld to Crailsheim, July 6, 1900, Report, ByGB, 1072, ByHSA. Cf. also MA 76017, ByHSA. Foreign political considerations must not be neglected here, however. As the Yihetuan movement was limited to northern China, it had made little sense to alienate the neutral southern viceroys. Berlin had also wished to respect Russian opposition to a declaration of war by the Great Powers. Große Politik, 16:4553, 4557. 188 CHAPTER 7 to convert the East Asian troops into a standing Colonial Army to match the French Foreign Legion, a concern that found echo with the Centrist aristocrat Prinz von Arenberg. The Budget Committee therefore spent considerable energy discussing language to anchor in law the dissolution of the East Asian Expedition after the completion of its immediate mission.35 Centrists and left liberals also strongly objected to administrative measures that circumvented the Reichstag by establishing as yet unauthorized pensions for the veterans, widows, and orphans of the China expedition. Finally, Lieber called attention to the incompatibility of the East Asian Expeditionary Corps with the German constitution’s stipulation of an imperial army of federal contingents. He argued that the consent of the contingents’ commanders-in- chief did not suffice to cover the case, since a divergence from the constitution required the approval of not only the Reichstag, but also of the parliaments of the individual German states.36 In response to all three of these demands for broadening the indemnity, Bülow made a declaration to the Budget Committee on December 7 that acknowledged all the aforementioned constitutional transgressions. He further assured the committee that all troop units dispatched to China and not subsequently granted a legal basis would be dissolved upon completion of their mission there. This fulfilled the Centrists’ requirements for parliamentary satisfaction on the China issue and assuaged their fears about establishment of an illicit mercenary Colonial Army.37 Furthermore, the government also curried the Center’s favor in the Chinese arena through gracious references to the Catholic missions and via diplomatic pressure upon Beijing. While rebutting Bebel’s attacks upon the German Catholic missionaries, Chancellor Bülow and Prussian War Minister Heinrich von Goßler waxed nearly reverent toward the Roman Catholic church and its missions. Moreover, the Foreign Office endorsed the Center’s proposed

35 Lerchenfeld to Crailsheim, July 6, 1900, Report 348, ByGB, 1072, ByHSA. Cf. also MA 76017, ByHSA. Lerchenfeld to Crailsheim, July 8, 1900, Report 349, MA 76017, ByHSA. Lieber, Nov. 19, 1900, RTSB, 19B. Bebel, Nov. 19, 1900, RTSB, 21B/C. Bebel, Nov. 23, 1900, RTSB, 110D/111A, 112B. Richter, Lieber, Bebel, Dec. 6, 1900, ProtBc, RTA, 1216, 39–42, BAP. Arenberg, Dec. 7/10, 1900, ProtBc, RKzA, 934:105–6, BAP. “Verwendung der Truppen über See,” Trierische Landeszeitung, July 2, 1900, Nr. 299. Tirpitz to Senden, Aug. 30, 1900, Nachlaß Senden, 5:24–25, BMAF. Jagemann to Brauer, Sep. 21, Nov. 21, 1900, Reports 124 and 152, BdGB, Abt. 49/2033:184, 221, GLAK. 36 Richter, Müller-Fulda, Bachem, Gröber, Dec. 4, 1900, ProtBc; Bachem, Lieber, Richter, Dec. 6, 1900, ProtBc, RTA, 1216:19–20, 35–37, 39–40, BAP. Jagemann to Brauer, Dec. 6, 1900, Report 160, BdGB, Abt. 49/2033:233, GLAK. 37 Bülow, “Erklärung des Herrn Reichskanzlers,” Dec. 7, 1900, KDS 13, RTA, 1216:45, BAP. Bülow, Dec. 7, 1900, ProtBc, RKzA, 934:105, BAP. Jesuit Collision To Yihetuan Diversion 189 resolution requesting that Berlin convince the other Great Powers to renew guarantees of religious freedom in the treaty with China. Finally, the new foreign secretary Oswald Freiherr von Richthofen assured Bachem that Beijing would be induced to compensate the South Shandong mission for damages and that Berlin would also press Beijing as much as possible to render reparations for Chinese Christian losses as well.38 Flattering words and concessions to Catholicism at the expense of a weak foreign government thus served as politically economical means to court the Center from the confessional angle. Having already broadened the scope of the indemnity requested of the Reichstag, the Bülow administration also sought to engender an atmosphere of confessional accommodation that made a tougher Centrist line seem less necessary than it had during the summer of 1900. While the Center experienced parliamentary and confessional disincen- tives to challenge the government overmuch, the intentions of some Centrists to take a stronger stand were also diluted by the flood of Social Democratic accusations against the SVD mission of South Shandong. During the Reichstag debates on China, August Bebel criticized the government for turning a blind eye to the misconduct of Catholic missionaries that provoked the kind of popular embitterment manifest in the Yihetuan Uprising. Bebel charged the missionaries with accepting converts indiscriminately and then employing their rank as Chinese mandarins to intimidate the courts into acquitting Christian rogues. To substantiate this accusation, the Social Democratic leader cited such respectable sources as Professor Stuhlmann of Beijing University, the Chinese customs official Sir Robert Hart, and Bismarck’s envoy to Beijing Max von Brandt. Bebel also triumphantly quoted two articles of the Centrist Neue Bayerische Zeitung. This young newspaper, edited by the radical Bavarian populist Georg Heim, had temporarily strayed from the Centrist party line and begun indicting the missionaries for judicial interventions on behalf of criminal converts.39

38 Bülow, Nov. 19, 1900, RTSB, 14C. Bülow, Nov. 20, 1900, RTSB, 62C. Bebel, Nov. 19, 1900, RTSB, 23D–24B. Goßler, Nov. 19, 1900, RTSB, 36D. Bachem, Arenberg, Mühlberg, Jan. 30, 1901, ProtBc, RTA, 1040:182, BAP. Bachem, Richthofen, Gröber, Feb. 13, 1901, RTSB, 1348B–1354C, 1365D–1367D. Bachem to P. Schwager, SVD, Mar. 8, 1901, Nachlaß Bachem, 157, HASK. 39 Bebel, Nov. 19, 1900, RTSB, 23B/D. Bebel, Nov. 23, 1900, RTSB, 116A/B, 116D/117A. Bebel, Feb. 13, 1901, RTSB, 1345A–1346D. President Ballestrem, Motion Bebel, Feb. 13, 1901, RTSB, 1344A. Bachem, Feb. 13, 1901, RTSB, 1353A/B. “Die Schuld der Missionen,” Vorwärts, Aug. 16, 1900, Nr. 189. “Christliche Kultur,” Vorwärts, Aug. 17, 1900, Nr. 190. While at least one of the Neue Bayerische Zeitung articles was retracted, even the temporary abandonment of confessional partisanship illuminates in a striking fashion the rising populist objection among South German Catholics to any and all such exorbitant overseas adventures. 190 CHAPTER 7

Bebel further attacked Bishop Anzer for his relentless insistence upon the establishment of his residence in the Confucian “holy city” of Yanzhou against the German envoy’s express advice. In particular he accused Anzer of having committed an outrageous provocation against the religious sensibilities of the Chinese through his appearance in full mandarin attire at Yanzhou’s temple of Confucius. Finally, Bebel protested Anzer’s forays into German imperialist politics at China’s expense. Anzer had previously publicly credited himself with convincing the Kaiser to seize Jiaozhou Bay, yet, by the bishop’s own subsequent testimony, the occupation was “the first and most important cause” of the anti-Christian unrest of 1898/99 in Shandong, the province that within a year had also given birth to the Yihetuan. Depicting the missionaries as willing tools of imperialism, Bebel then decried their propensity to call for German protection against eruptions of the bitterness they themselves provoked.40 Having arraigned the Catholic missionaries in China, Bebel turned his fire directly upon the Center by exposing both its confessional partiality for an evidently culpable clientele and its failure to check the government’s wasteful and aggressive “world policy” (Weltpolitik). Branding the party “the trainbearer of the government’s policies,” Bebel observed that, as long as Catholic voters could be persuaded that the Reich’s support for missionary interests was sufficiently warm, they would find their party’s cooperative stance in colonial politics palatable. Therefore, in his dependence upon the Center, Bülow followed that party’s wishes in catering to the missions even when the latter behaved as irresponsibly as in China. Finally, in response to the Center’s motion for guarantees of religious freedom in China, the socialist leader accused the Centrists of using their decisive parliamentary position to perpetuate the very policy that had led to the Yihetuan catastrophe in the first place. Indeed, in Bebel’s view the Center’s desire to continue interventionism on behalf of imprudent missionaries directly fueled the extravagance of Weltpolitik that was leading to budgetary anarchy.41 Even without this more direct assault upon the Catholic party, the socialist attack upon the SVD missionaries would have prompted the Center to rally around its beleaguered clientele. Given the missionaries’ close association

40 Bebel, Nov. 19, 1900, RTSB, 23D–25B, 35C/D. Bebel, Nov. 23, 1900, RTSB, 115D, 117A, 117D/118A, 127C/D. Bebel, Feb. 13, 1901, RTSB, 1347A. “Neujahrsgruß an die geehrten Freunde und Wohltäter der Mission von Süd-Shantung,” Trierische Landeszeitung, Jan. 26/27, 1900, Nr. 41, 42, 44. 41 Bebel, Nov. 23, 1900, RTSB, 111B/C, 116A. Bebel, Dec. 11, 1900, RTSB, 421B–422A. Lieber, Dec. 11, 1900, RTSB, 452A/B. Bebel, Lieber, Dec. 7, 1900, ProtBc, RKzA, 934:106, BAP. Jesuit Collision To Yihetuan Diversion 191 with Berlin’s forward policy in China, however, the Center would have found it scarcely practical to defend the former while criticizing the latter. Where the Bülow administration’s accommodation in the parliamentary and confessional dimensions of the China affair had made a sterner Centrist line appear unnecessary, the virulent onslaught of the Social Democrats upon the Catholic missionaries in China made it quite unfeasible as well.

The Center on China: Soothed by Bülow, Incensed by Bebel

The Center’s response to the China crisis of 1900/01 operated on several levels simultaneously. On the national level vis-à-vis China, the party’s jurist and aristocratic leadership was anxious to demonstrate beyond suspicion the patriotism of German Catholics. This preoccupation came largely at the expense of the Centrists’ budgetary concern for limiting overseas ventures and their ideological interest in the humane treatment of the Chinese. The party elders adopted a stronger stand in defense of parliamentary principles, but they nonetheless obliged swiftly in meeting all the government’s major demands once the largely token assurances of future regard for the Reichstag had been given. Only in the confessional arena did the Catholic party take an especially firm position, but here Bachem was confronting not Bülow over the Anti-Jesuit Law, but Bebel over the conduct of SVD missionaries in China. As patriotic Germans and suspected ultramontanes, the leading Centrists expounded upon the necessity of the East Asian Expedition in its entirety. Lieber’s opening speech on November 19 assured the government that no Centrist doubted the necessity of the vigorous measures taken by Berlin. Bachem likewise termed a rejection of the 152 million marks in retroactive credits an impotent policy. If the Reichstag concurred with this Social Democratic demand, it would constitute a complete disavowal of the intervention to obtain satisfaction for the murder of a German envoy. Both men thereby yielded more than half the field of debate by refusing to distinguish at least between the relative necessity of the first two brigades and the third. Nor would Lieber support Eugen Richter’s motion to establish in the letter of the law conditions that would require the dissolution of the expedition.42

42 Lieber, Dec. 4, 6, 1900, ProtBc, RTA, 1216:15, 42, BAP. Lieber, Nov. 19, 1900, RTSB, 16D. Lieber, Dec. 7, 1900, ProtBc, RKzA, 934:105, BAP. Bachem, Nov. 22, 1900, RTSB, 91B/C. It should be noted that, uncharacteristically, Arenberg sympathized more than Lieber with the Left’s attempts to specify legally the terms for the expedition’s conclusion. Arenberg, Dec. 7/10, 1900, ProtBc, RKzA, 934:105–6, BAP. 192 CHAPTER 7

This Centrist abdication of responsibility to question the proportionality and duration of Berlin’s response to the events in China reached its peak in Bachem’s speech in March 1901 during the first reading of the Complementary Budget for the East Asian Expedition. Although this bill called for an additional loan of 123 million marks, Bachem dismissed Bebel’s criticisms that the number of German troops in China was disproportionately high. Bachem argued: “If we have agreed with the government . . . that the expedition . . . was absolutely necessary in the interest of the honor of the German name, . . . then we can really leave aside all possible reasons for criticism which lie outside the scope of this perspective.”43 Dismissing any uncertainty regarding the likelihood of the amortization of the sum through the prospective Chinese reparations, the Center leaders were prepared to increase the national debt by 276 million marks to avoid appearing patriotically lax.44 The same consideration of demonstrating German Catholic patriotism limited the extent of the Centrist delegation’s criticism of military misconduct in China and the Kaiser’s bombast at home. While Lieber’s speech of November 19 briefly expressed regret over reports of mass murder and atrocities committed by Germans in the East Asian Expedition, he qualified this charge by remarking that all such accounts remained mere private reports.45 At that date the party position could be reasonably ascribed to prudence, yet the Center’s silence on the issue during all subsequent plenary sessions suggests an unwillingness to call the government to account. If the original publication of ‘Hun letters’ from German soldiers in China had been limited to Social Democratic papers, it might conceivably be argued that the Centrists did not criticize the government further simply because they did not believe the reports of atrocities. However, the accounts of Germans executing prisoners en masse and massacring unarmed Chinese civilians, women, and children spanned the political spectrum. Editors of the Centrist, National Liberal, and even Conservative press evidently found the reports sufficiently believable to risk grave libel charges. The editorial boards of the Centrist Nordrheinische Volkszeitung and Kölnische Volkszeitung, for example, published letters reporting the following:

43 Bachem, Mar. 15, 1901, RTSB, 1878C/D. 44 According to the Boxer Protocol of September 1901, the German portion of the Chinese indemnity amounted to 260 million marks to be paid over thirty-nine years at four- percent interest. However, at most only about twenty percent of the principle was ever amortized before China’s declaration of war on Germany in 1917. Spence, Modern China, 235, 290. 45 Lieber, Nov. 19, 1900, RTSB, 17B. Jesuit Collision To Yihetuan Diversion 193

We . . . captured all the forts where there were Chinese soldiers and those bandits named Boxers and slew everyone, whether soldier, bandit, Chinese, women, or children, it didn’t matter to us, we stabbed or shot everyone to death.46

Brutality is increasing dreadfully, also among our soldiers. Soldiers in great numbers are being sentenced to long penal and prison terms for murder, rape, and housebreaking. In any case we are losing more to the penitentiary than to death.47

Nonetheless, too jealous of its patriotic credentials to express consternation over the events in China, the Center Reichstag delegation left the citation of such articles from its own party press to the Social Democrats. While the Center’s jurist leaders objected to the vengefulness of the Kaiser’s rhetoric, the political impact of his oratorical excesses was of more immediate concern to them than the fate of an untold number of Chinese. Although he lamented the Kaiser’s un-Christian calls for vengeance and his oratorical command to deny quarter to the Chinese, Lieber took more exception to the proclamations of a reckless policy of worldwide intervention and expansion. However, even Centrist warnings against the perils of Weltpolitik were partially negated by Lieber’s assurances of complete concurrence with the Foreign Office’s handling of the crisis. In sum, the Centrists’ concern for their credentials as patriots and for the European balance of power outweighed their humanitarian interest as Catholics in safeguarding the Chinese population against acts of wanton cruelty.48 Focusing a larger measure of its attention upon the violation of parliamentary prerogatives and related budgetary concerns, the Center initially adopted a firmer stance toward the government in this arena. As discussed above, the Center made its cooperation with the Bülow administration conditional upon the latter’s request for an indemnity. Even after the chancellor had obliged on November 19, Lieber still registered his party’s indignation. Charging the government with a transgression against the constitution, Lieber reproved

46 Bebel, Nov. 19, 1900, RTSB, 34A/B. “Hunnen,” Vorwärts, Sep. 5, 1900, Nr. 206. 47 Bebel, Feb. 15, 1901, RTSB, 1374B. For the sake of comparison, the death toll for the German East Asian Expedition on December 31, 1900, was 154, a mere 8 from gunshots, the rest from disease. If the letter to the Kölnische Volkszeitung was accurate in placing the conviction rate higher than the death toll, then roughly one out of every hundred German corps members ended up in the workhouse for murder, rape, or housebreaking. Goßler, Mar. 16, 1901, RTSB, 1915C. 48 Lieber, Nov. 19, 1900, RTSB, 16D–17A, 19D–20C. Bachem, Nov. 22, 1900, RTSB, 96A/B. 194 CHAPTER 7 the retired Hohenlohe for indefensible nonchalance in the handling of the affairs of state.49 Furthermore, in the Budget Committee debates of early December, the Center and the opposition were joined by members of the Right to strike the mutual transferability clause of the army and naval items in the East Asian Expedition’s budget. Leading the charge, Lieber, Bachem, and the National Liberal Hermann Paasche objected that the already flimsy justification for not having summoned the Reichstag during the summer was completely untenable if the government was still requesting merely a lump sum.50 Finally, during this same period the Center had vigorously and successfully pressed, along with the left liberals, for the broadening of the request for indemnity to include the unauthorized increase in the peacetime strength of the army, the establishment of unsanctioned pensions, and the infringement against the federal principle in the unitary structure of the East Asian Expeditionary Corps. On the other hand, the Center leadership did not even consistently pursue material successes to match the largely symbolic indemnity. Lieber declared that it was impossible to reduce the requested sum of 153 million marks and thereby excluded entirely discussion of the superfluous third brigade.51 With the application of greater firmness toward the government, the Center might have sped the evacuation process. More tenacious, the Center’s populist financial expert, Richard Müller-Fulda, promoted an unsuccessful motion to bind the government to financing the East Asian Expedition with exchequer bonds, rather than through long-term loans. He hoped thereby to force the government to balance its China expenditures with new sources of revenue, rather than allowing it to increase the national debt, but the Imperial Treasury persuaded the other Centrist members of the Budget Committee of the fiscal unfeasibility of the proposal.52 Furthermore, even the Center’s concern with the parliamentary principles at stake in the China crisis had fallen by the wayside by March. Whereas in December 1900 the absence of a declaration of war to accompany the East Asian Expedition had still held constitutional ramifications for the Center, in March 1901 Bachem nonchalantly dismissed Bebel’s charge that the government was conducting an undeclared war in China. Bachem claimed that

49 Lieber, Nov. 19, 1900, RTSB, 17C/D. 50 Lieber, Bachem, Paasche, Aschenborn, Goßler, Dec. 6, 1900, ProtBc, RTA, 1216:37–39, 41–42, BAP. 51 Lieber, Dec. 4, 1900, ProtBc; Bachem, Dec. 6, 1900, ProtBc, RTA, 1216:15, 38, BAP. 52 Müller-Fulda, Dec. 6, 1900, ProtBc, RTA, 1216:42, BAP. Müller-Fulda, Dec. 7/10, 1900, ProtBc, RKzA, 934:105–7, BAP. Jesuit Collision To Yihetuan Diversion 195

“whether this action is tailored diplomatically as a military coercive expedition or as a war . . . has absolutely no meaning for the German popular representative of the present.”53 Given the party’s previous concern with defending the rights of the Bundesrat and the Reichstag, this was a curious stance indeed for a Centrist who the previous summer had appeared resolved to break with Lieber’s overly cooperative policy. Hohenlohe’s resignation over the East Asian Expedition and Bülow’s accommodation to the Center’s parliamentary and confessional concerns were facilitating an amicable solution of the German domestic dimension of the China affair. However, the near enthusiasm with which Bachem and Gröber forsook their previous plan to take a tougher line toward the government probably stemmed from the vulnerability of the SVD missionaries to Social Democratic attacks. As it was ideologically and politically impossible for the Centrists to concede publicly that Catholic clergymen had significantly contributed to the provocation of the Chinese, the party assumed a posture of unconditional defense of the missions. Given the SVD’s collusion with Berlin to expand German influence in Shandong and the equally heavy leftist fire against the government, this could only accentuate the restored inclination of most Centrists to follow Lieber’s line of accommodating the government. Confessionally motivated as it was, the Centrists’ defense of the South Shandong mission against socialist attacks exhibited an unconditionality absent from their political maneuvers vis-à-vis the government. In his confessional fervor, the mission’s champion Karl Bachem often significantly over- stated his case. Ignoring the physical constraints facing a mere fifty-four SVD missionaries tending a widely scattered flock of over 53,000 Christians, Bachem repeatedly emphasized that the missionaries’ caution had kept to a bare minimum the number of Chinese converting for material advantage or legal impunity. The Centrist also sought through sheer sophistry to mitigate the impact of Bebel’s citation of Bismarck’s envoy to Beijing that two-thirds of the diplomatic corps’ time was consumed with handling missionary complaints.54 In discussing Anzer’s bitter ten-year struggle to establish his residence at Yanzhou, Bachem even went so far as to assert the bishop’s infallibility in matters Chinese. Sidestepping the Yanzhou riots of 1891 and 1895, the Centrist also misrepresented the duration and tranquillity of the brief period since the

53 Bachem, Mar. 15, 1901, RTSB, 1878B/C. 54 Bachem, Nov. 22, 1900, RTSB, 92B–93A. Bachem, Feb. 13, 1901, RTSB, 1351D–1352B, 1353B/C. Personnel and convert statistics for January and Easter 1899 in Hartwich, Steyler Missionare, 1:367, 398. Esherick, Boxer Uprising, 82–90, 113. 196 CHAPTER 7 establishment of the bishop’s residence in September 1896.55 In fact, the only peaceful year in Yanzhou since Anzer’s establishment there had been 1898, a calm which the bishop had cheerfully explained in October of that year with reference to the seizure of Jiaozhou Bay: “The Oriental kisses the hand that strikes him.”56 Despite the frequency of disturbances, Bachem denied that the bishop had committed a blunder in forcing the opening of Yanzhou. Indeed, the Cologne lawyer refused to acknowledge that coercive methods had even been employed despite ample evidence to the contrary.57 For example, in the winter of 1890/91 the German consul had ridden his horse directly into the provincial governor’s palace in Jinan to demand the opening of Yanzhou. Reaching the sealed gates of Yanzhou, he had then had them broken down, thereby provoking a major riot.58 After Anzer had launched his own “assault” with similar results several years later, the bishop had reflected in unabashedly military terms: “For ten years now we have besieged Yanzhoufu. Both sides have fought . . . with the courage of despair. The envoys of France and later Germany have left no method untried to force [emphasis Anzer’s] the Chinese government to permit the proselytization of this city . . . in accordance with the treaties.”59 In spite of all this, Bachem boldly claimed that the missionaries had not been seeking government assistance to coerce the Chinese. The ticklishness of the Center’s position was further increased by Anzer’s earlier categorization of the seizure of Jiaozhou Bay as “the first and most important cause” of Shandong’s more local anti-Christian disturbances of 1899. Claiming to have spoken only Chinese for the last twenty years, the bishop had tried to replace the word “cause” retroactively with the word “occasion,” and Bachem followed him in this dubious explanation.60 However, even the most

55 Bachem, Nov. 22, 1900, RTSB, 93C/D. 56 Pfarrer em. Horbach, “Bischof von Anzers China-Mission in ihren Beziehungen zur Politik,” Dec. 14, 1900, Brochure (Verlag von Moritz Spieß, 1901, Nachlaß Bachem, 157), HASK. Ernst von Hesse-Wartegg, Schantung und Deutsch-China: Von Kiautschou ins Heilige Land von China und vom Jangtsekiang nach Peking im Jahre 1898 (Leipzig, 1898), 196. 57 Bachem, Nov. 22, 1900, RTSB, 95A/B. 58 Gründer, Christliche Mission, 272–73. Pfarrer em. Horbach, “Bischof von Anzers China- Mission,” Dec. 14, 1900, Nachlaß Bachem, 157, HASK. See also chapter 3. 59 Anzer, Kleiner-Herz-Jesu Bote, Feb. 1896, 38, quoted in Pfarrer em. Horbach, “Bischof von Anzers China-Mission,” Dec. 14, 1900, Nachlaß Bachem, 157, HASK. 60 “Neujahrsgruß an die geehrten Freunde und Wohltäter der Mission von Süd-Shantung,” Trierische Landeszeitung, Jan. 26/27, 1900, Nr. 41, 42, 44. Bachem, Nov. 22, 1900, RTSB, 94C/D. Jesuit Collision To Yihetuan Diversion 197 cursory reading reveals that the original statement was the central thesis of Anzer’s New Year’s greeting for 1900. Moreover, of those allegedly twenty years without speaking German, he had actually spent three and a half outside of China on visits to Europe, and even in China many of his most vital functions were still conducted in his mother tongue.61 The sheer implausibility of the bishop’s retraction prompted Bachem in February to scuttle his own previous espousal of it. Bachem’s infallible bishop with twenty years of experience in China was then perforce temporarily demoted to a provincial missionary who lacked sufficient perspective to assess properly the roots of the unrest.62 Caught in an unenviable position, the Center struggled with the difficulties inherent in defending the aggressive methods of a loquacious bishop proselytizing in a country seething with anti-Christian fury. Bachem therefore gladly acknowledged the generosity of Bülow’s and Goßler’s remarks which stood in such marked contrast to the caustic Social Democratic assault.63 Whereas the government was also exceedingly receptive to the Center’s resolution concerning the creation of an international guarantee of religious freedom in the Middle Kingdom, Bebel’s unfriendly amendment to that motion aimed, in Gröber’s words, at “an exceptional law for missionaries in China.”64 Alongside Hohenlohe’s fall over the dispatch of the East Asian Expedition and Bülow’s parliamentary and confessional accommodation in the China crisis, the contribution of confessional partisanship for the mission of South Shandong must be factored into an understanding of the readiness with which Bachem and Gröber softened their resolve to bring matters to a head over the perennial confessional question of the Anti-Jesuit Law.

The Center on Africa: Split over Forced Labor and Slavery

While the Germans at times encountered forceful opposition in Africa during the period from 1897 to 1903, it was sufficiently scattered to impose only limited expenses upon the colonial administration. For the most part, then, such resistance made next to no impression on either the imperial government or the Reichstag. Since the treatment of Africans possessed no immediate financial

61 Pfarrer em. Horbach, “Bischof von Anzers China-Mission,” Dec. 14, 1900, Nachlaß Bachem, 157, HASK. “Neujahrsgruß an die geehrten Freunde und Wohltäter der Mission von Süd- Shantung,” Trierische Landeszeitung, Jan. 26/27, 1900, Nr. 41, 42, 44. 62 Bachem, Feb. 13, 1901, RTSB, 1352C/D. 63 Bachem, Nov. 22, 1900, RTSB, 92A, 94B, 95C. 64 Gröber, Feb. 13, 1901, RTSB, 1367B. 198 CHAPTER 7 significance in early 1901, the party’s jurist and aristocratic leadership preferred to defer to the purportedly expert judgment of the colonial administration in the spirit of the rapprochement facilitated by Chinese violence. Consequently, only a handful of Center populists around the Hessian textile manufacturer Richard Müller-Fulda deemed Berlin’s policies toward Africans to be in need of reform. Citing instances of African resistance to German rule in the Budget Committee’s colonial debates of March 1901, the Center’s moderately populist financial expert Richard Müller-Fulda rivaled the left liberals and Social Democrats in his sweeping demands for the abolition of corporal punishment, slavery, and forced labor. In the committee session of March 6, Richard Eickhoff of the Radical People’s Party raised the case of Captain von Besser in Kamerun who had sentenced two Duala to corporal punishment for such purported offenses as failing to greet the officer and laying claim to princely rank. Taking up Eickhoff’s line, Müller-Fulda related reports that the recent uprisings in Kamerun had been provoked by brutal and cruel treatment of the inhabitants. Making a bold leap of principle, he then called upon the Colonial Department to abolish corporal punishment entirely in all the colonies.65 Pursuing the same tack, the next day Müller-Fulda referred with Bebel to the repeated armed resistance in East Africa to collection of the hut tax. Since the latter’s imposition in 1898, some two thousand Africans had died in battle rather than submit to the tax. For example, one German military campaign had been launched against the Yao and Makonde under Chief Machemba of Mikindani for his refusal to enter into negotiations over levying the tax. More recently, nineteen Chagga leaders had led a tax revolt at Mount Kilimanjaro in 1900 and were subsequently executed by Captain Johannes. The Hessian Centrist concluded that three rupees per year was too high for the often penniless Africans and urged the government to draw more of its revenue from large colonial companies.66

65 Eickhoff, Müller-Fulda, Stuebel, Mar. 6, 1901, ProtBc, RTA, 1055:77, BAP. Arenberg, Reporter, Mar. 11, 1901, RTSB, 1795A. The Duala in question were almost certainly Victor Manga and Mpundo Akwa, the German-educated son of the unacknowledged king Dika Akwa of Bonambela. Presumably the Kamerunese uprisings to which Müller-Fulda referred were those of the Bulu and neighboring peoples from 1899 to 1901. Colonial Department, Aug. 22, 1900, Note, RKA, 7249:186, BAP. Dorbritz to Bülow, Jan. 15, 1906, Report 6; Mpundo Akwa to Wilhelm II, Jan. 30, 1906, RKA, 4435:40–41, 97–107, BAP. For discussion of the Reichstag petition of the Bonambela Duala chieftains against the Puttkamer government, see chapters 9 and 10. 66 Müller-Fulda, Stuebel, Bebel, Mar. 7, 1901, ProtBc, RTA, 1085:260, BAP. Bebel, Mar. 11, 1901, RTSB, 1779D–1780C. Stuebel, Mar. 11, 1901, RTSB, 1783B/D. Jesuit Collision To Yihetuan Diversion 199

Müller-Fulda also called the Budget Committee’s attention to the allotment of 140,000 marks for the maintenance of six hundred Southwest African prisoners of war in peacetime. Behind the indefinite detention of these Khaua (Kai | khauan) and Swartbooi (|| Khau | gôan) Nama lay government fears that they would again resort to arms as they had in the brief revolts of 1896 and 1897/98, respectively. However, Müller-Fulda labeled holding these Nama in forced labor camps so long after the truce as outright enslavement. This then prompted the Hessian to move on March 8 for a Budget Committee resolution that the chancellor should ordain the abolition of every form of slavery whatsoever in the German colonies.67 While this last motion by Müller-Fulda enjoyed the support of the Social Democrats and left liberals, it prompted a flurry of disagreement within the ranks of the Center Party itself. On the one hand, the Bavarian customs official and Center deputy Karl Speck endorsed Müller-Fulda’s proposal since he considered the Southwest African case a shameful instance bordering on government slaveholding. On the other hand, Prinz von Arenberg and Freiherr von Hertling led the aristocratic and professional factions of the party in opposing the measure.68 In both committee and plenum Arenberg rejected the equation of the indefinite detainment with slavery. Accepting uncritically the account of the labor camp’s former commander, Arenberg broke with the reserve appropriate to a committee reporter and emerged in the plenum as an apologist for the government by denigrating the Nama and trivializing their captivity. Indeed, in its rosiness the prince’s description of camp conditions surpassed even the testimony of the camp commander in committee. For example, while First Lieutenant Keßler acknowledged that five Swartboois had sought to escape during his tenure, Arenberg claimed that none had attempted it. The Centrist aristocrat also neglected to mention that the wages allegedly distinguishing this forced labor so clearly from slavery were just three marks a month. Thus, the divergence in perspective over the Nama prisoners of war could hardly have been more stark between Müller-Fulda’s categorical declaration that their condition amounted to slavery and Arenberg’s attempted justification of their treatment by the colonial administration.69

67 Müller-Fulda, Mar. 7, 1901, ProtBc, RTA, 1085:261, BAP. Müller-Fulda, Bebel, Eickhoff, Oberstleutnant Keßler, Mar. 8, 1901, ProtBc, RTA, 1055:78–79, BAP. Haacke and Eiseb, Khoekhoegowab-English Glossary. 68 Müller-Fulda, Arenberg, Speck, Hertling, Stuebel, Mar. 8, 1901, ProtBc, RTA, 1055:78– 79, BAP. 69 Arenberg, Mar. 11, 1901, RTSB, 1800A. Keßler, Mar. 8, 1901, ProtBc, RTA, 1055:78–79, BAP. 200 CHAPTER 7

Responding in committee to Müller-Fulda’s general abolitionist proposal, Arenberg also argued that the indigenous and relatively mild house slavery in East Africa was indispensable to that colony’s existing traditional economy. Müller-Fulda countered: “Either the house slaves are members of the family with wills of their own, in which case they are not slaves; or they are actually such, and then we must also combat this form of slavery, otherwise we sanction slavery itself.”70 Even so, with Arenberg so resistant to Müller-Fulda’s original motion, Speck sought at least to prevent repetitions of the Southwest African case by requiring the government to refrain from denying personal freedoms or applying physical force in the construction of public works. Hertling, however, did not approve of this compromise, and he urged the withdrawal of both motions as unacceptably unconditional. Müller-Fulda and Speck nonetheless upheld their resolutions until both were defeated in committee by the combined votes of their Centrist colleagues with the Right.71 As the slavery debate carried over into the plenary sessions of March 11 and 19, the Swabian jurist Adolf Gröber joined Arenberg and Hertling in defending the government and combatting vigorously a Social Democratic anti-slavery resolution. Here an assessment of Gröber’s stance highlights the political divergence between the leading Centrist jurists and Müller-Fulda, for Bebel’s motion was actually far less radical than the earlier platform of the Hessian politician. Rather than renewing Müller-Fulda’s motion of complete and immediate abolition, Bebel proposed that house slavery be gradually eliminated by following the well-established British precedent in mandating that all children of slaves should be born free. The potentially broad appeal this motion might have had under less contentious circumstances can be gauged by the stance of the conservative Christian Social delegate Adolf Stöcker. With a bold display of nonpartisanship, the zealously Protestant former court pastor declared the socialist proposal a “very gradual and quiet means” that would nonetheless effectively bring an end to slavery.72

70 Müller-Fulda, Arenberg, Mar. 8, 1901, ProtBc, RTA, 1055:78–79, BAP. 71 Müller-Fulda, Arenberg, Speck, Hertling, Stuebel, Mar. 8, 1901, ProtBc, RTA, 1055:78– 79, BAP. 72 Gröber, Mar. 19, 1901, RTSB, 1997C–1999D, 2003B/C, 2005A/D. Arenberg, Mar. 11, 1901, RTSB, 1788A. Hertling, Mar. 11, 1901, RTSB, 1784B/D. Stuebel, Mar. 11, 1901, RTSB, 1784A, 1785D. Stuebel, Mar. 19, 1901, RTSB, 2001A/C, 2004D–2005A. Bebel, Mar. 11, 1901, RTSB, 1780D–1781A, 1784D–1785A, 1787C. Bebel, Mar. 19, 1901, RTSB, 1996B–1997C, 2001D–2003B, 2005A, 2005D–2006A. Vollmar, Mar. 11, 1901, RTSB, 1786A/B. Vollmar, Mar. 19, 1901, RTSB, 2004C/D. Stöcker, Mar. 19, 1901, RTSB, 2003C/D. In his dissertation Hans Pehl inexplicably claims that Bebel’s motion demanded the immediate abolition of house slavery and thereby asserts with greater ease that Gröber’s motion was tactically more prudent. Jesuit Collision To Yihetuan Diversion 201

On the other hand, as the leading spokesman of the Catholic Center on slavery questions, Adolf Gröber took his cues from the government. Where Bachem’s retreat from earlier plans to challenge Berlin had been revealed most dramatically in the China debate of March 15, Gröber displayed his acquiescence to the Lieber line as he sparred with Bebel over the slavery issue four days later. First, the Swabian Centrist lent his name to an ultimately successful resolution simply regulating house slavery in a fashion acceptable to the Colonial Department. Second, Gröber made a point of commending the colonial administration for its strictness against slavetraders and its manumission of over eight thousand slaves from 1894 to 1898.73 Third, Gröber argued that conditions in the colonies were not ripe for the allegedly swift and far-reaching terms of Bebel’s resolution. Any attempted abrupt abolition of slavery would either be a dead letter or else provoke a second Arab revolt in which the slaves might fight against their own liberation.74 The Swabian jurist also sought to demonstrate that African house slavery was relatively innocuous as the slaves were considered still to have a legal personality.75 Conceding that the passage of his resolution alone would not bring an end to slavery, he expressed the theory that the construction of railways and the promotion of Christianity would gradually do so through their purported civilizing influence. Railroads and missions, the more immediate colonial interests of the government and the Center, respectively, were thus dressed by the jurist party leadership in anti-slavery trappings.76 While the new colonial director Oskar Stuebel gratefully declared the government completely in accord with the provisions of Gröber’s resolution, an oratorical duel unfolded between Bebel and Gröber. The Social Democrat called the Centrist to account for his anecdotal portrayal of slavery as a

He also completely ignores Müller-Fulda’s abolitionist motion in committee (Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 55). 73 Bebel, Mar. 19, 1901, RTSB, 1997A/C. Gröber, Mar. 19, 1901, RTSB, 1998A, 1999B/C. Gröber’s resolution sought the introduction of a draft law holding masters responsible for invalid or elderly slaves and mandating the integrity of slave families. The Centrist proposal also provided for the emancipation of abused slaves and required that slaves have time to work for themselves with the eventual possibility of self-emancipation. For Gröber’s 1894 and 1895 forays in the African slavery question, see Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 54–55. 74 Gröber, Mar. 19, 1901, RTSB, 1998C/D. 75 Ibid., 1998D/1999A. However, Gröber’s evidence in support of this claim did not extend beyond two small anecdotes, neither of which clearly mentioned the most pertinent colony of East Africa. One concerned Kamerun, the other account did not specify the colony. 76 Ibid., 1999C/D. 202 CHAPTER 7 relatively benign institution. He further expressed utter bafflement that freeing the slave population one infant at a time could be considered anything but gradual. Bebel’s uncharacteristic supporter Adolf Stöcker also pointed out that Gröber’s provisions for the emancipation of able-bodied adults were in fact much more likely to anger slaveholders than would the quiet freeing of children. Gröber, however, dismissed Bebel as needlessly excited when the Social Democrat accused Berlin of intending to enact the Centrist resolution in a fashion so undetectable as to be meaningless. Instead, Gröber defended Stuebel’s assessment that the traditional sensibilities of Africans ought to be respected to retain their indispensable cooperation in the slave question.77 The vigor with which Gröber combatted the emancipation of African new- borns stood at odds with the zeal that had inspired Müller-Fulda and Speck in their bid for the immediate abolition of all slavery some ten days previously. If the enactment of the earlier proposal might indeed have been impractical, only a renewed faith in the advantages of a solidly governmental line could fully account for the resistance of the jurist and aristocratic Centrist leaders to the more moderate proposals of Speck and Bebel. The Center’s failure to endorse the Speck resolution prohibiting the application of forced labor on public works projects was inconsistent with the party’s much-touted anti- slavery platform for the colonies. Likewise, Stöcker’s support for Bebel’s proposal for infant emancipation exposed the partisan self-interest behind Gröber’s opposition to the same measure. In both cases, rather than sub- scribing to the contemporary Christian abolitionist sentiment expressed by Müller-Fulda, Speck, and Stöcker, the Centrist jurists and aristocrats preferred to adhere to the administration’s line on African slavery in recognition of the government-Center rapprochement which Chinese resistance had played such a critical role in promoting.

77 Stuebel, Mar. 19, 1901, RTSB, 2001A/C, 2004D. President Ballestrem, Motion Gröber-Graf Oriola, Mar. 19, 1901, RTSB, 2006B. Bebel, Mar. 19, 1901, RTSB, 2001D, 2002D, 2005D/2006A. Stöcker, Mar. 19, 1901, RTSB, 2003C. Gröber, Mar. 19, 1901, RTSB, 2005A/B. CHAPTER 8 China, Kamerun, and the New Tariff Law, 1901–1903

After Berlin’s China crisis of 1900/01, the period from late 1901 to early 1903 then marked an ebb in the influence of extra-European populations upon German politics. At the same time that the costs of German overseas ventures diminished, the controversy surrounding the renewal of the national tariff law consumed an unprecedented amount of attention. This combination tended to mute the domestic political dimension of imperialism for the remainder of the Reichstag session. Still, the congruence of national and Catholic interests in China continued to exercise a generally cohesive influence upon the partnership of government and Center. Meanwhile, the party’s strategically decisive position in the domestic tariff question meant that the Bülow government had to reckon with the possibly unpleasant domestic political ramifications of angry Catholic missionaries publicizing the grievances brought by colonized peoples against their German rulers.

Continuing Government-Center Rapprochement via China

In the six months from November 1900 to May 1901 the Reichstag had authorized a grand total of 306 million marks for the East Asian Expedition and the nation’s colonial projects. By contrast, over the course of the following two years, the Berlin government sought altogether just 90 million in Reich sub- sidies for imperialist ventures. The return of the fiscal burden of imperialism to a somewhat more manageable level can be ascribed primarily to the partial troop withdrawals from China along with the absence of revolts elsewhere in the German colonies. Whereas the East Asian Expedition of 18,700 men had absorbed the proceeds of loans in the amount of 276 million marks, the withdrawal of 13,900 German troops in 1901 and of another 2,200 in 1902 brought the administration’s Occupation Brigade budget down to 15 million marks annually by 1903. Beginning in 1902, Berlin also rendered the brigade’s costs more palatable to the Reichstag by ostensibly offsetting the East Asian budget with China’s reparations payments of nearly 12 million a year although the latter were actually earmarked for amortisation of the 276 million already spent.1

1 DB, Third SupB 1900, Nov. 14, 1900, RDS 8, RKzA, 934:92–96, BAP. Bachem, Mar. 15, 1901, RTSB, 1878D. Riedel to Crailsheim, Nov. 21, 1901, Communication, MA 76017, ByHSA. Richter, Mar. 3,

During the waning of the Yihetuan crisis, as at its peak, the compatibility of Catholic and German national interests vis-à-vis the vanquished population of northern China fostered a cooperative spirit between party and government. The Bülow administration continued to find its patronage of the South Shandong mission a convenient avenue for courting Catholic opinion at home. Conversely, the Centrists still recognized in the Chinese context opportunities to oblige the government without alienating their constituents. These harmonizing trends were accentuated by the Social Democrats’ undiminished attacks upon both Germany’s national policy and Catholic missionary misconduct in China. Only the question of the rate of troop withdrawal from northern China might have occasioned friction between the Center and the government. Nevertheless, for reasons rooted both overseas and at home, neither partner allowed this issue to disturb the concluding phases of the China rapprochement. The two years from late 1901 to early 1903 witnessed the Bülow administration’s continued employment of gracious gestures toward the Catholic missions in China as a political device for courting the Center Party at home. Just as in the parliamentary year 1900/01, the chancellor and War Minister Goßler sought to please the Centrists by praising the Catholic China missions in the Reichstag. For example, in a thoroughly unrelated discussion Bülow expressly underlined Berlin’s continued commitment to its protectorate over the missions in China as an honorable duty.2 Countering Bebel’s renewed attacks upon the missions in China, Goßler likewise expressed admiration for the eighty thousand Chinese Christians who had chosen martyrdom over apostasy, and he praised the French Catholic bishop of Beijing for courageously defending his besieged congregation from the Yihetuan.3 Finally, the new German envoy to Beijing, Alfons Freiherr Mumm von Schwarzenstein, considered his government’s ongoing patronage of the South Shandong mission a crucial means for retaining Centrist support in Berlin. Therefore, notwithstanding his tacit sympathy for complaints of prominent Chinese officials regarding missionary misconduct, he initiated a successful motion with the Beijing government for Bishop Anzer’s promotion to the highest rank within the Chinese mandar- inate in recognition of the prelate’s purported role in fostering peace between

1902, RTSB, 4526A. Stockmann, Reporter, Mar. 3, 1902, RTSB, 4521D. Stockmann, Mar. 18, 1903, RTSB, 8713C. Richthofen, Mar. 18, 1903, RTSB, 8714A. 2 Bülow, Mar. 3, 1902, RTSB, 4527B. 3 Goßler, Jan. 11, 1902, RTSB, 3319B/C. Bebel, Jan. 11, 1902, RTSB, 3310C, 3313B/C. China, Kamerun, and the Tariff Law 205

Christians and non-Christians.4 All of these government courtesies to Catholic missionary interests in China can be seen as politically inexpensive stratagems aimed at cajoling the Center Party into continued cooperation with the government in Berlin. By the same token, the China affair offered the Center renewed occasion to accommodate the government without much risk of offending its constituency. As the Social Democrats resumed their assault upon Berlin’s China policy in early 1902, Centrists Karl Bachem and Georg Freiherr von Hertling rose in the Reichstag to express their party’s complete satisfaction with the execution of the East Asian Expedition and the terms of the Boxer Protocol. Emphasizing the absolute necessity of restoring Germany’s national honor after Ketteler’s assassination, Bachem denied in January that there was any cause to regret the quarter billion marks spent on the campaign. In March Hertling likewise rationalized Germany’s assertiveness in China by employing Bülow’s metaphor of late 1899 regarding Germany’s choice between serving as the hammer or as the anvil of history.5 At this time Bachem also tempered his own earlier criticism of the German confiscation and removal to Potsdam of the Chinese imperial astronomical instruments during the international occupation of Beijing. Prompted by widespread indignation to re-examine its legal title to retain these seventeenth- century instruments, the Berlin government had reluctantly concluded it would have to place the instruments at the Qing government’s disposal. When Beijing nonetheless coolly declined to exercise its proprietary rights because of Berlin’s failure to offer to cover transport and reinstallment costs, the Bülow administration chose to interpret this as a transfer of ownership to Germany. Whereas the Social Democrats sponsored a resolution demanding that Berlin rectify the omission of transport costs from the offer, Bachem subscribed to the government’s interpretation. Although some six months earlier in Osnabrück he had publicly denounced the instruments’ appropriation as official plundering, he now considered it beneath Germany’s dignity to chase after the Qing

4 Mumm von Schwarzenstein to Bülow, Nov. 10, 1901, R17959, China 6, Band 47, PAAA. Mumm von Schwarzenstein to Foreign Office, [May 8], 1902, Telegram 140, R17960, China 6, Band 48, PAAA. Mühler to Rotenhan, May 14, 1902, Order 64; Mumm von Schwarzenstein to Bülow, May 19, 1902, Ges. Rom-V, 922, PAAA. 5 Südekum, Jan. 8, 1902, RTSB, 3219B–3220C. Bebel, Jan. 11, 1902, RTSB, 3310A–3314D, 3322B/C. Singer, Mar. 3, 1902, RTSB, 4529B–4530D. Gradnauer, Mar. 3, 1902, RTSB, 4544A–4545C. Gradnauer, Mar. 4, 1902, RTSB, 4566A/D. Ledebour, Mar. 3, 1902, RTSB, 4547C–4548C. Bachem, Jan. 9, 1902, RTSB, 3229B–3230B. Hertling, Mar. 3, 1902, RTSB, 4522D/4523A. Bülow, Dec. 11, 1899, RTSB, 3295A. 206 CHAPTER 8 government with further concessions.6 The Center’s defense of Berlin’s China policy and its opposition to the socialist astronomical instrument resolution reflected the ongoing pattern of convergent Catholic and German interests in China contributing to cooperation between the government and the party. The one great potential source of friction over China, the issue of the size and duration of the East Asian Occupation Brigade, did not threaten government- Center relations as a result of forbearance on both sides. Although in 1902 and 1903 the Center led the Budget Committee in curtailing the government’s proposals for the brigade, these sixteen- to twenty-percent budget reductions did not provoke a parliamentary test of strength, notwithstanding a certain resemblance in circumstances to the later official explanation of the 1906 Reichstag dissolution over Southwest Africa. The six-million-mark cutback of March 1902 appears rather to have contributed directly to the reduction of the brigade from 4,800 to 2,600 men in June. Conversely, informed from the outset that the Center would respect foreign political exigencies, Berlin confidently ran over budget rather than adhere to the three-million-mark cut of March 1903 that would have necessitated the brigade’s complete withdrawal from Zhili province by November. Both administration and party thus refrained from directly confronting one another over the China brigade during this period.7 The reasons for this mutual restraint can be partially reconstructed from the circumstances. Berlin’s accommodation to the Center’s bid to curtail the brigade in 1902 may be traced to both military conditions in China and domestic political considerations at home. On the one hand, the East Asian Expedition had arrived too late for any significant military engagements in China, and its rapid degeneration to little more than garrison duty had led as early as Spring 1901 to significant recruitment and disciplinary difficulties. Consequently,

6 Südekum, Jan. 8, 1902, RTSB, 3220B/C. Bachem, Jan. 9, 1902, RTSB, 3230A/B. Bachem, Mar. 4, 1902, RTSB, 4554B–4555A. Bebel, Jan. 11, 1902, RTSB, 3311D–3312C. Goßler, Jan. 11, 1902, RTSB, 3320D/3321A. Gradnauer, Mar. 3, 1902, RTSB, 4544A–4545C. Gradnauer, Mar. 4, 1902, RTSB, 4566A/D. Bülow, Mar. 3, 1902, RTSB, 4545D–4546B. Ledebour, Mar. 3, 1902, RTSB, 4547C–4548C. Waldersee to Wilhelm II, Dec. 4, 1900, in Waldersee, A Field-Marshal’s Memoirs, 235–37. During the official international plundering of Beijing in late 1900, Waldersee had claimed the instruments as partial compensation for Germany’s campaign costs despite Hague Convention stipulations against the confiscation of purely artistic and scientific state property. The instruments were then placed in the Kaiser’s own Park Sanssouci without their worth even being credited to China’s reparations debt. 7 Stockmann, Reporter, Mar. 3, 1902, RTSB, 4521D–4522D. Stockmann, Mar. 18, 1903, RTSB, 8713A/D. Hertling, Mar. 3, 1902, RTSB, 4522D–4524B. Spahn, Mar. 18, 1903, RTSB, 8714C. Richter, Mar. 3, 1902, RTSB, 4524D–4526A. Büsing, Vice President, Mar. 3, 1902, RTSB, 4532B. Thielmann to Bülow, June 13, 1903, Report I.3441.2, RKzA, 935:181–82, BAP. China, Kamerun, and the Tariff Law 207 the German military had itself pressed for the first major troop withdrawal of 1901 and presumably had less objection to further reductions than might otherwise be assumed.8 On the other hand, from November 1901 to December 1902 the government looked to the Center for aid in passing the new tariff bill and therefore wished to oblige the party wherever budgetary trimming was possible. This was especially necessary since Bülow was experiencing difficulty convincing the Kaiser to concede either the repeal of the Jesuit expulsion article or the authorization of Reichstag per diems in the interest of securing Centrist authorization of the tariff proposal.9 Finally, the government realized that, regardless of the brigade’s particular strength, every year that its continued existence was at least tolerated by the Reichstag brought Berlin a step closer to parliamentary consent to its conversion into the permanent mercenary Colonial Army desired by the Kaiser. A combination of these military and political considerations most likely induced the German government to withdraw 2,200 East Asian troops in answer to the six-million-mark budget cut of 1902.10 In March 1903 Center leader Peter Spahn graciously expressed in turn his party’s recognition of the foreign political exigencies that might render impossible the committee proposal of a complete withdrawal of the brigade within

8 Waldersee, Mar. 20, May 16, 1901, Journal; Waldersee to Wilhelm II, Mar. 23, 28, 1901, in Waldersee, Field-Marshal’s Memoirs, 256–60, 267. Lerchenfeld to Crailsheim, Apr. 21, May 10, 1901, Reports 215 and 255, MA 76017, ByHSA. Wilhelm II to Bülow, May 14, 1901, Telegram, Große Politik, Nr. 4917, 16:424–26. 9 Bachem, Nov. 30, 1901, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 173, HASK. Bachem to Müller-Fulda, Aug. 20, 1901; Bachem, Sep. 16, 1902, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 170, HASK. Bachem, Feb. 1, 1903, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 183, HASK. Holstein, Nov. 11, 1902, Diary, in The Holstein Papers, ed. Norman Rich and M.H. Fisher, 4 vols. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 4:272. Katharine Anne Lerman, The Chancellor as Courtier: Bernhard von Bülow and the Governance of Germany, 1900–1909 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 91. Butzer, Diäten und Freifahrt, 213, 219–22. 10 Guttenberg to Mayer, Sep. 5, 1901, Report 422, MA 95398, ByHSA. Cf. also ByGB, 1073, ByHSA. Jagemann to Brauer, May 2, 5, 1901, Reports 70 and 74, BdGB, Abt. 49/2034:97, 110–11, GLAK. Jagemann to Brauer, May 12, 1902, Report 66, BdGB, Abt. 49/2035:101, GLAK. Wilhelm II to War Ministry, June 28, 1900, Telegram; Goßler to Bülow/Imperial Chancellery, May 2, 1901, War Ministry 722/01.GKM, including DB concerning the Formation of German Colonial Troops for East Asia; Goßler to Bülow/Foreign Office, May 3, 1902, War Ministry 733.02.GKM; Richthofen to Foreign Office, May 17, 1902, Two telegrams; Tirpitz to Richthofen, May 17, 1902, RMA M2972, R 992, Deutschland 121, Nr. 28, Bd. 1, PAAA. Tirpitz to Bülow, May 17, 1902, Report RMA M.2972; Conrad to Bülow, May 17, 1902, Secret Memorandum; Tirpitz to Conrad, May 16, 1902, Memorandum, RKzA, 935:156–57, 159, BAP. Koenig to Soden, Oct. 14, 1901, Report 1350, WüMAA, E50/03, 195, HSAS. 208 CHAPTER 8 six months. His explicit advance exoneration of Berlin for anticipated excess spending drastically undermined the political relevance of the Reichstag’s twenty-percent cut to the brigade budget. The Center’s readiness to notify Berlin so candidly of the non-binding intent of the proposal may likewise be traced to both Chinese and domestic conditions.11 On the Chinese front, there were indeed international arrangements with the other allies regarding occupational troop strength. Further, the government had already made substantial progress in troop reductions in 1901 and 1902, and in any case the Center would not want to endanger the security of the Catholic missions through an all too precipitous withdrawal from northern China. Meanwhile, in the wake of the grueling but successful passage of the tariff law at home, the Center had finally begun collecting on Bülow’s past assurances of concessions. The final tariff compromise of December 1902 contained a much-touted Centrist provision for funding widow and orphan insurance. In January the chancellor had then announced the imminence of the long-sought polling booth bill and, on February 3, his intention to exert his influence to induce the Bundesrat to repeal Article 2 of the Anti-Jesuit Law. Coming so clearly at the Center’s behest immediately in the wake of the tariff law, these concessions aroused a public outcry from anticlerical liberals and ardent Protestants.12 The Center therefore had no interest in pressing the government zealously on the budgetary issue of complete withdrawal from China when its highest confessional priority finally appeared nearly within its grasp. Consequently, the party accommodated Berlin on the continuation of the East Asian Occupation Brigade in 1903 just as the government had obliged the Center on the same issue the previous year. As the Yihetuan crisis drew to a close, the Center Party and the Berlin government continued to find China an amenable theater for fostering an atmosphere of mutual cooperation. On the one hand, the Bülow government could easily afford to praise the Catholic missions in China, to extract honors for Bishop Anzer from the Beijing government, and even to withdraw two thousand idle troops from Zhili. On the other hand, the Center Party risked little support within its constituency in praising the effectiveness of an expedition to suppress a virulently anti-Christian movement or in ignoring the legal niceties of restoring booty to a proud Confucian government. If the party then gave the government advance dispensation for its anticipated failure to withdraw the two thousand remaining troops from Zhili, German Catholics

11 Spahn, Mar. 18, 1903, RTSB, 8714C. 12 Bachem, Feb. 1, 1903, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 183, HASK. Lerman, Chancellor as Courtier, 78–79, 91, 99, 104–5. H.W. Smith, German Nationalism, 122–27. China, Kamerun, and the Tariff Law 209 could be expected to be much more concerned with the imminent repeal of Article 2 of the Anti-Jesuit Law. Thus, the net impact of Chinese issues upon government-Center relations remained a thoroughly positive one.

Kamerunese Opposition, Missionary Protest, Centrist Leverage

From late 1901 to early 1903 the sun was slowly setting over the chronic China problem that since 1897 had generally facilitated the rapprochement of the Center and the government. On the other hand, the African uprisings that would precipitate the breach of 1906 lay still invisible over the horizon. During this lull in extra-European crises, nonviolent indigenous resistance to German colonial rule nonetheless posed a threat to the cordial relations between Berlin and the Center. Where colonized populations managed through word or deed to bring their grievances against the colonial administration to the attention of earnestly humanitarian Catholic missionaries, the latter could and did intercede on occasion. The local population and the missions then often stood at a considerable disadvantage vis-à-vis miscreant officials and anticlerical hotspurs who were subject to only minimal supervision in the colonies. However, in Berlin the balance of relative power was reversed thanks to the Reich government’s dependence upon the Catholic Center during the tariff controversy. Having more to lose than the party from a dispute, the Berlin government generally sought to resolve conflicts between officials and Catholic missionaries to the satisfaction of the latter. Consequently, from late 1901 to early 1903 Kamerunese civil resistance enjoyed a measure of success in rectifying intolerable conditions by tapping, however unconsciously, into the political influence of German Catholicism. For example, in November 1901 the district official of Jaunde, First Lieutenant Peter Scheunemann, received orders to muster immediately several hundred porters for First Lieutenant Hans Dominik’s military expedition into the hinterland. However, since the mortality rate on such expeditions was notoriously high, the Jaunde preferred to make themselves scarce, rather than comply. Accordingly, Scheunemann commissioned local chieftains to assist his own African soldiers in rounding up ‘volunteers’ by force. Fathers Karl Hoegn and Hermann Nekes of the Pallottine mission then witnessed how the badly beaten brother of one of their pupils was carried to the station to ‘volunteer’ while another forty-odd porters were strung together at the neck with rope by the chieftains Nambelle and Amba. The priests further verified that Scheunemann’s soldiers had killed at least one prospective porter who tried to escape. Finally, when Hoegn saw two African soldiers bringing bound 210 CHAPTER 8 women and their sheep as hostages to the government station, the outraged priest confronted them and pulled the saber of one to obtain his identification number. Nonetheless, when Hoegn indignantly reported his observations to Scheunemann, he was informed that the charges in his superfluous and imper- tinent letter would not be answered. Rather, Hoegn was himself threatened with investigation for impeding soldiers in the line of duty and for political agitation among the Kamerunese. Scheunemann further terminated cordial relations with the mission station at Jaunde, forbidding all government employees from entering the mission grounds.13 Very troubled by this conflict with the government, Apostolic Prefect Heinrich Vieter proposed to the Pallottine rector in Limburg that Centrists Lieber, Gröber, or Spahn should be asked to approach Colonial Director Stuebel privately in the affair. As Lieber was deathly ill, Rector Max Kugelmann referred the matter to Limburg’s Center delegate, Peter Cahensly. In the meantime, Vieter accommodated Governor von Puttkamer’s demand for Hoegn’s recall from Jaunde by trading stations with his subordinate in January 1902. While Scheunemann remained surly toward Vieter and maintained the boy- cott against the mission, Prefect Vieter ultimately held the upper hand thanks to Bülow’s dependence upon the Center in the tariff question. In a retrospective account, the prefect even claimed to have laughed quietly in anticipation of Scheunemann’s swift collapse as soon as he should catch “the first wind” from Berlin. Indeed, within three weeks of Cahensly’s veiled reference to the affair in the Reichstag in March, Scheunemann’s manner was entirely transformed and his prohibition lifted. Soon thereafter Hoegn was allowed to return to Jaunde after the Kamerun administration retracted its insistence on an apology. Finally, Scheunemann admitted to Hoegn that he had been unduly nervous the previous November and further confessed that as many as 150 porters had subsequently died on the very expedition the Jaunde population had been attempting to evade.14 Evidently, having weighed the alternatives of a single official’s loss of face as opposed to potential Centrist rancor at a

13 Hoegn to Vieter, Nov. 9, 1901; Scheunemann to Hoegn, Nov. 9, 1901, 914, Kamerun 17: Regierung II, König-Hoegn-Rieder, Missionshaus der Pallottiner, Archiv, Limburg (MPAL). Vieter, “Erinnerungen aus Kamerun,” [circa 1904], typed copy, 105–10; Vieter, “Chronik der katholischen Mission Kamerun,” Bd. 1, 1907, typed copy, 207–8, Bischof Vieter: Chronik, Erinnerungen 1890–1903, Korrespondenz, MPAL. 14 Vieter to Kugelmann, Nov. 27, 1901; Puttkamer to Vieter, Jan. 16, 1902, zu 105, Kamerun 17: Regierung II, König-Hoegn-Rieder, MPAL. Cahensly, Mar. 6, 1902, RTSB, 4629A/B. Vieter to Hespers, June 17, 1902, Kamerun 16: Regierung I, Buli-Aufstand 1899, MPAL. Vieter, “Erinnerungen,” [circa 1904], typed copy, 105–10; Vieter, “Chronik,” Bd. 1, 1907, typed copy, 207–8, Bischof Vieter: Chronik, Erinnerungen 1890–1903, Korrespondenz, MPAL. China, Kamerun, and the Tariff Law 211 crucial moment in domestic politics, the Berlin government preferred to sacrifice Scheunemann and tread more carefully thenceforth in porter requisitioning. Scarcely had the Center’s tactical advantage over Berlin laid this conflict to rest than a fresh Kamerunese altercation arose to demonstrate the political constellation again. In June 1902 the acting district official of Edea, Lieutenant Umber, brought the Catholic convert Inibena to his house under a false pretext and demanded that she remain as his concubine. When Inibena fled, Umber imprisoned her brother Peter Pep until her ‘voluntary’ return. Inibena’s fiancé Franz Eyum and Pep then approached the Pallottine mission with accusations against the lieutenant. Initially mistrusting the two converts, Father Michael Rieder cautiously inquired of Umber regarding Inibena’s whereabouts and was easily convinced that the lieutenant did not have her. Welcoming the priest’s offer to bring slander charges against Eyum, Umber acted as judge in his own cause and sentenced his accuser to four months in jail and two floggings. However, Rieder discovered the truth in late July and angrily reported the affair to Prefect Vieter. The latter requested of Acting Governor Albert Plehn that the case against Eyum be re-opened and Umber prosecuted for violating governor’s orders against officials taking Christian concubines. Although Plehn conducted a token investigation, nothing further came of the matter. Meanwhile, a Colonial Troops Honor Council hearing found Umber’s honor had not been tarnished by Rieder’s charges. Then, pursuing the obvious advantage he enjoyed among local officials, Umber proceeded to sue Rieder in October for asserting that the officer was not “the ideal of a gentleman.”15 At this point in November 1902, Prefect Vieter was concerned that Rieder might be convicted by the local colonial court in Kamerun. Recalling his successful political maneuver in the Hoegn-Scheunemann case, the prefect therefore submitted all documentation to Rector Kugelmann in Limburg for consignment to Centrist hands. The mission’s rector accordingly asked Prinz von Arenberg to intercede for Rieder and Eyum in the Colonial Department. As at the time of Cahensly’s mediation for Hoegn in March, the tide immediately shifted in the Pallottines’ favor as government dependence upon the Center was coming to a climax in the tariff debates. First, Eyum was acquitted

15 Kugelmann to Arenberg, [Nov./Dec. 1902], (including these enclosures: District Court Edea, July 11, 1902; Rieder to Vieter, July 27, 1902; Vieter to Plehn, Aug. 7, 1902; Rieder to Vieter, Aug. 27, Sep. 17, 18, Oct. 5, 23, 1902; Umber to District Court Edea, Oct. 1902; Vieter to Puttkamer, Nov. 12, 1902), Kamerun 17: Regierung II, König-Hoegn-Rieder, MPAL. Vieter, “Erinnerungen,” [circa 1904], typed copy, 112; Vieter, “Chronik,” Bd. 1, 1907, typed copy, 157–58, Bischof Vieter: Chronik, Erinnerungen 1890–1903, Korrespondenz, MPAL. 212 CHAPTER 8 in a retrial in late December. Second, while a military Honor Court in Berlin also found Umber’s honor still extant, the Colonial Department penalized the lieutenant by transferring him away from Kamerun and bringing about his retraction of the libel charges against Rieder. Finally, with Arenberg’s continuing assistance in Berlin, the Pallottine mission succeeded by October 1903 in having Umber convicted for his transgressions.16 The reversal in Umber’s fortunes thus dated from the moment the affair ceased to be a local colonial issue and became a possible flashpoint for Centrist dissatisfaction that Berlin could ill afford. Roughly concurrently with the Rieder-Umber Affair of 1902, Prefect Vieter also effected the recall of the district official at Kampo through an appeal to German Catholic public opinion. While at Kampo in mid-1902, Vieter encountered an old Kamerunese woman at confession with a chain around her neck. The prefect learned that the district official was holding her hostage in her son’s stead as the latter had escaped from prison just prior to her attempted visit. Despite Vieter’s intervention, the district official refused to release her. Nor was he intimidated by the prefect’s threat to publicize the incident and report him to the authorities at Kribi. Vieter’s report to Kribi led in fact to the woman’s immediate release, but he also made good on his threat to publicize the incident. In late 1902 the prefect authored an article in the mission newspaper Kreuz und Schwert referring to both this episode and the same official’s toleration of a Kampo plantation that was working its laborers to death at a rate of a third annually. As Berlin could not risk Catholic indignation over a colonial scandal so close to the tariff’s third reading, the district official’s career in Kamerun was brought to an abrupt end.17 The official of Kampo learned, as had Scheunemann and Umber, that, in this critical phase of tariff negotiations, the Pallottines’ access to the Center Party trumped the local jurisdictional advantage of a colonial official. Still, neither the Center’s political edge over Bülow nor Director Stuebel’s success in dousing sparks from colonial church- state conflicts could continue indefinitely.

16 See in addition to the previous footnote: Rieder to Vieter, Dec. 27, 1902; Umber to Supreme Command of the Colonial Troops, Feb. 12, 1903, including marginalia [by Kugelmann?]; Kugelmann to Arenberg, [late Mar./Apr. 1903]; Stuebel to Arenberg, Apr. 7, 1903; Arenberg to Kugelmann, Apr. 25, 1903; Kugelmann to Rieder, May 7, Nov. 12, 1903, Kamerun 17: Regierung II, König-Hoegn-Rieder, MPAL. 17 Vieter, “Chronik,” Bd. 1, 1907, typed copy, 182–83, Bischof Vieter: Chronik, Erinnerungen 1890–1903, Korrespondenz, MPAL. Part 3 African Resistance: The Wedge, 1903–1906

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CHAPTER 9 Thunderclouds from Africa, 1903–1905

Beginning with the Jiaozhou action of 1897, the German imperialist venture had generally fostered the government-Center rapprochement, and it had also tended to reinforce Centrist political leverage during the years of relative calm overseas between the Yihetuan and Herero Uprisings. From late 1903 onward, however, widespread colonial unrest coincided with domestic developments to diminish the Center’s bargaining position vis-à-vis the government. Even as the converging colonial crisis drew an increasing number of individual Centrists into private negotiations with the Colonial Department, they faced a decline in their capacity to exercise domestic influence on behalf of their colonial clientele. Moreover, as the cohesive effect of the Chinese theater dwindled and the forces of German Catholic populism waxed stronger after the 1903 elections, the government-Center partnership as a whole began to deteriorate in the face of reverberations from the initiatives of colonized peoples in Africa and the South Pacific.

The Elections of 1903: Matthias Erzberger and the Rising Populists

The Reichstag elections of June 1903 and the dwindling energies of the aging Centrist leadership accentuated the vulnerability of the party to the divisive effects of the impending colonial crisis. Given the negligible decline in Centrist seats from 102 to 101, the 1903 elections left the party’s voting strength within the Reichstag entirely intact; indeed, the indispensability of these votes to the government rose commensurately with the leap in Social Democratic seats from 56 to 81. However, the twenty-five percent turnover in Center delegates also produced noticeable shifts in the geographical and social representation within the party. First, the numerical edge of the generally more governmental Prussian Centrists over the less amenable South Germans shrank from twenty to fifteen seats in 1903. Since the Prussians also included populists of the ilk of Georg Dasbach and Hermann Roeren, fifteen votes was not a completely comfortable margin for ensuring continuation of the party leadership’s policy of accommodation with Berlin. At the same time, bourgeois and aristocratic delegates lost their slim majority in the party as five more seats went to the party’s more oppositional agrarian, clerical, and proletarian elements. Thus, north of the Main the Center returned two fewer aristocrats, replaced a lawyer

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004306875_011 216 CHAPTER 9 with a miner, and experienced a net loss of three seats. More striking still, in Bavaria and Württemberg five priests and a former schoolteacher supplanted a count, a professor of baronial rank, a lawyer, and two businessmen.1 While geographical and class origin did not correlate precisely with individual voting behavior, the growth in clerical, agrarian, and proletarian as well as South German strength tended to decrease the amenability of the delegation to a consistently pro-government line. Furthermore, because of the diminishing capacity of aging party leaders to fulfill both their parliamentary and their professional duties in the years after the 1903 elections, the responsibility for much of the Reichstag delegation’s operations devolved upon Matthias Erzberger, a Swabian schoolteacher turned newspaper editor and trade union leader.2 While the absence of Reichstag per diems exacerbated the chronically inequitable distribution of parliamentary duties within most German parties, the issue reached especially critical proportions for the Center leadership in the years after 1903. The principal Centrist spokesmen all suffered from significant manifestations of overexertion. These ranged from Adolf Gröber’s inordinate irritability to Karl Bachem’s debilitating neurological disorder, to Peter Spahn’s collapse into unconsciousness in the Reichstag in April 1905.3 Exhaustion likewise deterred County Commissioner (Landrat) Alois Fritzen from appearing in the Reichstag for more than a few days in 1904/05.4 Very likely it was also illness that kept colonial enthusiast Franz Prinz von Arenberg from the Togolese and East African railroad debates of the Budget Committee in Spring 1904, an absence

1 The fifth new clerical delegate, Father Sebastian Bauer, won an Upper Bavarian district from a non-Centrist. For the sake of the above statistics, the Alsatian lawyer and managing director of the People’s Association for Catholic Germany, Dr. Leo Vonderscheer, has been included within the ranks of the Center as of his re-election in 1903 although he did not declare his allegiance to the Reichstag delegation until somewhat later in the new legislative period. Schwarz, MdR, 139–506. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:200, 208. 2 Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:342–43, 342n1. Schwarz, MdR, 305. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 86, 95. 3 Bachem, Apr. 12, 1905, Note; Bachem to Müller-Fulda, Jan. 22, 1905, Nachlaß Bachem, 223, HASK. Bachem to Otto, May 18, 1907, Nachlaß Bachem, 259, HASK. Bachem to Gröber, Oct. 26, 1900, Nachlaß Bachem, 114, HASK. Kopp to Bülow, Dec. 22, 1903, R 3949, Preußen 2, Nr. 2a Geheim, Band 2, PAAA. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:145–48, 260–61. Rolf Kiefer, Karl Bachem, 1858–1945: Politiker und Historiker des Zentrums (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, 1989), 171–72. Schwarz, MdR, 139–506. 4 Bachem, Apr. 12, 1905, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 223, HASK. Thunderclouds From Africa 217 that coincided with Erzberger’s first parliamentary speech on a colonial issue.5 Apparently in better health than his colleagues, Professor Georg Freiherr von Hertling nonetheless likewise absented himself from the Reichstag for extensive periods while he was in Rome as the Reich’s unofficial ambassador to the Vatican or in Munich in his academic capacity.6 Nor was this trend of illness and absenteeism limited to the foremost Centrist advocates of the pro-government line; it also affected colleagues with a greater propensity to dissent. For almost the entirety of the 1904/05 parliamentary season, an ecclesiastical succession detained Canon Franz Schaedler in Franconia while serious heart problems continually incapacitated labor advocate and social scientist Father Franz Hitze. That same year the Hessian carpet manufacturer Richard Müller-Fulda and the Bavarian customs official Karl Speck remained stubbornly at home in protest against the Center’s “lamb pious” line since repeal of Article 2 of the Anti-Jesuit Law the previous spring. These two men appeared only briefly in Berlin to vote against the new trade treaties, and by April 1905 Müller-Fulda was threatening to resign his Reichstag mandate, partly on the grounds of the Center’s exaggerated accommodation to the government’s colonial plans.7 Finally, Father Georg Dasbach, the pugnacious spokesman of Catholic farmers of the Eifel and Hunsrück regions, was so embroiled in various court cases surrounding his publishing house and person

5 Reichstag Delegates Present, May 4, 1904, ProtBc, RTA, 1124:96, BAP. Reichstag Delegates Present, May 5, 6, 10, 11, 1904, ProtBc, RTA, 1086:174–75, especially 175 verso, 177, 182–83, BAP. Reichstag Delegates Present, May 13, June 8, 1904, ProtBc; Erzberger, June 8, 1904, ProtBc, RTA, 1057:60, 63–64, BAP. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:343. 6 Hertling’s diplomatic ambitions very nearly led him to withdraw completely from parlia mentary life in 1903. Hertling to Anna von Hertling, Feb. 21, 1903, Nachlaß Hertling, 16:7–8, BAK. Hertling and Richthofen, Mar. 26, 1903, Agreement; Bülow to Hertling, Jan. 1, 1904, Order; Hertling to Bülow, Jan. 15, Apr. 19, 1904, Nachlaß Hertling, 47:7–12, 14–15, 19, BAK. Lerchenfeld to Podewils, Mar. 15, 1903, Report 122, ByGB, 1075, ByHSA. Hertling to Richthofen, Nov. 2, 1903; Klehmet, Dec. 6, 1903, Note; Hammann, Dec. 30, 1903, Note; Rotenhan to Bülow, Apr. 14, 1904, Report 43, R 9364, Päpstlicher Stuhl 24 Geheim, Bd. 1, PAAA. Hertling to [not cited], Mar. 15, 1903; Hertling to [not cited], Apr. 25, 1904, cited in Karl Freiherr von Hertling, “Bülow, Hertling, Zentrum,” in Front wider Bülow: Staatsmänner, Diplomaten und Forscher zu seinen Denkwürdigkeiten, ed. Friedrich Thimme (Munich: Verlag F. Bruckmann, 1931), 139. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:145. Bülow, Denkwürdigkeiten, 2:100–101. 7 Bachem to Müller-Fulda, Jan. 11, 22, 1905; Müller-Fulda to Bachem, Jan. 18, 27, 1905; Bachem, Apr. 12, 1905, Note; Werbrunn to the Editors of the KVZ, Apr. 19, 1905; Bachem to Julius Bachem, Apr. 27, 1905, Nachlaß Bachem, 223, HASK. Bachem, Apr. 13, 1905, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 222, HASK. For a discussion of the repeal of the Jesuit expulsion clause and its impact, see later in this chapter. 218 CHAPTER 9 that he never once took the floor of the Reichstag during the 1904/05 parliamentary season.8 Given the waning energies among leading Centrists of every persuasion, Gröber had assumed responsibility in Spring 1904 for introducing the twenty- eight-year-old Erzberger into the Reichstag’s influential Budget Committee. Although this appointment of the youngest member of the Reichstag was not officially confirmed by the party’s Executive Committee, Erzberger quickly made himself indispensable to his elders without initially offending them.9 Indeed, Bachem testified in April 1905 to the “extraordinarily smooth” internal party negotiations that year, thanks in particular to “proficient support” by Gröber and Erzberger of Spahn’s leadership as well as to the absence of Speck, Müller-Fulda, and Dasbach from Berlin.10 Praising the “exceptionally industrious, knowledgeable, affable, and articulate” Erzberger as the only newly- elected delegate to have applied himself effectively to his parliamentary responsibilities, Bachem found fault at that point only with the young man’s propensity to undertake too many assignments.11 In fact, Erzberger’s colonial speeches during his first years of activity within the party leadership were not significantly more at odds with governmental policies than the positions concurrently taken by Spahn and Gröber. However, in a party with growing populist elements, the assignment of important tasks to an unseasoned and willful politician under limited supervision would have fateful consequences for government-Center relations once the storm of revolt and protest in the German colonies climaxed in the summer of 1905.

African Civilian and Military Resistance, 1902–1907

Following the Reichstag elections of 1903, a wave of protest and resistance by colonized peoples in Africa and the South Pacific disrupted the relative calm that had reigned in the German overseas empire since the suppression of the Yihetuan Uprising in China. This surge of activity manifested itself not only in a host of efforts to topple the colonial administration by force of arms, but

8 Bachem, Apr. 13, 1905, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 222, HASK. Thoma, Dasbach, 305–9. Fohrmann, Trierer Kulturkampfpublizistik, 316–18, 327–29, 358–59. 9 Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:342–43. Josef Hammer, “Matthias Erzberger: Erinnerungsblätter eines persönlichen Freundes,” undated [after 1945], Manuscript, Nachlaß Erzberger, 12:11, BAK. 10 Bachem, Apr. 13, 1905, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 222, HASK. 11 Bachem, Apr. 12, 1905, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 223, HASK. Thunderclouds From Africa 219 also in attempts to utilize such opportunities for petition as existed within the German colonial system. Generally, given the military imbalance of power between colonizers and colonized and the widespread indifference among Germans to the fate of indigenous peoples, neither the strategy of rebellion nor that of entreaty enjoyed much success in achieving the liberty or at least amelioration sought by the populations of Africa and the South Pacific. Nonetheless, these extra-European initiatives accomplished more than might first appear. Although the vital symbolic role of early resistance efforts for subsequent national liberation movements lies beyond the scope of this study, a more immediate achievement may also be identified in the degree to which Reichstag delegates in distant Europe were forced by the discontent overseas to grant colonial issues a more prominent place in Germany’s domestic political agenda. While the political impact within Germany of extra- European initiatives was by and large unintentional, the extent of that effect reflects the success of colonized populations in commanding the attention of the colonial administration’s homefront, the German public, through the strat- egies of revolt and petition. No fewer than seven distinct insurrections broke out in the German colonies during the period from late 1903 to mid-1905, and several of these were tenacious enough to persist even into 1907.12 Three of the seven erupted upon Southwest African soil alone. In the extreme southeast of that colony the Bondelswart (!Gami=| nûn) Nama rose in October 1903 to protest German territorial encroachment and to defend their captain’s jurisdiction from an overzealous district official.13 With the colonial troops thus engaged in the distant south, the Herero in the region around Windhoek forswore their prior toleration of encroachment, expropriation, and brutality and carried out a massacre of 123 whites in January 1904.14 Third, similar grievances in the south,

12 A version of this section first appeared in print in 2006. Reprinted with permission from John S. Lowry, “African Resistance and Center Party Recalcitrance in the Reichstag Colonial Debates of 1905/06,” Central European History 39 (2006): 248–51. © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association. 13 Leutwein to Colonial Department, Sep. 28, 1904, Report 917, Enclosure III, RKA, 2116:149, BAP. König to Solf, Jan. 26, 1904, Nachlaß Solf, 25:9–10, BAK. Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:115– 19. Haacke and Eiseb, Khoekhoegowab-English Glossary. 14 Leutwein to Colonial Department, Mar. 14, 1904, Report 153, RKA, 2114:107–11, BAP. Leutwein to Colonial Department, May 17, 1904, Report 395; Rohrbach to Leutwein, May 28, 1904, RKA, 2115:63–69, 109–10, BAP. Leutwein to Colonial Department, Sep. 28, 1904, Report 917, Enclosure III; Leutwein, “Verzeichnis derjenigen Weißen, gegen welche in den Jahren 1902, 1903 und 1904 ein Verfahren wegen Gewalttätigkeit gegen Eingeborene vor dem kaiserlichen Bezirksgericht Swakopmund eingeleitet wurde,” Sep. 30, 1904, RKA, 220 CHAPTER 9 along with the fear of imminent disarmament, precipitated the inauguration of a general Nama uprising the following October.15 Within ten days of the outbreak of war with the Herero, the Anyang of northwest Kamerun decimated an armed expedition directed against their rubber trade monopoly and began a successful offensive with the Banjang, Boki, and Ekoi against German positions in the Cross valley.16 Half a year later in the South Pacific, ten German Catholic missionaries to New Pomerania were slain by Baining warriors resentful of the increasing incursion of white settlements and the imposition of European standards of monogamy, agricultural labor, and public order.17 Back in West Africa, isolated armed resistance to the Gesellschaft Südkamerun in the Njong and Dja valleys in late 1904 swelled by Spring 1905 into an arc of insurgency extending across southern Kamerun from Jukaduma to Lolodorf and encompassing the nations of Ndsimu, Bombassa, Kunabembe, Njem, Maka, Esso, Jebekolle, and Bulu.18 Finally, in July 1905 embitterment over extensive forced labor, taxation, and brutality culminated in the outbreak of the millenarian Maji Maji Uprising in southeastern East Africa among the Matumbi and Ngindo, whose call to arms was answered throughout the Rufiji, Kilombero, Matandu, and Lukuledi valleys and by the Ngoni and Bena in the southwest.19 As a consequence of the remarkable coincidence and extent of these colonial insurrections from 1903 to 1905, both the financial burden of imperialism and the political stakes surrounding German colonial policy increased by leaps and bounds. The escalating importance of colonial issues in German politics after 1903 was likewise fueled by the more peaceful efforts of non-Europeans to improve their lot. Beginning in late 1902, Anago and Dahomey in Togo sought to make District Official Geo Schmidt accountable for his brutal despotism and his

2116:144–50, 171–74, BAP. Stuebel, Jan. 30, 1905, RTSB, 4110A. Leutwein, Elf Jahre, 465–84. Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:131–71. 15 Leutwein, Elf Jahre, 454–64. Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:171–220. 16 Ballhaus, “Landkonzessionsgesellschaften,” in Kamerun unter deutscher Kolonialherrschaft, ed. Stoecker, 2:150–61. 17 Stadt Gottes, Steyl, Dec. 1904, 120–22. Ibid., Jan. 1905, 178–80. 18 Kaeselitz, “Kolonialeroberung und Widerstandskampf,” in Kamerun unter deutscher Kolonialherrschaft, ed. Stoecker, 2:46–54. Rüger, “Duala und Kolonialmacht,” in ibid., 2:201–2. 19 John Iliffe, Tanganyika under German Rule, 1905–1912 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 9–29. G.C.K. Gwassa and John Iliffe, eds., Records of the Maji Maji Rising (Dar es Salaam: East African Publishing House, 1968). Judith Listowel, The Making of Tanganyika (London: Chatto & Windus, 1965), 34–44. James Giblin and Jamie Monson, eds. Maji Maji: Lifting the Fog of War. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2010. Thunderclouds From Africa 221 sexual abuse of a minor. Catholic missionary championship of this cause then precipitated an explosive confrontation with the Lome administration in 1903 that haunted government-Center relations in Berlin until the eventual breach of 1906.20 In a less momentous episode, imported Chinese laborers in Samoa protested to Governor Solf in April 1904 regarding improper wage withholding and harsh physical abuse by their employer, retired Lieutenant Richard Deeken. Convicted on two counts each of grievous bodily harm and libel, Deeken still managed to procure the circumspect intercession of his uncle by marriage, the Centrist Reichstag delegate Karl Trimborn.21 Finally, King Dika Akwa and other Bonambela Duala chieftains of Kamerun organized a petition to the Reichstag in June 1905 demanding the recall of the entire Puttkamer regime. Basing this appeal upon some two dozen grievances against German officials, the petition sought an investigation of the Buea administration’s razing of Duala homes, its imposition of the head tax, its failure to remunerate forced labor, and cases of officially condoned murder, unusually cruel floggings, and abuses of office in securing concubines.22 As these civil remonstrations from the colonies coincided precisely with the aforementioned intense period of revolts, a dishearteningly long catalog of embarrassing and costly imbroglios resulted. Consequently, the Reich’s non-European subjects came to command much of the attention of the Bülow government and the Reichstag during the German colonial crisis of the next several years. Almost all of these sundry initiatives by overseas populations played some role in the political discussions between the Center Party and the Berlin government during the parliamentary seasons of 1903/04 and 1904/05,

20 The Reichskolonialamt collection of the Bundesarchiv Potsdam holds six bound volumes of documents solely concerned with this controversy. RKA, 3915–20, BAP. K. Müller, Katholische Kirche in Togo, 160–77. Rivinius, “Akten zur katholischen Togo-Mission,” 58–69, 108–32, 171–90. 21 Deeken to Solf, Apr. 24, 1904; Deeken, et al., to Solf, Apr. 30, 1904; Solf [to Rose], May 2, 1904, Notes; Solf to Foreign Office, May 1, 1904, Telegram 6; Trimborn to Stuebel, Aug. 9, 1904; Stuebel to Trimborn, Aug. 21, 1904; Hellwig to Solf, Sep. 4, 1904, Order 176; [probably Rose or König] to Solf, Sep. 14, 1904; Solf to Colonial Department, Oct. 15, 1904, Report 215, Nachlaß Solf, 25:47–49, 51–57, 63, 191–202, 229–36, 243–44, 267–70, BAK. Solf to Rose, May 21, July 2, 3, Oct. 15, 1904, Nachlaß Solf, 127:28–33, 46–51, 66, BAK. Stuebel to Solf, Aug. 10, 1904, Telegram 15, RKA, 2483:145, BAP. 22 “Beschwerdeschrift der Akwa-Häuptlinge an den Deutschen Reichstag,” June 19, 1905, RDS 21, RKA, 7238:25–29, BAP. Rüger, “Duala und Kolonialmacht,” in Kamerun unter deutscher Kolonialherrschaft, ed. Stoecker, 2:201–15. Eckert, Duala und Kolonialmächte, 145–59. 222 CHAPTER 9 but the Togo Affair and the Herero and Nama Uprisings had by far the weighti- est impact upon the partnership in these years.23

Anago and Dahomey Resistance and the ‘Kulturkampf in Togo,’ 1902–1904

By the time Centrist Reichstag delegates were first apprised in August 1903 of the existence of a Togo Affair, the year-old conflict had escalated from a local Afro-German dispute in the inland station of Atakpame to a complex feud pitting nine colonial officials against eight SVD missionaries and two ardent Catholics in the Lome administration. As in contemporary Kamerun, official brutality, dissoluteness, and anticlericalism were bringing government agents in Togo into conflict with earnest Catholic priests. In this case, when Anago and Dahomey around Atakpame mustered the courage to challenge the regime of District Official Geo Schmidt through peaceful protest, advocacy of the SVD mission on their behalf led to the superimposition of a German church-state clash upon the Afro-German struggle. Still, the administrative retribution the SVD missionaries suffered for heeding the multiple Togolese grievances surpassed in intensity the measures leveled by colonial officials against the Catholic mission in Kamerun; hence, the Togo Affair was also dubbed ‘the Kulturkampf in Togo.’ Not surprisingly, the prolonged incarceration of German Catholic missionaries, the violations of their civil rights, and the multiplicity of libel suits filed against them seriously offended Centrist sensibilities. Consequently, the party initially interceded at least as vigorously for the violated SVD as it previously had for the Pallottine mission in Kamerun. The lengthy incubation of the Togo Affair in Africa meant that it had already attained remarkable complexity and intensity prior to its arrival on German political shores in late August 1903. The following sketch of the genesis of this ‘Kulturkampf in Togo’ therefore highlights the several Anago and Dahomey initiatives which first sparked and then fueled the bitter confrontation between the SVD and the Lome government. It also delineates the events that placed the reconciliation of Catholic mission and Togo administration so far out of reach that no amount of mediation by the Center Party and the Colonial Department could placate the antagonists.

23 As the Maji Maji Uprising and the submission of the Bonambela Duala petition did not occur until the summer of 1905, their impact upon German domestic politics will be discussed in the next chapter. Thunderclouds From Africa 223

Although dozens of Togolese men and women subsequently launched their complaints against District Official Geo Schmidt of Atakpame through the mediation of the SVD, the first acts of Anago protest involved direct appeals to Governor Waldemar Horn during Schmidt’s home leave from January to October 1902. Encouraged and assisted by the Afro-Brazilian merchants Bernardo d’Almeida and Oktaviano Olympio, the first Anago efforts to free themselves of Schmidt climaxed in late summer with the journey of the high chief’s heir apparent to Lome. Granted an audience with Horn, Kukowina charged that Schmidt had overworked the populace, levied excessive fines, confiscated livestock indiscriminately, and even torched a farm village. These hardships were driving the people of Atakpame to emigrate into neighboring French territory.24 Returning shortly thereafter, the outraged Schmidt attempted publicly to compel the chief’s heir to retract his accusations and to implicate the SVD as the instigator of the charges. Foiled, Schmidt as constable arrested Kukowina on charges of knowingly making false accusations against Schmidt the plaintiff.25 Released after two weeks on Horn’s orders, the despondent Kukowina met his death two months later, possibly by self-administered poison.26

24 Colonial Department, “Aufzeichnung A: Anklagen gegen den Stationsleiter Schmidt,” Mar. 8, 1904; Schmidt, Oct. 23, 1902, Self-administered deposition, RKA, 3918: 9–11, 20–23, 25–29, 57–58, BAP. District Court Lome, Nov. 26, 1903, Verdict in Government of Togo vs. Schmidt [Adjaro], RKA, 3919:24–27, BAP. Müller, Apr. 2, 1903, Deposition of statements by Logo, Atsu, and Mawusi; Müller to Horn, Mar. 8, 1903; Horn to Colonial Department, July 9, 1903, Report 360, RKA, 3915:28–30, 34–35, 188, 190, BAP. Müller to Government of Togo, Jan. 28, 1904; Tom Doteh, Dec. 29, 1903, Testimony before Tietz; Ogbone, Kokroko, Dec. 31, 1903, Testimony before Tietz; Schmidt, Jan. 14, 1904, Testimony before Tietz, RKA, 3917:47–49, 210, 221–22, 239–47, 250, BAP. Schmidt, Schmidt contra Roeren, 16–20. Peter Sebald, Togo 1884–1914: Eine Geschichte der deutschen “Musterkolonie” auf der Grundlage amtlicher Quellen (Berlin (O): Akademie-Verlag, 1988), 536. 25 Colonial Department, “Aufzeichnung A,” Mar. 8, 1904; Schmidt to Horn, Oct. 28, 1902, Report 309; Horn to Schmidt, Nov. 5, 1902, Order, RKA, 3918:11–14, 66–67, BAP. Müller, Apr. 2, 1903, Deposition of statements by Logo, Atsu, and Mawusi; Bücking to Horn, May 8, 1903; Bücking to Colonial Department, May 25, 1903; Horn to Colonial Department, July 9, 1903, Report 360, RKA, 3915:28–30, 50–54, 159–62, 188–89, BAP. Müller to Government of Togo, Jan. 28, 1904; Schmidt, Jan. 14, 1904, Testimony before Tietz, RKA, 3917:47, 50–51, 239– 51, BAP. Bücking to Stuebel, Sep. 9, 1903, RKA, 3916:83, BAP. District Court Lome, Apr. 9, 1908, Verdict in Bücking/Müller vs. Schmidt, RKA, 3920:190, 204, BAP. Schmidt, Schmidt contra Roeren, 16–18. K. Müller, Katholische Kirche in Togo, 161. Sebald, Togo, 537. 26 Colonial Department, “Aufzeichnung A,” Mar. 8, 1904; Tietz to Zech, Feb. 27, 1904, Report; Doering, Jan. 20, 1904, Deposition before Kersting, RKA, 3918:12–14, 55–56, 75, BAP. Müller to Government of Togo, Jan. 28, 1904; Schmidt, Jan. 14, 1904, Testimony before Tietz, RKA, 224 CHAPTER 9

Cowed for the moment by Kukowina’s fate, the Anago increasingly placed their hope for relief in the mediation of the SVD mission. Fathers Franz Müller and Peter Schmitz encouraged the Togolese to air their grievances at the mission station in preparation for Governor Horn’s upcoming visit of March 1903 during an inspection tour through the hinterland. In their complaints Anago men and women accused Schmidt and his German subordinates of extract- ing excessive fines, violating property rights, and abusing police authority to secure unwilling concubines. At the same time, Schmidt’s African soldiers and police officers were indicted for brutality, thievery, and attempted rape.27 Most importantly, a few days before Horn’s arrival, Ayene, the wife of a Catholic trader, reported to the German priests that Schmidt had raped her pubescent sister Adjaro Nyacuta after he had coerced the girl into joining his household several months earlier. In early January 1902, the time of the alleged crime, Adjaro was probably still some months younger than fourteen and therefore under the age of sexual consent stipulated in German law. In any case, she also firmly maintained that she had been physically overpowered.28 As the consistency of Ayene and Adjaro’s account thoroughly convinced Fathers Müller and Schmitz, they encouraged the girl’s grandfather, Chief Kassene of Djama, to join those about to protest Schmidt’s conduct to

3917:47, 254, BAP. Doering, May 12, 1904, Deposition of statements by Kukowina’s family, RKA, 3919:45–50, BAP. Sebald, Togo, 537. 27 Müller to Horn, Mar. 8, 1903. Müller, “Allgemeine Klagen über Atakpameverhältnisse,” [May 1903], RKA, 3915:34–35, 155–58, BAP. Midoke, Bieda, Tom Doteh, Letjuwa, Johannes Berchmann-Green, Nofodji, Agbale, Dec. 29, 1903, Testimony before Tietz; Baya, Obe, Badamassi, Dec. 31, 1903, Testimony before Tietz, RKA, 3917:208–15, 218–19, BAP. Doering to Government of Togo, Mar. 24, 1904, Report 111, RKA, 3919:11–12, BAP. Johannes Thauren, Die Mission in der ehemaligen deutschen Kolonie Togo (Steyl: Verlag des Apost. Stuhles/ Missionsdruckerei Steyl, 1931), 37–39. 28 Müller, “Stellungnahme und Erklärung zur Klagesache Schmidt contra Müller,” [Spring 1903]; Schmidt to Government of Togo, Mar. 23, 1903; Schmitz to Rotberg, May 13, 1903, Denunciation of Schmidt; Schmidt, Kassene, Apr. 27, 1903, Court hearing; Elisa Kende, Atanasius Abevi, Müller, Apr. 28, 1903, Court hearing; Ayene, Adjaro, Sisagbe, Apr. 29, 1903, Court hearing; Müller, “Allgemeine Klagen,” [May 1903]; Bücking to Colonial Department, May 25, 1903; Bücking to Stuebel, July 5, 1903, RKA, 3915:19–26, 38–41, 55–61, 72–74, 76–79, 81–82, 87–89, 91–92, 95–96, 120, 133, 155–62, 181, BAP. District Court Lome, Nov. 26, 1903, Verdict in Government of Togo vs. Schmidt [Adjaro]; Bücking to Stuebel, Sep. 4, 1904, RKA, 3919:16–23, 28–30, 116 (6–7), BAP. District Court Lome, Dec. 5, 1903, Verdict in Government of Togo vs. Schmitz, RKA, 3918:50–52, BAP. Adjaro, Dec. 29, 1903, Testimony before Tietz, RKA, 3917:208, BAP. Superior Court Buea/Lome, Jan. 18, 1906, Appeals verdict in Government of Togo vs. Schmitz, RKA, 3920:108–10, BAP. Thunderclouds From Africa 225

Governor Horn. Once in Atakpame, however, the governor found it necessary to defer an investigation of Anago grievances until his return trip through the district in June. When Chief Kassene was jailed immediately after Horn’s departure for failing to provide enough porters, Father Müller indignantly charged Schmidt with treating city elders callously and driving the people to emigrate. Alerted to Kassene’s intention to lodge a grievance with Horn, Schmidt proceeded to cajole and intimidate Adjaro’s family into repudiating the rape charge and implicating Father Müller as an agitator. Meanwhile, the district official abruptly terminated relations with the mission and reported to Acting Governor Graef regarding Müller’s allegedly libelous and inflammatory activity.29 At this juncture an anticlerical clique of prominent Lome colonial officials made the Atakpame dispute the focus of an intrigue against both the absent Governor Horn and the Catholic mission. Although the governor represented the Kamerun Superior Court in Togo, Horn’s deputy Dr. Graef conspired with the provisional district judge Werner Freiherr von Rotberg-Rheinweiler to thwart the governor’s stated intention of settling the Atakpame affair himself.30 In their partisanship for Schmidt against the SVD, Graef and Rotberg were staunchly supported by District Office Secretary Friedrich Wilhelm Lang,

29 Müller, “Stellungnahme und Erklärung,” [Spring 1903]; Müller to Horn, Mar. 8, 1903; Müller to Schmidt, Mar. 9, 1903; Schmidt to Müller, Mar. 9, 16, 1903; Kersting to Müller, Mar. 16, 1903; Schmidt to Government of Togo, Mar. 23, 1903; Bücking to Horn, Mar. 31, 1903; Müller, Apr. 28, 1903, Court hearing; Ayene, Apr. 29, 1903, Court hearing; Bücking to Colonial Department, May 25, 1903; Bücking to Stuebel, July 5, 1903; Horn to Colonial Department, July 9, 1903, Report 360, RKA, 3915:19–26, 34–43, 62–65, 78–79, 87–88, 159–62, 180–82, 189– 91, BAP. [Schönig] to Arenberg, [late Summer 1903], Memorandum, Biographie 61, Papiers Franz von Arenberg (36/13), L’Affaire A. Schmidt: Missions catholiques à Togo 1904, AAE. Schmidt, Schmidt contra Roeren, 22–24. K. Müller, Katholische Kirche in Togo, 161–62. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 174. 30 Bücking to Stuebel, July 5, 1903; Horn to Colonial Department, July 9, 10, 1903, Reports 360 and 366; [Müller or Schmitz], “Beschwerde gegen den Bezirksrichter i.V. a.D. Freiherrn von Rotberg betreffend Verhaftung der Missionare der kath. Mission in Togo, sowie betreffend die Voruntersuchung und seiner [sic] richterlichen Handlungen, welche dem Verhandlungstermin vorausgingen und folgten,” [June/July 1903], Copy; Hellwig to Rotberg, Aug. 27, 1903, Order; Bücking to Stuebel, Aug. 7, 1903 (including Enclosure c: “Beschwerde gegen Regierungsbaumeister Schmidt”); Schönig, Sep. 1, 1903, Protocol before Schmidt-Dargitz; Graef to König/Colonial Department, Sep. 14, 1903, Report; Colonial Department, [early Sep. 1903], Memorandum, RKA, 3915:179, 184–86, 191–93, 198, 203–7, 220–23, 232–33, 235, 251–61, 275–79, 300–3, 307, BAP. Stuebel, Mar. 18, 1905, RTSB, 5391B. Rivinius, “Akten zur katholischen Togo-Mission,” 123n1, 128n12. 226 CHAPTER 9 who compensated so zealously for his own Catholic heritage that the mission designated him its “most rabid foe.”31 With the arrival of Schmidt’s complaints against Müller in late March 1903, these three Lome officials apparently contrived a swift strike against the SVD to be executed in its entirety before Horn’s return. This began with Graef’s demand of SVD Prefect Hermann Bücking that he immediately disavow Müller and transfer him away from Atakpame. Failing this satisfaction, the deputy governor would authorize Schmidt to take legal action.32 When Bücking insisted upon awaiting Horn’s return, Graef ordered Schmidt on April 14 to submit formal libel and incitement charges against Müller for likely referral to the district court.33 Then, supposedly still ignorant of the affair, District Judge Rotberg set out for Atakpame around April 22 under the pretext of a botanical expedition, yet at such a forced tempo that multiple men collapsed en route, including the porter Nyamum whom Rotberg first assaulted and then flogged to death.34 Upon the judge’s arrival in Atakpame on April 26, Schmidt ordered the town’s mothers to send their daughters to a celebratory nocturnal dance or face a hefty fine. While thus entertained with vulnerable young women, Rotberg persuaded his host to submit the libel suit against Müller directly to him so that preliminary hearings in the public interest could be conducted on the spot. Remaining Schmidt’s guest during the entire course of the proceedings, the judge conducted only a nominal inquiry into the possibility that Schmidt had

31 Graef to Colonial Department, May 25, 1903, Report 273; Bücking to Stuebel, Aug. 7, 1903 (including Enclosure b: Schönig to District Court Lome, [Feb./Mar. 1903], Accusation Schönig vs. Lang; Enclosure c: “Beschwerde gegen Regierungsbaumeister Schmidt”); Schönig, Sep. 1, 1903, Protocol before Schmidt-Dargitz; [Schönig] to Colonial Department, “Beamte, gegen welche die katholische Mission Beschwerden hat, deren Entfernung aus Togo im Interesse des Friedens gewünscht wird,” [early Sep. 1903], RKA, 3915:66–70, 221– 23, 230–33, 235–36, 251–61, 275–79, 283–84, BAP. Lang to District Court Lome, Sep. 7, 1903, Regarding Witte vs. Lang, Accusations Lang vs. Witte, Lang vs. Schönig, RKA, 3917:19–22, BAP. Zech to Colonial Department, Feb. 26, Mar. 10, 1904, Reports 166 and 194, RKA, 3918: 44–45, 101–2, BAP. Furtkamps to Bücking, July 31, 1903, cited in K. Müller, Katholische Kirche in Togo, 169n1. 32 Graef to Bücking, Apr. 2, 1903; König, Sep. 13/15, 1903, Deposition of statements by Graef, RKA, 3915:44, 248–49, BAP. 33 Bücking to Graef, Apr. 11, 1903; König, Sep. 13/15, 1903, Deposition of statements by Graef, RKA, 3915:45, 48, 249–50, BAP. District Court Lome, Dec. 5, 1903, Verdict in Government of Togo vs. Schmitz, RKA, 3918:46–50, BAP. Schmidt, Schmidt contra Roeren, 24. 34 Bücking to District Court Lome, Aug. 10, 1903, Enclosure 1 to Müller’s Denunciation regarding the Avete Affair, Concerning Herr von Rotberg’s Journey, RKA, 3915:228–29, 265–69, BAP. Schmidt-Dargitz, Oct. 12, 1903, Note, RKA, 3916:97, BAP. Thunderclouds From Africa 227 raped Adjaro. At the conclusion of the hearings on April 30, Rotberg announced publicly that all charges leveled against Schmidt were utterly unfounded and unfit to come to trial.35 Rotberg’s declaration made Father Müller’s prosecution and conviction in the upcoming weeks highly probable. Notified of this imminent threat, Prefect Bücking telegraphed the Colonial Department from Lome on May 8 with an urgent request that Schmidt’s suit not be brought to trial until after the return of Governor Horn. Meanwhile, Bücking and Father Schmitz conferred in the capital with a devoutly Catholic official, Chief Clerk Emanuel Wistuba, regarding the best means to avert the looming miscarriage of justice. The missionaries concluded that, unless the desired telegraphic reprieve arrived from Berlin by midday May 15, a denunciation of Schmidt on sex-offense charges would have to be filed with the court in order to offer Müller cogent grounds for challenging Rotberg’s judicial impartiality. When the designated hour passed without word from Berlin, Father Schmitz formally accused Schmidt of both statutory and violent rape.36

35 Bücking to Horn, May 8, 1903; Schmitz to Rotberg, May 13, 1903, Denunciation; Protocol of preliminary hearings in Government of Togo/Schmidt vs. Müller, Apr. 27–29, 1903; Protocol of preliminary hearings in Government of Togo vs. Schmidt [Adjaro], Apr. 29, 1903; Rotberg, Apr. 30, 1903, Ruling in the latter case; Müller, “Allgemeine Klagen,” [May 1903]; [Müller or Schmitz], “Beschwerde gegen Rotberg,” [June/July 1903]; Bücking to Stuebel, Aug. 7, 1903; König, Sep. 13/15, 1903, Deposition of statements by Graef; [Schönig] to Colonial Department, “Beamte, deren Entfernung gewünscht,” [early Sep. 1903]; Colonial Department, [early Sep. 1903], Memorandum, RKA, 3915:50–54, 72–96, 120, 126–29, 133, 155–58, 199, 220, 223, 249–50, 286–87, 306, BAP. Rotberg to Colonial Department, July 1, 1903, RKA, 3916:4–10, BAP. Müller to Government of Togo, Jan. 28, 1904; Müller, Feast of the Cross’s Discovery [early May] 1903, Proclamation; Bücking to Horn, Nov. 11, 1903; Schmidt to Tietz, Dec. 16, 1903, RKA, 3917:50, 73, 169, 181–83, BAP. Colonial Department, “Aufzeichnung A,” Mar. 8, 1904, RKA, 3918:23–24, BAP. Wilke, Nov. 5, 1906, Memorandum, RKA, 3920:166, BAP. [Schönig] to Arenberg, [late Summer 1903], Memorandum, Biographie 61, Papiers Arenberg (36/13), L’Affaire A. Schmidt, AAE. Schmidt, Schmidt contra Roeren, 24. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 174. 36 Bücking to Colonial Department, May 25, 1903; Bücking to Horn, May 8, 1903; Schmitz to Rotberg, May 13, 1903, Denunciation; Bücking to Stuebel, July 5, 1903, RKA, 3915:9–14, 50–61, 182, BAP. District Court Lome, Dec. 5, 1903, Verdict in Government of Togo vs. Schmitz, RKA, 3918:46–54, BAP. Superior Court Buea/Lome, Jan. 18, 1906, Appeals verdict in Government of Togo vs. Schmitz; Schmitz to SVD Brethren, May 17, 1903, RKA, 3920:97– 113, 177–78, BAP. König to Stuebel, “Gutachten in der Missionsangelegenheit Togo,” Nov. 8, 1904, Memorandum, RKA, 3919:157, BAP. Schmidt, Schmidt contra Roeren, 25–26. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 174. 228 CHAPTER 9

The sharp response to this challenge by Togo’s anticlerical party would have political repercussions in Berlin for years to come. Notwithstanding Graef’s receipt of postponement orders from Colonial Director Stuebel later that day, the deputy governor and Judge Rotberg proceeded with the prosecution of Müller for libel and now that of Schmitz as well for making false accusations. Therefore, on the evening of May 19 Judge Rotberg and District Attorney- Designate Lang departed on a second forced march to Atakpame while Graef cavilled by telegram with the Colonial Department.37 As in the cases previously cited from Kamerun, Stuebel’s categorical reply, “All libel suits of officials against missionaries here highly undesirable,” testifies to the Reich’s political dependence upon Centrist good will in early 1903.38 However, this time anticlerical insubordination foiled the Colonial Department’s attempt to douse the flaring colonial church-state conflict. With the arrival of Judge Rotberg and Secretary Lang in Atakpame on May 23, the imported legal norms that ordinarily guarded the liberties of European missionaries were suspended. Surrounding the SVD mission station with armed African soldiers long before dawn, Lang roused Father Müller and two laybrothers from sleep and arrested them not only in violation of laws restricting nocturnal actions, but also without the secretary’s contingent appointment as district attorney having even taken legal effect. Thereupon, Rotberg and Lang scoured the chapel, stripped the altar, and seized numerous documents. Closing the mission station, Rotberg further proclaimed all SVD communications throughout the colony subject to inspection and confiscation. Having jailed the three missionaries and several Anago witnesses, Lang apprehended Father Schmitz that evening as he arrived in haste from Lome. This last arrest was also procedurally illicit, for Judge Rotberg was opening a case against the priest for fraudulent accusations prior to the conclusion of the newly resumed sex-offense proceedings against Schmidt. Finally, while Judge Rotberg again enjoyed Schmidt’s hospitality, he failed to process the missionaries’ motions

37 Stuebel to Government of Togo, May 13, 1903, Telegram 9; Graef to Colonial Department, May 16, 25, 1903, Telegram [25] and Report 273; Bücking to Colonial Department, May 25, 1903; Bücking to Stuebel, July 5, 1903; Horn to Colonial Department, July 10, 1903, Report 366; [Müller or Schmitz], “Beschwerde gegen Rotberg,” [June/July 1903], RKA, 3915:6–7, 9–14, 66–70, 182, 184–86, 197, BAP. Rotberg to Colonial Department, July 1, 1903, RKA, 3916:4–10, BAP. Schmitz to SVD Brethren, May 17, 1903, RKA, 3920:178, BAP. König to Stuebel, “Gutachten in der Missionsangelegenheit,” Nov. 8, 1904, Memorandum, RKA, 3919:157, BAP. 38 Stuebel to Government of Togo, May 20, 1903, Telegram 10, RKA, 3915:8, BAP. Thunderclouds From Africa 229 challenging his impartiality and delayed forwarding their urgent appeals to the superior court and governor.39 Kept in solitary confinement for the next three weeks, Müller and Schmitz were not even freed when Prefect Bücking and Father Theodor Kost arrived from Lome bearing an authentic copy of Governor Horn’s telegraphic orders of June 5 mandating the missionaries’ release and Rotberg’s dismissal. Rather, since Graef’s supposedly express messenger took an entire week to reach Atakpame with the official directive, District Attorney Lang still dared to receive Kost with several hours of arrest and to send an armed escort to inter- cept Bücking and confiscate his papers. Indeed, only the refusal of clerks to hold court under a suspended judge prevented the trials against Müller and Schmitz from proceeding. At last, on June 12 the official transcription of Horn’s telegram reached Rotberg, and the missionaries were released from custody. Arriving in person two days later, Horn lifted the postal blockade, released the Anago witnesses, and urged the departing Rotberg to resign his post as acting district official of Klein-Popo as well.40 Horn’s intervention at Atakpame effected the release of the imprisoned missionaries, but his authority did not suffice to resolve the dispute between the mission and his subordinates. Indeed, the previous disregard of his orders escalated after June 5 into open defiance. Schmidt, for example, foiled Horn’s plan to hear the Atakpame case by challenging his impartiality. Simultaneously, Rotberg threatened the governor with Horn’s own vulnerability to accusations

39 Bücking to Colonial Department, May 25, 1903; Graef to Colonial Department, May 25, 1903, Report 273; [Müller or Schmitz], “Beschwerde gegen Rotberg,” [June/July 1903]; Hellwig to Rotberg, Aug. 27, 1903, Order; Bücking to Stuebel, Aug. 7, 1903; Schönig, Sep. 1, 1903, Protocol before Schmidt-Dargitz; [Schönig] to Colonial Department, “Beamte, deren Entfernung gewünscht,” [early Sep. 1903], RKA, 3915:9–14, 66–70, 195–201, 203–7, 220–24, 235–36, 251–61, 287–90, BAP. Rotberg to Colonial Department, July 1, 1903; Colonial Department, [early Sep. 1903], Memorandum, RKA, 3916:4–10, 131–36, BAP. Müller to Government of Togo, Jan. 28, 1904, RKA, 3917:38, BAP. Wilke, Nov. 5, 1906, Memorandum, RKA, 3920:169, BAP. [Schönig] to Arenberg, [late Summer 1903], Memorandum, Biographie 61, Papiers Arenberg (36/13), L’Affaire A. Schmidt, AAE. Schmidt, Schmidt contra Roeren, 26. K. Müller, Katholische Kirche in Togo, 163–64. Gründer, Christliche Mission, 174. 40 See in addition to the previous footnote: Graef to Colonial Department, June 9, 1903, Report 306; Bücking to Stuebel, June 20, July 5, 1903; Horn to Colonial Department, July 9, 10, 1903, Reports 360 and 366; Bücking to Stuebel, Aug. 7, 1903, Enclosure c; König, Sep. 13/15, 1903, Deposition of statements by Graef, RKA, 3915:152, 171–72, 179, 184–86, 192– 94, 233, 250, 275–79, BAP. Lang to District Court Lome, Sep. 7, 1903, Regarding Witte vs. Lang, Accusations Lang vs. Witte, Lang vs. Schönig, RKA, 3917:19–22, BAP. Wilke, Nov. 5, 1906, Memorandum, RKA, 3920:169–71, BAP. 230 CHAPTER 9 surrounding the death in custody of the Togolese servant Zedu at Sokode in March.41 In response to the insubordination of the Lome conspirators, the governor urged the Colonial Department to dismiss Rotberg immediately and transfer the now furloughed Graef to another colony. No measures were taken against Lang, however, and Horn retained Schmidt at Atakpame while the colony awaited the ruling of the Kamerun Superior Court on the governor’s impartiality.42 With the original antagonists Schmidt and Father Müller still facing off in Atakpame, the resistance of the Dahomey population of Avete to the district official’s regime soon precipitated another round of confrontation between the colonial administration and the mission. Frustrated by their chieftain’s inequitable distribution of government labor and wages, the populace of Avete refused in early July to comply with Schmidt’s orders to fence off road- side trees. Unable to fulfill the task, Chief Atjugbe appealed to Schmidt to punish his subjects. When the villagers also refused to heed Schmidt’s demand for forty penal workers, the district official sent ten African soldiers to Avete on July 8 to summon the requisite laborers to him in Atokodje, by force if necessary, an order the soldiers then took as a license to beat Dahomey civilians and raid their possessions. In the worst such instance, the sixty-year-old Madeni Ehende suffered a broken rib from the blow of a rifle butt, sustaining lung injuries that ended his life in a matter of days. Once the forty-odd prisoners arrived at the rendezvous at Atokodje, Schmidt had flogging rods cut on site. Although advised by his assistant that the unusual thickness of the improvised rods would quickly leave wounds in the prisoners’ flesh, Schmidt ordered him to proceed with the caning. Among those flogged, Fodenu, Dossa, and Modedji

41 While accompanying the hinterland expedition, a cook Zedu had allegedly plundered the official cashbox at Sokode, and Horn had turned him over to the district official Captain Hans-Georg von Doering for punishment. After flogging him, Doering had bound Zedu upright to a flagpole where he eventually died. Some evidence would suggest that the governor’s hostile subordinates purchased the subsequent testimony of three Africans that Horn had disregarded the sight of Zedu’s unconscious form before departing the following day. Bücking to Stuebel, July 5, 1903; Horn to Colonial Department, July 10, 1903, Report 366; Bücking to Stuebel, Aug. 7, 1903, Enclosure c, RKA, 3915:179, 184–86, 233, BAP. Bücking to Horn, Aug. 23, 1903; Horn to Foreign Office, Dec. 1, 1903, Telegram, RKA, 3916:88, 124, BAP. Müller to Government of Togo, Jan. 28, 1904, RKA, 3917:39–40, BAP. Bücking to Stuebel, Sep. 4, 1904, Enclosure 1: Description of the Avete Affair, RKA, 3919:116 (Anlage 1:3), BAP. Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Bülow, July 12, 1906, KP10741/35984, RKzA, 941:20–21, BAP. Sebald, Togo, 539–40. 42 See in addition to the previous footnote: Horn to Colonial Department, July 9, 1903, Report 360, RKA, 3915:193–94, BAP. Thunderclouds From Africa 231 in fact lost palmsize patches of epidermis from their buttocks, but all the prisoners were nonetheless also required to perform several days of forced labor on a major road. Seizing the opportunity presented by such a public forum, the three most grossly wounded proceeded to bare their torn posterior flesh to all passersby in silent protest to Schmidt’s cruelty. Soon thereafter Fodenu, Dossa, and Modedji also testified to Fathers Müller and Schmitz regarding the draconian abuse, thereby adding yet another layer to the emerging Togo Affair. Meanwhile, Ehende’s sister Setonirive and his young Catholic son Nofodji leveled homicide charges against the soldier Sando. Schmidt having predictably exonerated the latter, Setonirive and Nofodji then entrusted Müller with the submission of the case to the district court in Lome.43 Deeply embittered by the Togo administration’s oppression of Africans and German Catholics alike, the SVD now launched a counteroffensive against Schmidt and his clique of anticlerical autocrats. First, in early August 1903 Father Müller submitted to the district court a denunciation of Schmidt in the Avete Affair. At the same time, the Togolese translator Wilhelm Mensah had recently provided Chief Clerk Wistuba with eyewitness testimony regarding Nyamum’s violent death in April. Faced with the administration’s refusal to investigate the case, the Catholic clerk had divulged the evidence to Prefect Bücking, with the result that Müller’s August denunciation of Schmidt also included an enclosure charging Judge Rotberg with homicide.44 Meanwhile,

43 Müller to District Court Lome, Aug. 10, 1903, Denunciation of Schmidt [Avete], RKA, 3915:226–27, BAP. Bücking to Stuebel, Sep. 9, 1903; Schmitz, “Zeugenaussagen im Avete- Palaver,” Sep. 4, 1903, RKA, 3916:83, 94–95, BAP. Müller to Government of Togo, Jan. 28, 1904; Tietz, Feb. 9, 1904, Ruling in Government of Togo vs. Schmidt [Avete], RKA, 3917:51–53, 265– 66, BAP. Colonial Department, Mar. 8, 1904, Memorandum, RKA, 3918:16–20, BAP. Bücking to Stuebel, June 24, 1904; Bücking to Stuebel, Sep. 4, 1904, Enclosure 1, RKA, 3919:75–76, 116, BAP. District Court Lome, Apr. 9, 1908, Verdict in Bücking/Müller vs. Schmidt, RKA, 3920:182–190, BAP. Schmidt, Schmidt contra Roeren, 39–41. K. Müller, Katholische Kirche in Togo, 165–68. 44 Bücking to Stuebel, Aug. 7, 1903; Müller to District Court Lome, Aug. 10, 1903, Denunciation of Schmidt [Avete]; Bücking to District Court Lome, Aug. 10, 1903, Enclosure 1 to Müller’s Denunciation regarding the Avete Affair, Concerning Herr von Rotberg’s Journey, RKA, 3915:220, 226–29, 265–69, BAP. Schmidt-Dargitz, Oct. 12, 1903, Note; Stuebel to Rotberg, Oct. 14, 1903, RKA, 3916:97–99, BAP. Müller to Government of Togo, Jan. 28, 1904; Tietz, Feb. 9, 1904, Ruling in Government of Togo vs. Schmidt [Avete], RKA, 3917:51, 265–66, BAP. Colonial Department, Mar. 8, 1904, Memorandum; Tietz to Colonial Department, Apr. 21, 1904, Report; Marschall to Colonial Department, May 27, 1904, A4872/73, RKA, 3918:19– 20, 132, 148, BAP. Bücking to Stuebel, Sep. 4, 1904, including Enclosure 1, RKA, 3919:116 (2, Anlage 1), BAP. District Court Lome, Apr. 9, 1908, Verdict in Bücking/Müller vs. Schmidt, RKA, 3920:182–90, BAP. 232 CHAPTER 9 with an independent slander suit of Lang’s pending against Bücking since April, Father Anton Witte filed countercharges against the renegade Catholic for a defamatory remark.45 Finally, the prefect sent Father Nikolaus Schönig on a mission to Germany to effect rectification of the wrongs against both the SVD and the Togolese through the exercise of influence upon the Colonial Department and the Center Party in Berlin.46 Accordingly informed in late August 1903, Centrists of all persuasions initially responded much as they had to the previous Kamerunese episodes, but with a vigor proportionate to the greater flagrancy of the Togo Affair. Upon his arrival in Berlin, Father Schönig submitted a memorandum to the Colonial Department seeking, “in the interest of peace,” the permanent recall of Rotberg, Graef, Lang, Schmidt, and two other implicated officials. The colonial bureaucrats disregarded Schönig’s remonstrances, however, as they considered Rotberg’s recent dismissal adequate satisfaction for the mission.47 Undeterred, the priest secured the intercession of Centrists from either end of the party’s wide political spectrum. In turn, Bülow’s longtime friend Franz Prinz von Arenberg and the Eifel-Hunsrück populist Judge Hermann Roeren appealed to the chancellor and the foreign secretary to heed the grievances of the SVD mission.48

45 Bücking to Stuebel, Aug. 7, 1903; Witte to District Court Lome, Aug. 6, 1903, Accusation in Witte vs. Lang; Hellwig to Horn, Sep. 10, 1903, Order 493, RKA, 3915:221–23, 234, 239–44, 251– 61, BAP. Lang to District Court Lome, Sep. 7, 1903, Regarding Witte vs. Lang, Accusations Lang vs. Witte, Lang vs. Schönig, RKA, 3917:19–22, BAP. Zech to Colonial Department, Feb. 26, Mar. 10, 1904, Reports 166 and 194, RKA, 3918:44–45, 101–2, BAP. 46 Bülow to Foreign Office, Sep. 2, 1903, Telegram 87; Schönig to Bülow, Sep. 1, 1903; Schönig, Sep. 1, 1903, Protocol before Schmidt-Dargitz; Schönig to Richthofen, Sep. 6, 1903; Richthofen to SVD Mission House, Sep. 12, 1903, Telegram; [Schönig] to Colonial Department, “Beamte, deren Entfernung gewünscht,” [early Sep. 1903], RKA, 3915:215, 217–18, 235–36, 245–46, 283–90, BAP. [Schönig] to Arenberg, [late Summer 1903], Memorandum, Biographie 61, Papiers Arenberg (36/13), L’Affaire A. Schmidt, AAE. 47 [Schönig] to Colonial Department, “Beamte, deren Entfernung gewünscht,” [early Sep. 1903]; Schönig to Bülow, Sep. 1, 1903; Schönig, Sep. 1, 1903, Protocol before Schmidt- Dargitz, RKA, 3915:283–90, 217–18, 235–36, BAP. Arenberg to Richthofen, Sep. 6, 1903, Copy by König, Nachlaß König (90 Ko 5), 6:29–30, BAP. 48 Bülow to Foreign Office, Sep. 2, 1903, Telegram 87; Schönig to Bülow, Sep. 1, 1903; Schönig to Richthofen, Sep. 6, 1903, RKA, 3915:215, 217–18, 245, BAP. [Schönig] to Arenberg, [late Summer 1903], Memorandum, Biographie 61, Papiers Arenberg (36/13), L’Affaire A. Schmidt, AAE. Thunderclouds From Africa 233

Not surprisingly, Arenberg had difficulty restraining Roeren from publicizing the shocking Togo Affair as an illustration of the Reich’s chronic anticlericalism.49 More noteworthy was the resolute tone adopted toward the government by the ordinarily amenable prince himself. It is true that he consented to Schönig’s request for mediation only under the express condition that no mention of the scandal be made in the Reichstag or the press.50 In return, however, the Catholic aristocrat staked the full weight of his influence with the government upon the satisfactory resolution of the affair. In a letter of early September to Foreign Secretary Oswald Freiherr von Richthofen, Arenberg raised the specter of the termination of his previously unflagging cooperation with Berlin’s colonial policy:

The story of the missionaries in Togo is not in the least funny! That an entire mission should be arrested and treated like criminals is outrageous and demands exemplary atonement. . . . You know from direct experience that I have always advocated for our colonial interests, even when that has brought me into conflict with the rest of the party, but incidents like the one in question make all further cooperation impossible for me if no thorough restitution takes place, for here it is no longer a question of the coarseness or crime of an . . . [individual?], but rather of grave abuses of authority by a series of officials.51

49 Arenberg to Richthofen, Sep. 6, 1903, Copy by König, Nachlaß König, 6:29–30, BAP. Arenberg to Rotberg, Mar. 22, 1904, Biographie 61, Papiers Arenberg (36/13), L’Affaire A. Schmidt, AAE. Hellwig to Horn, Sep. 10, 1903, Order 493, RKA, 3915:239–44, BAP. Stuebel to Zech, Jan. 20, 1904, Order 48, RKA, 3916:158–59, BAP. Stuebel to Government of Togo, Mar. 8, 1904, Order 148, RKA, 3917:269–70, BAP. H.W. Smith, German Nationalism, 139. 50 Arenberg to Rotberg, Mar. 22, 1904, Biographie 61, Papiers Arenberg (36/13), L’Affaire A. Schmidt, AAE. 51 Arenberg to Richthofen, Sep. 6, 1903, Copy by König, Nachlaß König, 6:29–30, BAP. The original of this letter was returned to Arenberg and evidently did not survive the destruction of the bulk of the prince’s papers in World War I. The authenticity of the copy made by Privy Legation Councillor Bernhard von König thus cannot be directly established. However, its faithfulness to the original may be reasonably inferred from a number of circumstances. First, the existence of an item of correspondence from Arenberg to Richthofen in the Togo Affair that week is well-documented (Hellwig to Horn, Sep. 10, 1903, Order 493; König, Apr. 12, [1904], Note, RKA, 3915:239–45, BAP. Arenberg to Rotberg, Mar. 22, 1904, Biographie 61, Papiers Arenberg (36/13), L’Affaire A. Schmidt, AAE). Second, Arenberg’s request for the return of the original in April 1904 came just days after anticlerical press attacks upon the prince for his furtherance of the SVD blacklist. If the prince had submitted a more strictly objective request for investigation of the list than König’s copy represents, it would have been superfluous or worse to have the cover letter removed 234 CHAPTER 9

On this occasion Arenberg not only conveyed a copy of the SVD indictment against the six aforementioned officials, he also specifically designated the conduct of Secretary Lang and District Official Schmidt as particularly offensive. While Arenberg did assure Richthofen of his readiness to secure any potentially warranted ecclesiastical disciplinary action against Müller, he was as dissatisfied as Schönig and Roeren at that moment that only Rotberg and possibly Graef were being called to account for official misconduct. In his conclusion the prince warned that the measures taken by the Colonial Department in the coming months would be watched closely and that he would be unable to curb Roeren and the Centrist press if the matter were not resolved before the opening of the Reichstag in December.52 Like both the aristocratic and populist elements of the Center, the party’s jurist leadership also at first responded energetically to pleas for aid from the Togo mission. In late 1903 the Lome District Court under Acting Judge Ferdinand Tietz found Schmidt innocent of both violent and statutory rape and convicted Father Schmitz of libel for having filed those charges in May.53 Approached by the SVD in the matter of Schmitz’s subsequent appeal, the Cologne lawyer and prominent Centrist Hugo Am Zehnhoff initially agreed to appear in the Kamerun Superior Court as the missionary’s defense attorney.54

from the record (“Tagesfragen,” Deutsche Zeitung, Apr. 7, 1904, R1431, Deutschland 125, Bd. 6, PAAA. “Im Fahrwasser der Arenberge,” Tägliche Rundschau, Apr. 9, 1904, Nr. 165, RKA, 3918:119, BAP. König, Apr. 12, [1904], Note, RKA, 3915:245, BAP. Arenberg to Rotberg, Mar. 22, 1904, Biographie 61, Papiers Arenberg (36/13), L’Affaire A. Schmidt, AAE). Third, as Arenberg’s cover letter was not cited by Berlin in the polemics of 1906/07 surrounding the alleged Centrist shadow government, there appears to have been no political motive for a falsification of the text. Most importantly, in contrast to the privy councillor’s hostility toward Roeren, König never had an ax to grind against Arenberg for his intercession in the Togo Affair. To the contrary, König’s internal departmental marginalia dubbed Tietz’s disclosure of that intercession “unbelievable” and Schmidt’s ensuing belligerence toward Arenberg “unspeakable”. He accordingly insisted that Schmidt apologize to the prince (König’s marginalia on Zech to Colonial Department, Feb. 12, 1904, Report 129; Stuebel to Government of Togo, Mar. 8, 1904, Order 148, RKA, 3917:2–7, 269–70, BAP. König’s marginalia on Bücking to Stuebel, Apr. 8, 1904, RKA, 3918:138–39, BAP. “Ein Kampf ums Recht,” Tägliche Rundschau, Dec. 8, 1906, Nr. 574, RKzA, 945:145, BAP). 52 See the previous footnote. 53 District Court Lome, Nov. 26, 1903, Verdict in Government of Togo vs. Schmidt [Adjaro], RKA, 3919:16–33, BAP. District Court Lome, Dec. 5, 1903, Verdict in Government of Togo vs. Schmitz, RKA, 3918:46–54, BAP. 54 Stuebel to Hespers, Mar. 18, 1904, KA3538; Bücking to Stuebel, Apr. 8, 1904, RKA, 3918:39– 41, 138–39, BAP. Bücking to Stuebel, June 15, 1904, RKA, 3919:67, BAP. Am Zehnhoff to Arenberg, Mar. 9, 1904, Biographie 61, Papiers Arenberg (36/13), L’Affaire A. Schmidt, AAE. Thunderclouds From Africa 235

For a sitting Reichstag delegate to act as legal counsel in a colonial courtroom was unprecedented, and Am Zehnhoff’s readiness to entertain this step testifies to the importance attached by bourgeois Centrists to the satisfactory resolution of SVD grievances. Notwithstanding Rotberg’s dismissal and Graef’s transfer to East Africa, continuing strife in Togo generated ill will between the antagonists faster than efforts in Berlin could initiate a settlement of the feud.55 Retaliating for the mission’s August counteroffensive, District Official Schmidt filed slander charges against Müller in the Avete case, accused the priest of fomenting recent Dahomey and Ewe resistance, and sued Brother Probus Hövener for defamatory remarks as well.56 Meanwhile, Secretary Lang answered Father Witte’s suit with libel charges against both Witte and Schönig for choice statements in confiscated private correspondence.57 While the Togo Affair grew steadily more tangled, the Center Party’s staunch support of the SVD continued into early 1904. The prestige of the SVD in Togo had suffered grievously among Europeans and Africans alike through the prolonged incarceration of the missionaries. Therefore, Arenberg and Am Zehnhoff appeared at the Colonial Department in January in firm support of the mission’s demand that the Togo government publicly disavow Rotberg’s conduct in both Lome and Atakpame. Recognizing the Centrists’ success in averting domestic exposure of the scandal, the Colonial Department acknowledged the legitimacy of the SVD plea for rehabilitation. Privy Councillor Bernhard von

55 Hellwig to Rotberg, Aug. 27, 1903, Order; Colonial Department, [early Sep. 1903], Memorandum, RKA, 3915:203–7, 308, BAP. König to Stuebel, Oct. 8, 1904, Memorandum, RKA, 3919:119–24, BAP. 56 Bücking to Stuebel, Sep. 9, 1903; Bücking to Horn, Aug. 23, 1903; Müller to District Court Lome, Jan. 8, 1904, Motion of impugnment, RKA, 3916:82–93, 177–78, BAP. Müller to Government of Togo, Jan. 28, 1904; Müller, Feast of the Cross’s Discovery [early May] 1903, Proclamation; Bücking to Horn, Nov. 11, 1903; Schmidt to Tietz, Dec. 16, 1903, RKA, 3917:39– 40, 50, 73, 169, 181–83, BAP. Colonial Department, “Aufzeichnung A: Anklagen gegen den Stationsleiter Schmidt,” Mar. 8, 1904; Colonial Department, “Aufzeichnung B: Anklagen gegen die Mission,” Mar. 8, 1904, RKA, 3918:18, 23–24, 34–37, BAP. Bücking to Stuebel, June 15, 24, Oct. 14, 1904; Bücking to Stuebel, Sep. 4, 1904, including Enclosure 1; Stuebel to Bücking, Aug. 20, 1904, K9000; König, “Bericht über den Stand der Missionsangelegenheit Togo,” Nov. 8, 1904, RKA, 3919:54–57, 74–76, 79–85, 116 (4, Anlage 1), 138, 171–72, BAP. District Court Lome, Apr. 9, 1908, Verdict in Bücking/Müller vs. Schmidt, RKA, 3920:182–190, 193, BAP. Müller, “Allgemeine Klagen,” [May 1903], RKA, 3915:155–58, BAP. Schmidt, Schmidt contra Roeren, 41–42, 45–47, 53–54. K. Müller, Katholische Kirche in Togo, 165–66. 57 Lang to District Court Lome, Sep. 7, 1903, Regarding Witte vs. Lang, Accusations Lang vs. Witte, Lang vs. Schönig, RKA, 3917:19–22, BAP. 236 CHAPTER 9

König even agreed that Am Zehnhoff and the newly arrived Bücking should be directly involved in drafting the requisite dispatch. Unfortunately for future harmony, the Colonial Department also evidently expressed such disapproval of Schmidt’s and Lang’s persistent hostility toward the SVD that the mission’s prefect came away from the audience with the impression that a commitment had been made to transfer both men away from Togo.58 Thus, from late 1903 to early 1904 reverberations from Togolese resistance to German rule precipitated vigorous protest in Berlin from aristocratic, bourgeois, and populist Centrists alike. By March 1904, however, altered conditions in both Africa and Germany would prompt Arenberg and Am Zehnhoff to take a much more circumspect approach to the Togo Affair, leaving the field of further negotiations with the Colonial Department almost entirely in the hands of the outspoken Eifel- Hunsrück populist Judge Hermann Roeren.

The Anti-Jesuit Law and the Center’s “Tactic of Small Cuts,” 1903–1904

Meanwhile, over the same winter of 1903/04, the cordial atmosphere of government-Center colonial political cooperation prevailing since early 1901 had begun to dissipate. Exasperated by Bülow’s failure to deliver the long- deferred abrogation of Article 2 of the Anti-Jesuit Law the previous spring, the Center of late 1903 was both in the mood and still in a position to penalize the Colonial Department for the Reich’s unpaid domestic political obligations. Moreover, unlike in 1900 there was no outbreak of anti-Christian violence in China to distract the Center from taking a firm stand on the Jesuit question. Indeed, the dwindling of Catholic fears for missionary security in China converted the continuing costly German involvement in Zhili and Shandong from a matter of government-Center accord into a source of irritation in that relationship. Rather than fears of renewed anti-Christian violence, the focus of Centrist attention was now the continuous financial drain of the Occupation Brigade and Kiautschou upon the Reich’s already sorely depleted coffers. During the general debates at the first reading of the Reich budget in December 1903,

58 Stuebel to Government of Togo, Jan. 20, 1904, Order 49; Stuebel to Zech, Jan. 20, 1904, Order 48, RKA, 3916:156–59, BAP. Bücking to Stuebel, June 24, Sep. 4, 1904; König to Stuebel, Oct. 8, 1904, Memorandum; Bücking to Stuebel, Oct. 14, 1904; König, “Bericht über den Stand,” Nov. 8, 1904, RKA, 3919:73, 116 (5), 119–24, 139, 167–69, 172–73, BAP. Thunderclouds From Africa 237 the Franconian cleric Franz Schaedler pointed out that from 1895 to 1899 the federal deficit grew by about 215 million marks, but from 1900 to 1904 it expanded by over a billion. Of this billion-mark increase, roughly a third could be attributed to the costs of the East Asian Expedition and Kiautschou alone. Without making the usual qualification conceding the necessity of the China actions, Schaedler blamed Germany’s current financial misery in large measure upon those interventions.59 Accordingly, the Center led the way in committee in reducing the 1904 Occupation Brigade budget of 14.1 million marks by 1.3 million, a sum that constituted over ninety percent of the cuts in imperialist spending that year.60 Meanwhile, the end of the two-year peace in the German overseas empire and the revelation of glaring colonial budgetary transgressions were bringing colonial questions closer to center stage than they had been since 1901. This transpired initially without cost to the Center’s leverage over Berlin, however, as the difficult military situation in Southwest Africa had not yet come to dominate the colonial political scene in the first months of 1904. This momen- tary conjunction of circumstances encouraged the Center to penalize the Reich government via the colonial budget for its sluggishness in initiating the dismantlement of the Anti-Jesuit Law. Thus, when the Center learned in mid-January that the government of Baden had retreated from its recent commitment to abstain from voting in the Bundesrat against the repeal of Article 2, the party lashed out several times against the convenient target of the colonial budget.61 In the Reichstag plenum, for example, the Cologne lawyer Karl Bachem and the Trier priest-publicist Georg Dasbach jointly protested the huge cost overruns and extrabudgetary expenditures delineated in the synopses of the colonial budgets of 1900.62 A few days later, the Center led a unanimous Budget Committee in striking 35,000 marks from the Colonial Department’s “commission costs” which were actually designed to fund two colonial attachés in

59 Schaedler, Dec. 9, 1903, RTSB, 23C/D. 60 Bebel, Mar. 17, 1904, RTSB, 1889D. Bebel, Dec. 5, 1904, RTSB, 3358A. Paasche, Apr. 20, 1904, RTSB, 2272A. Oriola, Reporter, Apr. 21, 1904, RTSB, 2278A–2280C, 2283C–2284A, 2284C–2285B, 2286C/D, 2287B–2288B. Ballestrem, President, Apr. 21, 1904, RTSB, 2287A. Südekum, Apr. 20, 1904, RTSB, 2270A–2271A. Südekum, Apr. 21, 1904, RTSB, 2282A/B. Erzberger, Jan. 25, 1905, RTSB, 4053D. 61 Lerchenfeld to Podewils, Jan. 31, 1904, Report 65, ByGB, 1076, ByHSA. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 9:327–28. 62 Bachem, Jan. 12, 1904, RTSB, 205C–206C, 207B/C. Dasbach, Jan. 12, 1904, RTSB, 206C–207A. 238 CHAPTER 9

London and Paris without parliamentary sanction.63 Lastly, in his determination to inconvenience Berlin, the Swabian jurist Adolf Gröber openly broke with more amenable colleagues during the Budget Committee discussion of the East African telegraph line from Tabora to Ujiji. The latter settlement on Lake Tanganyika already had a British telegraphic connection to the entire world, so Gröber’s associates Spahn and Arenberg wished to propose a compromise rotating the line ninety degrees northward to connect Tabora with Muansa on Lake Victoria-Nyanza, a route also to the advantage of a Catholic mission station. Before his two colleagues could reach the floor, however, Gröber simply called the committee vote on the original budget item with the result that Ujiji’s second connection was rejected.64 Leaks from party members convinced the Bavarian envoy Hugo Graf von und zu Lerchenfeld-Köfering that the Center’s pursuit of this “tactic of small cuts” in the colonial budget was entirely attributable to the refusal of the Bundesrat majority to accommodate on the Anti-Jesuit Law.65 In support of Lerchenfeld’s interpretation, it should be noted that in late February, after Bülow had made significant progress toward securing repeal votes on the Bundesrat, Gröber reversed himself and endorsed Spahn’s Tabora-Muansa telegraph compromise as did the populists Müller-Fulda, Erzberger, and even Dasbach.66 Similarly, the Center declared its support for the restoration of half the Colonial Department’s unanimously deleted “commission costs” several weeks after the Jesuit expulsion clause fell on March 8.67 Finally, the Bundesrat concession also appears to have prompted Centrist bourgeois professionals at last to abandon their long opposition to the interest guarantee for the Dar-es- Salaam-Mrogoro Railroad in East Africa. Having refused to authorize the guarantee every year since 1901, Spahn, Bachem, and Hertling suddenly endorsed it in the spring of 1904, and the Catholic journal Hochland carried Spahn’s enthusiastic proclamation of the utility and economy of the proposed railway project.68 These abrupt reversals all strongly suggest that, prior to the repeal of

63 Lerchenfeld to Podewils, Jan. 31, 1904, Report 65, ByGB, 1076, ByHSA. König to Solf, Jan. 26, 1904, Nachlaß Solf, 25:9–10, BAK. Arenberg, Reporter, Apr. 19, 1904, RTSB, 2230A/D. 64 Spahn, Arendt, Singer, Gröber, Jan. 19, 1904, ProtBc, RTA, 1057:38, BAP. Spahn, Feb. 22, 1904, RTSB, 1180B/D, 1181B. Arendt, Feb. 22, 1904, RTSB, 1184A. Müller-Sagan, Feb. 22, 1904, RTSB, 1184A/B. 65 Lerchenfeld to Podewils, Jan. 31, 1904, Report 65, ByGB, 1076, ByHSA. 66 Antrag Spahn, Feb. 22, 1904, RDS 248, RTA, 1057:41, BAP. 67 Stuebel to Spahn, Apr. 9, 1904, Nachlaß Martin Spahn, 229, BAK. Spahn, Apr. 19, 1904, RTSB, 2230D–2231B. 68 Richter, June 15, 1904, RTSB, 3147D, 3148B/C, 3149C–3150A. Spahn, June 15, 1904, RTSB, 3161A–3163D. Bachem, Hertling, June 15, 1904, RTSB, Roll Call Vote, 3185–86. Schwarze- Lippstadt, Apr. 25, 1904, RTSB, 2390B–2394A. For the record of various Centrists on the Thunderclouds From Africa 239

Article 2, the Center was indeed hampering passage of a number of colonial budget items in order to precipitate the long-delayed dismantlement of the Anti-Jesuit Law.

Centrists between the Togo Affair and Anti-Jesuit Furor, 1904–1905

Although the extent of Centrist leverage in the Togo Affair through January 1904 recalls the earlier constellation in Kamerun, developments in Africa and Germany then swiftly undercut the party’s bargaining power. In the Togolese theater, after a courtroom confrontation between Governor Horn and District Official Schmidt in late November 1903 resulted in open charges against the former in Zedu’s death, the battle-weary governor entrusted the remaining Atakpame disputes to the recently arrived Acting District Judge Tietz and left the colony on furlough.69 Tietz, however, proved a worthy successor to Rotberg and Graef. Besides acquitting Schmidt of rape and convicting Father Schmitz of libel, Lome’s new judge poured oil on the flames through his distorted execution of a directive issued to Horn after the Center’s September intercession. Evidently incensed at Müller for impugning his impartiality in January, Tietz disclosed to Lang and Schmidt that the SVD had sought their recall in Berlin through the mediation of Prinz von Arenberg.70 This unauthorized revelation not only fueled the bitterness of the Togo officials, it also delivered a formidable journalistic weapon against the Center Party into anticlerical hands.

Mrogoro Railroad, see Stengel to Bavarian Finance Ministry, May 14, 1901, Report 66/I, MA 95395, ByHSA. “Parlamentarisches—Reichstag—Budgetcommission,” Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, May 14, 1901, Nr. 112; Report of the Budget Committee, Jan. 15, 1902, RDS 503, Königliche Württembergische Gesandtschaft Berlin (WüGB), E74, 78, C VII 3, HSAS. Bachem, May 2, 1902, ProtBc, RTA, 1056:38–40, BAP. Bachem, Feb. 1, 1903, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 183, HASK. Hertling, Mar. 21, 1903, RTSB, 8800B/C. Lerman, Chancellor as Courtier, 78. In his treatment of the party’s attitude toward the interest guarantee, Hans Pehl glosses over the years of delay and thereby completely misses Spahn’s conspicuous conversion from opposition to support (Pehl, “Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 61). 69 Horn to Foreign Office, Dec. 1, 1903, Telegram; Stuebel to Horn, Dec. 3, 1903, Telegram 18, RKA, 3916:124, 126, BAP. Stuebel to Schmidt, Feb. 22, 1905, K1880, RKA, 3920:21–22, BAP. “Der ‘Fall Horn,’” Berliner Tageblatt, Aug. 1, 1906, RKzA, 941:52–53, BAP. Sebald, Togo, 539– 40, 735n794, 735n797. 70 Müller to District Court Lome, Jan. 8, 1904, Motion of impugnment; Tietz to Colonial Department, Jan. 10, 1904, Report 41, RKA, 3916:176–82, 184–85, BAP. Zech to Colonial De- partment, Feb. 12, 1904, Report 129; Tietz to Lang, Schmidt, Regierungsbaumeister Schmidt, Gruner, Jan. 12, 1904, Journal Nr. 3558, RKA, 3917:2–7, 230–31, BAP. Hellwig to Horn, Sep. 10, 1903, Order 493, RKA, 3915:239–44, BAP. 240 CHAPTER 9

Meanwhile in Germany, the Center would soon find its leverage over the Colonial Department diminished by the public uproar over the revival of the supposed Jesuit threat. On March 8, 1904, two months after officials in Togo learned of the Center’s attempted personnel proscription, the German Bundesrat finally endorsed the Reichstag’s repeated demands for the repeal of Article 2 of the Anti-Jesuit Law. Although Berlin had managed for years to defer this crucial concession to the Center, its fulfillment still provoked enormous outrage among anticlerical liberals and zealous Protestants. Decrying the alleged might of ultramontanism in the Reich, these circles sought material with which to vilify the Center Party and the Roman Catholic faith.71 Developments in the Togolese and German arenas thus converged. In March the furloughed Schmidt brought his fellow anticlericals in Germany the tidings of Arenberg’s complicity in blacklisting officials at precisely the moment that Centrist influence was effecting the relaxation of restrictions against the hated Jesuits. Hence, after receiving quite threatening letters from Schmidt and Rotberg, Arenberg also soon found his conduct in the Togo Affair subject to public censure in the anticlerical press as yet another example of ultramontane rule in Berlin.72 Fearing that the furor over the Jesuits would shatter the Kaiser’s confidence in Bülow and the chancellor’s policy of accommodating the Center, the aristocratic and jurist party leaders abruptly abandoned their previously unwavering advocacy for the SVD.73 Instead, they began to pressure the mission to sacrifice some of its members for the greater good of Catholic interests in Germany.

71 Bachem to Franz Bachem, Apr. 18, 1904, Nachlaß Bachem, 218, HASK. Bülow, Denk würdigkeiten, 2:10–14. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 9:330–40. E.L. Evans, German Center, 137–38. Lerman, Chancellor as Courtier, 78–80. H.W. Smith, German Nationalism, 127–37. For background on the deep roots of anticlericalism in German liberalism, see Gross, War Against Catholicism. 72 Schmidt to Arenberg, Jan. 20, 1904; Rotberg to Arenberg, Mar. 21, 1904, Biographie 61, Papiers Arenberg (36/13), L’Affaire A. Schmidt, AAE. “Tagesfragen,” Deutsche Zeitung, Apr. 7, 1904, R1431, Deutschland 125, Bd. 6, PAAA. Stuebel to Hespers, Mar. 18, 1904, KA3538; “Im Fahrwasser der Arenberge,” Tägliche Rundschau, Apr. 9, 1904, Nr. 165, RKA, 3918:39–41, 119, BAP. Schmidt, Schmidt contra Roeren, 32, 66. 73 Bachem to Franz Bachem, Apr. 18, 1904, Nachlaß Bachem, 218, HASK. Kopp to Spahn, Apr. 12, 1904, Nachlaß Martin Spahn, 229, BAK. Hertling to [not cited], Apr. 25, 1904, cited in Karl Graf von Hertling, “Bülow, Hertling, Zentrum,” in Front wider Bülow, ed. Thimme, 139. Bülow, Denkwürdigkeiten, 2:11, 13, 97. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 9:339–40; 6:269–70. K. Müller, Katholische Kirche in Togo, 173–74. Lerman, Chancellor as Courtier, 82. For comment upon the anxiety which the heated anticlerical agitation generated in the Center leadership, see H.W. Smith, German Nationalism, 138. Thunderclouds From Africa 241

The onset of this shift to only qualified support of the Togo missionaries may be recognized in Am Zehnhoff’s retreat in early March from his plan to serve as Father Schmitz’s defense attorney in Kamerun. At the time of the repeal of Article 2 of the Anti-Jesuit Law, the Centrist lawyer opted for the less contentious role in West Africa of a Reichstag delegate visiting in the interest of informed colonial legislation. Furthermore, having been granted a look at Schmidt’s belligerent letter to Arenberg, Am Zehnhoff concurred with his colleague’s recommendation to postpone his journey until a politically less delicate moment.74 The retreat of the party leadership manifested itself most notably, however, in attempts to effect the SVD’s recall of Father Müller despite the Centrists’ own apparent belief in his innocence. Concluding from further friction between Judge Tietz and Father Müller that the latter was intransigent, the Colonial Department resolved in mid-March to seek the priest’s recall from Togo.75 Faced by that time with the mounting domestic uproar over the Jesuits, Arenberg, Am Zehnhoff, and their ecclesiastical associate Canon Karl Hespers of Cologne all proved quite receptive to the colonial administration’s demand. From March to May these men set about persuading Prefect Bücking to acquiesce in Müller’s recall.76 They repeatedly conceded the priest’s innocence, however, even as they pressed Bücking to sacrifice his subordinate “upon the altar of the fatherland.”77 The arguments of Arenberg and Hespers revolved around the precarious political situation of Spring 1904:

Great agitation rages over the repeal of Article 2 of the Jesuit Law. The chancellor is in danger and thereby his entire—at the moment rather favorable—policy towards the Catholics. Now if the Togo Affair as portrayed by opponents delivers new material to the Protestant League . . .,

74 See footnote 54. 75 Zech to Colonial Department, Feb. 12, 1904, Report 129; Müller to Government of Togo, Jan. 28, 1904, RKA, 3917:2–7, 37–53, BAP. Zech to Colonial Department, Feb. 12, 1904, Report 131; Stuebel to Hespers, Mar. 18, 1904, KA3538; Bücking to Stuebel, Apr. 8, 1904, RKA, 3918:3–4, 39–41, 138–39, BAP. Wilke, Nov. 5, 1906, Memorandum, RKA, 3920:173–74, BAP. 76 Stuebel to Hespers, Mar. 18, 1904, KA3538; Hespers to Stuebel, Mar. 21, 1904; Bücking to Stuebel, Apr. 8, 1904; König, May 14, 1904, Note, RKA, 3918:39–41, 99, 138–40, BAP. Bücking to Stuebel, Sep. 4, 1904; König, “Bericht über den Stand,” Nov. 8, 1904, RKA, 3919:116 (5–6), 168, BAP. Arenberg to Rotberg, Mar. 22, 1904, Biographie 61, Papiers Arenberg (36/13), L’Affaire A. Schmidt, AAE. K. Müller, Katholische Kirche in Togo, 173–74. 77 Hespers to Bücking, Mar. 26, 1904, Conversation, cited in Bücking to Kost, May 26, 1904, cited in K. Müller, Katholische Kirche in Togo, 173–74. Bücking to Stuebel, Sep. 4, 1904, RKA, 3919:116 (5–6), BAP. 242 CHAPTER 9

then anything is possible. Just as the Thirty Years War arose from several officials being ejected through a window, a vast conflagration could likewise arise from the removal of the [Togo] officials unless the mission also makes a sacrifice.78

Likewise, Am Zehnhoff pressed Bücking for Müller’s recall with reference to growing populist discontent in the Center over the escalating costs of the Herero Uprising: “You must acquiesce, for, with the disturbances . . . in Southwest Africa, it would only take such a Togo to make colonial politics simply impossible.”79 Nonetheless, whenever the subject of Müller’s recall was broached during these two months, Prefect Bücking staunchly defended the priest and refused to comply. With difficulty he persuaded Arenberg and Hespers in late March that Müller’s transfer to another mission station in Togo ought to suffice to placate the SVD’s foes. On April 8 Bücking then formally offered Stuebel the transfer of both Schmitz and Müller within the colony, the former to be effective immediately, the latter only as of early 1905 due to linguistic constraints.80 However, the same week that Bücking made this proposal, the story of Arenberg’s complicity in blacklisting government officials broke in the anticlerical press. On April 12 the unnerved prince secured the return of his September missive to Richthofen and informed König that he now considered Müller’s complete recall from Togo essential for a settlement. Taking the same view, Hespers and Am Zehnhoff coordinated with Arenberg in another round of attempts to induce Bücking to capitulate.81 Their efforts might have succeeded but for the dissenting opinion of Hermann Roeren regarding the gravity of the political situation. Nearly resigned to the inescapability of Müller’s recall, Bücking consulted in Cologne with the populist Center Reichstag deputy, who represented Saarburg in the western Hunsrück region of Prussia. Having a far less bleak view of the political climate and the Togo Affair’s potentially adverse repercussions for the

78 Bücking to Kost, May 26, 1904, cited in K. Müller, Katholische Kirche in Togo, 174. 79 Bücking to Stuebel, Sep. 4, 1904, RKA, 3919:116 (6), BAP. 80 Bücking to Stuebel, Apr. 8, 1904, RKA, 3918:138–39, BAP. Bücking to Kost, May 26, 1904, cited in K. Müller, Katholische Kirche in Togo, 173. 81 “Tagesfragen,” Deutsche Zeitung, Apr. 7, 1904, R1431, Deutschland 125, Bd. 6, PAAA. “Im Fahrwasser der Arenberge,” Tägliche Rundschau, Apr. 9, 1904, Nr. 165; Bücking to Stuebel, Apr. 8, 1904, RKA, 3918:119, 138–39, BAP. König, Apr. 12, [1904], Note, RKA, 3915:245, BAP. Arenberg to Richthofen, Sep. 6, 1903, Copy by König, Nachlaß König (90 Ko 5), 6:29–30, BAP. K. Müller, Katholische Kirche in Togo, 173–74. Thunderclouds From Africa 243

Center, Roeren was highly dissatisfied with his colleagues’ solution. Following his advice, Bücking made one final attempt with his transfer proposal when Am Zehnhoff summoned him to Berlin for another consultation with the Colonial Department.82 With Centrist attorney Am Zehnhoff now serving more as arbitrator than missionary advocate, Prefect Bücking and Privy Councillor König hammered out the terms of a new Togo settlement on May 18, 1904. Demanding Müller’s unconditional recall for allegedly relentless agitation, König warned Bücking that failure to comply would be met with the return of unnamed officials. Rather than concede, the prefect again proposed Schmitz’s immediate and Müller’s deferred transfer within Togo, a suggestion that König reluctantly entertained. However, as Am Zehnhoff would not support Bücking’s effort to retain Müller in Atakpame until April 1905, the prefect eventually accepted König’s December 1904 deadline.83 Meanwhile, Am Zehnhoff had also proposed a generous accord to Secretary Lang’s attorney, the left liberal Reichstag delegate Conrad Haußmann of the German People’s Party. Although certain that any court would acquit Bücking in the separate Palime auction affair and convict Lang for defaming Witte, Am Zehnhoff nonetheless induced the prefect to propose a mutual retraction of all insults and lawsuits pending between Lang and the SVD. Bücking was also persuaded to attempt to placate Schmidt in the Hövener case with the requested token contribution to a Lome hospital. In return for these SVD decla- rations secured through Centrist mediation, the Colonial Department agreed to urge the necessary retractions upon Lang and Schmidt.84 At about the same time, the colonial administration also informed Schmidt of his disciplinary transfer to Kamerun on account of his grave insubordination against Governor Horn in November 1903.85

82 König, May 14, 1904, Note, RKA, 3918:140, BAP. Bücking to Stuebel, Sep. 4, 1904; König, “Bericht über den Stand,” Nov. 8, 1904, RKA, 3919:116 (6), 168, BAP. K. Müller, Katholische Kirche in Togo, 174. 83 König, May 18, 1904, Note, RKA, 3918:141, BAP. Bücking to Stuebel, June 15, 1904; Bücking to Stuebel, Sep. 4, 1904 (including Enclosure 3); König to Stuebel, Oct. 8, 1904, Memorandum; König to Stuebel, “Gutachten,” Nov. 8, 1904, RKA, 3919:61, 63, 116 (5–6, 8, Anlage 3), 119–24, 158, BAP. K. Müller, Katholische Kirche in Togo, 174–75. 84 Zech to Colonial Department, Mar. 10, 1904, Report 194; König, May 14, 1904, Note; König, May 18, 1904, Note, RKA, 3918:101–2, 140–41, BAP. Bücking to Stuebel, June 15, Sep. 4, Oct. 14, 1904; König, “Bericht über den Stand,” Nov. 8, 1904, RKA, 3919:56–58, 116 (3–4), 138–39, 168–69, 171–73, BAP. 85 Infuriated by Horn’s contradiction of his courtroom testimony, Schmidt reportedly rushed at the governor, shouting the words: “The carcass gets a bullet in his hide!” Shortly thereaf- 244 CHAPTER 9

Despite extensive conservative Centrist assistance to the colonial administration since March, the May 1904 settlement of the Togo Affair failed miserably on all fronts. Bücking had not reckoned with the expiration of Müller’s temporal vow of obedience, and the priest now refused to accept removal from Atakpame and threatened to publicize the entire affair in the German Catholic press.86 Bücking had also consented to an accommodating arrangement with Lang on the assumption that the Colonial Department had already conceded that Lang would not return to Togo at the conclusion of his furlough. However, having already absolved Lang for his conduct as district attorney, the Colonial Department deemed his recantation vis-à-vis Witte sufficient compliance to warrant the transformation of a disciplinary transfer to Kamerun into a mere reassignment within Togo. This divergence of interpretations brought the out-of-court resolution of five lawsuits to an abrupt halt in September.87 Finally, even as the Hövener settlement collapsed, Schmidt also surprised both the Colonial Department and Catholic negotiators by pursuing defama- tion charges against Father Müller in the Avete case. While there was no reference at all to this pending countersuit in the May accord, Schmidt attached major conditions to its retraction.88 Hence, the Togo Affair threatened to drag

ter, Schmidt challenged Horn to a duel which the governor declined. Stuebel to Schmidt, Feb. 22, 1905, K1880, RKA, 3920:21–22, BAP. “Der ‘Fall Horn,’” Berliner Tageblatt, Aug. 1, 1906, RKzA, 941:52–53, BAP. Sebald, Togo, 539–40, 735n794, 735n797. Not surprisingly, Schmidt’s transfer to Kamerun was also unofficially a result of his differences with the SVD (König, [early August 1906], Note, Nachlaß König, 10:41–42, BAP). 86 Bücking to Stuebel, Sep. 4, 1904 (including Enclosure 3); Doering to Colonial Department, Oct. 21, 1904, Report; König to Stuebel, “Gutachten,” Nov. 8, 1904, RKA, 3919:116 (5–9, Anlage 3), 140–41, 158, BAP. 87 Lang to Colonial Department, June 10, 1904, Declaration; Stuebel to Bücking, June 15, Aug. 20, Oct. 7, 1904; Bücking to Stuebel, June 24, Sep. 4, Oct. 5, 14, 1904; Zech to Colonial Department, June 7, Oct. 15, 1904, Reports 440 and 745; König to Stuebel, Oct. 8, 1904, Memorandum; König, “Bericht über den Stand,” Nov. 8, 1904, RKA, 3919:41–42, 73, 79–86, 116 (5), 119–24, 129, 139, 150, 168–69, 171–73, BAP. Stuebel to Zech, Jan. 20, 1904, Order 48, RKA, 3916:158–59, BAP. Hellwig to Lang, May 28, 1904, KA4760, RKA, 3918:104–5, BAP. Colonial Department, [early Sep. 1903], Memorandum, RKA, 3915:308–9, BAP. 88 König, May 18, 1904, Note; Schmidt to König, May 24, 1904, RKA, 3918:141, 144–45, BAP. Schmidt to Colonial Department, May 30, 1904, Declaration; Bücking to Stuebel, June 15, 24, Sep. 4, Oct. 14, 1904; Stuebel to Bücking, Aug. 20, Oct. 7, 1904; Schmidt to Colonial Department, Aug. 25, Sep. 1, 1904, Reports; König, “Bericht über den Stand,” Nov. 8, 1904, RKA, 3919:34, 58–60, 74–76, 79–85, 100–9, 116 (4–5), 130–32, 138, 170–71, BAP. Tietz, Feb. 9, 1904, Ruling in Government of Togo vs. Schmidt [Avete], RKA, 3917:265–66, BAP. Schmidt to Colonial Department, Jan. 6, 1905, Report; Stuebel to Schmidt, Feb. 22, 1905, K1880, RKA, 3920:19–22, BAP. Schmidt, Schmidt contra Roeren, 66–67. Thunderclouds From Africa 245 on indefinitely despite the government’s successful cooptation of aristocratic and jurist Centrist arbitrators unnerved by the anticlerical uproar raging since March. Even as the May settlement crumbled, the Center leadership’s gradual withdrawal of support from the Togo mission proceeded with the decline in the party’s leverage over the Berlin government. Prinz von Arenberg completely terminated his involvement in the affair a few weeks after he was attacked in the anticlerical press. While Am Zehnhoff managed to remain abreast of the Togo discussions through early November, the navigation of the Canal Bill through the Prussian Landtag commanded far more of his attention. His involvement in this domestic project necessitated, for example, first another postponement of his prospective journey to West Africa and then its complete cancellation. Similarly, by a fateful miscalculation in a busy schedule, the governmental jurist Am Zehnhoff waived his prerogative to participate in the November revision of the Togo settlement and left the conduct of negotiations to the discretion of the bellicose populist Roeren.89 By the autumn of 1904 it was obvious that the failure of the May accord would require renegotiation of the entire Togo Affair. On the one hand, Bücking remained unable to prevail upon Father Müller to comply with his December transfer.90 On the other hand, the prefect insisted upon the reassignment of Lang to another colony.91 Moreover, having learned that Schmidt was to be stationed in Kamerun’s capital, Bücking also began pressing for the reversal of this particular appointment lest Schmidt’s proximity to the Superior Court translate into undue influence.92 Meanwhile, the Colonial Department had ruled Togo’s furloughed chief clerk Emanuel Wistuba mentally unfit for further tropical service. This Catholic official was simultaneously charged with having violated his oath of office through unauthorized revelations to the SVD missionaries during the momentous spring of 1903. These indiscretions included Wistuba’s decision to entrust the mission with public pursuit of the Rotberg- Nyamum homicide after internal channels had ignored his documentation

89 Bücking to Stuebel, June 15, 24, Sep. 4, Nov. 9, 1904; Bülow to Roeren, Sep. 25, 1904, KA13289; Stuebel to Colonial Department, Sep. 11, 1904, Note; Roeren to Stuebel, Oct. 27, 1904; Stuebel to Roeren, Nov. 19, 1904, Telegram; Stuebel to Am Zehnhoff, Bücking, Nov. 20, 1904, Telegram; Am Zehnhoff to Stuebel, Nov. 21, 1904, Telegram, RKA, 3919:67, 78, 114–15, 116 (4), 117, 145–46, 178–79, 186, 195–96, BAP. Wistuba to Poeplau, Oct. 14, 22, 1904, Nachlaß König, 7:95–96, BAP. 90 See footnote 86. 91 See footnote 87. 92 Bücking to Stuebel, Oct. 7, 14, 1904, RKA, 3919:133–34, 138–39, BAP. Schmidt, Schmidt contra Roeren, 54–55. 246 CHAPTER 9 of the eyewitness testimony of the Togolese translator Wilhelm Mensah.93 As Bücking and Wistuba thus required more energetic intercession than either Arenberg or Am Zehnhoff were willing to provide, they increasingly drew upon the unconditional support of the bold Eifel-Hunsrück populist Hermann Roeren. From the moment in September 1904 that Roeren assumed an active role in the Togo negotiations, the timbre of government-Center relations in the affair began to sour noticeably. Although Roeren had not even witnessed the January talks, the Colonial Department learned via Bücking that the Reichstag deputy had recently assured the prefect that Berlin had indeed definitively promised Lang’s disciplinary transfer at that time.94 Moreover, just a week after requesting of Bülow that the colonial administration reopen the Togo negotiations, Roeren sanctioned a foolishly threatening letter by the furloughed Wistuba intended for his superiors in the Colonial Department. Demanding exoneration and reinstatement, the clerk warned that he would otherwise resort to denouncing much more serious malefactors in the Togo administration whom the central authorities had hitherto failed to prosecute despite their notoriety. Prussian Superior Court Judge Roeren ought to have recognized this attempt at intimidation of the government as potentially punishable by disciplinary or even criminal proceedings. Here as elsewhere, however, his confessional zeal for the downtrodden Catholics of Togo overrode his legal judgment.95

93 Bücking to Stuebel, June 15, 1904; Bücking to Stuebel, Sep. 4, 1904, including Enclosures 4 and 5; König to Stuebel, Oct. 8, 1904, Memorandum; König to Stuebel, “Gutachten,” Nov. 8, 1904; König, Nov. 25, 1904, Memorandum, RKA, 3919:61, 116 (9–11, Anlagen 4/5), 119–24, 159, 197–98, BAP. Colonial Department to [Loebell], “Fall Wistuba,” [early February] 1906, Memorandum, RKzA, 945:22, 24, BAP. Schmitz to SVD Brethren, May 17, 1903, RKA, 3920:177–78, BAP. Bücking to Stuebel, Aug. 7, 1903; Graef to König, Colonial Department, Sep. 14, 1903, Report, RKA, 3915:251–61, 300–303, BAP. Tietz to Zech, Dec. 9, 1903; Zech to Colonial Department, Dec. 11, 1903, Report 719, RKA, 3916:145–47, BAP. König, Mar. 13, 1904, Note; Colonial Department, “Aufzeichnung B,” Mar. 8, 1904; Zech to Colonial Department, Feb. 26, 1904, Report 166; Tietz to Colonial Department, Apr. 21, 1904, Report, RKA, 3918:8, 37, 44–45, 132, BAP. Schmidt, Schmidt contra Roeren, 25. Regarding the case of Rotberg, Nyamum, and Mensah, see notes 34 and 44 above. 94 Bücking to Stuebel, Sep. 4, 1904, RKA, 3919:116 (5), BAP. 95 Roeren to [Bülow], Sep. 14, 1904; Bülow to Roeren, Sep. 25, 1904, KA13289; König to Stuebel, Oct. 8, 1904, Memorandum; Stuebel to Kamerun and Togo Governments, Oct. 7, 1904, Orders 962 and 569; König to Stuebel, “Gutachten,” Nov. 8, 1904; König, Nov. 25, 1904, Memorandum, RKA, 3919:111–12, 114–15, 119–24, 130, 159, 197–98, BAP. Colonial Department to [Loebell], “Fall Wistuba,” [early February] 1906, Memorandum, RKzA, 945:22–23, BAP. König to Colonial Department, Nov. 7, 1906; König to Bülow, Nov. 8, 1906, Nachlaß König, 7:26–28, BAP. Thunderclouds From Africa 247

Nor does Roeren appear to have perceived the folly of Wistuba’s decision to pool his documentary material in October with that of the equally disaffected Assistant Secretary Oskar Poeplau of the central colonial administration. Instead, Roeren encouraged Wistuba to apprise Am Zehnhoff and Hespers of this coordination while the Eifel-Hunsrück populist himself saw nothing wrong with alluding to the potency of Poeplau’s material to buttress his own negotiations with Berlin.96 Ironically, by thus allowing his protégé to commit gross indiscretions independent of the extraordinary conditions of Togo 1903, Roeren compromised his position before he even began negotiating on Wistuba’s behalf. As a result, the way was prepared from the very outset for his December 1906 confrontation with the Colonial Department. Another major blow to government-Center relations fell when Roeren and Bücking appeared at the Colonial Department in late November 1904 for the purpose of revising the failed May settlement of the Togo Affair. During three days of highly unpleasant negotiations, Roeren extracted from the colonial administration a total of eleven concessions to the SVD. Among these, he prevailed upon Director Stuebel and Privy Councillor König to waive the mission’s previously conceded obligation to transfer Müller away from Atakpame. He further elicited the declaration that no measures would be taken against Fathers Müller or Schmitz since there was no evidence of wrongdoing by the Catholic mission. Roeren also secured the issuance of orders blocking the Kamerun government from stationing Schmidt in either Buea or nearby Duala. At the same time, the colonial administration agreed to renew its attempts to persuade Schmidt to retract his lawsuits against Müller and Hövener. Most importantly, the Eifel-Hunsrück deputy effected Stuebel’s submission to the “Caudinian yoke” of Secretary Lang’s transfer to another colony.97 Further negotiations between Roeren and Stuebel also produced a secret codicil to this November revision conceding that Wistuba would not be disciplined for transgressions committed during his tenure in Togo.98

96 Rose to König, Aug. 17, 1906; Wistuba to Poeplau, Oct. 14, 22, 1904, Nachlaß König, 7:15– 16, 95–96, BAP. Rose to Loebell, Apr. 24, 1906; Roeren to Loebell, June 8, 1906; Loebell to Roeren, June 13, 1906, R2409, RKzA, 945:34–35, 42–43, 49, BAP. 97 König, Nov. 25, 1904, Memorandum; König, Stuebel, Roeren, Bücking, Nov. 23–25, 1904, Memorandum; König, Stuebel, Roeren, Bücking, Nov. 25, 1904, Memorandum, RKA, 3919:197–202, BAP. Schmidt, Schmidt contra Roeren, 54–55. 98 König, Nov. 25, 1904, Memorandum, RKA, 3919:197–98, BAP. Colonial Department to [Loebell], “Fall Wistuba,” [early February] 1906, Memorandum; Roeren to Loebell, June 8, 1906; Loebell to Roeren, June 9, 13, 1906, R2387 and R2409; Rose, Sep. 7, 1906, Note; Schnee, “Aufzeichnung betreffend den Bürovorstand Wistuba,” Sep. 20, 1906, Memorandum; Guenther to Loebell, Oct. 15, 1906, Secret memorandum; Guenther, Nov. 16, 1906, Secret 248 CHAPTER 9

Roeren’s sweeping success on behalf of the SVD and Wistuba must nonetheless be measured against the political consequences of his aggressive negotiating tactics. As he did not eschew execration and threats as bargaining tools, the gains the Centrist achieved for his clients translated into considerable damage to governmental goodwill for his party. For example, Roeren deeply offended the sensibilities of Stuebel and König when he proclaimed in reference to Judge Tietz’s death from typhoid fever: “God has pronounced sentence upon him.” When the privy councillor protested, the delegate from Saarburg simply accused König as personnel chief of having failed to discipline the “scoundrels” within the colonial bureaucracy. Then venturing an outright threat, Roeren and Bücking warned that publication of the Togo Affair would follow if the mission’s wishes were not met. Even when rectifying this impru- dence, the Eifel-Hunsrück populist explained in scarcely less ominous terms that continued SVD dissatisfaction would render it impossible to restrain his Centrist colleagues from launching parliamentary attacks upon the colonial administration.99 This unsophisticated level of populist negotiation reduced the party leadership’s previously cordial exercise of influence upon the government to its disagreeable least common denominator, the raw force of Centrist numbers in the Reichstag. The Centrist aristocrats and professionals saw their ability to secure colonial settlements dwindle with the upsurge in anticlerical sentiment over the repeal of Article 2 of the Anti-Jesuit Law. The numeric strength of the party in the Reichstag persisted, however, and party populists would give Berlin ample occasion to recall that unpleasant fact over the next two years. Indeed, one such painful reminder came as early as March 1905 when Roeren rose in the Reichstag to rebut a new foray of the anticlerical press in the Togo Affair. In January the Deutsche Zeitung and the Kölnische Zeitung had published a “Grievance Letter from Togo” portraying the SVD missionaries as ultramontane agitators thwarted by Schmidt’s splendidly exonerating acquittal and Schmitz’s well-deserved conviction.100 Indignant over this version of events, Roeren

memorandum; Dernburg to Bülow, Mar. 20, 1907, CB1155/24322; Loebell to Bülow, Mar. 22, 1907, Secret memorandum, RKzA, 945:23, 42–43, 45–46, 49, 65–66, 70, 94–95, 116, 237–38, 240, BAP. Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Loebell, Aug. 31, 1906, Report, KP14270, RKzA, 941:182, BAP. Rose to König, Aug. 17, 1906, Nachlaß König, 7:15–16, BAP. Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Hermann zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Dec. 5, 1906, Nachlaß Hermann zu Hohenlohe- Langenburg, 71, Hohenlohe-Zentralarchiv Neuenstein (HZAN). 99 König, Nov. 25, 1904, Memorandum; König, “Bericht über den Stand,” Nov. 8, 1904, RKA, 3919:197–98, 167, BAP. 100 Roeren, Mar. 18, 1905, RTSB, 5389D–5390D. “Mission und Kolonialpolitik: Ein Klagebrief aus Togo,” Deutsche Zeitung, Jan. 7, 1905, Nr. 6; “Unser angesehener Freund—Der Herr Roeren,” Deutsche Zeitung, Mar. 26, 1905, Nr. 73, RKA, 3920:13, 44, 88, BAP. Thunderclouds From Africa 249 made the very first reference in the Reichstag to the Togo Affair in a speech of March 18 that was probably as distressing to Colonial Director Stuebel as it was provocative to the anticlericals. Besides assuring the parliament in general terms that he possessed extensive documentation establishing the guilt of precisely those officials the letter lauded, the Eifel-Hunsrück populist reminded the Colonial Department that “the support of our colonial endeavors would cease in the broadest circles if it were to be assumed there that the standpoint taken toward the missions by the colonial bureaucracy is a hostile one.”101 This disagreeable new allusion to the potential termination of Centrist cooperation was accompanied by a fresh barb aimed at Privy Councillor König as personnel chief of the Colonial Department. In his Reichstag speech, Roeren attributed the department’s recent progress in personnel selection to Stuebel’s increased attention to this essential question which had previously been “completely entrusted to independent preparation by the individual divisional chiefs.”102 In his plaintive response to this disconcerting speech, Colonial Director Stuebel could only assure the Reichstag that the colonial administration indeed placed great value upon good relations with the missions and that it had always exercised caution in the selection of its officials.103 Thus, while the Center leadership acknowledged the new constraints upon its influence with Berlin, the pugnacious Eifel-Hunsrück populists preferred the tactic of flexing the party’s numerical muscle to remind the government of undiminished Catholic strength.

The East Asian and Southwest African Expeditions Compared

Ironically, just at the moment that the Bundesrat finally placated the Center on the Jesuit issue, the initial Herero military successes against the Germans in Southwest Africa began contributing to the unravelling of the uneasy government-Center partnership that Big Sword and Yihetuan violence in China had helped forge. At first glance this might seem puzzling given certain similarities in the Asian and African resistance movements and the German responses thereto. In both China and Southwest Africa popular uprisings erupted with extraordinary violence against unsuspecting European civilians, and both movements precipitated the dispatch of an enormous number

101 Roeren, Mar. 18, 1905, RTSB, 5390B/C. 102 Ibid., 5390C. Although on good terms with König, Governor Wilhelm Solf of Samoa privately expressed an opinion similar to Roeren’s regarding his colleague’s skills as a personnel director (Solf to Schultz, Nov. 27, 1905, Nachlaß Solf, 132:35–37, BAK). 103 Stuebel, Mar. 18, 1905, RTSB, 5391A/B. 250 CHAPTER 9 of German troops to extract a harsh retribution that included indiscriminate killing of civilians and prisoners.104 Indeed, this comparability of German vindictiveness in the two theaters may be partly ascribed to the identity of key personnel, for in 1904 the Kaiser appointed the former commander of the First East Asian Infantry Brigade, the controversial Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha, to lead what became a genocidal war against the Herero.105 A further similarity in the Asian and African expeditions may be found in the tremendous drain both inflicted upon the German treasury. Initially the Southwest African government believed it could subdue the Herero with a mere ten million marks, i.e., a small fraction of the 153 million once sought in the Third Supplementary Budget of 1900.106 However, the Herero successes at Okaharui and Oviumbo in April 1904 followed by the Nama Uprising in October led to a rapid acceleration of expenditures. By March 1905, fourteen months after the Herero opened hostilities, the Reichstag had authorized a total of 193 million marks and 13,400 men for the Southwest African uprisings in comparison with the 276 million and 18,700 men sanctioned for the East

104 On Southwest Africa, see Leutwein to Foreign Office, May 2, 1904, Telegram 112, RKA, 2114:114, BAP. Leutwein to Colonial Department, May 17, 1904, Report 395, RKA, 2115:63– 69, BAP. Hans Fritz, Aug. 25, 1904, Diary entry, Nachlaß Oberstarzt Fritz, 23:31, HSAS— Militärarchiv. Bebel, Mar. 17, 1904, RTSB, 1891D/1892A, 1901C/D. Bebel, Mar. 19, 1904, RTSB, 1967A/B. Bebel, Jan. 30, 1905, RTSB, 4104B/D. Ledebour, May 25, 1905, RTSB, 6159B/C. Großer Generalstab, Kämpfe der Schutztruppe, 1:44, 185–86, 199, 204–5, 208, 210, 214. Conrad Rust, Krieg und Frieden in Hereroland: Aufzeichnungen aus dem Kriegsjahre 1904 (Leipzig: L.A. Kittler, 1905), 174, 180, 244, 250, 315, 384. Kurd Schwabe, Der Krieg in Deutsch- Südwestafrika, 1904–1906 (Berlin: C.A. Weller, 1907), 298. Meine Kriegserlebnisse in Deutsch- Süd-West-Afrika: Von einem Offizier der Schutztruppe (Minden: Verlag Wilhelm Köhler, 1907), 57, 80, 83, 91, 114. Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:146–47, 153–65, 164n121, 169, 176, 184, 191, 206. Jon Bridgman, The Revolt of the Hereros (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 125. On China, refer to chapter 7. 105 Wilhelm II to Hohenlohe, Aug. 17, 1900, RKzA, 934:52, BAP. Berckheim to Marschall, May 17, 1904, Report 28; Berckheim to Badenese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nov. 26, 1904, Report 49, BdGB, Abt. 49/2037:55, 95–96, GLAK. Berckheim to Brauer, Jan. 15, 1905, Report 7, BdGB, Abt. 49/2038:13, GLAK. Bebel, Jan. 30, 1905, RTSB, 4104B/D. Ledebour, May 25, 1905, RTSB, 6159B/C. Lerchenfeld to Podewils, Aug. 6, 1905, Report 435, ByGB, 1077, ByHSA. Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:155–56, 158–59, 161, 163–65, 169, 184. 106 DB, Supplementary Colonial Budget (SupCB) 1903, Jan. 18, 1904, RDS 154; DB, Complementary Colonial Budget (ComCB) 1904, Jan. 18, 1904, RDS 156; DB, Second SupB 1903, Mar. 14, 1904, RDS 296; DB, Second Complementary Budget (ComB) 1904, Mar. 14, 1904, RDS 297; DB, Second SupCB 1903, Mar. 14, 1904, RDS 298; Second ComCB 1904, Mar. 14, 1904, RDS 299, RTA, 1095:240–45, 258–64, 266–73, BAP. DB, Third SupB 1900, Nov. 14, 1900, RDS 8, RKzA, 934:92–96, BAP. Thunderclouds From Africa 251

Asian Expedition by September 1901.107 Both expeditions also provided occasion for the Berlin government to display its brazen disregard for the Reichstag’s budgetary prerogatives. Much as in November 1900, the Bülow administration introduced a supplementary budget bill in December 1904 for 77 million marks of largely retroactive overseas military spending with the consequence that the Reichstag indignantly demanded and secured the chancellor’s request for an indemnity.108 Nonetheless, despite the similarities noted above, significant differences in the domestic and overseas circumstances of the East Asian and Southwest African Expeditions generated widely diverging results in government-Center relations. In domestic politics, exasperation with Chancellor Hohenlohe’s delinquency in dismantling the Anti-Jesuit Law had set the stage in 1900 for the Centrist decision to precipitate a crisis over his failure to seek immediate Reichstag approval of the East Asian Expedition to China. Hohenlohe’s ensuing resignation had then provided the Catholic party a degree of compensation for both of Berlin’s omissions. No such solution could be expected for the analogous parliamentary dilemma of late 1904, however. Here again, Chancellor Bülow had failed to confer with the Reichstag while troop totals in Southwest Africa quadrupled between March and November. The staunch- ness of Herero resistance to the German military thereby exposed to the Centrists the insincerity of Bülow’s solemn inaugural assurances of 1900 that during his tenure as chancellor the Reichstag would be summoned in the event of summer emergencies overseas.109 Nonetheless, however much this broken commitment might frustrate the party, the Center also did not wish to jeopardize the position of the statesman who had effected the repeal of Article 2 and

107 See in addition to the previous footnote: DB, Second SupB 1904, Nov. 29, 1904, RDS 507; “Denkschrift über den Verlauf des Aufstands in Deutsch-Südwestafrika,” Jan. 16, 1905, RDS 559, MA 95403, ByHSA. DB, Second SupCB 1904, Nov. 29, 1904, RDS 509, WüSM, E130a, 895:32, HSAS. Budget for the Expedition to Southwest Africa, 1905; Budget for Southwest Africa (BSWA) 1905, RTA, 1096:10–12, 27–31, BAP. DB, Third SupB 1904, Mar. 18, 1905, RDS 718; DB, Third SupCB 1904, Mar. 18, 1905, RDS 719; DB, ComB 1905, Mar. 18, 1905, RDS 720, RTA, 1097:71–84, BAP. DB, ComCB 1905, Mar. 18, 1905, RDS 721, RTA, 1073:247–48, 250–52, BAP. Leutwein, Elf Jahre, 505–19. Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:150–51. 108 DB, Second SupB 1904, Nov. 29, 1904, RDS 507, MA 95403, ByHSA. DB, Second SupCB 1904, Nov. 29, 1904, RDS 509, WüSM, E130a, 895:32, HSAS. Arenberg, Spahn, Erzberger, Bachem, Jan. 12, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1096:232–33, BAP. Stengel, Jan. 13, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1096:235, BAP. Stengel, Jan. 30, 1905, RTSB, 4094A/B. Arenberg, Reporter, Jan. 30, 1905, RTSB, 4094C–4096C. Spahn, Jan. 30, 1905, RTSB, 4111D. 109 DB, Second SupCB 1904, Nov. 29, 1904, RDS 509, WüSM, E130a, 895:32, HSAS. Bülow, Nov. 19, 1900, RTSB, 15A. Bülow, Nov. 20, 1900, RTSB, 62A. 252 CHAPTER 9 whose successor might well countenance a renewed Kulturkampf.110 The juxta- position of Bülow’s breach of faith and the party’s own deteriorating leverage since the repeal of Article 2 accordingly placed a strain upon government- Center relations after 1904. Besides the domestic political watershed manifest in the abrogation of Article 2, the dissimilarity of conditions in China and Southwest Africa also played an important role in the diametrically opposed effects of the two overseas conflicts upon government-Center relations. First, whereas the Yihetuan had directed much of their violent wrath against missionaries and Chinese Christians, many of the Herero and Nama leaders themselves professed the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth and therefore consistently spared those who had brought the Western doctrine to their land.111 For the Center, this difference removed the religious dimension that had so effectively reinforced the party’s solidarity with the government in the Chinese theater. Second, the Herero and Nama enjoyed far greater military success against the Germans than had the Yihetuan. By January 1905 the Africans had slain 325 Germans in battle as against the eight German soldiers who had fallen before the Chinese by December 1900.112 Compared with the swift transformation of the East Asian Expedition into garrison duty, the markedly higher casualty rates on Southwest African battlefields raised the political stakes for the government and thereby made compromise with the Center more difficult on bills pertaining to that colony. Most importantly, while prevailing international law had still recognized Qing sovereignty over the Yihetuan, the Herero and Nama were considered by Europeans to be German subjects on the basis of their previous ‘protection treaties’ with Berlin. Colonial settlers and administrators alike therefore believed that the Reich itself was responsible for compensating victims of

110 Arenberg, Spahn, Erzberger, Bachem, Jan. 12, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1096:232–33, BAP. Spahn, Jan. 30, 1905, RTSB, 4111D. Müller-Fulda to Bachem, Jan. 18, 27, 1905; Bachem to Müller- Fulda, Jan. 22, 1905; “Eine antiultramontane Bewegung?” KVZ, Jan. 19, 1905, Nr. 53; ibid., Feb. 16, 1905, Nr. 138; ibid., Mar. 6, 1905, Nr. 190, Nachlaß Bachem, 223, HASK. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:269–70. Lerman, Chancellor as Courtier, 82. 111 Leutwein to Foreign Office, May 2, 1904, Telegram 112, RKA, 2114:114, BAP. Leutwein to Colonial Department, May 17, 1904, Report 395, RKA, 2115:63–69, BAP. Bebel, Mar. 17, 1904, RTSB, 1892B/D. Bebel, Mar. 19, 1904, RTSB, 1968B–1969B. Stuebel, May 9, 1904, RTSB, 2789A. Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:144–45, 179–81. 112 “Denkschrift über den Verlauf des Aufstands in Deutsch-Südwestafrika,” Jan. 16, 1905, RDS 559, MA 95403, ByHSA. Goßler, Mar. 16, 1901, RTSB, 1915C. Thunderclouds From Africa 253

Herero and Nama requisitioning if by war’s end the confiscated property, primarily livestock, proved irrecoverable. Indeed, without recognizing any legal obligation, the Bülow government conceded the fairness of this argument in Spring 1904.113 Lieutenant General von Trotha, however, evidently did not attach much importance to the livestock factor when later that year he locked the whole Herero nation in the Omaheke desert for the duration of the dry season. While the ruthless general thereby succeeded in decimating the entire Herero population via dehydration, the cattle sought by the settlers perished en masse as well.114 The Reichstag thereupon faced the government’s expectation that it would authorize full financial restitution to Southwest Africa’s dispossessed ranchers of European extraction.115 While a similar logic had once inspired the Center to lobby the Foreign Office for Beijing’s compensation of ravaged mission stations, this time the reparations principle involved still heavier taxation of the party’s own constituents, rather than their confessional gratification at foreign expense.116 Already confronted with enormous war costs, the Center therefore resisted indulging the colonial settlers, and this stance introduced fresh friction into the uneasy coalition of party and government. In sum, the dissimilar international status of China and Southwest Africa as well as the difference in the religious orientation and military success of their populations played a significant role in determining the impact of the two conflicts on government- Center relations.

113 Memorandum, Apr. 18, 1904, RDS 14, MA 95403, ByHSA. “Die südwestafrikanische Entschädigungsfrage,” Flugblätter des Deutschen Kolonial-Bunds, Apr. 22, 1904; Rohrbach to Foreign Office, Apr. [25 or 26], 1904, Telegram; Leutwein to Foreign Office, Apr. 30, 1904, Telegram 111; Stuebel to Government of Southwest Africa, June 8, 1904, Order 722; Bülow to Mecklenburg, May 13, 1904, K6799/04, RKA, 2219:81, 118, 122, 146–49, 153–56, BAP. Bülow, June 2, 1904, Decree of the Imperial Chancellor, in DB, Second SupCB 1904, Nov. 29, 1904, RDS 509, WüSM, E130a, 895:32(22), HSAS. Bülow to Wilhelm II, June 16, 1904, Direct Report, KA8577/13716, RKA, 2220:34–37, BAP. 114 Tecklenburg to Foreign Office, Nov. 4, 1904, Telegram 221; Superior Judge Richter to Government of Southwest Africa, Oct. 27, 1904, RKA, 2221:54, 136–43, BAP. Großer Generalstab, Kämpfe der Schutztruppe, 1:199, 204–5, 208, 210, 214. Schwabe, Krieg in Deutsch-Südwestafrika, 298. Meine Kriegserlebnisse, 83. Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:156, 163–65. 115 DB, Second SupCB 1904, Nov. 29, 1904, RDS 509, WüSM, E130a, 895:32, HSAS. Bülow, Dec. 5, 1904, RTSB, 3376C/D. 116 Bachem to P. Schwager, SVD, Mar. 8, 1901, Nachlaß Bachem, 157, HASK. 254 CHAPTER 9

The Herero and Nama Uprisings and Centrist Colonial Ambivalence, 1904–1905

While echoes of distant Togolese initiatives undercut Centrist leverage and disrupted government-party relations in the halls of the Colonial Department, the Herero and Nama Uprisings in Southwest Africa had an analogous effect after March 1904 in the public forum of the Reichstag. The coincidence of these uprisings with the anticlerical backlash over the Jesuits placed the Center’s relations with the government and its own unity under significant strain. Anticipating the danger inherent in the Kaiser’s sympathies with the surge of anticlerical sentiment, the Center identified its interests with Bülow’s continuation in office and thus wished now to accommodate the chancellor wherever possible. Meanwhile, the initiation of hostilities by the Herero and Nama and their staunch resistance to the German military had two nearly contradictory effects upon government-party relations. On the one hand, the African conflicts compounded the impact of the anticlerical reaction to repeal of Article 2 by adding a strong national component to the confessional interest in cooperation with Berlin. Even as the total bill for the Southwest African Expedition skyrocketed to 197 million marks by March 1905, the Centrists realized that, as in 1900/01, attempts to bargain over wartime operational expenses risked jeopardizing their politically priceless credentials as patriots. Thus, the Herero and Nama precipitation of a German military emergency diminished the Center’s capacity to employ the most vital colonial bills as tools to elicit domestic concessions. On the other hand, the heavy burden laid by the African wars upon German Catholic taxpayers made it imperative that the Center exercise vigilance to minimize extraneous colonial expenditures elsewhere and to demand rectification of conditions likely to provoke additional uprisings. It also prompted Centrists, particularly the ascendant Swabian populist Matthias Erzberger, to campaign for an expanded role for the national legislature in colonial affairs. Consequently, the Herero and Nama initiatives produced a substantial increase in colonial political friction between the Center and Berlin by inducing the party to monitor the Colonial Department with greater strictness and by illuminating the gulf between Centrist parliamentary aspirations and the government’s chronic disregard even for existing Reichstag prerogatives. Hence, thanks to the conjunction of the Herero and Nama Uprisings with the domestic anticlerical backlash over the Jesuits, both the Center Party’s relations with the government and its own internal unity were burdened with the tension between the confessionally and patriotically inspired imperative to demonstrate amenability and the magnified obligation to practice frugality Thunderclouds From Africa 255 and vigilance in protecting parliamentary privilege. Fortunately for party unity, however, a relative consensus prevailed from the spring of 1904 to the summer of 1905 between the Center leadership and the moderate populists in the party regarding which government proposals were indispensable and which unacceptable. For example, despite the enormous expense and frequent inhumanity of the military campaigns in Southwest Africa, the Center’s populists as well as its jurist leaders treated issues of colonial troop reinforcements and army operations as patriotically sacrosanct. Thus, in March 1905 Matthias Erzberger proclaimed to the Reichstag the absolute necessity of authorizing yet another 62 million marks for the Southwest African war effort with the same unconditionality that Peter Spahn had exhibited in his endorsements of the previous 131 million.117 In the same speech, Erzberger further announced the Center’s unquestioning acceptance of Governor von Puttkamer’s request for two more companies of troops to suppress the emergent uprising in southern Kamerun: “[I]f the governor were to say that he has to have three companies to protect us from a general rebellion, then we would take the same position.”118 Finally, in May 1905 Erzberger even outdid his more conservative elders in defending Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha although the latter’s genocidal disposition had already come to the attention of the German public. Arguably a far greater criminal than the entire lot of colonial malefactors whom Erzberger would censure during the following parliamentary season, the general promulgated the following declaration on October 2, 1904, after he had cut off the Herero’s escape from the broad Omaheke desert:

I, the great general of the German soldiers, send this letter to the Herero people. Herero are no longer German subjects. . . . Every member of the Herero people must leave the country. If the people do not, I will force them to do so with the artillery. Within the German borders every Herero, with or without arms, with or without livestock, will be shot. I will accept no more women or children, [I will] drive them back to their people or open fire upon them.119

117 Erzberger, Mar. 31, 1905, RTSB, 5817A. Spahn, Jan. 19, 1904, RTSB, 364B/C. Spahn, Mar. 17, 1904, RTSB, 1888B/C. Spahn, Jan. 30, 1905, RTSB, 4113A/B. 118 Erzberger, Mar. 31, 1905, RTSB, 5817C. For similar utterances by Erzberger’s jurist mentor, see Gröber, Apr. 5, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1073:258, BAP. 119 Rust, Krieg und Frieden, 385. Vorwärts, Dec. 16, 1905, Nr. 294, cited in Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:158–59. 256 CHAPTER 9

Rather than allow at least Herero women and children to find water for themselves behind German lines, Trotha considered it “more correct that the nation as such should perish” in the desert.120 Likewise, responding to colonists’ demands for better local protection two months later, the general publicly declared that “the annihilation of all rebellious tribes” had to take precedence over settler security.121 By the time Bülow finally persuaded the Kaiser in late November to reverse the death sentence against capitulating Herero, thousands upon thousands had already succumbed in the waterless expanses of the Omaheke with the result that survivors constituted less than a quarter of the estimated prewar Herero population of seventy to eighty thousand.122 In this grim context, on April 22, 1905, Trotha proceeded to issue a comparably vindictive proclamation to the Nama.123 This decree prompted Social Democrat Georg Ledebour to attack the general in the Reichstag for having again threatened an African nation with extermination in total disregard of Bülow’s and Stuebel’s open opposition to such a policy. The leftist further castigated Trotha for offering up to five thousand marks as a reward to any Nama traitors willing to assassinate Hendrik Witbooi or one of their other captains.124 With Ledebour demanding Trotha’s immediate recall, the general found an unlikely champion in the person of the young Center populist from Württemberg, Matthias Erzberger. Seeking to demonstrate to the government the Catholics’ unswerving loyalty to the German military in wartime, Erzberger defended Trotha against Ledebour in two speeches that made up in zeal what they lacked in cogency. The Swabian attempted to justify Trotha’s extermination and assassination decree on the basis of “the cruelty and the barbarism” of the Nama who “at a distance even scornfully showed water [to our brave troops] after our soldiers had had to lie there for four or five days” without drink.125 This sole example

120 Trotha to Schlieffen, Oct. 4, 1904, RKA, 2089:5–6, BAP, cited in Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:164. 121 Bebel, Jan. 30, 1905, RTSB, 4104C. Bebel, Stuebel, Arendt, Ledebour, Müller-Sagan, Jan. 13, 1905, ProtBc, RKA, 1096:236–37, BAP. 122 Bülow to Wilhelm II, Nov. 24, 1904, RKA, 2089:8–11, BAP, cited in Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:167. Bülow, Denkwürdigkeiten, 2:21. Stuebel to Bülow, Oct. 26, 1904, KA15378/I, RKA, 2116:85–86, BAP. Großer Generalstab, Kämpfe der Schutztruppe, 1:199, 204–5, 208, 210, 214. Schwabe, Krieg in Deutsch-Südwestafrika, 298. Meine Kriegserlebnisse, 83. Bridgman, Revolt of the Hereros, 26. Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:156, 163–65, 213–14. 123 Ledebour, May 25, 1905, RTSB, 6159B. Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:184. 124 Ledebour, May 25, 1905, RTSB, 6159A/C, 6181A–6182A. Bülow, Dec. 5, 1904, RTSB, 3376A/B. Stuebel, Jan. 30, 1905, RTSB, 4109D. Stuebel, Jan. 13, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1096:237, BAP. 125 Erzberger, May 25, 1905, RTSB, 6177C. Thunderclouds From Africa 257 supposedly made it “understandable if one no longer practices the forbearance toward such people which is possible toward other civilized nations.”126 Erzberger further argued that extenuating circumstances and “the noblest of motives” might well have occasioned the general’s pledge to exterminate the impenitent Nama and to compensate aspiring assassins in their midst.127 Finally, citing the recent socialist accolades for the assassin of the Russian Grand Duke Sergius, the Centrist denied that Ledebour had the right to level accusations against Trotha for attempting to combat murderers with comparable means. Erzberger’s speeches were accordingly met with the lavish applause of the parties of the Right.128 The moderate populist’s championship of the controversial general along with his previous endorsements of millions for the suppression of African uprisings thereby had the desired effect of placing the patriotism of the entire Center Party above reproach, at least for the moment. On the other hand, while Erzberger demonstratively underscored Centrist support for colonial military campaigns, the party’s bourgeois professionals displayed nearly as much displeasure as moderate Catholic populists at a number of Berlin’s other colonial policies. First, having necessarily curbed its frustration over the incessant military spending on Southwest Africa, the entire Center Party vented much of its resulting discontent during the debates surrounding proposed financial assistance to settlers expropriated by the Herero and Nama. Still hoping in March 1904 to recover five million marks in seized cattle and other livestock from the Herero, the government initially requested Reichstag authorization of only two million in grants to cover the colonists’ other property losses. While accepting this initial sum, the Center nonetheless objected to Berlin’s designation of these funds as reparations and to its failure to incorporate loans as well as grants into the budget title.129 By January 1905,

126 Ibid. 127 Ibid., 6177C, 6182B. 128 Ibid., 6177C/D, 6182B/D. That summer Trotha wrote Erzberger a letter of thanks for this warm defense which the general contrasted favorably with the Colonial Department’s failure to counter the leftist attacks (Erzberger, Dec. 2, 1905, RTSB, 80C/D, 107B, 111C/D). 129 “Denkschrift betreffend Verwendung des in der zweiten Ergänzung zum Haushaltsetat der Schutzgebiete auf das Rechnungsjahr 1904 unter Kapitel 1 Titel 14 der Ausgaben für das südwestafrikanische Schutzgebiet bereitgestellten Fonds von 2 Millionen Mark,” [March/April 1904], WüSM, E130a, 895:19(3), HSAS. DB, Second ComCB 1904, Mar. 14, 1904, RDS 299; Gröber, Apr. 13, 1904, ProtBc; Gröber, Müller-Fulda, Spahn, Apr. 19, 1904, ProtBc, RTA, 1095:272–73, 320, 324–25, BAP. Spahn, Mar. 17, 1904, RTSB, 1888C/D. Gröber, Apr. 22, 1904, RTSB, 2344A–2345D. Gröber, May 9, 1904, RTSB, 2809C–2810C. 258 CHAPTER 9 most of the precious livestock had perished with the Herero in the Omaheke, and the Nama had inflicted another six million marks worth of property losses upon the Germans in the south. The government’s ensuing request for an additional five million marks for victims of the Herero alone then came head to head with the Center’s determination not to grant more than another three million in emergency aid to the affected settlers of the entire colony.130 At both these junctures, the Center’s bourgeois leaders so distinguished themselves in protest on the reparations issue that their populist colleagues had little to add. Admittedly, Müller-Fulda, Erzberger, and Dasbach were more prone to justify their opposition with reference to the settlers’ role in provoking the Herero Uprising, but even Spahn regularly cited European abuses as likely causes of the revolt.131 Otherwise, from the outset the jurists’ sharp rhetoric closely matched the tone Erzberger chose when he first engaged the reparations issue in early 1905. For example, noting in April 1904 that the Reich had not compensated German property owners after earlier East African uprisings, Gröber and Spahn exposed the illegitimacy of the Southwest African colonists’ naive equation of Berlin’s military protection with a guarantee for a secure livelihood.132

130 Tecklenburg to Foreign Office, Nov. 4, 1904, Telegram 221; Superior Judge Richter to Government of Southwest Africa, Oct. 27, 1904, RKA, 2221:54, 136–43, BAP. Großer Generalstab, Kämpfe der Schutztruppe, 1:204–5. DB, Second SupCB 1904, Nov. 29, 1904, RDS 509, WüSM, E130a, 895:32(12, 21–28), HSAS. Arenberg, Stuebel, Erzberger, Spahn, Jan. 19, 1905, ProtBc; Bachem, Spahn, Erzberger, Jan. 20, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1096:257–60, BAP. Arenberg, Reporter, Jan. 31, 1905, RTSB, 4143D–4145A. Stuebel, Jan. 31, 1905, RTSB, 4145A–4146B. Erzberger, Jan. 31, 1905, RTSB, 4146B–4148D. Spahn, Jan. 31, 1905, RTSB, 4159C–4160B. Leutwein, Elf Jahre, 424–27. 131 Müller-Fulda, Apr. 19, 1904, ProtBc, RTA, 1095:324, BAP. Dasbach, Apr. 25, 1904, RTSB, 2402B. Anonymous Reichstag delegate [Erzberger], [early January 1905], in “Rücksicht auf den Reichstag?” KVZ, Jan. 9, 1905, Nr. 23. Originally mistaking this article for Müller-Fulda’s work, Bachem learned the author’s true identity (Bachem to Müller-Fulda, Jan. 11, 1905; Müller-Fulda to Bachem, Jan. 12, 1905, Nachlaß Bachem, 223, HASK). Erzberger, Jan. 17, 1905, ProtBc; Erzberger, Jan. 19, 1905, ProtBc; Erzberger, Arendt, Jan. 20, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1096:246, 257, 259–60, BAP. Erzberger, Jan. 31, 1905, RTSB, 4148A/C. Spahn, Jan. 19, 1904, RTSB, 364D–365A. Spahn, Mar. 17, 1904, RTSB, 1889A. Spahn, Dec. 5, 1904, RTSB, 3348B. Spahn, Dec. 9, 1904, RTSB, 3449C/D. Spahn, Jan. 30, 1905, RTSB, 4111D–4112C. Spahn, Jan. 31, 1905, RTSB, 4160A. Spahn, Jan. 19, 1905, ProtBc; Spahn, Stuebel, Ledebour, Jan. 20, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1096:258–60, BAP. Schwarze-Lippstadt, Apr. 25, 1904, RTSB, 2390B/C. 132 Spahn, Mar. 17, 1904, RTSB, 1888D. Gröber, Apr. 19, 1904, ProtBc, RTA, 1095:325, BAP. Gröber, Apr. 22, 1904, RTSB, 2348A/B. Erzberger likewise cited the inconsistency of Berlin’s seeking millions in reparations for Southwest African settlers while failing to advocate compensation in New Pomerania where the Baining had recently inflicted over 100,000 marks Thunderclouds From Africa 259

At the same time, Gröber attacked the government for proposing to collect millions in indirect taxes from its least affluent citizens simply to restore settlers to prosperity.133 He and Bachem further reproached Berlin by contrast- ing the Reich’s response to the Southwest African crisis with the Prussian government’s handling of the devastating floods of 1903 in Catholic Silesia. The Prussian failure to protect its citizens from dam deterioration was no less grave than the Reich’s alleged neglect in the colony, yet the Silesians had not received even partial recompense.134 Accordingly, in early 1905 Bachem and Spahn were as ready as Erzberger to cut Berlin’s latest settler reparations bill by two million and to insist that relief for victims of the Nama be drawn from these same limited funds. Indeed, Spahn expressly warned the government against making any more such requests for the duration of the war.135 Similarly, although distancing themselves from populist scrutiny of Berlin’s colonial-military supply contracts, Center jurists and aristocrats regularly objected to the past failures and ongoing risks involved in granting corporations broad concessions to accelerate overseas development. Thus, the party leadership did not support the challenges of Müller-Fulda and Erzberger to a colonial-military pharmaceutical monopoly nor those to the dubious labor practices of the Tippelskirch Company, which enjoyed largely exclusive supply rights to the troops in Southwest Africa.136 On the other hand, the experience in that colony of costly indigenous revolts and rampant land speculation disposed the party’s jurists and aristocrats to endorse the populist call for a thorough

worth of damage upon the Sacred Heart Mission (Erzberger, Jan. 31, 1905, RTSB, 4147A). Supporting his colleague’s reasoning, Spahn then repeatedly attempted without success to secure the application of Berlin’s new reparations policy to the Baining Uprising (Spahn to Stuebel, July 4, 1905; Hellwig to Spahn, July 16, 1905, KA10041, RKA, 3140:79, 77, BAP). 133 Gröber, Apr. 22, 1904, RTSB, 2344C/D. Gröber, Müller-Fulda, Apr. 13, 1904, ProtBc, RTA, 1095:324–25, BAP. 134 Gröber, Apr. 22, 1904, RTSB, 2345A/B. Bachem, Jan. 20, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1096:259, BAP. Arenberg, Reporter, Jan. 31, 1905, RTSB, 4144B/C. Cf. Erzberger, Jan. 31, 1905, RTSB, 4147C/D. Lerman, Chancellor as Courtier, 111. 135 Arenberg, Stuebel, Erzberger, Spahn, Jan. 19, 1905, ProtBc; Spahn, Bachem, Erzberger, Jan. 20, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1096:257–60, BAP. Arenberg, Reporter, Jan. 31, 1905, RTSB, 4144A/ C. Erzberger, Jan. 31, 1905, RTSB, 4146B/D, 4147D–4148D. Spahn, Jan. 31, 1905, RTSB, 4159C– 4160B. 136 Müller-Fulda, Mar. 18, 1904, ProtBc; Müller-Fulda, Apr. 13, 1904, ProtBc, RTA, 1095:288, 319, BAP. “Denkschrift betreffend den Vertrag mit der Oranien-Apotheke,” Feb. 2, 1906, KDS 20, RKzA, 944:45, BAP. Erzberger, Jan. 13, 1905, ProtBc; Erzberger, Stuebel, Spahn, Arenberg, Jan. 17, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1096:236, 244–46, BAP. 260 CHAPTER 9 re-examination of previous and pending colonial concessions in German Africa as a whole. In the spring of 1904 the outspoken priest Georg Dasbach and Social Democrat Georg Ledebour cited reports that speculators representing what became the Deutsche Togo Gesellschaft had swindled Ewe chieftains out of 450 square kilometers of valuable land around Mount Agu. Drawing ominous parallels between the plight of the dispossessed Ewe and that of the defiant Herero, Center populists Richard Müller-Fulda and Karl Speck persuaded party leader Peter Spahn to co-sponsor their successful resolution demanding protection for the living standards of indigenous populations and notification of the Reichstag of all major land sales in the colonies.137 Likewise, in 1905 frustration with land speculation and fear of further revolts prompted even such colonial enthusiasts as Franz Prinz von Arenberg and Judge Wilhelm Schwarze-Lippstadt to second Erzberger’s support for the demands of the populist Economic Union for a parliamentary investigation of the land and mining concessions in Southwest Africa and Kamerun. Indeed, just as Müller-Fulda had raised the specter of a Togolese uprising in May 1904, Schwarze-Lippstadt warned the following year that allowing German plantation companies to limit the Kamerunese to minute farms could well cost the Reich millions in military expenses after the Southwest African model.138 Finally, as the full financial and political consequences of Herero and Nama defiance began to reach Berlin, both the Center Party leaders and the moderate populists around Matthias Erzberger considered it necessary to challenge governmental disregard of parliamentary prerogatives. In the first three months of 1904 the Reichstag had not hesitated to increase troop levels in Southwest Africa from 800 to 2,400 to suppress the Herero Uprising, but the government continued to dispatch hundreds upon hundreds of soldiers

137 Dasbach, Apr. 25, 1904, RTSB, 2408C–2409A. Ledebour, Apr. 25, 1904, RTSB, 2411C/D. Ledebour, June 14, 1904, RTSB, 3128D–3131D, 3138C. Ledebour, Mar. 18, 1905, RTSB, 5391D–5392D. Müller-Fulda, May 6, 1904, ProtBc; Resolution Müller-Fulda, May 11, 1904, KDS 35; Müller-Fulda, Speck, Ledebour, Südekum, Stuebel, May 10, 1904, ProtBc; Speck, Vote on Resolution Müller-Fulda, May 11, 1904, ProtBc, RTA, 1086:178, 181–83, 185, BAP. Stuebel, Feb. 9, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1058:9, BAP. A. Ahadji, Les plantations allemandes du Mont Agou (1884–1914) (Lome: Université du Benin, Institut national des sciences de l’éducation, 1983), 26–43. Sebald, Togo, 363–71. 138 Schwarze-Lippstadt, Apr. 25, 1904, RTSB, 2390C/D. Schwarze-Lippstadt, May 25, 1905, RTSB, 6156A/C. Lattmann, Jan. 18, 1905, ProtBc; Lattmann, Erzberger, Jan. 24, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1096:248, 262–63, BAP. Arenberg, Vote on Motion Lattmann, Feb. 7, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1097:1–2, BAP. Arenberg, Reporter, Mar. 18, 1905, RTSB, 5393C/5394A. Lattmann, Mar. 18, 1905, RTSB, 5394A–5398A. Erzberger, Mar. 18, 1905, RTSB, 5398B/C. Thunderclouds From Africa 261 beyond that limit even before the parliament dispersed for the summer.139 Well-founded misgivings regarding a potential recurrence of the 1900 breach of the parliament’s budgetary rights evidently prompted the Center to insist that the Reichstag be merely prorogued, rather than adjourned that June. Leading the negotiations for the Catholic party, Prinz von Arenberg made clear to Bülow that the chancellor would have to consent to proroguing the parliament if he wished to find sufficient Centrist support for the two pending colonial railroad bills—namely, the loan of 7.8 million marks to the Togo government for the Lome-Palime Railroad and the interest guarantee for the long-deferred Dar-es-Salaam-Mrogoro Railroad in East Africa.140 Although agreeing to the letter of this bargain, Bülow soon violated its spirit, for the prorogued Reichstag proved as vulnerable to Berlin’s disregard as it had while completely adjourned in 1900. Millions of marks were simply poured into Lieutenant General von Trotha’s campaigns so that by late November the funds to equip 7,200 of the 9,600 men in Southwest Africa had yet to be authorized by parliament. At the same time, the government had been using military pretexts to conclude various construction contracts without stipulating their contingency upon Reichstag approval of the necessary funds. Not until December 1904 did the Bülow government confront the Reichstag with a largely retroactive supplementary colonial budget bill for 77 million marks.141 In response, on January 12, 1905, the entire Center delegation joined with deputies of all other parties to halt the Budget Committee proceedings until the chancellor sought a parliamentary indemnity the following day as an exemption for the Reich’s transgressions.142

139 Spahn, Jan. 19, 1904, RTSB, 364B/C. Spahn, Mar. 17, 1904, RTSB, 1888B/C. DB, SupCB 1903, Jan. 18, 1904, RDS 154; DB, ComCB 1904, Jan. 18, 1904, RDS 156; DB, Second SupB 1903, Mar. 14, 1904, RDS 296; DB, Second ComB 1904, Mar. 14, 1904, RDS 297; DB, Second SupCB 1903, Mar. 14, 1904, RDS 298; DB, Second ComCB 1904, Mar. 14, 1904, RDS 299; Discussion of the Second SupCB 1903, Mar. 18, 1904, ProtBc, RTA, 1095:240–45, 258–64, 266–73, 288, BAP. DB, Second SupCB 1904, Nov. 29, 1904, RDS 509, WüSM, E130a, 895:32(5–7), HSAS. 140 Lerchenfeld to Podewils, June 10, 1904, Report 315, ByGB, 1076, ByHSA. Report of the Budget Committee, June 9, 1904, RDS 457, WüGB, E74, 77, C VII 2, HSAS. Report of the Budget Committee, June 9, 1904, RDS 458, WüGB, E74, 78, C VII 3, HSAS. 141 DB, Second SupCB 1904, Nov. 29, 1904, RDS 509, WüSM, E130a, 895:32, HSAS. DB, Second SupB 1904, Nov. 29, 1904, RDS 507, MA 95403, ByHSA. Berckheim to Marschall, Mar. 13, 1905, Report 24, BdGB, Abt. 49/2038:44–45, GLAK. 142 Spahn, Dec. 5, 1904, RTSB, 3345C/D. Arenberg, Spahn, Erzberger, Bachem, Stuebel, Stengel, et al., Jan. 12, 1905, ProtBc; Stengel, Jan. 13, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1096:232–33, 235, BAP. Bundesrat Protocol, Jan. 12, 1905; Lerchenfeld to Bavarian Foreign Ministry, Jan. 12, 262 CHAPTER 9

Thereafter, although still disinclined to question the number and dispensation of troops, Catholic aristocrats, jurists, and populists remained determined to consider even retroactive cuts in inadequately justified construction projects. For example, in January 1905 the aristocrat Arenberg emphasized the inadmissibility of unauthorized government expenditures for permanent projects and concurred with Erzberger’s assessment that the first two installments for the purchase and operation of dredgers in Swakopmund harbor could safely be trimmed by 500,000 marks.143 Furthermore, Centrists of every persuasion emphatically protested the Colonial Department’s unilateral decision of July 1904 to commit 200,000 marks to the Koppel Company for preliminary work on a Southwest African railroad from Windhoek to Rehoboth, a long-term project heading south away from the Herero theater. Denying Berlin indemnity for this item, party elders Bachem, Spahn, and Arenberg as well as the youthful Erzberger argued that a railroad with a construction timetable of five years had no place in the emergency colonial war budget of 1904. When Colonial Director Stuebel nonetheless ventured a military justification of the line, he only fueled Spahn’s indignation because the purported anticipation in July of the October uprising of the Nama rendered the failure to summon the Reichstag that summer even less excusable.144 To avoid a conflict of principle with parliament, Bülow was obliged to withdraw the item entirely and to pledge the introduction of a separate, well-justified bill for the Windhoek-Rehoboth line.145

1905, Report 12, MA 95403, ByHSA. Varnbüler to Württemberg Ministry of State, Jan. 12, 1905, Report 54, WüSM, E130a, 895:33, HSAS. 143 DB, Second SupCB 1904, Nov. 29, 1904, RDS 509, WüSM, E130a, 895:32(14–15), HSAS. BSWA 1905; Arenberg, Jan. 12, 1905, ProtBc; Arenberg, Erzberger, Pichler, Thünefeld, Jan. 24, 1905, ProtBc; Arenberg, Jan. 25, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1096:30, 232, 262–63, 266, BAP. 144 Arenberg, Erzberger, Bachem, Jan. 12, 1905, ProtBc; Arenberg, Erzberger, Bachem, Stuebel, Spahn, Jan. 18, 1905, ProtBc; Spahn, Bachem, Arenberg, Jan. 19, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1096:232–33, 249–50, 256–57, BAP. Anonymous Reichstag delegate [Erzberger, cf. footnote 131], [early January 1905], in “Rücksicht auf den Reichstag?” KVZ, Jan. 9, 1905, Nr. 23. Lerchenfeld to Bavarian Foreign Ministry, Jan. 29, 1905, Report 58, MA 95403, ByHSA. DB, Second SupCB 1904, Nov. 29, 1904, RDS 509, WüSM, E130a, 895:32(12, 19–21), HSAS. 145 Stengel and Stuebel to Bülow, Jan. 18, 1905, Memorandum; Loebell to Bülow, Jan. 18, 1905, Secret Memorandum, R276, RKzA, 926:46–49, BAP. Stengel, Jan. 19, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1096:256, BAP. Stengel, Jan. 30, 1905, RTSB, 4094B. Imperial Treasury to Lerchenfeld, Jan. 28, 1905; Lerchenfeld to Bavarian Foreign Ministry, Jan. 29, 30, 1905, Reports 58 and 60, MA 95403, ByHSA. Varnbüler to Württemberg Ministry of State, Jan. 30, 1905, Report 184, WüSM, E130a, 896:25, HSAS. Thunderclouds From Africa 263

A third debate over wartime construction in Southwest Africa orbited around the Colonial Department’s unsanctioned railroad acceleration contract with the Otavi Minen- und Eisenbahngesellschaft. Originally propounded as a means to exploit copper discovered 570 kilometers northeast of Swakopmund, the private Otavi Railroad had only attained a tenth of its projected length by the time of the Herero Uprising. In July 1904 Trotha had then declared that the integrity of his supply line absolutely required that the existing segment be extended 164 kilometers to Omaruru by November 1. Since the general’s debatable proposal to employ additional railroad troops would have cost four million marks, the Colonial Department had opted to conclude a contract with the Otavi Gesellschaft, whereby the latter agreed to reach Omaruru by December 31 for an acceleration subsidy of 1.75 million marks. However, by the time the Budget Committee was discussing the agreement in January 1905, the northern war was already winding down while the Otavi line still lay eighty kilometers short of Omaruru, thanks partly to circumstances beyond the corporation’s control.146 The complexities of the Otavi case in Southwest Africa rendered the Centrist response to the circumvention of the Reichstag highly ambivalent, yet the positions of the party’s jurists and moderate populists nonetheless remained remarkably close throughout the debate. Initially, both Bachem and Erzberger questioned the purported military necessity of the acceleration of the railroad and aired suspicions that the Otavi Gesellschaft might have prof- ited directly at Reich expense. Bachem and Spahn accordingly insisted upon seeing copies of Trotha’s demands and the ensuing Otavi contract before committee discussions of the budget item could continue. Somewhat molli- fied by the presentation of that documentation, the Center still united behind Bachem’s motion calling upon the Otavi Gesellschaft to subsequently demonstrate the exclusive utilization of the Reich subsidy toward the costs of railroad acceleration. As Spahn insisted, the current indemnity would not cover any misapplied funds, all of which the corporation would have to return to the imperial treasury.147

146 Trotha to Bülow, July 18, 1904, Telegram; Otavi Minen- und Eisenbahngesellschaft to Stuebel, Aug. 4, 1904, both printed in: Bülow to Reichstag, Jan. 18, 1905, RDS 565, MA 95403, ByHSA. Stuebel, Jan. 18, 1905, ProtBc; Stuebel, Jan. 24, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1096:248, 264, BAP. Stuebel, Jan. 31, 1905, RTSB, 4134C/D. Arenberg, Reporter, Jan. 31, 1905, RTSB, 4132B/C. Müller-Sagan, Jan. 31, 1905, RTSB, 4140B–4141A. Second SupCB 1904, Nov. 29, 1904, RDS 509, WüSM, E130a, 895:32(12–13), HSAS. 147 Anonymous Reichstag delegate [Erzberger, cf. footnote 131], [early January 1905], in “Rücksicht auf den Reichstag?” KVZ, Jan. 9, 1905, Nr. 23. Bachem, Spahn, Jan. 18, 1905, 264 CHAPTER 9

On the other hand, Erzberger as well as Spahn acknowledged that the Colonial Department’s enlistment of the Otavi Gesellschaft had been preferable to Trotha’s more costly proposal. Indeed, at this point Erzberger defended the colonial administration from the right-wing criticisms of Otto Arendt and pleaded for the latter’s forbearance in evaluating contracts concluded under extenuating colonial-military circumstances.148 Thus, as in the preceding cases, the protracted Herero and Nama resistance in Southwest Africa continued to generate German parliamentary jurisdictional disputes in which the Center jurists and aristocrats challenged the Bülow administration with a vigor wholly compatible with that of their evidently moderate populist colleague Erzberger. Faced with costly overseas revolts and a government indifferent to parliamentary prerogatives, the Center aspired to defend the Reichstag’s jurisdiction in colonial affairs by tightening its oversight over the German colonial administration. At the same time, however, the military crisis in Southwest Africa and the anti-Jesuit furor at home increased the party’s reluctance to challenge Berlin in the same delicate area. As a result of these contradictory considerations, a pronounced Centrist ambivalence in colonial questions emerged in the 1904/05 parliamentary season, yet the potential threat to the party’s unity was eased by the high degree of internal coordination that the Center displayed in colonial issues, including those quite unrelated to Southwest Africa. On the one hand, in 1904/05 the party’s jurists and moderate populists jointly criticized a wide variety of colonial projects. For example, in the general debates of December 1904, jurist Peter Spahn expressed his skepticism regarding the utility of Bülow’s proposal to raise the Colonial Department to an independent Imperial Colonial Office. He likewise indicated his party’s continued resistance to funding the now duly designated colonial attaché posts in London and Paris.149 Soon thereafter, Spahn also concurred with Erzberger’s objection to the circumvention of the Reichstag at the time that the government issued the banknote concession to the new Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Bank. Here Berlin’s clumsy handling of the East African financial concessions

ProtBc; Motion Bachem, Jan. 18, 1905, KDS 4/5, RTA, 1096:248–49, 251, BAP. Stengel and Stuebel to Bülow, Jan. 18, 1905, Memorandum; Loebell to Bülow, Jan. 18, 1905, Secret Memorandum, R276, RKzA, 926:46–49, BAP. Spahn, Jan. 31, 1905, RTSB, 4135A/B. 148 Erzberger, Jan. 25, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1096:265, BAP. Arenberg, Reporter, Jan. 31, 1905, RTSB, 4132C/D. Spahn, Jan. 31, 1905, RTSB, 4134D–4135A. 149 Spahn, Dec. 5, 1904, RTSB, 3348B. Spahn, Dec. 9, 1904, RTSB, 3450A. Bülow, Dec. 5, 1904, RTSB, 3377B/C. Arenberg, Reporter, Mar. 17, 1905, RTSB, 5367B/C. Helfferich, “Zur Reform der kolonialen Verwaltungs-Organisation,” [early January] 1905, Brochure, Nachlaß Helfferich, 7, BAK. Thunderclouds From Africa 265 and its tolerance of discrimination against German ports by Reich-subsidized shipping lines galvanized Erzberger to demand expansion of the Reichstag’s supervisory powers in colonial affairs. Moreover, when Erzberger leveled such charges against the government in committee, he appears also to have met with at least the tacit approval of senior colleagues, for during the East African plenary debates he repeated his thorough indictment in the midst of delivering his party’s position speech.150 Finally, in April 1905 both Erzberger and his jurist colleague Adolf Gröber declared in the Budget Committee that the bar- racks of two allegedly temporary companies for Kamerun cost twice as much as such purportedly impermanent facilities should. The Reichstag accordingly approved the Center’s motion to strike a full 100,000 from the 720,000 marks allotted to the Kamerun portion of the Complementary Budget.151 On the other hand, the moderate populists around Erzberger were generally as enthusiastic as the party leadership in the endorsement of colonial measures both factions had concluded were necessary. For instance, two months after Spahn’s cool reception of the Imperial Colonial Office and colonial attaché proposals, Erzberger and Prinz von Arenberg joined in supporting the government’s request for three other new positions within the Colonial Department notwithstanding opposition from parties of both left- and right- wing persuasions.152 Likewise, in an utterly positive preface to his plenary criticism of the East African banking concession, Erzberger lavished praise upon the administration of Governor Gustav Graf von Götzen and then spon- taneously offered Centrist votes toward the authorization of funds for the field expenses associated with academic research in colonial law. These latter remarks continued the long advocacy of Center Party elders Hertling and Arenberg for the establishment of a Berlin professorship in that field.153 Lastly, in May both Erzberger and Judge Schwarze-Lippstadt strongly endorsed the three-percent interest guarantee as requested on eleven of the seventeen

150 Erzberger, Helfferich, Feb. 8, 1905, ProtBc. Erzberger, Helfferich, Stuebel, Spahn, Seitz, Feb. 9, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1058:5–9, BAP. Erzberger, Müller-Sagan, Feb. 7, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1097:1, BAP. Erzberger, Mar. 18, 1905, RTSB, 5373B–5376B, 5387A/D. Stuebel, Mar. 18, 1905, RTSB, 5376B/D. Helfferich, Mar. 18, 1905, RTSB, 5376D–5379B. Seitz, Mar. 18, 1905, RTSB, 5379D–5380A. John G. Williamson, Karl Helfferich 1872–1924: Economist, Financier, Politician (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), 62–66. 151 Erzberger, Gröber, Motion Erzberger, Apr. 5, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1073:259, BAP. Erzberger, Reporter, Vote, Apr. 6, 1905, RTSB, 5883C/D. 152 Arenberg, Erzberger, Arendt, Müller-Sagan, Feb. 22, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1073:229, BAP. 153 Erzberger, Mar. 18, 1905, RTSB, 5372D–5373B. Arenberg, Mar. 15, 1904, ProtBc, RTA, 1057:48, BAP. Arenberg, Jan. 29, 1902, ProtBc; Hertling, Motion Hertling, Mar. 13, 1903, ProtBc, RTA, 1124:27, 62, BAP. Hertling, Mar. 14, 1903, RTSB, 8652B/D. 266 CHAPTER 9 million marks necessary to build a 160-kilometer railroad from Duala to the Manenguba Mountains in Kamerun. Indeed, Erzberger’s enthusiasm for the future extension of the line to Lake Chad scarcely lagged behind that of the Westphalian judge although the inland sea lay five times farther from the coast than the Manenguba range.154 Thus, the aristocratic, jurist, and moderate populist delegates all adhered with remarkable consistency to the Center’s highly complex colonial-political line of 1904/05. During the period from 1903 to 1905, far-reaching developments both in Germany and overseas impelled the Center to pursue a series of convoluted parliamentary maneuvers in imperialist questions. By December 1903 Catholic concerns for missionary safety in China had diminished to the extent that they could no longer occasion unquestioning Centrist support for the East Asian Occupation Brigade. Nor could they distract the party from its frustration over the Jesuit issue as had similar concerns in 1900. Instead, inadequately justified overseas expenditures and the Colonial Department’s glaring budgetary transgressions gave the Center ample opportunity to penalize the Bülow administration for its failure to deliver the promised repeal of Article 2 of the Anti-Jesuit Law in 1903. However, the coincidence of the article’s actual repeal in Spring 1904 with unexpected Herero successes against the German military in Southwest Africa marked the onset of a considerable political dilemma for the Center Party. On the one hand, the Kaiser’s sympathies with the post-repeal anticlerical uproar limited the Center’s room to insist upon compensation for supporting government proposals, and the bitter military challenge the Herero and Nama posed to Germany rendered many colonial votes a litmus test for the oft-disputed patriotism of Roman Catholics. On the other hand, the enormous

154 Stuebel, May 11, 1905, RTSB, 5939B/D. Erzberger, May 11, 1905, RTSB, 5940A–5941C, 5942A. Erzberger, May 25, 1905, RTSB, 6174B–6177B. Schwarze-Lippstadt, May 25, 1905, RTSB, 6154C–6155D, 6156D–6157A. Williamson, Helfferich, 68–71. Although the financing of this very Duala-Manenguba project would come under heavy fire from Erzberger within a matter of months, its failure to pass in Spring 1905 stemmed not from the reservations of any Centrist faction at that time, but rather from a clash between Social Democrats and the Right. The latter had resorted to preventing a quorum on a labor vote the previous day, and the Left struck back with the same weapon in Kamerun (RTSB, May 24, 1905, 6146B–6149D. Erzberger, May 25, 1905, RTSB, 6174C. RTSB, May 25, 1905, 6182D–6184B. Roll Call Vote, May 25, 1905, RTSB, 6185–87). Shortly thereafter, Bülow’s own abrupt closure of the Reichstag at a delicate moment during the Moroccan crisis then ensured that the Kamerun railroad would not be discussed again until the autumn (Lerchenfeld to Podewils, May 31, 1905, Report 315, ByGB, 1077, ByHSA. Bachem, Feb. 20, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 223, HASK. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:260). Thunderclouds From Africa 267 costs of the military campaigns in Southwest Africa and Berlin’s striking indifference toward the Reichstag’s parliamentary prerogatives impeded steady Centrist cooperation with the government on colonial issues. Nor could the Herero and Nama Uprisings facilitate government-Center collaboration on the basis of Christian solidarity against non-European ‘heathens,’ for the African movements did not share the anti-missionary thrust of the Chinese Yihetuan. To the contrary, the military successes of both African nations and the Reich’s assumption of responsibility for compensating expropriated European settlers in full merely aggravated relations between the Center and Berlin. Nonetheless, despite the strength of countervailing forces in domestic and colonial politics mandating Centrist amenability and resistance at one and the same time, no full-scale rifts had emerged by mid-1905 between Berlin and the party, nor had any opened in the ranks of the latter. Rather than breaking with the government or itself polarizing in 1904/05, the Center pursued an extremely ambivalent colonial-political line with dramatic fluctuations ranging from apparently enthusiastic governmentalism on some issues to unyield- ing expressions of principle on others. This Centrist feat was accomplished through the remarkable consensus that prevailed among Catholic aristocrats, jurists, and moderate populists as the party maneuvered uneasily in colonial affairs between the demands of Berlin and those of its constituency. CHAPTER 10 The Colonial Tempest, 1905–1906

By the spring of 1904 developments overseas and in Germany had rendered the political equilibrium within the ranks of the Center and between that party and Berlin quite precarious. After May 1905 this delicate balance rapidly crumbled as widespread African resistance to German rule further exposed and aggravated administrative, financial, and parliamentary issues dividing the Center from the government. The outbreak of the Maji Maji Uprising in East Africa in July 1905 and the Bonambela Duala chieftains’ contempora- neous Reichstag petition of grievances against the Kamerun government together compounded the intensely adverse effects that Southwest African and Togolese resistance continued to have upon the government-Center partnership through the crisis of December 1906.1 Under the barrage of African initiatives, the colonial debates of the 1905/06 parliamentary season witnessed the eruption of a significant rift within the Center as well as a dramatic breach between the Catholic party and the Bülow administration. While the moderation of such Center populists as Matthias Erzberger and Richard Müller-Fulda had previously helped keep the colonial issue in abeyance, both men abandoned that tack in exasperation in mid-1905 and joined forces with those more radical Catholic populists who had long been averse to the party leadership’s governmentalism. In the ensuing parliamentary debates the united populists accordingly cheered Erzberger’s relentless and often indiscriminate attacks upon the colonial administration. Meanwhile, the jurist party leaders found themselves in an increasingly untenable situation. Far more aware than Erzberger of the delicacy of the Center’s political position, the jurists feared that the young Swabian’s lack of restraint might so alienate Berlin as to jeopardize the party’s parliamentary primacy. On the other hand, the senior Centrists themselves had already found ample cause to criticize the government’s handling of colonial affairs during the previous two years, a tendency that only intensified in 1905/06. Consequently, the widening gulf between official impenitence and populist outrage left the Center leaders swinging to and fro between sharp castigation

1 A version of this chapter first appeared in print in 2006. Reprinted with permission from John S. Lowry, “African Resistance and Center Party Recalcitrance in the Reichstag Colonial Debates of 1905/06,” Central European History 39 (2006): 251–60, 263–69. © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004306875_012 The Colonial Tempest 269 of the former and futile admonition against the latter. Ultimately, the jurists’ desperate zigzag course failed to avert the expulsion of the Center from its decisive political position in December 1906.

Multiple African Uprisings and Government-Center Relations

During the period from Spring 1904 to Summer 1905 the Herero and Nama Uprisings had precipitated Centrist demands for frugality and parliamentary vigilance in colonial affairs, yet these had been partially offset for most of the party by patriotic and confessional considerations. At that time the aristocratic, jurist, and moderate populist elements of the party had displayed considerable coordination in supporting or opposing Berlin’s various colonial proposals and policies before the Reichstag. This balancing act had both kept the party united and preserved its position as a governmental party. After mid-1905 this pattern altered dramatically under the mounting onslaught of African initiatives. With the Maji Maji Uprising in East Africa, the ballooning costs of the Namaland campaign, and the litany of Akwa grievances in Kamerun, the crisis in German-ruled Africa reached a new height. As confidence in the Colonial Department thereby eroded, Centrists of all persuasions responded with efforts to contain the financial and parliamentary consequences of the African military initiatives and with attempts to preclude further rebellions by pressing Berlin for greater justice for colonized populations. Still, the pursuit of this stronger colonial political line vis-à-vis Berlin was accompanied by moments of strife as well as accord within the party. On the one hand, the Center Party elders at times took the government’s part against the insistence of heretofore moderate populists on protection and expansion of the Reichstag’s parliamentary and colonial legislative prerogatives. Moreover, the jurist leaders also attached much more significance than the populists to the domestic confessional issue of anticlericalism, but their declining health and multiple obligations continued to hamper their influence within the party. While Erzberger repeatedly attacked the Colonial Department and the Bülow administration, the senior Centrists warned in vain that an overly conspicuous exertion of Catholic parliamentary muscle would fan the flames of anticlericalism to new heights, thereby endangering the party’s strategic position.2

2 Bachem to [Franz Bachem?], Dec. 4, 1905, Nachlaß Bachem, 239, HASK. Bachem, Mar. 21, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 238, HASK. Bachem, May 27, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 242, HASK. Bachem, Dec. 15, 20, 1906, Notes; Bachem to Spahn, Dec. 6, 10, 1906; Bachem to Otto, May 18, 270 CHAPTER 10

On the other hand, throughout 1905/06 the party leaders and the Center populists agreed both on the increasing necessity for frugality and reform in the colonial administration and on the dwindling persuasiveness of patriotic arguments for continuing to spend enormous sums to combat the tenacious Nama guerrillas of Southwest Africa. Hence, the two camps within the Center took a stronger colonial political stand vis-à-vis Berlin even as they clashed with each other privately and in public. Both the Center’s breach with the government and its own polarization may be traced as much to colonial developments as to domestic issues. The Kaiser’s appointment in November 1905 of an anticlerical relative as acting colonial director and presumptive colonial secretary provides a prime illustration of the decisive role played by African resistance in the genesis of the crisis between the Center and the government. The thoroughly unqualified Ernst Erbprinz zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, ex-regent of the tiny Thuringian duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, would never have replaced Director Oskar Stuebel in the Colonial Department had not the Matumbi unleashed the Maji Maji Uprising in southern East Africa several months earlier. The governor of that colony, Gustav Graf von Götzen, had long since agreed to his own appointment as successor of the overtaxed and discredited Stuebel when word of violent disturbances around Kilwa reached him on August 1, just six days before his scheduled departure for Berlin. Götzen’s assumption of the directorship in Berlin was thereby first delayed and then revoked at his own request as populations rebelled against the Germans throughout the Rufiji, Kilombero, Matandu, and Lukuledi valleys and even to the shores of Lake Nyassa.3

1907, Nachlaß Bachem, 259:8–12, HASK. Bachem, Dec. 18, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 260, HASK. Bachem to Ballestrem, Nov. 12, 1906, Nachlaß Bachem, 258, HASK. Hertling to Anna von Hertling, Apr. 4, 1906, Nachlaß Hertling, 17:51, BAK. Hertling to Julius Bachem, Apr. 10, 1906; Hertling to Ehses, Nov. 21, 1906; Hertling to Althoff, Dec. 20, 1906, cited in Karl Freiherr von Hertling, “Manuskript zum geplanten Band 3 der Lebenserinnerungen Georg Graf von Hertlings,” [circa 1920], Nachlaß Hertling, 56:73–74, 81, 83–85, 87, BAK. Hertling to Droste zu Vischering, Dec. 20, 1906, Nachlaß Hertling, 35:69–70, BAK. “Parlamentarisches—Die Krankheit des Abgeordneten Prinz Arenberg,” Germania, Mar. 1, 1906, Nr. 48. Loebell to Bülow, Mar. 2, 1906, Secret Memorandum R976; “Reichstagabgeordnete Prinz zu Arenberg,” Kreuzzeitung, Nov. 1, 1906, Nr. 513; Jean Prince d’Arenberg to Loebell, Nov. 2, 1906, Telegram, RKzA, 1835:91, 154, 156, BAP. Berliner Tageblatt, Mar. 25, 1907, Nr. 154, Biographie 61, Papiers Arenberg (36/13), Nekrologe: 3, AAE. Martin Spahn to Spahn, July 18, 1906, Nachlaß Martin Spahn, 301, BAK. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:318–30, 337, 342–50. Kiefer, Bachem, 171–74. H.W. Smith, German Nationalism, 139–40. 3 Götzen to Bülow, July 16, 1905, Telegram 38; Götzen to Foreign Office, July 24, 1905, Telegram 39; Richthofen to Bülow, July 26, 1905; Götzen to Richthofen, Aug. 5, 1905, Telegram 44, Nachlaß Richthofen, 17:170–71, 78, 90, BAK. Richthofen to Below, July 19, 1905; Stuebel to The Colonial Tempest 271

The Maji Maji warriors exerted an unexpected influence upon Berlin politics. Their commencement of hostilities and initial successes could only serve to hasten Stuebel’s departure from the Colonial Department. At the same time, by detaining his intended successor in Dar-es-Salaam, the Maji Maji deprived the Bülow administration of the opportunity of appointing a director with firsthand colonial experience who simultaneously enjoyed the favor of the Center Party. Indeed, Matthias Erzberger, soon to be the nemesis of the Colonial Department, had just lauded the count’s administration of East Africa in the Reichstag in March 1905, and the Centrist would still be expressing a thoroughly positive opinion of Götzen long after one might have expected the Maji Maji Uprising to have tarnished the governor’s record.4 Moreover, anticipation of the Reichstag’s reaction to this latest uprising on top of those raging in Southwest Africa and Kamerun rendered the colonial directorship still less desirable, even with the prospect of the department’s elevation to an Imperial Colonial Office. The Centrist colonial enthusiast and Bülow’s personal friend Franz Prinz von Arenberg was uninterested in the post and could suggest no suitable candidates.5 Director Heinrich Wiegand of the Norddeutscher Lloyd declined to accept Bülow’s overtures in early November, as did at least two other Hanseatic businessmen and the Bavarian foreign minister Hermann von Pfaff.6

Richthofen, Aug. 30, Sep. 1, 1905; [Erzberger], “Die Systemlosigkeit der Kolonialpolitik,” KVZ, Sep. 1, 1905, Nachlaß Richthofen, 14:146, 129–33, BAK. Richthofen to Bülow, Oct. 23, [1905], Nachlaß Richthofen, 4:42, BAK. Götzen to Hutten-Czapski, May 25, June 4, 1906, Nachlaß Hutten-Czapski, 84:5–8, BAP. Moser to König-Warthausen, Aug. 26, Sep. 18, 1905, Reports 5 and 7, WüMAA, E50/03, 199, HSAS. P. [Deputy Envoy] to Podewils, Sep. 17, 1905, Report 485, ByGB, 1077, ByHSA. Lerchenfeld to Luitpold, June 27, 1906, Report 359, ByGB, 1078, ByHSA. Solf to Schnee, [Nov. 28,] 1905, Nachlaß Solf, 131:96–98, BAK. Bachem, Mar. 21, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 244:7, HASK. Götzen, Deutsch-Ostafrika im Aufstand, 54. Iliffe, Tanganyika, 9–29. Gwassa and Iliffe, eds., Maji Maji Rising. Listowel, Making of Tanganyika, 34–44. Giblin and Monson, eds. Maji Maji. 4 Erzberger, Mar. 18, 1905, RTSB, 5372D. Erzberger, Dec. 14, 1905, RTSB, 323A. Erzberger, Mar. 17, 1906, RTSB, 2114C/D. [Erzberger], “Die Systemlosigkeit der Kolonialpolitik,” KVZ, Sep. 1, 1905, Nachlaß Richthofen, 14:130, BAK. [Erzberger], “Ein Kolonialministerium?” KVZ, Sep. 4, 1905, Nachlaß Bachem, 428:1, HASK. Götzen to Hutten-Czapski, June 4, 1906, Nachlaß Hutten- Czapski, 84:7–8, BAP. 5 Arenberg to Julius Bachem, Dec. 2, 1905, cited in Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:339. Klehmet to Zimmermann, Mar. 6, 1905, Nachlaß Zimmermann, 32:15, BAP. Berliner Lokalanzeiger, Mar. 25, 1907, Nr. 154, Biographie 61, Papiers Arenberg (36/13), Nekrologe: 4, AAE. 6 Hammann to Bülow, Nov. 6, 7, 1905, Memoranda, Nachlaß Hammann, 10:54–55, BAP. Bachem, Mar. 21, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 244:7, HASK. Werner Schiefel, Bernhard Dernburg, 1865– 1937: Kolonialpolitiker und Bankier im wilhelminischen Deutschland (Zürich: Atlantis Verlag, 272 CHAPTER 10

Having hastened Stuebel’s departure and blocked Götzen’s candidacy, the East African Maji Maji had created a vacuum at the head of the Colonial Department which, after a delay of over three months, positively invited the Kaiser to exercise his predilection for unusual personnel appointments. Wilhelm’s choice for presumptive colonial secretary then fell upon Ernst Erbprinz zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, a blood relative of the Kaiserin Auguste Viktoria, son of the governor of Alsace-Lorraine, and husband of the Kaiser’s own first cousin, Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The coming of age of the princess’s nephew had terminated Hohenlohe-Langenburg’s ducal regency in July, and Wilhelm perceived the problematic vacancy at the head of the proposed Colonial Office as the ideal opportunity to relieve “Erni” of his unemployment.7 Unlike Götzen, however, Hohenlohe-Langenburg lacked relevant experience beyond membership in the German Colonial Society, and this was to render him highly dependent for advice upon his own subordinates within the central colonial administration.8 Moreover, whereas Götzen as colonial director might have reasonably anticipated Centrist goodwill, the prince’s confessional record ensured that the influential Catholic party would receive his appointment with suspicion. Not only was Hohenlohe-Langenburg a prominent member of the virulently anticlerical Protestant League co-founded by his father, but as regent of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha his had also been one of

1974), 37. Lerman, Chancellor as Courtier, 136. For the attitude of a leading Hanseatic busi- nessman toward the trials of the colonial directorship, see Bülow, Nov. 28, 1906, RTSB, 3959A. 7 Richthofen to Bülow, Nov. 13, 1905, Note, Nachlaß Richthofen, 14:144, BAK. Wilhelm II to Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Nov. 14, 1905, Open Telegram 150, Nachlaß Ernst Fürst zu Hohenlohe- Langenburg, Übernahme der Leitung der Kolonialverwaltung, HZAN. Lerchenfeld to Podewils, Mar. 22, 1906; Lerchenfeld to Luitpold, June 27, 1906, Report 359, ByGB, 1078, ByHSA. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:334–37. Bülow, Denkwürdigkeiten, 2:185–86. 8 Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Stuebel, Nov. 20, 1905, Nachlaß Ernst Fürst zu Hohenlohe- Langenburg, Übernahme der Leitung, HZAN. Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Dec. 10, 1905, Nachlaß Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, 70, HZAN. Bachem to [Franz Bachem?], Dec. 4, 1905, Nachlaß Bachem, 239:7, HASK. Bachem, Mar. 21, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 244:7, HASK. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:335–36. “Der neue Kolonialdirektor,” Germania, Nov. 17, 1905, Nr. 265. “Mißstände in der Kolonialverwaltung,” Germania, Mar. 28, 1906, Nr. 71. Lerchenfeld to Podewils, Mar. 22, 1906; Podewils to Lerchenfeld, Mar. 23, 1906; Lerchenfeld to Luitpold, June 27, 1906, Report 359, ByGB, 1078, ByHSA. Solf to Schultz, Mar. 16, 1906, Nachlaß Solf, 132:46–51, BAK. The Colonial Tempest 273 the Bundesrat votes cast against the repeal of Article 2 of the Anti-Jesuit Law in 1904.9 Finally, from the outset Hohenlohe-Langenburg’s appointment was burdened with an awkward constitutional issue. The Kaiser’s telegram to the prince had characteristically omitted to mention both the contingency of the new Colonial Office upon parliamentary approval and the government’s expectation that Hohenlohe-Langenburg would meanwhile immediately relieve Stuebel as acting colonial director. However, having once indicated his acceptance of the prestigious prospective appointment as colonial state secretary, the prince could not gracefully decline to serve at the lesser post in the purportedly brief interim. He nonetheless succeeded in making his assumption of duty as acting director contingent upon Bülow’s agreement that from the very first he would be remunerated at the forty-percent higher secretarial salary through supplementation from the Kaiser’s discretionary funds. Still, as the Reichstag had not yet authorized the Colonial Office, Bülow’s concession necessarily involved attempting to conceal the additional payments from the public, an effort that would prove impossible.10

9 Lerchenfeld to Podewils, Mar. 22, 1906; Podewils to Lerchenfeld, Mar. 23, 1906; Lerchenfeld to Luitpold, June 27, 1906, Report 359, ByGB, 1078, ByHSA. “Ein Zeichen der Zeit,” Deutsche Zeitung, Nov. 24, 1905, Nr. 276, RKA, 6907, BAP. “Zentrumsintrigen gegen den Erbprinzen Hohenlohe,” Königsberger Allgemeine Zeitung, Mar. 6, 1906; Posadowsky to Bülow, May 28, 1906, RKzA, 1662:44–45, 128, BAP. “Kanzlerkrisis?” Ostpreußische Zeitung, Mar. 11, 1906, Nachlaß Hammann, 6:36, BAP. Bülow, Denkwürdigkeiten, 2:186. For samples of Hohenlohe-Langenburg’s anticlericalism and hostility to the Center, see Hohenlohe- Langenburg to Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Feb. 11, Mar. 22, May 20, 1906, Nachlaß Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, 71, HZAN. On the Protestant League, see H.W. Smith, German Nationalism. 10 Wilhelm II to Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Nov. 14, 1905, Open Telegram 150; Hohenlohe- Langenburg to Wilhelm II, Nov. 14, 1905, Open Telegram; Wilhelm II to Bülow, Nov. 16, 1905; Hentig to Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Nov. 18, 1905; Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Bülow, Nov. 19, 1905; Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Stuebel, Nov. 20, 1905; Stengel to Hohenlohe- Langenburg, Dec. 18, 1905, Imperial Treasury, Secret 305; Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Bülow, Mar. 5, 1906; Foreign Office Cashier to Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Apr. 20, 1906, Bill; Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Twele, Aug. 25, 1906; Seitz, [Sep. 1906], Memorandum; Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Editors of the Berliner Lokalanzeiger, Oct. 28, 1906; Hohenlohe- Langenburg to Dernburg, Nov. 22, 1906; Dernburg to Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Nov. 19, 1906, KP20199, Nachlaß Ernst Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Übernahme der Leitung, HZAN. Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Nov. 15, 1905, Nachlaß Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, 70, HZAN. Helfferich to Richthofen, Nov. 27, 1905, Nachlaß Richthofen, 14:42–43, BAK. Hohenlohe-Langenburg 274 CHAPTER 10

The ensuing political predicament would never have arisen had Götzen’s quite orthodox appointment not been thwarted by the Maji Maji. While the governor did attempt to persuade his superiors to postpone his assumption of office in Berlin by a number of months, it was made clear to him from the start that he was expected to relieve Stuebel prior to creation of the new office.11 Furthermore, as the slightly younger Götzen was simply a count, not an extremely well-connected prince, the government had remained uncommit- ted in the summer of 1905 on the question whether the leader of the Colonial Office ought to be a full-fledged state secretary or initially a mere undersecretary. This latter rank the Center was subsequently quite prepared to concede even to Hohenlohe-Langenburg, albeit still under the aegis of the Foreign Office, and it was in fact the prince who refused to consider Bülow’s suggestion that the government accept this compromise arrangement.12 Thus, if the East Africans had not scuttled Götzen’s candidacy, the Colonial Office debates would surely have proved much less heated than they actually did in the wake of Hohenlohe-Langenburg’s appointment. Besides opening the door to government-Center conflict around an ill- equipped and anticlerical colonial director, African armed resistance also exposed the government’s undiminished disdain for Reichstag prerogatives. This disregard in turn provoked considerable exasperation within the ranks of the Center Party. As the Catholic jurists and aristocrats were more easily appeased, however, Berlin could sometimes enlist them to disclaim their populist colleagues’ indignation and thereby transform the conflict somewhat into an internal party disagreement. Still, on several important occasions the party elders considered it impossible to exculpate the government for parliamentary

to Bülow, Sep. 14, 1906; Twele to Chancellery, Oct. 25, 1906; Colonial Department, [Nov. 1906], Memorandum, RKzA, 1663:23–24, 33–39, 51–52, BAP. Stengel to Bülow, Apr. 23, 1906, Report 125 Secret, RKzA, 937:258–59, BAP. 11 Götzen to Bülow, July 16, 1905, Telegram 38; Götzen to Foreign Office, July 24, 1905, Telegram 39, Nachlaß Richthofen, 17:170–71, BAK. Richthofen to Below, July 19, 1905; Stuebel to Richthofen, Aug. 30, Sep. 1, 1905, Nachlaß Richthofen, 14:146, 129–33, BAK. 12 König to Richthofen, Aug. 10, 1905, Nachlaß Richthofen, 14:137–38, BAK. P. [Deputy Envoy] to Podewils, Sep. 17, 1905, Report 485, ByGB, 1077, ByHSA. Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Mar. 22, 1906, Nachlaß Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, 71, HZAN. Spahn, Erzberger, Mar. 21, 1906, ProtBc; Hohenlohe- Langenburg, Mar. [23 or 24,] 1906, Memorandum, RKzA, 1662:93–95, 101–2, BAP. Spahn, Reporter, Mar. 29, 1906, RTSB, 2415D–2417C, 2423B–2424C, 2429B–2430B. Gröber, May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3557B, 3557D, 3558C. Erzberger, May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3558C/D. [Erzberger], “Die Taktik der Nationalliberalen,” Germania, June 7, 1906, Nr. 128. [Erzberger], “Die Taktik der Nationalliberalen,” Germania, June 13, 1906, Nr. 133, Nachlaß Bachem, 242, HASK. The Colonial Tempest 275 transgressions committed in connection with the Nama and Maji Maji wars, and they then reproached Berlin as resolutely as the populists. Just as in 1900 and 1904, a key parliamentary grievance in late 1905 involved the government’s failure to summon the Reichstag during the summer to authorize expenditures for wars waged overseas. This time the Reichstag was not convened until November 28 although both the Southwest and East African wars had already precipitated substantial extrabudgetary spending several months earlier. This aroused discord within the Center between the party leaders and the populists over the seriousness of Berlin’s transgressions. Less governmental than his jurist brother in the Reichstag, the coeditor of the Kölnische Volkszeitung Franz Bachem began to write provocative articles on colonial issues in early August 1905 and publish them along with similar ones by Matthias Erzberger. For five weeks the Catholic newspaper repeatedly cast doubt upon the constitutionality of the recent dispatch of troops to fight the Nama in Southwest Africa. While Berlin claimed that the eleven hundred men departing on July 29 and August 31 were mere relief forces to replace casualties, calculations by the two Centrists indicated that the Reich was again raising the total number of German troops in the colony without consulting parliament.13 Rather than summon the Reichstag at the height of the Moroccan crisis, however, Bülow simply secured Prinz von Arenberg’s cooperation in an

13 [Erzberger], “Abermals eine Verletzung des Budgetrechts?” KVZ, Aug. 2, 1905, Nr. 632; [Franz Bachem], “Eine neue Verletzung des Budgetrechts des Reichstags?” KVZ, Aug. 5, 1905, Nr. 641; [Franz Bachem], “Die Einberufung einer außerordentlichen Reichstagssession,” KVZ, Aug. 7, 1905, Nr. 647; [Franz Bachem], “Die Südwestafrikaangelegenheit,” KVZ, Aug. 8, 1905, Nr. 650; [Erzberger], “Glücklich entdeckt,” KVZ, Aug. 11, 1905, Nr. 660; [Franz Bachem], “Zur Verletzung des Budgetrechts,” KVZ, Aug. 17, 1905, Nr. 676; [Franz Bachem], “Der Truppennachschub für Südwestafrika,” KVZ, Aug. 17, 1905, Nr. 677; [Franz Bachem], “Die Rechnung der Regierung,” KVZ, Aug. 18, 1905, Nr. 681; “Auf den Truppennachschub für Südwestafrika,” KVZ, Aug. 21, 1905, Nr. 689; “Zu den Truppentransporten nach Südwestafrika,” Freie Deutsche Presse, Aug. 8, 1905, Nr. 368; Freie Deutsche Presse, Aug. 9, 1905, Nr. 370; “Zur Ergänzung und Verstärkung der südwestafrikanischen Schutztruppe,” Freie Deutsche Presse, Aug. 11, 1905, Nr. 373, Nachlaß Karl Bachem, 236, HASK. [Erzberger], “Die Verwirrung im Kolonialamt!” KVZ, Sep. 6, 1905, Nr. 737. [Franz Bachem], “Die Erörterung über die Truppennachschübe nach Südwestafrika,” KVZ, Aug. 10, 1905, Nr. 656; “Weshalb der Reichstag zusam- mentreten soll?” Bayrischer Kurier, Aug. 9, 1905, Nr. 223; “Der Truppennachschub für Südwestafrika,” Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, Aug. 17, 1905, Nr. 192; “Nochmals zum Truppennachschub für Südwestafrika,” Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, Aug. 20, 1905, Nr. 195, MA 95403, ByHSA. Lerchenfeld to Podewils, Aug. 6, 1905, Report 435; P. [Deputy Envoy] to Podewils, Aug. 26, 1905, Report 458, ByGB, 1077, ByHSA. Müller-Fulda also supported the campaign in the Kölnische Volkszeitung (cf. Müller-Fulda to Karl Bachem, Aug. 10, 1905, Nachlaß Karl Bachem, 228, HASK). 276 CHAPTER 10 unsuccessful attempt to persuade Franz Bachem to temper the rhetoric of his publication.14 Erzberger raised the issue again in the Reichstag in December, but the party leadership evidently subscribed to Berlin’s computational formula since the matter was not pursued further.15 In a similar case, the Maji Maji Uprising in East Africa had cost the Reich close to a million marks in just over four months before the Reichstag was summoned in late November.16 While this sum was but a small fraction of the previous unauthorized overseas expenditures of the summers of 1900 and 1904, the government recognized that those very precedents greatly increased the likelihood of Reichstag insistence upon satisfaction for the unsanctioned measures. In private consultations Berlin then established that in fact the leaders of the Center, National Liberal, and Conservative parties expected a request for indemnity in advance of their authorization of the two million marks needed for the Maji Maji war through March 1906. Consequently, from the outset the Third Supplementary Budget of 1905 included an article requesting parliamentary exemption for those funds already spent without consultation with the Reichstag.17 Whereas this concession appeased the senior Centrists, Erzberger protested in a plenary session of the Reichstag in mid-January 1906 that the Bülow administration’s frequent requests for indemnity had become “cheaper than blackberries.”18 In the Budget Committee the Swabian populist further argued that Berlin must have known by August or September 1905 that increasing transportation costs in the Nama War would necessitate a fourth supplementary budget of 31 million marks to provision the troops in Southwest Africa from January through March 1906. Therefore, the Reichstag should have been summoned at least two months earlier to authorize both additional budgets.

14 Helfferich to Richthofen, Aug. 14, 18, 1905; Helfferich to Bülow, Aug. [24,] 1905; Richthofen to Bülow, Aug. 30, 1905, Nachlaß Richthofen, 14:86–97, 79–85, 102–105, BAK. 15 Erzberger, Dec. 2, 1905, RTSB, 80D–81A. BSWA 1906; DB, Fourth SupB 1905, Dec. 20, 1905, RDS 152, RTA, 1097:187–88, 280, BAP. 16 Seitz, Feb. 1, 1906, ProtBc; DB, Third SupB 1905, Dec. 7, 1905, RDS 136, RTA, 1058:44, 30, BAP. 17 Nieberding to Bülow, Nov. 16, 1905; Stengel to Bülow, Nov. 11, 1905, Memorandum; Posadowsky to Bülow, Nov. 23, 1905, I.A. 6996; Bülow to Loebell, Nov. 24, 1905, R4546; Reich Chancellery to Loebell, Nov. 29, 1905, Secret Memorandum, R4637, RKzA, 924:53– 60, 63–64, 75, BAP. DB, Third SupB 1905, Dec. 7, 1905, RDS 136, RTA, 1058:29–30, BAP. Richthofen to Bülow, Aug. 30, 1905, with enclosure, Nachlaß Richthofen, 14:102–105, 112– 120, BAK. 18 Erzberger, Jan. 16, 1906, RTSB, 589B. “[D]ie Gesuche um Indemnität werden nachgerade im Deutschen Reiche billiger als die Brombeeren.” The Colonial Tempest 277

Erzberger consequently urged the committee to refuse to grant indemnity on the East African bill. However, Center leader Peter Spahn, by this point also Prussian superior court president in Kiel, defended Berlin on the basis of wartime exigencies and the government’s readiness to seek the indemnity. Prinz von Arenberg likewise admonished Erzberger that the letter of the law was not dead, but had rather to be interpreted.19 Hence, both the Nama and the Maji Maji Uprisings generated significant disagreement between the Center populists and the party elders over whether the government’s unilateral military spending and tardy summoning of the Reichstag had placed it in violation of the German constitution. Nonetheless, in 1905/06, as during the previous two years, African struggles also gave rise to parliamentary issues that troubled the Center jurists sufficiently to lead them to join their populist colleagues in taking strong stands against the Berlin government. For example, controversy continued to surround the unauthorized preliminary work on the Windhoek-Rehoboth Railroad which the government promoted as a means to alleviate the military supply crisis in Namaland. As previously noted, in July 1904 fear of imminent war with the Nama had prompted the Colonial Department to make an unconditional commitment of 200,000 marks to the Koppel Company for initial work on the southbound line. Since Berlin had neglected to consult the Reichstag on the subject and thereafter inadequately justified this omission, the entire Center had led the Reichstag in denying Bülow indemnity for the budget title and in forcing the Bundesrat to withdraw the request in January 1905.20 However, in the ensuing months the chancellor had failed to fulfill his pledge to submit a separate bill justifying the unauthorized work and seeking indemnity a second time. Instead, annotations to the 1906 budget for Southwest Africa merely referred in passing to an extrabudgetary expendi- ture of 200,000 marks. To make matters worse, Koppel had not only received 135,000 prior to the original bill’s retraction but also been paid the remaining third even thereafter. Accordingly, by the winter of 1905/06 Karl Bachem and Spahn as well as Erzberger were vexed with the government’s disdain for the express wishes of the Reichstag, and this irritation most likely contributed to

19 DB, Fourth SupB 1905, Dec. 20, 1905, RDS 152, RTA, 1097:279–80, BAP. Erzberger, Spahn, Arenberg, Feb. 1, 1906, ProtBc; Report of the Budget Commission, Feb. 8, 1906, RDS 120a, RTA, 1058:44, 46, 57, 59–60, BAP. “Die Budgetcommission des Reichstags,” Germania, Feb. 2, 1906, Nr. 26. Bülow, Denkwürdigkeiten, 2:186. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:219–20. 20 See chapter 9, footnotes 144 and 145. 278 CHAPTER 10 the Budget Committee’s unanimous opposition to authorization of the first four million marks for the actual construction of the railroad.21 The Maji Maji Uprising likewise gave rise to constitutional disputes between Berlin and the Center Party as a whole. For instance, both Prinz von Arenberg and Erzberger objected resolutely to Berlin’s attempt to employ the purely supplementary emergency military budget of two million marks to launch a permanent increase in the number of civil administrative districts in East Africa at a cost of yet a third million.22 Even more disturbing for the Center, scrutiny of the fall of the military station at Liwale exposed a misappropriation of Reich funds that distressed the jurists as much as the populist elements within the party. The Maji Maji under Ngameya and Abdullah Mapanda had been able to take Liwale by setting fire to the station in August 1905 although the original German budget had specified that the station’s roofs be constructed of tin, not highly flammable thatch. Indeed, evidence even suggested that the monies allotted for tin roofs in the bush had been redirected through the colony’s reserve fund to support the construction of luxury buildings in Dar-es- Salaam. Such reports were of particular significance because news of the early Maji Maji victory at Liwale had facilitated the rapid spread of that movement throughout southern East Africa.23 Therefore, in the Budget Committee debates of February 1906 the Rhenish lawyer Bachem and the Swabian publicist Erzberger inquired into the circumstances surrounding Liwale’s fall, yet the government failed to confirm or deny the reports. In the Reichstag plenum of March 15, Spahn then voiced his consternation over the apparent diversion of funds and called upon the administration to answer Bachem’s earlier committee inquiry. When still no

21 BSWA 1906, RTA, 1097:187–88, 198–200, BAP. Bachem to [Franz Bachem?], Dec. 4, 1905, Nachlaß Bachem, 239, HASK. Erzberger, Dec. 14, 1905, RTSB, 325C/D. Erzberger, Reporter, Mar. 24, 1906, RTSB, 2285A. Erzberger, Südekum, Spahn, Feb. 23, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1098:107–8, BAP. 22 Erzberger, Jan. 16, 1906, RTSB, 588B/C, 594A/B, 605A/B. DB, Third SupB 1905, Dec. 7, 1905, RDS 136; Arenberg, Feb. 1, 1906, ProtBc; Arenberg, Erzberger, Feb. 6, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1058:30–31, 46, 50–51, BAP. 23 Bachem, Mar. 16, 1906, RTSB, 2078A–2079A. Bachem, Mar. 17, 1906, RTSB, 2117C/D. Spahn, Mar. 15, 1906, RTSB, 2028B/C. Götzen, Deutsch-Ostafrika im Aufstand, 66–67, 74. Joseph F. Safari, “Grundlagen und Auswirkungen des Maji-Maji-Aufstands von 1905: Kulturgeschichtliche Betrachtungen zu einer Heilserwartungsbewegung in Tansania” (Ph.D. diss., Universität Köln, 1972), 69–75. The Colonial Tempest 279 reply was forthcoming, Bachem pointedly raised the issue again the next day.24 Finally, the Colonial Department declared that it could not determine whether the East African government had misappropriated construction funds, but that the inordinately swift loss of Liwale was undoubtedly attributable to its flammability.25 Bachem thereupon expressed his indignation that the Reichstag should have been forced to pose a question three times before being graced with a reply and warned that such evasiveness undermined parliamentary confidence in the colonial administration. The Swabian jurist Adolf Gröber also rebuked the government for its inability to ascertain whether the diversion had occurred.26 The Center accordingly stood solidly behind Bachem’s ensuing successful motion to prevent further abuses by amending the budgetary stipulation for the reserve funds of all the colonies to read “For unforeseen necessary expenditures.”27 Thus, Nama and Maji Maji armed resistance to German rule precipitated a significant number of constitutional disputes in Berlin that divided either the ranks of the Catholic party itself or otherwise the Center as a whole from the government. Furthermore, the sheer tenacity of the Nama in particular had far-reaching financial and political consequences for the Reich. Although several of their important captains surrendered after Hendrik Witbooi’s death in October 1905, those Nama leaders remaining in the field drove the German forces to another year of phenomenal expenditures. Particularly costly was the provisioning of thousands of troops in Namaland via multiple supply lines extending hundreds of kilometers over mountains and deserts back to Lüderitzbucht, Windhoek, and the Cape Colony. Moreover, the frequent Nama ambushes of individual supply caravans in turn necessitated so many military escorts that the ratio of the Germans’ support units to frontline troops reached three to one.28 Thus, even with the elimination of Herero forces in the northern theater,

24 Bachem, Erzberger, Feb. 7, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1058:52, BAP. Spahn, Mar. 15, 1906, RTSB, 2028B/C. Bachem, Mar. 16, 1906, RTSB, 2078A–2079A. 25 Seitz, Mar. 16, 1906, RTSB, 2079A/D. 26 Bachem, Mar. 16, 1906, RTSB, 2079C–2080A. Gröber, Mar. 16, 1906, RTSB, 2080C. 27 Motion Bachem for Amendment, Mar. 15, 1906, RDS 293, RTA, 1058:86, BAP. Bachem, Mar. 17, 1906, RTSB, 2117C–2118B, 2119A/C. Bachem, Apr. 25, 1906, RTSB, 2681B–2682A. Erzberger, Apr. 25, 1906, RTSB, 2676C. 28 BSWA 1906; DB, Second SupB 1905, Nov. 28, 1905, RDS 24; Arenberg, Deimling, Seitz, Dec. 12, 1905, ProtBc; Deimling, Dec. 13, 1905, ProtBc; DB, Fourth SupB 1905, Dec. 20, 1905, RDS 152, RTA, 1097:198–99, 208–9, 245, 250, 280, BAP. Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Dec. 2, 1905, RTSB, 79D–80B. Hohenlohe-Langenburg, May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3527C–3528A. Deimling, Dec. 2, 1905, RTSB, 87B/D. Deimling, May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3538B/C. Paasche, Report from 280 CHAPTER 10 well-led Nama guerrillas numbering only in the hundreds pushed Berlin into requesting Reichstag authorization for another 155 million marks in 1905/06, a sum which threatened to swallow at least three-quarters of the entire first year of revenue from that spring’s arduously pursued tax reform.29 With the addition of this latest estimate to those from the previous two years, the Southwest African Expedition surpassed the record of 304 million marks set between 1900 and 1902 by its East Asian analogue, and at 352 million it became the costliest German overseas campaign to that time.30 Nor could there be any prospect of shifting this immense burden of debt from the German treasury to that of a vulnerable foreign government as had occurred in the Chinese case. Accordingly, as no appreciable decline in costs and troop count followed the Nama surrenders of 1905/06, Centrists of all persuasions lost patience and abandoned their previous deference to Berlin in discussions of colonial military affairs. The momentous discrepancy between the Centrist and governmental assessments of the imminence and durability of peace first emerged in December 1905, twelve months before it precipitated the dissolution of the Reichstag. Challenging a supplementary budget for the first five of 9.5 million marks for a 150-kilometer supply railroad from Lüderitzbucht to Kubub, Erzberger dismissed Berlin’s purely military justification of the line. Citing the recent surrender of a contingent of Witbooi and Velskoendrager Nama, the Swabian populist argued that the waning uprising would be suppressed before the elapse of the minimum of eight months required for the railroad to reach

Subcommittee, Feb. 23, 1906, ProtBc; Seitz, Jacobs, May 23, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1098:107, 258–59, BAP. “Denkschrift über den Verlauf des Aufstands in Südwestafrika (Fortsetzung),” Nov. 24, 1905, RDS 5; ibid., Feb. 2, 1906, RDS 202; DB, ComB 1906, May 19, 1906, RDS 474, Appendix II, MA 95403, ByHSA. “Kubub-Keetmannshop,” Colonial Department to Bülow, Oct. 22, 1906, Memorandum, RKzA, 926:132–35, BAP. Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:187–93. Bühler, Namaaufstand, 181–99. 29 Budget for the Southwest African Expedition, 1906; BSWA 1906; DB, Second SupB 1905, Nov. 28, 1905, RDS 24; DB, Fourth SupB 1905, Dec. 20, 1905, RDS 152, RTA, 1097:165–200, 206–9, 279–80, BAP. DB, Third SupB 1905, Dec. 7, 1905, RDS 136, RTA, 1058:30–31, BAP. DB, ComB 1906, May 19, 1906, RDS 474; DB, Second ComB 1906, May 19, 1906, RDS 473, MA 95403, ByHSA. Peter-Christian Witt, Die Finanzpolitik des Deutschen Reiches von 1903 bis 1913: Eine Studie zur Innenpolitik des Wilhelminischen Deutschland (Lübeck und Hamburg: Matthiesen Verlag, 1970), 126–27, 131n490. 30 In addition to the previous footnote, see chapter 9, footnotes 106 and 107, as well as DB, Third SupB 1900, Nov. 14, 1900, RDS 8, RKzA, 934:92–96, BAP. Bachem, Mar. 15, 1901, RTSB, 1878D. Stockmann, Reporter, Mar. 3, 1902, RTSB, 4521D–4522D. Richter, Mar. 3, 1902, RTSB, 4524D–4526A. Büsing, Vice President, Mar. 3, 1902, RTSB, 4532B. The Colonial Tempest 281

Kubub.31 By contrast, the government warned earnestly against excessive opti- mism, given the notorious insincerity of Nama capitulations and the still formidable strength of Jakob Morenga.32 While the Center, including Erzberger, nonetheless helped authorize the line two weeks later, the surrender of most of the Bethanian Nama and the remainder of the Witboois in February 1906 increased the weight most Centrists and even some National Liberals attached to considerations of frugality in spite of wartime patriotism.33 Convinced that the subjugation of Namaland was near completion, the Budget Committee refused to entertain the requested increase of fifteen million marks for maintaining the 14,500 German soldiers currently in the colony. Instead, in March the Reichstag simply sanctioned for 1906 78 million, as in 1905, while calling for prompt troop reductions.34 Two months later this pattern of dwindling foes and unrelenting costs had become still more pronounced. The long-feared Cornelius Fredericks of the Bethanians (!Âman) surrendered to the Germans in March, and the renowned Jakob Morenga of the Bondelswarts (!Gami=| nûn) placed himself at the mercy of the British Cape authorities in early May. These capitulations left only several hundred Nama under Johannes Christian (!Nanseb=| Khami=| Naoxamab) and Abraham Morris of the Bondelswarts, Fielding of the Bethanians, and Simon Kopper (!Gomxab) of the Fransmans (!Kharakaikhoen).35 However, by late May the German military in Southwest Africa had also already spent 34 of

31 DB, Second SupB 1905, Nov. 28, 1905, RDS 24; BSWA 1906, RTA, 1097:206–9, 187–88, BAP. Erzberger, Dec. 2, 1905, RTSB, 81A/B. “Die Kapitulation der Witbois,” Germania, Nov. 29, 1905, Nr. 274. Kurd Schwabe, Im deutschen Diamantenlande: Deutsch-Südwestafrika von der Errichtung der deutschen Herrschaft bis zur Gegenwart (1884–1910) (Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler und Sohn, 1910), 320. Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:188–89. 32 Deimling, Dec. 2, 1905, RTSB, 88A/B. Deimling, Dec. 13, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1097:250, BAP. Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Dec. 2, 1905, RTSB, 79D. 33 Motion Erzberger, Dec. 13, 1905, ProtBc; Müller-Fulda, Erzberger, Arenberg, Dec. 14, 1905, RTA, 1097:251, 255–56, BAP. “Aus dem Reichstag,” Germania, Dec. 16, 1905, Nr. 288. Deimling, “Von der alten in die neue Zeit: Lebenserinnerungen,” 1929, Manuscript, Nachlaß Deimling, 2:98–100, BMAF. Paasche, Erzberger, Feb. 20, 1906, ProtBc; Paasche, Report from Subcommittee, Feb. 23, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1098:71, 107, BAP. Schwabe, Diamantenlande, 320–21, 329. Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:189–90. 34 BSWA 1906, RTA, 1097:181–86, BAP. Paasche, Report from Subcommittee, Feb. 23, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1098:107, BAP. Erzberger, Reporter, Mar. 24, 1906, RTSB, 2279C–2280A. Ballestrem, President, Mar. 24, 1906, RTSB, 2284B. 35 Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:190–93, 197–98. Chancellery to Bülow, Mar. 3, 1906, Secret Memorandum, Eo R991, RKzA, 937:254, BAP. “Denkschrift über den Verlauf des Aufstands in Südwestafrika (Fortsetzung),” Nov. 24, 1905, RDS 5; ibid., Feb. 2, 1906, RDS 202, MA 95403, ByHSA. Deimling, “Von der alten in die neue Zeit,” 1929, Manuscript, Nachlaß Deimling, 282 CHAPTER 10 the 78 million that the Reichstag had only just authorized for the entire fiscal year ending in March 1907.36 Therefore, while previously concurring with the military urgency of the Lüderitzbucht-Kubub Railroad in December 1905, indignant Catholic jurists and populists alike refused to approve a 220-kilometer extension of that line to Keetmanshoop when the first five of twenty million marks were requested for that purpose in May 1906. The original railroad was not even expected to reach Kubub until late October, and the new project would thus have been unable to attain Keetmanshoop before May 1908. Consequently, nearly all Centrists doubted Berlin’s claim that the extension could hasten the apparently imminent conclusion of hostilities.37 Nor did the Reich help its cause with a clumsy horsetrading proposal that five thousand troops could be promptly withdrawn contingent upon Reichstag approval of the railway. Gröber and Spahn angrily rejected this cynical transaction in blood, for authorization of the long-term railroad could be of no immediate import in determining current troop dis- pensability.38 As for the government’s attempt to justify the line on fiscal grounds, months earlier Prinz von Arenberg as well as Erzberger had challenged Berlin’s claim that postwar control of the Nama would require continuous rail provisioning of at least one thousand occupational troops in southern Southwest Africa.39 Accordingly, Center populists, jurists, and even aristocrats

2:92, 104, BMAF. Schwabe, Diamantenlande, 243, 329, 336, 343–44. Haacke and Eiseb, Khoekhoegowab-English Glossary. 36 Seitz, Erzberger, May 23, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1058:108, BAP. Erzberger, Reporter, May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3526B. Bachem, May 27, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 242, HASK. Spahn to Martin Spahn, May 22, 1906, Nachlaß Martin Spahn, 318, BAK. 37 DB, ComB 1906, May 19, 1906, RDS 474, MA 95403, ByHSA. Gröber, Müller-Fulda, Erzberger, May 23, 1906, ProtBc; Müller-Fulda, May 25, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1098:259, 262, BAP. Bachem, May 27, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 242, HASK. Erzberger, Reporter, May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3526B–3527A. Spahn, May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3533B. Spahn, May 28, 1906, RTSB, 3565C. Gröber, May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3540B/D. “Die Budgetcommission des Reichstags,” Germania, May 26, 1906, Nr. 119. 38 Semler, May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3536–37. Semler, May 28, 1906, RTSB, 3567C–3568B. Deimling, May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3538D. Gröber, May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3540B/D. Gröber, May 28, 1906, RTSB, 3571B/D. Spahn, May 28, 1906, RTSB, 3565A/D. Hohenlohe-Langenburg, May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3541A/B. Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Moltke, May 25, 1906, Telegram; Moltke to Hohenlohe-Langenburg, May 26, 1906, Open Telegram 5082, Nachlaß Ernst Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Frage der Errichtung eines Reichskolonialamts, HZAN. Spahn to Bachem, Sep. 17, 1906, Confidential, Nachlaß Bachem, 256:4, HASK. 39 Arenberg, Seitz, Erzberger, Dec. 12, 1905, ProtBc; Deimling, Dec. 13, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1097:245–47, 250, BAP. Deimling, May 23, 1906, ProtBc; Deimling, Hohenlohe-Langenburg, The Colonial Tempest 283 voted seventy-two to two against the Kubub-Keetmanshoop railroad extension on May 26 as the Reichstag as a whole rejected the measure by nearly a two- thirds margin.40 Indeed, months earlier Centrist exasperation with the exorbitant military costs in Southwest Africa had already reached such heights that even party elders were challenging the colony’s overall value. In a Germania editorial of September 1905, Center leader Peter Spahn juxtaposed the Reich’s enormous sacrifices in funds and blood with Southwest Africa’s negligible economic potential.41 Similar observations formed the basis for Erzberger’s highly unfavorable assessment of war costs against the colony’s minimal capacity for agriculture, animal husbandry, and mineral exploitation.42 Accordingly, not only Center populists, but also leading Catholic jurists began to advocate the previously unthinkable in Southwest Africa. In the December committee debates of 1905 surrounding the Lüderitzbucht-Kubub Railroad, the Rhenish lawyer Karl Bachem as well as Erzberger proposed that the total evacuation of Namaland and the compensation of its dislocated European settlers would be fiscally preferable to the continual intensive occupation of a region of such insignificant value. Indeed, Bachem further admonished the colonial administration that the German people had lost confidence in its reprehensibly foolhardy policies, the costs of which lay entirely out of proportion to their minimal achievements. The Center therefore backed a successful left liberal resolution calling for the limitation of guaranteed police protection to narrowly defined districts in the German colonies.43 Similarly, in the May 1906 discussion of the Kubub-Keetmanshoop railroad extension, leading Centrists Adolf Gröber and Peter Spahn joined the populists Erzberger

Seitz, May 25, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1098:259, 261, BAP. Erzberger, Dec. 2, 1905, RTSB, 81B/C. Erzberger, Reporter, May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3526D. Hohenlohe-Langenburg, May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3527C–3528A. Deimling, May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3538A. DB, ComB 1906, May 19, 1906, RDS 474, Appendix II, MA 95403, ByHSA. 40 Roll Call Vote, ComB 1906, Chapter 2, Item 10, [Kubub-Keetmanshoop Railroad], May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3560–62. The bourgeois Hanoverian landowner Clemens Bauermeister and the Alsatian jurist Leo Vonderscheer were the only Centrists to vote for the line. Among the aristocrats, Prince von Arenberg abstained while Counts von Ballestrem and Hompesch voted with the majority. 41 “Abgeordneter Dr. Spahn zur politischen Lage,” Germania, Sep. 26, 1905, Nr. 221. 42 Erzberger, Dec. 2, 1905, RTSB, 81C–83B. 43 Bachem, Dec. 13, 1905, ProtBc; Erzberger, Dec. 12, 1905, ProtBc; Müller-Sagan, Dec. 14, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1097:250, 246, 255–56, BAP. 284 CHAPTER 10 and Müller-Fulda in urging the surrender of the unproductive Namaland in the name of Germany’s overburdened taxpayers.44 The phenomenal costs of the Nama War also engendered pervasive skepticism within the Center regarding Berlin’s judgment in colonial military affairs as a whole. In March 1905 even Erzberger had been prepared to subscribe to the Reich’s assessments of military necessity in Southwest Africa and Kamerun.45 However, by early 1906 the entire party was rejecting military inno- vations demanded in response to the East African uprising although the cost of these were dwarfed by those of the Southwest African Expedition. Thus, while Governor Götzen and the Colonial Department sought African mercenaries immune to the Maji Maji contagion, Arenberg, Spahn, and Hertling as well as Erzberger considered the proposal to import Jaunde soldiers from Kamerun a needlessly expensive precaution.46 Likewise, despite government arguments regarding the necessity of having “absolutely reliable troops” stationed in Dar- es-Salaam, Spahn and Hertling backed Erzberger’s successful motion rejecting the establishment of the first company of white colonial troops in East Africa.47 When Berlin then attempted to recoup this setback in May with a complementary budget for four new companies of indigenous troops, this also failed in the face of untempered Centrist opposition.48 Finally, the immense costs imposed upon the Reich by the Herero and Nama Uprisings and compounded by the East African and Kamerunese conflicts fueled general Catholic resentment over government favoritism toward ruthless colonial traders, overindulged settlers, and capitalist war profiteers. For example, while Erzberger censured the trading companies of southern Kamerun for driving the populace to rebel, the conservative Centrist judge Wilhelm Schwarze-Lippstadt warned that the continued sanctioning of that

44 Gröber, Müller-Fulda, May 23, 1906, ProtBc; Erzberger, May 25, 1906, ProtBc; Gröber, Erzberger, May 26, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1098:259, 262, 266, BAP. Spahn, May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3533A/B. Erzberger, Reporter, May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3526B/D. “Die Budgetcommission des Reichstags,” Germania, May 26, 1906, Nr. 119. 45 See chapter 9, footnotes 117 and 118. 46 Arenberg, Erzberger, Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Seitz, Feb. 6, 1906, ProtBc; Motion Erzberger, Seitz, Paasche, Feb. 15, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1058:51, 72–73, BAP. Erzberger, Mar. 17, 1906, RTSB, 2114A/C. 47 Erzberger, Motion Erzberger, Feb. 15, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1058:72, BAP. Hohenlohe- Langenburg, Mar. 17, 1906, RTSB, 2111C/D. Erzberger, Jan. 16, 1906, RTSB, 593D–594A. Erzberger, Mar. 13, 1906, RTSB, 1975C/D. Erzberger, Mar. 17, 1906, RTSB, 2114B/C. 48 Erzberger, May 23, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1058:108, BAP. Erzberger, Reporter, May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3525C. The Colonial Tempest 285 colony’s lucrative arms trade could cost the Reich millions in a general uprising on the Southwest African model.49 Similarly, in late 1905 both Judge Gröber and Erzberger indicted the German settlers of Southwest Africa for exploiting and abusing the indigenous population to the point of revolt.50 Nonetheless, the Bülow administration presented the Reichstag with a proposal in May 1906 that went well beyond even full compensation of the settlers’ losses at Herero and Nama hands although the Center as a whole had previously declared forty-percent restitution more than adequate recompense. Had it been approved, the complementary budget title would have provided the settlers not only with total reimbursement for the remaining 7.5 million marks of direct Herero and Nama damage, but also with an additional three million for estimated losses in unrealized cattle profits.51 The entire Center Party resisted this narrow colonial favoritism at taxpayer expense. From the bourgeois professionals Spahn, Gröber, and Hertling to the populists Müller-Fulda, Erzberger, and Speck, Centrists refused even so much as to consider further compensation of any kind because the Reichstag had still not received an accounting of the five million already authorized and distributed.52 As for the restitution of the settlers’ unrealized profits, the jurist Karl Bachem considered this the most foolish of the Reich’s proposals.53 Centrists of all persuasions therefore helped send both segments of this budget title to a resounding parliamentary defeat on May 26, less than an hour after the rejection of the Kubub-Keetmanshoop extension.54 By 1905/06 the mounting costs of the Herero and Nama Wars also engendered an increased willingness on the part of the Center Party elders to confront the issues of corporate profiteering at Reich expense and government delinquency in curbing it. Bachem, for example, argued vociferously in favor of

49 Schwarze-Lippstadt, Mar. 16, 1906, RTSB, 2058B/C. Erzberger, Dec. 14, 1905, RTSB, 322D–323A. Erzberger, Jan. 18, 1906, RTSB, 636C/D. Erzberger, Mar. 20, 1906, RTSB, 2174A. [Erzberger], “Allerlei zur Kolonialpolitik,” KVZ, Sep. 8, 1905, Nr. 743. [Erzberger], “Die Gesellschaft Südkamerun,” KVZ, Sep. 14, 1905, Nr. 762. 50 Gröber, Dec. 13, 1905, RTSB, 277B. For Erzberger citations, see the previous footnote. 51 Bachem, Spahn, Erzberger, Jan. 20, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1096:259–60, BAP. Erzberger, Jan. 31, 1905, RTSB, 4147D, 4148C/D. Erzberger, Reporter, May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3543C/D. ComB 1906, May 19, 1906, RDS 474, Appendix I, MA 95403, ByHSA. See also the previous chapter. 52 Motion Müller-Fulda, May 23, 1906, KDS 107, RKA, 2224:210, BAP. Müller-Fulda, Gröber, May 26, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1098:265–66, BAP. Spahn, May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3532D. Erzberger, Reporter, May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3543C–3544A. Erzberger, May 28, 1906, RTSB, 3577C/D. 53 Bachem, May 27, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 242, HASK. 54 See in addition to the previous two footnotes: Paasche, Vice President, May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3548A/B. 286 CHAPTER 10

Erzberger’s motion of December 1905 to make passage of the Lüderitzbucht- Kubub Railroad conditional upon Berlin’s consent to revoke all land and mining concessions in Southwest Africa not exercised by April 1909. Accusing the giant land corporations of being the sole beneficiaries of the costly suppression of the Nama Uprising, the Rhenish lawyer contested the government’s presumption that German taxpayers should now finance the railroad which a British firm had neglected to build into that company’s own domain. Given Berlin’s failure to create the mandated parliamentary commission to investigate such concessions, both Bachem and Erzberger went so far as to threaten a Centrist rejection of all further colonial requests until the government should present a fundamentally reformed program for its overseas empire.55 Similarly, whereas Erzberger had been the only Centrist attacking the Tippelskirch Company in early 1905, by 1906 many of the party’s bourgeois professionals had also come out in opposition to that manufacturing and procuring firm’s long-standing near-monopoly in the equipping of Germany’s colonial troops.56 Now leading the campaign for the majority of the Center, Erzberger accused Tippelskirch of charging inflated prices averaging thirty percent over market value and of failing to remunerate its workers for Sunday and night labor. He likewise indicted the Colonial Department itself for having repeatedly renewed contracts with this firm and a handful of other North German corporations, thereby quashing competition at the expense of artisans, small manufacturers, the South German economy, and the debt-ridden Imperial Treasury.57 Indeed, an eight-year contract extension with Tippelskirch had scarcely been signed in 1903 before the wave of African armed resistance compelled Berlin to an elevenfold increase in its yearly purchases under a price list entirely lacking in volume discount provisions.58 Erzberger accordingly

55 Bachem, Müller-Fulda, Golinelli, Motion Erzberger, Dec. 13, 1905, ProtBc; Erzberger, Dec. 12, 1905, ProtBc; Erzberger, Müller-Fulda, Dec. 14, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1097:250–51, 246, 255, BAP. Erzberger, Dec. 2, 1905, RTSB, 83D–84A. 56 Erzberger, Jan. 13, 1905, ProtBc; Erzberger, Spahn, Arenberg, Jan. 17, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1096:236, 244–46, BAP. Erzberger, Dahlem, Motion Erzberger, Feb. 16, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1098:56–58, BAP. Erzberger, Mar. 23, 1906, RTSB, 2234D–2238C. Motion Hompesch, Resolution for the Second Reading of the Colonial Budget, Mar. 12, 1906, RDS 282, RKA, 7257:84, BAP. 57 Erzberger, Motion Erzberger, Feb. 16, 1906, ProtBc; Erzberger, Mar. 27, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1098:56, 58, 187, BAP. Erzberger, Mar. 23, 1906, RTSB, 2235A–2236D. Erzberger, Mar. 24, 1906, RTSB, 2258D–2259B. 58 Erzberger, Mar. 23, 1906, RTSB, 2235D–2236A. Seitz, Mar. 23, 1906, RTSB, 2240C/D. Seitz, Fischer, Gamp, Feb. 16, 1906, ProtBc; Fischer, Mar. 27, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1098:57–58, 186, The Colonial Tempest 287 estimated that fully twenty-five percent of the eight million marks now paid annually to Tippelskirch amounted to sheer profit.59 Within the Center Party Erzberger enjoyed significant bourgeois professional support in this campaign against capitalist war profiteering. In February 1906 Hertling, Bachem, and three other Center jurists co-sponsored Erzberger’s motion calling upon Bülow to issue colonial supply contract guidelines that presupposed the dissolution of the arrangement with Tippelskirch. The party’s proposal sought to establish the requirement that all solvent companies and artisans throughout the Reich be considered eligible to receive colonial contracts and that these include stipulations for the adequate protection of the workers involved.60 A month later senior Centrists Karl Herold, Karl Trimborn, Hugo Am Zehnhoff, and four Catholic judges joined the populists around Erzberger in demanding the immediate cancellation of unfavorable long-term colonial contracts with such corporations as Tippelskirch, Jordan, Oranien Apothecary, and Woermann Shipping. Moreover, while neither Spahn, Gröber, nor Bachem were signatories to this proposal of precipitous contract termination, support for the measure was otherwise so widespread within the party that the Center’s venerable aristocratic chairman Alfred Graf von Hompesch- Rurich lent his name to the subsequently successful resolution.61 Hence, the high costs of African military success against Germany also contributed directly to Centrist estrangement from the Bülow administration by fanning the flames of Catholic economic resentment toward colonial interests enjoying undue government favor.

BAP. “Denkschrift betreffend die Entwicklung der Geschäftsverbindung der Kolonial- Abteilung mit der Firma v. Tippelskirch,” Feb. 2, 1906, KDS 20, RKzA, 944:45, BAP. 59 Erzberger, Mar. 23, 1906, RTSB, 2235C/D, 2236D. Erzberger, Mar. 24, 1906, RTSB, 2257C. Erzberger, Mar. 26, 1906, RTSB, 2309A. Erzberger, Mar. 27, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1098:187, BAP. 60 Erzberger, Dahlem, Motion Erzberger, Feb. 16, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1098:57–58, BAP. Erzberger, Mar. 23, 1906, RTSB, 2235A/B. Erzberger, Mar. 24, 1906, RTSB, 2259A/B. 61 Motion Hompesch, Resolution for the Second Reading of the Colonial Budget, Mar. 12, 1906, RDS 282; Oral report of the Budget Committee regarding . . . the Resolution Hompesch, Mar. 28, 1906, RDS 333, RKA, 7257:84, 111, BAP. Erzberger, Mar. 23, 1906, RTSB, 2234D–2235A, 2235C, 2237. Erzberger, Mar. 24, 1906, RTSB, 2257B–2258C. Erzberger, Mar. 26, 1906, RTSB, 2309A. Erzberger, Spahn, Mar. 27, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1098:187–88, BAP. Memoranda, Feb. 2, 1906, KDS 20, RKzA, 944:45, BAP. 288 CHAPTER 10

The Center’s Colonial Reform Demands, United and Divided

It has been shown that in 1905/06 the African resort to arms prompted the Berlin government to pursue political, military, and fiscal policies that alienated a thoroughly exasperated Center. The African impact upon German domestic politics extended still further, however, as the financial and political crisis precipitated by the civil as well as armed resistance of Africans impelled the Catholic party to seek a more active role for the Reichstag in colonial affairs. Ascribing the rebellions and the filing of grievances to government complicity in the abuse and exploitation of Africans, the Center hoped to preclude future costly uprisings through the promotion of justice for colonized populations. Accordingly, the Center populists and, to no small extent, its jurists demanded that Berlin concede the restriction of the executive right of decree (Verordnungsrecht), the separation of the colonial judicial system from the administration, and the expansion of parliamentary jurisdiction in colonial affairs in order to guarantee basic human rights to the Reich’s non-European subjects. Here again, however, Catholic populists and jurists also regularly found themselves at odds over the appropriate measure of criticism to be leveled against Berlin, particularly in the realm of personnel policy. As undoubtedly the most outspoken Centrist proponent of these demands, the Swabian populist Matthias Erzberger linked a significant portion of the Reich’s fiscal woes to the administration’s abuses of its executive and judicial powers over colonized peoples. In the East African case, he repeatedly cited reports from the colony tracing the Maji Maji Uprising to resentment over the introduction and inequitability of official forced labor. Ever since the imposition of the hut tax in 1897, East African men unable to pay in cash or kind had been assigned to twenty-five consecutive days of chain-gang labor at a tax reduction rate of sixteen pfennigs per day. Worse still, as women were deemed only half as able, widows or single mothers of modest means had been required to work off the tax with fifty such days of forced labor. More recently, the district officials at Kilwa and Lindi had unilaterally introduced communal cottonfields, purportedly in the interest of the local community as well as German industry. However, to this end all East Africans in those districts had been obliged to work in the cottonfields for twenty-four days during their own annual harvest at wages as preposterously low as half a pfennig per day. Erzberger attributed the uprising primarily to these two policy blunders of a colonial administration that had exceeded the stipulations regulating its exercise of the Kaiser’s right of decree.62 In addition, the Swabian claimed that

62 [Erzberger], “Zwangsarbeit in Deutsch-Ostafrika,” KVZ, Nov. 7, 1905, Nr. 921. Erzberger, Dec. 14, 1905, RTSB, 324D–325A. Erzberger, Jan. 16, 1906, RTSB, 590C–591C, 605C. The Colonial Tempest 289

Berlin’s method of converting from the Indian to the new German rupee had fueled the fires of rebellion by enabling Indian merchants to defraud the indigenous population.63 Where East Africa was concerned, however, Erzberger found little support from the Center Party elders for his attacks upon Berlin’s record. Rather than criticize the imposition of communal cottonfields, Arenberg and Schwarze- Lippstadt faulted only the despotism and greed of the Arab and African over- seers. While Erzberger focused upon the evils of forced labor, the Rhenish prince and the Westphalian judge argued in February and March 1906 that the inherent laziness of Africans necessitated the application of some measure of force to induce them to work. Moreover, far from finding the three-rupee hut tax excessively high, Schwarze-Lippstadt believed the error lay solely in the introduction of that tax in regions where the Reich’s dominion was not yet secure.64 Meanwhile, Center leader Peter Spahn answered Erzberger’s criticisms of the socioeconomic impact of the German rupee with an endorsement of the colony’s new currency.65 Nonetheless, the bourgeois professional Centrists often appeared to share Erzberger’s dismay at the widespread colonial maladministration that had already resulted in serious German losses and might do so again at any moment. Thus, in early December 1905, even as jurists Alois Fritzen and Karl Bachem sought to temper opposition within the party to the governmental line, they concurred with the populists that the extremely expensive uprisings could largely be traced to abuses perpetrated by colonial officials against African populations. Not only did Bachem privately ascribe the rebellions to “the filthy mismanagement [Schweinewirtschaft] of some officials,” but Fritzen also publicly charged that the brutality and incompetence of German colonial administrators had provoked the conflicts.66

Erzberger, Mar. 19, 1906, RTSB, 2132B, 2134D. Erzberger, Feb. 1, 1906, ProtBc; Erzberger, Feb. 7, 1906, ProtBc; Erzberger, Feb. 8, 1906, ProtBc; Erzberger, Feb. 15, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1058:44, 52–54, 73, BAP. 63 [Erzberger], “Die Systemlosigkeit in der Kolonialpolitik,” KVZ, Sep. 1, 1905, Nachlaß Richthofen, 14:130, BAK. Erzberger, Jan. 16, 1906, RTSB, 592B/C. Erzberger, Feb. 14, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1058:69, BAP. 64 Arenberg, Feb. 7, 1906, ProtBc; Arenberg, Feb. 8, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1058:53–54, BAP. Schwarze-Lippstadt, Mar. 16, 1906, RTSB, 2061B/C. It is worth noting, however, that Erzberger also believed that Africans were intrinsically lazy (Erzberger, Dec. 14, 1905, RTSB, 325B). 65 Spahn, Feb. 14, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1058:70, BAP. 66 Bachem to [Franz Bachem?], Dec. 4, 1905, Nachlaß Bachem, 239:7, HASK. Fritzen, Dec. 6, 1905, RTSB, 135B/C. 290 CHAPTER 10

A week after Fritzen’s speech, Judge Adolf Gröber elaborated upon the same accusation regarding the wars in Southwest Africa. The Swabian jurist called upon Berlin to respond to the assertion of Prussian Supreme Court Justice Felix Meyer that the attempt by Warmbad’s District Chief Jobst in October 1903 to exercise judicial authority over the Bondelswart Nama captain Jan Abraham Christian had violated Germany’s ‘protection treaty’ with that clan. The understandable resistance of the Bondelswarts had then proved to be the first domino of the Herero and Nama Wars. Gröber likewise cited Meyer’s contention that the German installation of High Chief Samuel Maharero in 1890 had been inconsistent with Herero hereditary custom and that the ensuing land purchases by whites had ignored the fact that Herero law did not give a high chief authority to sell communal land. Finally, the prominent Centrist presented Justice Meyer’s evidence that it had been the outrageously inadequate size of the reservations eventually created by the colonial administration that had driven the Herero to take up arms.67 Hence, Gröber was no less outspoken here than Erzberger, who subsequently highlighted the Southwest African administration’s fateful breach of the Bondelswart treaty and the equally momentous reaction of Maharero to ten suspicious Herero deaths in the German prison at Okahandja.68 Like Erzberger, Center jurists were also outraged by the harsh libel sentences the colonial administration meted out to Kamerunese chieftains for their unprecedented civil appeal to the Reichstag and chancellor in early September 1905. The purportedly slanderous petition of King Dika Akwa and fellow Bonambela Duala chieftains delineated two dozen grievances against colonial officials in Kamerun and sought the recall of the entire regime of Governor Jesko von Puttkamer. The Duala charged the Buea government with the irresponsible destruction of hundreds of homes, the imposition of unlawful taxes, the exaction of unpaid forced labor, the practice of gross judicial favoritism toward white murderers, the infliction of unusually cruel floggings, and the abuse of state authority by officials procuring concubines.69 Although

67 Gröber, Dec. 13, 1905, RTSB, 276C–277B. Leutwein to Colonial Department, Sep. 28, 1904, Report 917, Enclosure III, RKA, 2116:149, BAP. König to Solf, Jan. 26, 1904, Nachlaß Solf, 25:9–10, BAK. Drechsler, Südwestafrika, 1:65, 115–19. Bühler, Namaaufstand, 97–99. Otto von Weber, Geschichte des Schutzgebietes Deutsch-Südwest-Afrika (Windhoek: Verlag der S.W.A. Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft, n.d.), 124. 68 Erzberger, Jan. 18, 1906, RTSB, 633A. Erzberger, Mar. 19, 1906, RTSB, 2135D. Erzberger, Mar. 26, 1906, RTSB, 2300D–2301A. Spahn, Jan. 19, 1905, ProtBc; Stuebel, Ledebour, Paasche, Jan. 20, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1096:258–60, BAP. Weber, Geschichte des Schutzgebietes, 114. 69 “Beschwerdeschrift der Akwa-Häuptlinge an den Deutschen Reichstag,” June 19, 1905, RDS 21, RKA, 7238:25–29, BAP. Colonial Department to Puttkamer, Sep. 12, 1905, Order The Colonial Tempest 291 a copy of the Duala petition with the Colonial Department’s request for initial comment did not reach the Kamerun government until four weeks before the Reichstag convened, the Puttkamer regime still managed to obtain libel convictions of all twenty-three petitioners by December 6. Of these, King Dika Akwa, Chief Muange Mukuri, and Georg Njo a Dibonge received the stiffest sentences—namely, nine, seven, and three years of hard labor, respectively.70 These draconic sentences in response to a refreshingly peaceful African initiative appalled Center jurists and populists alike. As word from Kamerun reached the German press within the week, an incredulous Judge Gröber protested that, regardless of possible flaws in the Duala chieftains’ claims, the grievances of Africans unfamiliar with German legal practice had to be han- dled more diplomatically than would inadequately substantiated complaints leveled by Reich citizens.71 Similarly, testifying to the great indignation the sentences had aroused throughout Germany, Erzberger observed in January that even a wholly groundless complaint could not possibly warrant nine years in prison.72 Particularly shocked by the “horrendous” sentences, the Bavarian judge Richard Kalkhoff took the colonial administration to task in March for having preempted Reichstag consideration of the Duala petition and violated the German penal code. Although himself a target of the grievances, Governor Puttkamer had pressed state charges against the chieftains, rather than referring the decision to his superiors in Berlin. Moreover, Lämmermann, the acting district official appointed to hear the case, had been a man entirely too dependent upon the governor for his future administrative advancement. Furthermore, the chieftains had been granted neither counsel nor time to prepare their defense. Neither had the possibility of German violations of the

861, RKA, 4435:3, BAP. Rüger, “Duala und Kolonialmacht,” in Kamerun unter deutscher Kolonialherrschaft, ed. Stoecker, 2:201–15. Eckert, Duala und Kolonialmächte, 50–55, 74–75, 145–59. Although generally referred to in the literature as the ‘Akwa petition,’ Andreas Eckert’s discussion of the organization of the protest and Duala society would suggest that the broader term ‘Bonambela’ might be more accurate. Eckert himself uses the terms ‘Akwa’ and ‘Bonambela’ interchangeably in this context. 70 Colonial Department to Puttkamer, Sep. 12, 1905, Order 861; Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Puttkamer, Dec. 2, 1905, Telegram 69; Puttkamer to Foreign Office, Dec. 6, 1905, Telegram; Puttkamer to Colonial Department, Nov. 22, 1905, Report 1310 Secret; Lämmermann to Puttkamer, Dec. 6, 1905, Judgment, RKA, 4435:3, 13–14, 20 (8–14), 23–39, BAP. Hohenlohe- Langenburg, Jan. 18, 1906, RTSB, 630A/C. 71 Gröber, Dec. 13, 1905, RTSB, 276C. 72 Erzberger, Jan. 16, 1906, RTSB, 592A. Erzberger, Jan. 18, 1906, RTSB, 632C/D. Erzberger, Mar. 13, 1906, RTSB, 1979C. 292 CHAPTER 10

‘protection treaty’ of 1884 even been considered, nor had the applicability of Article 193 of the German Penal Code protecting the speech of those defending their legitimate interests. Finally, Kalkhoff objected to Judge Lämmermann’s peculiar argument justifying cumulative sentencing as if the twenty-four points of the petition had each constituted an individual act of libel.73 From the outset, this intense Centrist reaction to the sentencing of the Duala in Kamerun had been linked to pervasive Catholic fears of yet another expensive colonial insurrection. Thus, in his December speech before the Reichstag, Gröber warned the government that its harsh treatment of the petitioners was “the correct way to occasion further uprisings.”74 While sufficiently embarrassed to withhold legal confirmation from the sentence and to call upon Puttkamer to report to Berlin in person, Acting Colonial Director Hohenlohe-Langenburg still refused in January 1906 to consider ordering the release of the Duala from investigative custody during the new probe. He claimed this would drastically undermine the authority of the Kamerun government and thereby jeopardize German rule in that already troubled colony. Erzberger, however, urged the government to free the Bonambela Duala leadership precisely to avert disaster in Kamerun since miserable prison conditions had already played an important role in the outbreak of the Herero War in Southwest Africa.75 Indeed, finding his suspicions of imminent catastrophe confirmed by Hohenlohe-Langenburg’s remarks, the Swabian populist envisioned a Kamerunese conflagration erupting, for example, over the forced relocation of the villagers of Edea, the proposed shipping of Jaunde warriors to East Africa, or anticipated abuses by officials overseeing construction of the Duala-Manenguba Railroad.76 Nor was such Centrist apprehension of impending costly uprisings limited to Kamerun. Erzberger was quite concerned that the government of Southwest Africa might recklessly attempt to expropriate the land of the hitherto neutral but militarily powerful Ovambo in the north.77 He and fellow populist Georg

73 Kalkhoff, Mar. 2, 1906, ProtBc, MA 76195, ByHSA. 74 Gröber, Dec. 13, 1905, RTSB, 276C. 75 Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Jan. 18, 1906, RTSB, 630C/D. Erzberger, Jan. 18, 1906, RTSB, 632D–633A. Erzberger, Mar. 20, 1906, RTSB, 2174C/D. Erzberger, Mar. 5, 1906, ProtBc, MA 76195, ByHSA. However, Erzberger revealed the limits of his own concept of justice when he suggested in the Budget Committee that, if the Buea government would only drop the charges against the Bonambela, it might still save face by “deporting the guilty to Togo.” 76 Erzberger, Jan. 18, 1906, RTSB, 636C–637A. Erzberger, Semler, Feb. 6, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1058:51, BAP. 77 Erzberger, Jan. 18, 1906, RTSB, 637A. Erzberger, Mar. 23, 1906, RTSB, 2234A. Erzberger, Feb. 20, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1098:70, BAP. The Colonial Tempest 293

Dasbach also expressed fears in March that Commissioner Eugen Brandeis’s disregard of an 1890 prohibition against corporal punishment in the South Pacific might well provoke the Marshall Islanders to rebel. After all, Samuel Maharero’s recent decision for war and a near uprising in the Marshalls some years earlier were both traceable to anger over floggings.78 Even colonial enthusiast Judge Schwarze-Lippstadt emphasized the perils of bureaucratic despotism as exemplified in the misguided attempt of a district official in East Africa to promote the breeding of imported German bulls into the local cattle stock. With the folly of an autocrat, the official had simply rounded up and castrated all the indigenous bulls in the region. The Westphalian jurist admonished the government that precisely this kind of facile despotism in the colonies could “immediately give rise . . . to an uprising that [could] cost us millions.”79 Accordingly, although tempering Erzberger’s interpretation of the Maji Maji Uprising, the Center Party leaders otherwise shared his assessment that the Reichstag had to exercise far more control over the colonial administration than it had hitherto. The jurists therefore co-sponsored the drive for an expansion of parliamentary jurisdiction overseas in hopes that greater justice for non-Europeans would yield a peaceful, and thereby less expensive, colonial empire. Arguing in concert that the common root of the uprisings lay in the arbitrary measures of German officialdom, Judge Gröber and Erzberger both promoted their party’s resolution of December 1905 which called for legislation to expand the Reichstag’s colonial authority at the expense of the much abused executive right of decree.80 In addition, given that the Southwest African catastrophe had first erupted over an overextended administration’s unlawful intrusion into indigenous affairs, Erzberger, Arenberg, and Spahn led the Budget Committee in slowing the Reich’s all too rapid expansion in East Africa by eliminating personnel authorizations for four of eight proposed new administrative districts in February 1906.81 Moreover, since uprisings had arisen from German transgressions against indigenous law, Centrists from

78 Erzberger, Mar. 13, 1906, RTSB, 1977B/C. Erzberger, Mar. 15, 1906, RTSB, 2047D–2048B. Erzberger, Mar. 26, 1906, RTSB, 2291D–2292D, 2293C/D, 2300D–2301A. Dasbach, Mar. 26, 1906, RTSB, 2296B/D. 79 Schwarze-Lippstadt, Mar. 16, 1906, RTSB, 2058D. 80 Gröber, Dec. 13, 1905, RTSB, 276C–277C. Erzberger, Dec. 14, 1905, RTSB, 324D–325A, 331A/B. Erzberger, Jan. 16, 1906, RTSB, 590C–591C, 605C. Erzberger, Mar. 19, 1906, RTSB, 2129B–2136A. Erzberger, Mar. 20, 1906, RTSB, 2173D–2174A. 81 Erzberger, Jan. 16, 1906, RTSB, 594B. Erzberger, Mar. 13, 1906, RTSB, 1975C. Arenberg, Erzberger, Feb. 8, 1906, ProtBc; Arenberg, Erzberger, Spahn, Feb. 9, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1058:55, 62–63, BAP. “Parlamentarisches: Die Budgetcommission des Reichstags,” Germania, Feb. 10, 1906, Nr. 32. Erzberger in fact wished to eliminate all eight. 294 CHAPTER 10

Arenberg to Erzberger also stepped up their pressure upon Berlin to sponsor academic research into the legal traditions of colonized peoples and to incorporate its findings into a colonial legal code tailored to regional conditions.82 Finally, the Bonambela Duala grievances and the Kamerun administration’s harsh reaction thereto underlined for Catholic professionals and populists alike the necessity of separating the judicial system from the colonial administration and establishing legal safeguards to protect the civil rights of indigenous peoples. Therefore, in March 1906 Centrists of all persuasions responded to the Bonambela Duala petition with the successful Kalkhoff Motion. Sponsored by three Catholic judges, Professor Hertling, and Erzberger, the proposal called upon the Reich to guarantee civil rights to non-Europeans appearing before criminal and disciplinary courts and, in the meantime, to protect those merely in investigative custody from subjection to corporal punishment, forced labor, and shackling. The third point of the motion then urged the chancellor to appoint an impartial judge in Kamerun to investigate the Duala grievances thoroughly and report his findings to the Reichstag.83 While agreeing that the irresponsible actions of colonial officials had inflicted terrible losses upon the Reich, Center populists and jurists differed significantly in the manner in which they approached discussion of colonial personnel selection. On the one hand, guarding the party’s strategic political position, the party elders largely spared Berlin mention of official misconduct not itself linked to a major indigenous initiative. Instead, they focused upon the proposal of personnel policy changes to improve the caliber of German officials in the overseas empire. For example, Judge Schwarze-Lippstadt urged the Colonial Department to implement the self-evident principle that alco- holics ought not to be given posts in the colonies. Meanwhile, the Cologne lawyer Karl Bachem wished to see colonial experience weighed more heavily than European seniority in the ranking of officers stationed in East Africa.

82 Gröber, Dec. 13, 1905, RTSB, 276D–277B. Schwarze-Lippstadt, Mar. 16, 1906, RTSB, 2059C. Erzberger, Mar. 19, 1906, RTSB, 2133D–2134B, 2135A/D. Erzberger, Mar. 24, 1906, RTSB, 2256B/D. Erzberger, Arenberg, Feb. 7, 1906, ProtBc; Kalkhoff, Feb. 13, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1058:52–53, 66, BAP. Regarding earlier exhortations by Hertling, Arenberg, and Erzberger for the establishment of a Prussian professorship in colonial law, see the previous chapter, footnote 153. 83 Erzberger, Dec. 14, 1905, RTSB, 324D–325A, 331B/C. Erzberger, Jan. 16, 1906, RTSB, 591C, 592A. Erzberger, Mar. 19, 1906, RTSB, 2133D–2134B, 2135A–2136A. Erzberger, Mar. 20, 1906, RTSB, 2174C/D. Motion Kalkhoff, Mar. 5, 1906, KDS 26, RTA, 1074:259, BAP. Kalkhoff, Mar. 2, 1906, ProtBc; Kalkhoff, Erzberger, Mar. 5, 1906, ProtBc, MA 76195, ByHSA. Kalkhoff, Reporter, Mar. 20, 1906, RTSB, 2163A/B, 2179D. The Colonial Tempest 295

Third, senior Centrists advocated greater preparatory education for government agents and suggested the creation of a career colonial bureaucracy. Finally, believing an increased presence of European women would reduce both brutality and miscegenation overseas, the jurists sought to counteract the administrative bias against the appointment of married colonial officials and officers.84 As these jurist personnel policy recommendations were uncontro- versial if not uniformly practicable, they were received graciously by Acting Director Hohenlohe-Langenburg and caused little to no friction with the Colonial Department.85 While certainly not opposing any of these proposals, Erzberger devoted much less attention to them than did the Center jurists.86 Instead, he bran- dished scandalous official conduct ignored by his senior colleagues and accused the Colonial Department of concealing, rather than rectifying such abuses overseas. His primary informer in this regard, Assistant Secretary Oskar Poeplau of the central colonial administration, held the department’s personnel director Bernhard von König responsible for his having been denied a promised promotion in 1901. Poeplau’s repeated denunciations of König to the foreign secretary and chancellor had, however, resulted merely in forced retirement proceedings against himself. Finally, Poeplau had pooled his documentation in October 1904 with that of Togo’s Chief Clerk Wistuba and revealed his material to the Centrists Roeren and Am Zehnhoff and to Hermann Müller- Sagan of the Radical People’s Party. This violation of official secrecy led to Poeplau’s trial and conviction before the Imperial Disciplinary Chamber on September 28, 1905.87

84 Schwarze-Lippstadt, Mar. 16, 1906, RTSB, 2059A/D. Bachem, Mar. 17, 1906, RTSB, 2093B–2094C. Bachem, Mar. 16, 1906, RTSB, 2077D–2078A. Bachem, Arenberg, Feb. 7, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1058:52–53, BAP. “Parlamentarisches: In der Budgetcommission des Reichstags,” Germania, Feb. 22, 1906, Nr. 42. 85 Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Jan. 18, 1906, RTSB, 632A/B. Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Mar. 16, 1906, RTSB, 2062D–2063A. Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Ohnesorge, Feb. 7, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1058:52–53, BAP. Ohnesorge, Mar. 17, 1906, RTSB, 2094C–2095A. 86 Erzberger, Dec. 14, 1905, RTSB, 331A. Erzberger, Jan. 18, 1906, RTSB, 633A/B. Erzberger, Mar. 23, 1906, RTSB, 2232C/D. Erzberger, Feb. 7, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1058:52, BAP. 87 Erzberger, Dec. 14, 1905, RTSB, 323B–324B. Richthofen to Bülow, Jan. 30, 1903, Report KP53/1963; Colonial Department to Loebell, Feb. 5, 1906, Memorandum; Imperial Disciplinary Court Leipzig, April 2, 1906, Verdict in Disciplinary Investigation against Poeplau, RKzA, 945:7–8, 23–24, 58–59, 61–63, BAP. Wistuba to Poeplau, Oct. 14, 22, 1904, Nachlaß König, 7:95–96, BAP. Colonial Department, “Aufzeichnung betreffend das Verfahren gegen den Gouverneur von Puttkamer,” [early August] 1906; “Der ‘Fall 296 CHAPTER 10

Two days earlier, however, Erzberger had paid a visit to the Reich Chancellery on Poeplau’s behalf. On that occasion the Center populist had presented the secretary’s offer to return further compromising material to the government if the disciplinary proceedings could be halted. While Erzberger may or may not have imprudently suggested that the Center as a whole would be so appalled by the revelation of Poeplau’s material that it would vote against all colonial measures, Chancellery Chief Friedrich von Loebell in any case rejected the secretary’s proposal out of hand.88 Sentenced to dismissal, Poeplau thereupon authorized Erzberger and Bruno Ablaß of the Radical People’s Party to publicize his material concerning the scandalous conduct of nine colonial officials.89 While Ablaß depicted all the scandalous events overseas in detail, Erzberger focused upon the conduct of the central Berlin administration in the Thierry, Brandeis, and Kannenberg Affairs. For example, in December 1905 Ablaß accused the late Captain Gaston Thierry of having shot down Togolese and Kamerunese men like game animals, including the father of a Catholic school- boy in Lome. Claiming the government had received no such reports until that very moment, König replied that he could as yet neither confirm nor deny the allegations. However, Erzberger easily unmasked the insupportability of König’s defense before the Reichstag, for Poeplau had submitted these same charges to Bülow over a year earlier.90 The Colonial Department had therefore proved negligent in not investigating reported atrocities against Africans. Second, an official returning from the Marshall Islands in July 1901 had accused Commissioner Eugen Brandeis both of redirecting Reich funds skimmed off chieftain salaries and of failing to record corporal punishment administered in violation of the aforementioned prohibition of 1890. As no action had been taken against Brandeis by December 1902, Poeplau had

Horn,’” Berliner Tageblatt, Aug. 1, 1906, RKzA, 941:47, 53, BAP. Epstein, “German Colonial Scandals,” 655. 88 Loebell, Sep. 28 or 26, 1905, Note; Loebell, Nov. 19, 1906, Memorandum; Erzberger to the Editor’s Office of the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, Feb. 18, 1907; Helfferich to Loebell, Mar. 5, 1907, RKzA, 945:17–18, 114–15, 170, 208–9, BAP. Crothers, German Elections, 42–43, especially 43n60. Epstein, “German Colonial Scandals,” 656–57. 89 Erzberger, Dec. 14, 1905, RTSB, 323B–324B. Ablaß, Dec. 15, 1905, RTSB, 344B–349A. Justizrat Dr. Löwenstein, Der Prozeß Erzberger-Helfferich: Ein Rechtsgutachten mit einem Begleitwort von Justizrat Dr. Löwenstein (Ulm: Süddeutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1921), 84–87, in Nachlaß Erzberger, 31, BAK. 90 Ablaß, Dec. 15, 1905, RTSB, 347B/C. König, Dec. 15, 1905, RTSB, 350C/D. Erzberger, Mar. 13, 1906, RTSB, 1977D–1978A. Erzberger, Mar. 15, 1906, RTSB, 2047D. Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Mar. 13, 1906, RTSB, 1988A/B. The Colonial Tempest 297 cited this negligence in his first internal denunciation of König. Whereas forced retirement proceedings were initiated against Poeplau a few months later, Brandeis merely received a highly ambivalent reprimand that granted him permission to administer disciplinary floggings to preserve public order. Therefore, after Privy Councillors König and Rose still maintained in late 1905 that Brandeis had not exceeded his authority, Erzberger castigated them in the Reichstag for defending the commissioner’s dangerous misconduct and for ignoring and persecuting officials protesting against it.91 A third such case involved Captain Karl Kannenberg, the former station chief of Mpapua in East Africa. In 1899 Kannenberg had had two pro-German Nfioni flogged mercilessly for failing to answer his questions about their language. At six times the legal limit, the one-hundred-fifty lashes Uhu and Dohsa each received had killed the former within twenty-four hours and crippled the latter for life. Kannenberg was eventually sentenced in June 1900, but only to dismissal and three years of honorable confinement. Worse still, Erzberger revealed in December 1905 that, when replying to Bebel’s inquiry of March 1901, then-Colonial Director Stuebel had consciously omitted mention of a recent act of imperial clemency granting Kannenberg a Reich pension.92 Indeed, the Swabian populist even overplayed his hand by claiming that the proceedings against Poeplau since 1901 had stemmed from the latter’s alleged objection to Kannenberg’s collection of a pension.93 In sum, according to Erzberger, the central colonial administration essentially condoned the maltreatment of

91 Erzberger, Dec. 14, 1905, RTSB, 323B/C. Erzberger, Mar. 13, 1906, RTSB, 1977A/D. Erzberger, Mar. 15, 1906, RTSB, 2047D–2048C. Erzberger, Mar. 26, 1906, RTSB, 2291B–2293D, 2300B–2301A. Dasbach, Mar. 26, 1906, RTSB, 2296B–2297A. Ablaß, Dec. 15, 1905, RTSB, 346D–347B. König, Dec. 15, 1905, RTSB, 350B. Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Mar. 13, 1906, RTSB, 1988B/D. Rose, Mar. 15, 1906, RTSB, 2051A/B. Rose, Mar. 26, 1906, RTSB, 2294C–2295D, 2297B/C. Löwenstein, Prozeß Erzberger-Helfferich, 84–87, in Nachlaß Erzberger, 31, BAK. 92 Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Bülow, Aug. 29, 1906, Report KP 13403, RKzA, 941:170, BAP. Erzberger, Dec. 14, 1905, RTSB, 326C/D. Erzberger, Mar. 13, 1906, RTSB, 1976B–1977A. Erzberger, Mar. 20, 1906, RTSB, 2175B. Erzberger, Ohnesorge, Feb. 14, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1058:70–71, BAP. Ablaß, Dec. 15, 1905, RTSB, 346CD. Ironically, Kannenberg achieved far more notoriety in Germany and the subsequent historical literature through embellished reports regarding a considerably less horrible incident of 1898. The officer did not murder Kigala Maswa and her child when the latter’s crying disturbed his sleep. Kannenberg wounded the Mgogo woman when he shot blindly into a hut, yet she recovered fully and obtained compensation from the officer. No child was involved. (Ohnesorge, Feb. 20, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1098:69–70, BAP. Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Mar. 13, 1906, RTSB, 1987C/D. Epstein, “German Colonial Scandals,” 641). 93 Erzberger, Mar. 13, 1906, RTSB, 1976C/D. Erzberger, Mar. 15, 1906, RTSB, 2047C/D. In fact, Poeplau had simply clashed with his supervisor because he had argued too emphatically 298 CHAPTER 10 colonized populations and hounded lesser officials who dared to challenge their superiors on this point. This contention of the Center populists naturally alienated the government. Since Erzberger was giving the Kaiser ever more reason to heed the rising tide of anticlerical sentiment, he was impeding the efforts of senior Centrists to protect the party’s strategic political position. Accordingly, for months Center jurists urged Erzberger privately to exercise more restraint in his attacks upon the integrity of the Colonial Department. As this proved to no avail, however, some party elders deemed it necessary to take more active measures against him. Although afflicted by a chronic neurological disorder, Karl Bachem forced himself to participate more regularly in the committee and plenary Reichstag colonial debates of early 1906 in order to provide Berlin with a generally governmental counterweight to Erzberger. Twice Bachem even appealed to the Executive Committee of the Center to remove Erzberger from the Reichstag Budget Committee, but the youthful Swabian enjoyed protection on the former body from his mentor Judge Adolf Gröber and from fellow moderate populist Richard Müller-Fulda.94 The tolerant-to-enthusiastic attitude of these two men toward Erzberger’s colonial campaign was a source of great frustration to other senior Centrists. Hertling privately decried Gröber’s “bad-mood politics” while Karl Bachem found Müller-Fulda guilty of “two-faced capriciousness.”95

that Kannenberg’s pension payments should begin on January 1, a month earlier than his superior deemed appropriate (Rose, Mar. 15, 1906, RTSB, 2021A–2022A, 2051B/D). 94 Bachem, Mar. 21, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 238, HASK. Bachem to [Franz Bachem?], Dec. 4, 1905, Nachlaß Bachem, 239:7, HASK. Bachem, Dec. 20, 1906, Note; Bachem, Dec. 15, 1906, Confidential; Bachem to Otto, May 18, 1907, Nachlaß Bachem, 259:8–9, 12, HASK. Hertling to Julius Bachem, Apr. 10, 1906; Hertling to Bäumker, Apr. 26, 1906, cited in Karl von Hertling, “Manuskript,” Nachlaß Hertling, 56:73–74, 77, BAK. Hertling to Anna von Hertling, Apr. 4, 1906, Nachlaß Hertling, 17:51, BAK. Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Feb. 20, 1906, Nachlaß Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe- Langenburg, 71, HZAN. “Kanzlerkrisis?” Ostpreußische Zeitung, Mar. 11, 1906, Nachlaß Hammann, 6:36, BAP. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:342–350. Epstein, “German Colonial Scandals,” 652–53. Kiefer, Bachem, 172–74. 95 Bachem, Mar. 21, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 238, HASK. Hertling to Julius Bachem, Apr. 10, 1906, cited in Karl von Hertling, “Manuskript,” Nachlaß Hertling, 56:73–74, BAK. Hülskamp to Hertling, Feb. 11, 1906, Nachlaß Hertling, 35:65, BAK. Of Müller-Fulda, Hertling likewise wrote that he “engages in politics as if it were a sport, [he] speaks for A, makes a motion for B, and votes for C. . . . To say yes or to comply with the government is a horror for him.” (Hertling to Julius Bachem, Apr. 10, 1906, as above) On Müller-Fulda’s support for Erzberger, see also Müller-Fulda to Bachem, Aug. 10, 1905, Nachlaß Bachem, 228, HASK. On his mercurial political conduct, see also Bachem to Julius Bachem, Apr. 27, 1905, The Colonial Tempest 299

Meanwhile, Peter Spahn intercepted Erzberger more conspicuously in the latter’s forays into colonial personnel issues. For example, in the Budget Committee discussion of the Kannenberg case in East Africa, the Center leader sought to suppress Erzberger’s criticism of the Kaiser’s act of clemency and disputed the populist claim that Stuebel had responded misleadingly to Bebel’s 1901 inquiry on the subject.96 Then in March, with the approval of almost all of the Center leadership, Spahn disavowed Erzberger sharply before the entire Reichstag for attempting to dictate personnel policy to the administration in the cases of Poeplau and another colonial official. Perceiving the majority of the party behind him, however, Erzberger simply shrugged off Spahn’s rebuke in condescending fashion, and the populists of Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, Hesse, and the Eifel-Hunsrück region swiftly rallied around the insubordinate young Swabian.97 In keeping with the central argument of this work regarding the impact of colonized populations upon German domestic politics, it might be argued here that Erzberger’s attacks upon the central colonial administration in the Thierry, Brandeis, and Kannenberg Affairs arose from a conviction that amelioration of the conditions provoking costly uprisings overseas required flush- ing out those bureaucrats who had sanctioned the culture of abuse through the years. Indeed, this belief most probably did play some role in Erzberger’s thinking. Nonetheless, as these particular cases did not provoke any uprisings and given Erzberger’s clear predilection for linking their public discussion to the welfare of a lesser official, the treatment of these three scandals in the

Nachlaß Bachem, 223, HASK. Emile Wetterlé, Behind the Scenes in the Reichstag: Sixteen Years of Parliamentary Life in Germany, translated from the French by George Frederic Lees (New York: George H. Doran Co., 1918), 83. Tirpitz, Erinnerungen, 108. 96 Spahn, Feb. 14, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1058:71, BAP. 97 Spahn, Mar. 15, 1906, RTSB, 2029A/B. Erzberger, Mar. 15, 1906, RTSB, 2049C/D. [Julius Bachem], “Eine parlamentarische Auseinandersetzung,” KVZ, Mar. 17, 1906, Nr. 224; [Julius Bachem, citing a letter Karl Bachem credited to Müller-Fulda], “Zu dem Zwischen fall Spahn-Erzberger,” KVZ, Mar. 20, 1906, Nr. 233; “Spahn-Erzberger,” Tägliche Rundschau, Mar. 30, 1906, Nr. 151; “Häuslicher Zwist im Zentrumsturm,” Tägliche Rundschau, June 27, 1906, Nr. 294; Bachem, Mar. 21, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 238, HASK. Bachem, Dec. 20, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 259, HASK. “Aus Württemberg,” Augsburger Postzeitung, Mar. 24, 1906, Nr. 67; “Norddeutsches und Süddeutsches Zentrum,” Hannoverscher Courier, Apr. 11, 1906; “Das bayrische gegen das preußische Zentrum,” Vorwärts, Apr. 7, 1906; “Zum Dank für die Genehmigung des Reichskolonialamts,” Magdeburger Zeitung, Apr. 5, 1906, Nachlaß Heim, 109, Stadtarchiv Regensburg. Solf to Schultz, Mar. 16, 1906, Nachlaß Solf, 132:46–51, BAK. Hertling to Julius Bachem, Apr. 10, 1906, cited in Karl von Hertling, “Manuskript,” Nachlaß Hertling, 56:73–74, BAK. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:344–350. 300 CHAPTER 10

Reichstag plenum appears to have been more a function of Erzberger’s ambition and Poeplau’s rancor than of a populist effort to forestall further revolts. Still, two points must be borne in mind. First, although reliable documentation of the first meeting between Erzberger and Poeplau has not survived, the circumstantial evidence and a retrospective statement by Bachem suggest that the pair probably met through their mutual acquaintances, the Eifel-Hunsrück populist Judge Hermann Roeren and Togo’s former chief clerk Emanuel Wistuba.98 Certainly, it was through Wistuba’s assistance that Poeplau initially made contact with Center delegates Roeren and Am Zehnhoff in October 1904. By contrast, Poeplau appealed quite directly to the left liberals Müller- Sagan and Ablaß, chose the latter to be his defense attorney, and otherwise routed most of his revelations through the left liberal, not the Centrist press.99 Therefore, since Wistuba’s own links to Center delegates stemmed from the decisively pro-missionary stance he had taken during the ‘Kulturkampf in Togo,’ it is reasonable to suppose that, in the absence of the Anago and Dahomey initiatives sparking the Togo Affair, Poeplau would have made overtures solely to left liberals and never linked up with Erzberger. Moreover, had there been no devastating wave of African uprisings since 1903, Erzberger’s rather short inventory of the abuses and cover-ups assembled by Poeplau would hardly have found the same resonance that it in fact inspired with a German public that was witnessing the squandering of hundreds of lives and millions of marks in colonial wars. Much the same may be said regarding those remaining threads of the colonial scandal period that, in and of themselves, arose within the German milieu independent of the influences of African resistance. For example, without the desperate urgency of the military campaigns against the Herero and northern Nama, the choking of Swakopmund harbor with silt would have prompted far less embarrassing discussion in the Reichstag.100 Similarly, had the Herero and Nama Wars not been costing the Reich hundreds of millions in late 1905,

98 Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:349. Erzberger to Loebell, June 6, 1906; Rose, Sep. 7, 1906, Note, KP14871, Secret, RKzA, 945:39–40, 65–66, BAP. 99 Imperial Disciplinary Court Leipzig, April 2, 1906, Verdict in Disciplinary Investigation against Poeplau, RKzA, 945:7–8, 23–24, 58–59, 61–63, BAP. König to Bülow/Colonial Department, Dec. 20, 1906; Wistuba to Poeplau, Oct. 14, 22, 1904, Nachlaß König, 7:29–30, 95–96, BAP. Ablaß, Dec. 15, 1905, RTSB, 344B. 100 Erzberger, Dec. 2, 1905, RTSB, 83B/C. Erzberger, Reporter, Mar. 24, 1906, RTSB, 2267D–2268A, 2278C/D. Erzberger, Delegate, Mar. 24, 1906, RTSB, 2271C–2273B. Erzberger, Mar. 27, 1906, ProtBc; Erzberger, Becker, Spahn, Motion Erzberger, Mar. 28, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1098:189– 91, BAP. Bachem, Dec. 13, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1097:250, BAP. “Parlamentarisches: In der Budgetcommission des Reichstags,” Germania, Feb. 22, 1906, Nr. 42. The Colonial Tempest 301

Erzberger would probably never have drawn up his devastating colonial balance sheet nor compared with one another the Colonial Department’s series of yearly Southwest African memoranda to the Reichstag, documents that proved to contain outrageous official embellishment and obfuscation.101 Indeed, if one imagines the Reichstag session of 1905/06 without the Herero, Nama, Maji Maji, Anago, Dahomey, and Duala initiatives leading up to it, the colonial issues disturbing the government-Center partnership shrink to an entirely manageable level. Although Erzberger’s extensive attacks upon the Colonial Department’s handling of the Kamerun railroad concession were highly unpleasant, passage of the requested interest guarantee for the Duala- Manenguba line was never in doubt.102 Similarly, the East African school debate caused conflict between the Center and the government and laid bare some anticlerical tendencies in the Reichstag, yet it was settled amicably to the satisfaction of everyone but the Left with acceptance of the Centrist proposal to create Protestant, rather than secular schools.103 As for the establishment of an Imperial Colonial Office, it is entirely conceivable that Berlin would not have deemed organizational modification of the Colonial Department

101 [Erzberger], “Die südwestafrikanische Bilanz,” KVZ, Sep. 16, 1905, Nr. 768. [Erzberger], “Die Kolonialbilanz,” KVZ, Oct. 13, 1906, Nr. 848. Erzberger, Dec. 2, 1905, RTSB, 81C–85A, 107B/C. Erzberger, Dec. 14, 1905, RTSB, 320A–326D. Golinelli, Dec. 2, 1905, RTSB, 99C–101A. Arenberg, Dec. 12, 1905, ProtBc; Bachem, Dec. 13, 1905, ProtBc; Müller-Fulda, Dec. 14, 1905, ProtBc, RTA, 1097:245, 250, 255, BAP. 102 [Erzberger], “Verwirrung in der Kolonial-Abteilung,” KVZ, Sep. 14, 1905, Nr. 761; [Erzberger], “Zur Kamerun-Eisenbahnvorlage,” KVZ, Sep. 20, 1905, Nr. 779; [Erzberger], “Die Antwort des Kolonialamts,” KVZ, Sep. 23, 1905, Nr. 789; [Franz Bachem], “Herr Abgeordneter M. Erzberger,” KVZ, Oct. 7, 1905, Nr. 830; “Die Kamerunbahn,” KVZ, Dec. 27, 1905, Nr. 1074; [Franz Bachem], KVZ, Jan. 9, 1906, Nr. 22; KVZ, Jan. 15, 1906, Nr. 40, Nachlaß Karl Bachem, 428, Abteilung V, Heft 286:5, 8, 12, 16, 26, 29, 32, HASK. Erzberger, Dec. 14, 1905, RTSB, 326D–330D. Erzberger, Dec. 15, 1905, RTSB, 396D–399C, 403A–404C. Erzberger, Jan. 18, 1906, RTSB, 633B–636B. Erzberger, Jan. 19, 1906, RTSB, 666D–667C. Erzberger, Mar. 13, 1906, RTSB, 1977A. Erzberger, Müller-Fulda, Jan. 25, 1906, ProtBc; Motion Erzberger, Jan. 25, 1906, KDS 13/15; Müller-Fulda, Erzberger, Arenberg, Motion Erzberger, Jan. 26, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1074:197, 199–200, 202, 204–5, BAP. Report of the Budget Committee, Feb. 1, 1906, RDS 195, WüGB, E74, 77, C VII 2, HSAS. Williamson, Helfferich, 70–73. 103 Hertling, Spahn, Erzberger, Sittart, Seitz, Südekum, Ledebour, Feb. 13, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1058:67, BAP. “Die Budgetcommission des Reichstags,” Germania, Feb. 14, 1906, Nr. 35. Erzberger, Mar. 13, 1906, RTSB, 1975D–1976A, 1981A. Erzberger, Mar. 15, 1906, RTSB, 2050A/C. Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Mar. 13, 1906, RTSB, 1991C–1992C. Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Mar. 15, 1906, RTSB, 2031C/D. Spahn, Mar. 15, 1906, RTSB, 2029D–2030C. Schwarze-Lippstadt, Mar. 16, 1906, RTSB, 2057C–2058A. Second Reading, Budget 1906, East Africa, Continual Expenses, Chapter 1, Item 8, Position 1, Government schools, Mar. 17, 1906, RTSB, 2099–109. 302 CHAPTER 10 particularly necessary in the absence of a crisis. Had it nonetheless done so, the Center would certainly have welcomed Graf von Götzen as colonial undersecretary within the Foreign Office and quite possibly as independent undersecretary of an apparently well-run Imperial Colonial Office.104 In fact, if it had been burdened only by the Kamerun railroad debate, the Prussian school controversy, and Bülow’s defense of the duel in the army, the government-Center relationship might well have even experienced a net improvement in 1905/06. Entirely loyal in the face of the Algeciras fiasco, the Catholic party provided Berlin with indispensable support during passage of the controversial Reich finance reform, the militarily vital banknote law, the military pension law, and the new naval amendment with its associated costly dreadnoughts.105 Meanwhile, even as the continuing wave of anticlericalism over the Jesuit issue kept the Center from eliciting many concessions in return, the government gratified the party with its consent to the long-sought Reichstag per diems.106 Therefore, if the disruptive effects of African resistance upon German domestic politics could have been factored out, relations between party and government might have been expected to continue along a generally amenable course into late 1906 and beyond. Instead, numerous African initiatives generated mounting mutual exasperation between the Center and the Bülow administration in 1905/06. First, the Maji Maji Uprising prevented an experienced governor admired by the Center from succeeding Stuebel as colonial director and hence contributed to the politically and professionally imprudent appointment of an anticlerical novice in colonial affairs. Second, the considerable military challenges presented by

104 See footnote 12 in this chapter regarding Centrist willingness to approve the colonial undersecretary post within the Foreign Office and concerning the precedent of the Imperial Treasury that was initially led by a fully autonomous undersecretary, rather than a state secretary. 105 Bülow to Wilhelm II, May 29, 1906, Telegram 1, Secret, R2116, Deutschland 134 Geheim, PAAA. Posadowsky to Bülow, May 28, 1906, RKzA, 1662:128, BAP. Arenberg to Bülow, Apr. 2, 1906, Nachlaß Hammann, 1:3–4, BAP. Bachem, Mar. 21, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 244:7, HASK. Bachem, May 27, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 242, HASK. Spahn to Martin Spahn, May 22, 1906, Nachlaß Martin Spahn, 318, BAK. Tirpitz to Senden, Sep. 6, 1905, Nachlaß Senden, 5:26, BMAF. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:278–85, 299–303, 306–15, 351; 9:187–90. Bülow, Denkwürdigkeiten, 2:212, 217–18. Haferkorn, Bülows Kampf, 14–17. 106 Bachem to [Franz Bachem?], Dec. 4, 1905, Nachlaß Bachem, 239:7, HASK. [Julius Bachem, citing a letter Karl Bachem credited to Müller-Fulda], “Zu dem Zwischenfall Spahn- Erzberger,” KVZ, Mar. 20, 1906, Nr. 233. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:304–5. Regarding the negotiations that produced the remuneration law for Reichstag delegates, see Butzer, Diäten und Freifahrt, 243–313, 329–33. The Colonial Tempest 303 the peoples of Southwest and East Africa encouraged Berlin to handle incon- venient Reichstag prerogatives with contempt and thus to provoke parliamentary conflicts with the Center. Third, the tremendous costs of particularly the Nama War brought the Catholic party to the limit of its deference to the Reich in military affairs and to the end of its tolerance for government favoritism toward colonial economic interests. Fourth, the readily comprehensible grievances behind the widely dispersed and generally expensive African initiatives evoked forceful Centrist accusations against the brutality and incompetence of colonial officials who were held largely responsible for the devastating losses to the Reich. Fifth, the disturbing frequency and enormous expense of the uprisings engendered a pervasive fear among Centrists of further imminent disasters that only rigorous Reichstag oversight, expanded legislative powers at executive expense, and legal safeguards guaranteeing the civil rights of non-Europeans might hope to avert. Finally, reverberations from the Anago and Dahomey initiatives in Togo appear to have brought Erzberger in contact with his most notorious informant on Colonial Department cover-ups even as the financial and human losses dealt to the Reich by the Herero, Nama, and Maji Maji Wars primed the Catholic populists to heed the trumpet call of the Swabian’s campaign against colonial scandals. The resulting abundance of colonial friction therefore constituted a highly explosive element in the government-Center relationship of 1905/06. CHAPTER 11 The Breach, Mid to Late 1906

The accumulated mutual frustration between government and Center first erupted into an unmistakable breach as three important colonial proposals were all struck down by the Catholic party in the course of a single day, May 26, 1906.1 Two of these three clashes—the rejection of the Kubub-Keetmanshoop Railroad and the refusal of further compensation to the expropriated settlers of Southwest Africa—have been discussed in the previous chapter as functions of Herero and Nama success in imposing tremendous military costs upon the Reich. The third major conflict of May 26, the obstruction of the establishment of an Imperial Colonial Office likewise emerged out of the consequences of African initiatives. Here, too, as the party-government partnership began to crumble, certain jurist and aristocratic Centrists subscribed to the necessity of the state secretary’s office and the imperative of cooperation with Berlin on the issue with the result that the rift in the party’s ranks manifested itself more openly. At the same time, the rapidly growing intractability of the Centrist majority in colonial affairs increasingly undermined Bülow’s crucial relationship with the Kaiser. Threatened in his position largely by domestic reverberations from African resistance movements, the chancellor found the prospect of a dramatic break with the Catholic party ever more appealing.

African Resistance, Centrist Recalcitrance, Bülow’s Insecurity

Admittedly, the widespread Centrist opposition to the establishment of a Colonial Office arose from pragmatic as well as partisan considerations. Nearly a full year before Hohenlohe-Langenburg’s appointment, Peter Spahn had expressed his skepticism regarding the utility of severing the Colonial Department from the Foreign Office.2 When the government then officially put forward its proposal in late 1905, both Spahn and Erzberger observed that

1 The portion of this chapter pertaining to the government’s triple defeat of May 26, 1906, first appeared in print in an abbreviated form in 2006. Reprinted with permission from John S. Lowry, “African Resistance and Center Party Recalcitrance in the Reichstag Colonial Debates of 1905/06,” Central European History 39 (2006): 244, 260–62. © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association. 2 Spahn, Dec. 9, 1904, RTSB, 3450A.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004306875_013 The Breach 305 the existing institutional arrangement facilitated interagency communication and a desirable consistency in Germany’s foreign policy toward other colonial powers. They feared, namely, that the elevation of the colonial director to the same rank as the foreign secretary would lead to heated policy disagree- ments analogous to those exhibited by their French ministerial counterparts. Similarly, Centrists were privately concerned that a colonial secretary might obtain undue influence through his official direct access to the Kaiser and then force the chancellor to accept overly expensive or adventurous projects.3 Finally, Centrists of both persuasions objected that the reorganization in Berlin would do nothing to address the more obvious deficiencies of the bureaucracy overseas.4 Still, although the Center delegation resolved in early March 1906 to vote against establishing a Colonial Office, it was not actually opposed to the measure in principle and could most probably have been persuaded to put aside its reservations but for the repercussions from African resistance movements. As it was, about one-fifth of the Center delegation found Berlin’s arguments for the reorganization sufficiently persuasive to abstain from the Reichstag votes or even to break party rank entirely and vote for the bill. This contingent of Colonial Office supporters encompassed not only such aristocrats as Arenberg, Ballestrem, and Hertling, but also ten jurists including Bachem, Fritzen, Am Zehnhoff, Schwarze-Lippstadt, and Kalkhoff.5 Indeed, at Bülow’s behest, the now mildly supportive Spahn nearly succeeded in shifting the Center’s weight

3 [Erzberger], “Ein Kolonialministerium?” KVZ, Sep. 4, 1905, Nr. 732. Erzberger, “Ein Kolonialministerium?” Tag, Nov. 18, 1905, Nachlaß Ernst Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Preßstimmen zur Übernahme des Kolonialamts, HZAN. Hentig to Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Nov. 18, 1905, Nachlaß Ernst Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Übernahme der Leitung, HZAN. Spahn, Erzberger, Mar. 21, 1906, ProtBc, RKzA, 1662:93–95, BAP. Spahn, Reporter, Mar. 29, 1906, RTSB, 2416C, 2423D–2424C. Spahn, Delegate, Mar. 29, 1906, RTSB, 2429B–2430B. Bachem, Mar. 21, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 244:7, HASK. 4 Fritzen, Dec. 6, 1905, RTSB, 135B/C. Bachem, Mar. 21, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 244:7, HASK. 5 “Reichs-Kolonialamt,” KVZ, Mar. 3, 1906, Nr. 178. Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Mar. 6, 1906, Nachlaß Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, 71, HZAN. Bachem, Mar. 21, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 244:7, HASK. Bachem, May 27, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 242, HASK. Lattmann, Mar. 21, 1906, ProtBc, RKzA, 1662:95, BAP. Roll Call Vote, Budget 1906, Chapter 69a, Item 1, State Secretary of the Imperial Colonial Office, Mar. 29, 1906, RTSB, 2432–34. Ibid., Mar. 30, 1906, RTSB, 2463–65. Ibid., May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3560–62. Hertling to Julius Bachem, Apr. 10, 1906, cited in Karl von Hertling, “Manuskript,” Nachlaß Hertling, 56:73–74, BAK. “Zum Dank für die Genehmigung des Reichskolonialamts,” Magdeburger Zeitung, Apr. 5, 1906, Nachlaß Heim, 109, Stadtarchiv Regensburg. 306 CHAPTER 11 within the Budget Committee from opposition to endorsement of the Colonial Office.6 Although unable to swing the party’s full vote, Spahn subsequently managed to augment Centrist absenteeism for the upcoming second plenary reading. Meanwhile, Bülow secured essential votes from the Radical People’s Party, a left liberal caucus whose staunchly oppositional stance toward the government had seldom wavered under the leadership of the late Eugen Richter. As a result, by March 30 the government had summoned to Berlin enough supporters of the bill to outvote the opposition 127–110 thanks largely to the attendance of only fifty-three Center delegates, of whom two voted with the majority and ten abstained.7 However, a majority of the Catholic party, comprised of the populists behind Erzberger and exasperated jurists such as Gröber, had grown too frustrated with the colonial administration and the inadequate Hohenlohe-Langenburg to contemplate easing its opposition to the Colonial Office for the mere sake of accommodating the government.8 A number of these Centrists had been so irritated at the prospect of being outvoted via Spahn’s ploy that they had thwarted the existing quorum on March 29 by absenting themselves during the first Colonial Office roll call vote, thereby necessitating repetition of the vote on March 30.9 Likewise, Erzberger announced to Hohenlohe-Langenburg in

6 Lerchenfeld to Podewils, Mar. 22, 1906, ByGB, 1078, ByHSA. Loebell to Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Mar. 7, 1906, Nachlaß Ernst Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Übernahme der Leitung, HZAN. [Reich Chancellery or Colonial Department], Mar. 11, 1906, Memorandum, RKzA, 1662:46–47, BAP. “Kanzlerkrisis?” Ostpreußische Zeitung, Mar. 11, 1906, Nachlaß Hammann, 6:36, BAP. Bachem, Mar. 21, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 244:7, HASK. 7 Lerchenfeld to Podewils, Mar. 24, 1906, ByGB, 1078, ByHSA. Lerchenfeld to Podewils, Mar. 9, 1907, Report 149, ByGB, 1079, ByHSA. Roll Call Vote, Budget 1906, Chapter 69a, Item 1, State Secretary, Mar. 30, 1906, RTSB, 2463–65. Bachem, Mar. 30, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 244:7, HASK. Bachem, Dec. 20, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 259, HASK. “Die neue Entrüstungskomödie,” Nordrheinische Volkszeitung, May 30, 1906, Nr. 445, Nachlaß Bachem, 242, HASK. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:327–28, 340–41, 385–86. 8 Bachem, Mar. 21, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 244:7, HASK. Bachem, May 27, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 242, HASK. Hertling to Julius Bachem, Apr. 10, 1906, cited in Karl von Hertling, “Manuskript,” Nachlaß Hertling, 56:73–74, BAK. 9 Hertling to Julius Bachem, Apr. 10, 1906, cited in Karl von Hertling, “Manuskript,” Nachlaß Hertling, 56:73–74, BAK. Ballestrem, Mar. 29, 1906, Diary entry, Nachlaß Ballestrem, Tagebücher, Gräfliches Archiv Ballestrem Straubing (GABS). Ballestrem, President, Mar. 29, 1906, RTSB, 2430D–2431B. Roll Call Vote, Budget 1906, Chapter 69a, Item 1, State Secretary, Mar. 29, 1906, RTSB, 2432–34. “Aus Reichstag und Landtag,” Tägliche Rundschau, Mar. 30, 1906, Nr. 150; “Politische Tagesübersicht—Aus dem Reichstag,” Berliner Post, Mar. 30, 1906; “Das Reichskolonialamt bewilligt,” Nationale Correspondenz, Mar. 30, 1906, Nr. 76; “ ‘Kanzlerkrisis’ und Reichskolonialamt,” Münchener Allgemeine Zeitung, Mar. 31, 1906, Nr. 149, RKzA, 1662:83, 85, 89, 91–92, BAP. The Breach 307

May that he would sanction a reprise of the March maneuver for the third and final vote only if Berlin agreed to the appointment of the Centrist’s National Liberal associate Hermann Paasche as colonial undersecretary. However, Acting Chancellor Posadowsky considered this concession to parliamentary influence an unacceptable price.10 Accordingly, in the final vote on May 26, the combined votes of Centrists, Social Democrats, and Poles defeated the establishment of the Colonial Office 119–142. On this occasion, sixty-five Center delegates voted against the bill while nine voted affirmatively and six abstained.11 When the oppositional stance of the Center is examined, it emerges that the Colonial Office was a casualty of the Maji Maji Uprising and other instances of African resistance to German rule. As illustrated earlier, the Maji Maji deprived Berlin and the Center of a mutually agreeable colonial director and opened the door to the Kaiser’s appointment of the unqualified and anticlerical Erbprinz zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg. Initially in December 1905, not even the more governmental Centrists would consider approving the Colonial Office as it meant promoting such an “unimpressive” candidate who, in Bachem’s words, “under- stands nothing of colonial matters. No one has confidence in him that he will

10 Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, May 20, 1906, Nachlaß Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, 71, HZAN. Solf to Schultz, Mar. 16, 1906, Nachlaß Solf, 132:46–51, BAK. “Die Ablehnung des Reichskolonialamts,” Germania, Aug. 16, 1906, Nr. 186. “Mißstände in der Kolonialverwaltung,” Germania, Mar. 28, 1906, Nr. 71. “Reichskolonialamt,” KVZ, Mar. 3, 1906, Nr. 178. “Die Ablehnung des selbständigen Kolonialamts,” Nordrheinische Volkszeitung, Aug. 11, 1906, Nr. 637, Nachlaß Bachem, 242, HASK. 11 Roll Call Vote, Budget 1906, Chapter 69a, Item 1, State Secretary, May 26, 1906, RTSB, 3560–62. Schwarz, MdR, 251–506. It is argued in the above text that Centrist opposition, the underlying prerequisite for the entire conflict over the Colonial Office, was a function of African initiatives. However, secondary domestic factors were also at work in the imperial office’s unexpected rejection on May 26 since the measure could have easily passed over Catholic protest if its supporters had troubled to make a respectable appearance. While there were twenty-six more Centrists in attendance at the third reading than at the second, the German Conservatives, Economic Unionists, and left liberals actually had twenty-eight fewer delegates in the Reichstag on May 26 than on March 30 (Roll Call Vote, Mar. 30, 1906, RTSB, 2463–65). For documentation related to this problem, see Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, May 31, 1906, Nachlaß Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, 71, HZAN. “Ablehnung des Kolonialamts,” Berliner Neueste Nachrichten, June 29, 1906, Nr. 312, Nachlaß König, 10:24, BAP. Posadowsky to Bülow, May 28, 1906, RKzA, 1662:128, BAP. Ballestrem, May 26, 1906, Diary entry, Nachlaß Ballestrem, Tagebücher, GABS. “Die Ablehnung des selbstän- digen Kolonialamts,” Nordrheinische Volkszeitung, Aug. 11, 1906, Nr. 637; “ ‘Die Ablehnung des Reichskolonialamts’ und das Zentrum,” Freie Deutsche Presse, June 8, 1906, Nr. 263, Nachlaß Bachem, 242, HASK. 308 CHAPTER 11 introduce a different system and better discipline among the officials in the colonies, whether he is called colonial director or state secretary.”12 Although by March 1906 Bachem himself supported the administrative reorganization, he informed Bülow that the party would continue to resist rat- ifying the Colonial Office unless the overly genteel and diffident Hohenlohe- Langenburg managed to secure firm control of his “rather unruly privy councillors” and “often reprehensible officials.”13 Bachem explained to the chancellor that, apart from Fritzen, Spahn and himself, the Center delegation was sharply opposed to authorization of creation of the Colonial Office:

So much aggravation has arisen recently over the duel declaration, the arrest of the missionaries in Togo, over everything which has come to light in Kamerun and the rest of the colonial administration, that there is absolutely no inclination to make further concessions. That is indeed illogical, for one must become better organized if abuses have manifested themselves. Still, it is simply a fact that some delegates make decisions based more upon an agitated emotional state than upon sober deliberation.14

Thus, even as the Maji Maji warriors delivered the helm of the German colonial administration into Hohenlohe-Langenburg’s impotent hand, the civilian initiatives of the Anago and Dahomey of Togo and the Duala of Kamerun resulted in the Center’s realization that this administration was perpetrat- ing terrible abuses all across Africa. Catholic populists and concurring jurists therefore considered the establishment of a Colonial Office tantamount to promoting the very senior bureaucrats they held responsible for the atrocious state of affairs overseas.15 Moreover, passage of the bill would have seemed

12 Bachem to [Franz Bachem?], Dec. 4, 1905, Nachlaß Bachem, 239:7, HASK. 13 Bachem, Mar. 21, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 244:7, HASK. See also Hohenlohe- Langenburg to Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Dec. 10, 1905, Nachlaß Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, 70, HZAN. Podewils to Lerchenfeld, Mar. 23, 1906; Lerchenfeld to Luitpold, June 27, 1906, Report 359, ByGB, 1078, ByHSA. “Zur Ablehnung des Staatsekretäriats für die Kolonien des Deutschen Reichs,” KVZ, May 30, 1906, Nr. 465, Nachlaß Bachem, 242, HASK. Below to Tschirschky, June 12, 1906, Nachlaß Tschirschky, PAAA. 14 Bachem, Mar. 21, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 244:7, HASK. Roeren had revealed the Togo scandal to the entire Center caucus by mid-January at the latest although he subsequently refrained from making his intended speech on the subject until December. 15 Lerchenfeld to Podewils, Mar. 22, 1906; Podewils to Lerchenfeld, Mar. 23, 1906; Lerchenfeld to Luitpold, June 27, 1906, Report 359, ByGB, 1078, ByHSA. “Mißstände in der The Breach 309 to countenance the preemption of the Reichstag by the Kaiser, who had appointed Hohenlohe-Langenburg to head a mere department on the assumption of his relative’s speedy elevation to colonial state secretary.16 It is more difficult to measure the degree to which the Maji Maji’s detention of Götzen in East Africa also transformed the creation of the Colonial Office into a confessional issue for the Center. In February 1906 Hohenlohe-Langenburg commented to Bülow upon the ubiquity in Germany of “the destructive power of ultramontanism” and informed the Kaiser that “the Center . . . is our worst enemy.”17 Although such remarks were made only in private, the Catholic party was probably not unaware of the prince’s views and likely found the prospect of bestowing a secretarial office upon such a man extremely distasteful. Still, faced with liberal and Protestant accusations, the Centrists consistently denied that their opposition to the Colonial Office was at all linked to Hohenlohe-Langenburg’s confessional militance.18 However,

Kolonialverwaltung,” Germania, Mar. 28, 1906, Nr. 71. Bachem, May 27, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 242, HASK. Posadowsky to Bülow, May 28, 1906, RKzA, 1662:128, BAP. 16 Posadowsky to Bülow, May 28, 1906, RKzA, 1662:128, BAP. “Zur Ablehnung des Staatsekretäriats für die Kolonien des Deutschen Reichs,” KVZ, May 30, 1906, Nr. 465, Nachlaß Bachem, 242, HASK. Lerchenfeld to Luitpold, June 27, 1906, Report 359, ByGB, 1078, ByHSA. 17 Hohenlohe-Langenburg recorded his remarks to Bülow and the Kaiser in a private letter to his father, Governor Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe Langenburg of Alsace-Lorraine, whom he consistently kept abreast of the debates behind the scenes in Berlin during his entire event- ful tenure as acting colonial director. An embellishment for his father’s benefit of the magnitude of his own words to the Kaiser seems highly unlikely; that he said something of the kind itself establishes the strength of his anticlerical views (Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Feb. 11, 1906, Nachlaß Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe- Langenburg, 71, HZAN). For further evidence of his antipathy toward the Center and the Catholics, see his letters of March 22 and May 20, 1906, from the same correspondence. 18 “Ein Zeichen der Zeit,” Deutsche Zeitung, Nov. 24, 1905, Nr. 276, RKA, 6907, BAP. “Zentrumsintrigen gegen den Erbprinzen Hohenlohe,” Königsberger Allgemeine Zeitung, Mar. 6, 1906; “Erbprinz Hohenlohe und das Zentrum,” Deutsche Tageszeitung, Mar. 23, 1906, RKzA, 1662:44–45, 48, BAP. “Kanzlerkrisis?” Ostpreußische Zeitung, Mar. 11, 1906, Nachlaß Hammann, 6:36, BAP. Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe- Langenburg, Mar. 22, June 6, 1906, Nachlaß Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, 71, HZAN. Bachem, Mar. 21, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 244:7, HASK. Hertling to Julius Bachem, Apr. 10, 1906, cited in Karl von Hertling, “Manuskript,” Nachlaß Hertling, 56:73– 74, BAK. “Die neue Entrüstungskomödie,” Nordrheinische Volkszeitung, May 30, 1906, Nr. 445; “Zur Ablehnung des Staatsekretäriats für die Kolonien des Deutschen Reichs,” KVZ, May 30, 1906, Nr. 465, Nachlaß Bachem, 242, HASK. [Franz Bachem], “Eine kolonialpolitische Hetze gegen das Zentrum,” KVZ, Mar. 8, 1906, Nr. 196. [Franz Bachem], “Das Reichskolonialamt und das Zentrum,” KVZ, Mar. 15, 1906, Nr. 217. “Die Stellungnahme des 310 CHAPTER 11 the latter almost certainly played some role in Centrist recalcitrance on the issue as it added insult to injury that the colonial director’s hostility toward Catholicism should so exceed his qualifications for his post.19 In any case, by generating and fueling strong Centrist opposition to the establishment of the Colonial Office, the Maji Maji, Anago, Dahomey, and Duala initiatives did more than simply disturb the government-Center partnership and thwart the reorganization of the central colonial administration. Through their impact upon the Center’s conduct, they in fact undermined Bülow’s all-important ties to Wilhelm II, a relationship already weakened by disagreement the previous summer over the Treaty of Björkö and most recently by the emergent humiliation of Germany at Algeciras. Hohenlohe- Langenburg, by contrast, stood so high in the monarch’s favor that there were widespread reports that he might soon replace Bülow. Thus, given the chancellor’s longstanding policy of courting the Center, the prospect in early 1906 that the Catholic party would deny Hohenlohe-Langenburg the colonial secretariat placed a particularly heavy burden upon Bülow.20 For this reason, the chancellor repeatedly approached the party jurists and even the Bavarian government in attempts to sway the Center and simultaneously sought to persuade Hohenlohe-Langenburg to accept the party’s counterproposal of a Foreign Office colonial undersecretary’s post.21 As these

Zentrums zur Forderung für ein Reichssekretäriat für die Kolonien,” KVZ, Mar. 21, 1906, Nr. 237. [Franz Bachem], “Immer noch der Staatssekretär der Kolonial-Abteilung,” KVZ, Mar. 23, 1906, Nr. 244. 19 See also chapter 10, footnote 9. 20 “Kanzlerkrisis?” Ostpreußische Zeitung, Mar. 11, 1906; “Unglaubhafte Krisengerüchte,” KVZ, Mar. 14, 1906, Nachlaß Hammann, 6:36–37, BAP. Bülow to Hammann, May 27, 1906, Secret; Bülow to Hammann, June 30, 1906, “Nur für Sie!” Nachlaß Hammann, 12:21, 30–31, BAP. Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Mar. 22, Aug. 28, 1906, Nachlaß Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, 71, HZAN. e. [Erzberger], “Sturz des Reichskanzlers?” Schlesische Volkszeitung, Mar. 20, 1906, Nachlaß Bachem, 242, HASK. Bachem, Mar. 21, 1906, Note; “Die Genesung des Fürsten Bülows,” KVZ, May 22, 1906, Nachlaß Bachem, 244:7, D6, HASK. Bachem, Mar. 21, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 238, HASK. Bachem, Dec. 20, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 259, HASK. “Erbprinz Hohenlohe und das Zentrum,” Deutsche Tageszeitung, Mar. 23, 1906; “Kolonialfriede,” Berliner Tageblatt, Mar. 30, 1906, Nr. 163; “Politische Nachrichten,” Reichsbote, Mar. 31, 1906, Nr. 76, RKzA, 1662:48, 86, 90, BAP. Bülow, Denkwürdigkeiten, 2:186. Terence F. Cole, “The Daily Telegraph Affair and its aftermath: the Kaiser, Bülow and the Reichstag, 1908– 1909,” in Kaiser Wilhelm II, ed. Röhl and Sombart, 250–51. Lerman, Chancellor as Courtier, 128–32, 137. 21 Loebell to Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Mar. 7, 1906, Nachlaß Ernst Fürst zu Hohenlohe- Langenburg, Übernahme der Leitung, HZAN. “Kanzlerkrisis?” Ostpreußische Zeitung, The Breach 311 efforts stalled in mid-March, Erzberger published a report from Paasche that the Kaiser had even given Bülow an ultimatum demanding successful navigation of the Colonial Office through the parliament. Whether or not this was true, after May 26 Wilhelm openly faulted the chancellor for conceding the Reichstag per diems without securing the secretary’s office for Hohenlohe- Langenburg, who personally wished to resign immediately after the fiasco but remained in office until early September to avoid setting a parliamentary precedent.22 Convalescing in Norderney after a physical collapse in April, Bülow himself likely felt personally betrayed by the Center’s apparent abandonment of the March arrangement. Already at a geographical disadvantage in maintaining his influence upon the Kaiser, the chancellor saw his hold slip further as, in his absence from Berlin, the party he had cultivated for years sank the Colonial Office, the Kubub-Keetmanshoop Railroad, and the full compensation of Southwest Africa’s settlers, all matters of great importance to the monarch.23

Mar. 11, 1906, Nachlaß Hammann, 6:36, BAP. [Reich Chancellery or Colonial Depart- ment], Mar. 11, 1906, Memorandum, RKzA, 1662:46–47, BAP. Bachem, Mar. 21, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 244:7, HASK. Bachem, Mar. 21, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 238, HASK. Lerchenfeld to Podewils, Mar. 22, 24, 1906; Podewils to Lerchenfeld, Mar. 23, 1906, ByGB, 1078, ByHSA. Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Mar. 22, 1906, Nachlaß Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, 71, HZAN. 22 “Kanzlerkrisis?” Ostpreußische Zeitung, Mar. 11, 1906, Nachlaß Hammann, 6:36, BAP. e. [Erzberger], “Sturz des Reichskanzlers?” Schlesische Volkszeitung, Mar. 20, 1906, Nachlaß Bachem, 242, HASK. Bachem, Mar. 21, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 238, HASK. “Politische Nachrichten,” Reichsbote, Mar. 31, 1906, Nr. 76; “ ‘Kanzlerkrisis’ und Reichskolonialamt,” Münchener Allgemeine Zeitung, Mar. 31, 1906, Nr. 149, RKzA, 1662:90–91, BAP. Varnbüler to Weizsäcker, Nov. 3, 1906, Report 5, WüMAA, E50/03, 200, HSAS. Wilhelm II to Bülow, May 28, 1906, Telegram, cited by Bülow, [circa 1910], Note, Nachlaß Bülow, 153:10, BAK. Bülow to Wilhelm II, May 30, 1906, Telegram 2; Loebell to Bülow, Sep. 3, 1906, Telegram 31, RKzA, 1663:10, 20–21, BAP. Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe- Langenburg, Aug. 21, 28, Sep. 6, 1906, Nachlaß Hermann Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, HZAN. Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Bülow, Sep. 3, 1906, Nachlaß Ernst Fürst zu Hohenlohe- Langenburg, Rücktritt von der Leitung der Kolonialverwaltung, HZAN. 23 Bülow to Wilhelm II, May 29, 1906, Telegram 1, Secret, R2116, Deutschland 134 Geheim, PAAA. Bülow to Wilhelm II, May 30, 1906, Telegram 2, RKzA, 1663:10, BAP. Lerchenfeld to Podewils, Mar. 9, 1907, Report 149, ByGB, 1079, ByHSA. Lerchenfeld to Luitpold, June 27, 1906, Report 359, ByGB, 1078, ByHSA. Wilhelm II to Bülow, May 28, June 30, 1906, Telegram, cited by Bülow, [circa 1910], Notes, Nachlaß Bülow, 153:10, 5, 16, BAK. Bülow to Hammann, May 27, 1906, Secret; Bülow to Hammann, June 30, 1906, “Nur für Sie!” Nachlaß Hammann, 12:21, 30–31, BAP. Below to Tschirschky, June 12, 1906, Nachlaß Tschirschky, PAAA. Bachem, Dec. 20, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 259, HASK. Bachem, 312 CHAPTER 11

Indeed, over the summer Bülow found himself in the unenviable position of having to persuade the indignant Kaiser to retract an order to Colonel Berthold von Deimling to construct the Kubub-Keetmanshoop extension as a military railroad despite the Reichstag vote. Had the chancellor failed, Wilhelm’s defiance of the parliament might well have engendered an open constitutional conflict of far-reaching proportions, yet Bülow’s insistence here upon respecting the Reichstag decision did nothing to improve his standing with the Kaiser.24 Finally, the hardest blow yet to the security of Bülow’s position, the Podbielski crisis of late 1906, also arose in large measure from public outrage over the tremendous costs imposed upon the Reich by the Herero and Nama Uprisings and over the inordinate profits reaped by the Tippelskirch Company from the same conflicts. In 1896 the Colonial Department had signed the first five-year monopolistic military supply contract with that firm, then under the joint ownership of Herr von Tippelskirch and the Conservative Reichstag delegate General Viktor von Podbielski. Then, when Podbielski was appointed State Secretary of the Imperial Post Office in 1897, the Kaiser permitted the favored general to remain a silent partner in the firm while he subsequently made over his proprietary rights therein to his wife.25 Meanwhile, beginning in 1899 then-Captain Fischer, the officer in the Colonial High Command

Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:379–81. Bülow, Denkwürdigkeiten, 2:257–58, 261. Lerman, Chancellor as Courtier, 153. 24 Below to Tschirschky, June 12, 1906, Nachlaß Tschirschky, PAAA. Lerchenfeld to Luitpold, June 27, 1906, Report 359, ByGB, 1078, ByHSA. Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Bülow, Aug. 1, 1906; Bülow to Tschirschky, Aug. 3, 6, 1906, Zu R3105, Eo R3160; Bülow to Loebell, Aug. 13, 1906, Eo R3262, Secret; Loebell to Bülow, Sep. 3, 1906, Telegram 31, RKzA, 926:78–84, 91–93, 108, BAP. Dernburg to Loebell, “Kurze Zusammenstellung der von der Schutztruppe erstatteten Berichte,” Jan. 12, 1907, OK14 G.J.Pers., Memorandum; Dernburg to Loebell, Jan. 11, 1907, OK18 G.J.Pers, RKzA, 937:308–9, 315, BAP. Joachim Haferkorn, Bülows Kampf um das Reichskanzleramt im Jahre 1906 (Würzburg-Aumühle: Druckerei und Verlag wissenschaftlicher Werke, 1939), 108. 25 Podbielski to Bülow, Aug. 13, 1906; Dernburg to Bülow, Nov. 6, 1906 (including Attachment IV, Schunck, Aug. 24, 1906, and Attachment V, Podbielski, Aug. 24, 1906), RKzA, 944:7, 9, 68–69, 80–83, 86–87, BAP. Varnbüler to Weizsäcker, Nov. 3, 1906, Report 5, WüMAA, E50/03, 200, HSAS. Lerchenfeld to Luitpold, Nov. 9, 1906, Report 531, ByGB, 1078, ByHSA. “Die Verhaftung des Majors Fischer und der Tippelskirch-Vertrag,” Germania, July 31, 1906, Nr. 172. “Die Darlehen der Firma Tippelskirch,” Germania, Aug. 2, 1906, Nr. 174. “Minister von Podbielski zum Fall Fischer-Tippelskirch” and “Nochmals der Tippelskirch-Vertrag,” Germania, Aug. 9, 1906, Nr. 180. “Die kolonialpolitische Diskussion,” KVZ, Aug. 13, 1906, Nr. 694. “Die Entwicklung der Podbielski-Affäre,” KVZ, Aug. 28, 1906, Nr. 738. Harden, “Ubi Bubi?” Zukunft, Aug. 18, 1906, Nr. 46, Nachlaß Ernst Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Übernahme der Leitung, HZAN. The Breach 313 responsible for inventory quality control and contract recommendations, had accepted substantial long-term non-interest loans and gifts from Tippelskirch partners, evidently including Podbielski.26 It was the Herero and Nama resort to arms which brought these dubious arrangements to light by turning the 1903 contract renewal into an outright bonanza for Tippelskirch at Reich expense. Ensuing public scrutiny of the outrageous profiteering during the uprisings revealed by late 1905 that beneficiaries of the monopoly included General von Podbielski and several officials of the Colonial Department.27 Now Prussian minister of agriculture, Podbielski was also under fire from liberals and socialists for blocking the import of competitively priced meat into an inflationary domestic market.28 The crisis around the general did not become acute, however, until Summer 1906 when the new acting chief of the Colonial High Command, Lieutenant Colonel Ferdinand Quade, learned almost simultaneously of Major Fischer’s frequent acceptance of financial assistance from Tippelskirch partners and of his apparent suppression in December 1905 of a devastating report from the Southwest African command on the abysmal performance of that corporation’s products in the Herero and Nama Wars.29

26 Quade to Bülow, July 21, 1906, OK82 G.J.Pers.; Quade to Wilhelm II, July 22, 1906, Direct Report, RKzA, 943:5–7, BAP. Quade to Bülow, Aug. 10, 1906, OK144 G.J.Pers.; Quade to Loebell, Sep. 4, 1906, Report, OK52469, RKzA, 944:24, 26–27, 46, BAP. Fischer, Aug. 27, 1906, Copy of testimony, Nachlaß Hammann, 72:23, BAP. “Über die Kolonialangelegenheiten,” KVZ, Aug. 6, 1906, Nr. 673. 27 Podbielski to Bülow, Aug. 13, 1906; Dernburg to Bülow, Nov. 6, 1906 (including: Attachments II and III, Depositions by Hellwig, Sep. 27, Oct. 13, 1906), RKzA, 944:7–9, 68–69, 75–77, BAP. “Der Fall Fischer-Tippelskirch,” Germania, Aug. 5, 1906, Nr. 177. “Nochmals der Tippelskirch-Vertrag,” Germania, Aug. 9, 1906, Nr. 180. “Die Entwicklung der Podbielski- Affäre,” KVZ, Aug. 28, 1906, Nr. 738. Harden, “Ubi Bubi?” Zukunft, Aug. 18, 1906, Nr. 46, Nachlaß Ernst Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Übernahme der Leitung, HZAN. Lerman, Chancellor as Courtier, 155–56. 28 Varnbüler to Weizsäcker, Nov. 3, 1906, Report 5, WüMAA, E50/03, 200, HSAS. Lerchenfeld to Luitpold, Nov. 9, 1906, Report 531, ByGB, 1078, ByHSA. “Landwirtschaftsminister von Podbielski,” Germania, Aug. 15, 1906, Nr. 185. “Allerlei Krisengerüchte,” KVZ, Sep. 6, 1906, Nr. 766. Lerman, Chancellor as Courtier, 155, 159. 29 Quade to Bülow, July 21, 1906, OK82 G.J.Pers.; Quade to Wilhelm II, July 22, 1906, Direct Report, RKzA, 943:5–7, BAP. Quade to Bülow, Aug. 10, 1906, OK144 G.J.Pers.; Hohenlohe- Langenburg to Bülow, Sep. 3, 1906, Report, OK212/I G.J.Pers., RKzA, 944:24, 43–44, BAP. Mühlenfels, Brosig, Kochanowski to Colonial Command Windhuk, Nov. 17, 1905, Report; Mühlenfels to Colonial High Command, Nov. 29, 1905, Report; Dame to Colonial Command Windhuk, Jan. 21, 1906, Report, RKzA, 944:16–19, BAP. “Über die Kolonialangelegenheiten,” KVZ, Aug. 31, 1906, Nr. 748. 314 CHAPTER 11

Admitting upon his arrest on July 20 to having received loans from four Tippelskirch partners, Fischer reported that in 1899 Herr von Tippelskirch had presented him with a loan of two thousand marks in Podbielski’s name.30 Accordingly, over the following weeks liberals, socialists, and such South German Centrists as Erzberger and Schaedler indignantly attacked Podbielski while the Prussian Catholic journals Germania and Kölnische Volkszeitung conspicuously refused to join the Conservative defense of the minister.31 Despite the seriousness of the accusations, Podbielski failed to comment upon them to Bülow until the latter called him to account on August 11.32 In his response, the minister then protested his innocence but nonetheless concluded with the seemingly unequivocal statement: “My conscience is clear in the face of all the insinuations, but Your Highness will not hold it against me if I ask you to submit my resignation request to His Majesty the Kaiser.”33 As Bülow now perceived Podbielski to be a serious political liability with both press and parliament, he wished to see the minister’s apparent decision realized and approved by the Kaiser without delay. Knowing the monarch would resist losing the general, however, the chancellor attempted to enlist public opinion in the creation of a fait accompli by reporting in the governmental Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung that Podbielski had submitted his

30 Quade to Bülow, July 21, 1906, OK82 G.J.Pers.; Quade to Wilhelm II, July 22, 1906, Direct Report, RKzA, 943:5–7, BAP. Quade to Bülow, Aug. 10, 1906, OK144 G.J.Pers., RKzA, 944:24, BAP. Fischer, Aug. 27, 1906, Copy of testimony, Nachlaß Hammann, 72:23, BAP. 31 “Die Darlehen der Firma Tippelskirch,” Germania, Aug. 2, 1906, Nr. 174. “Eine Erklärung der Firma Tippelskirch,” Germania, Aug. 4, 1906, Nr. 176. “Der Fall Fischer- Tippelskirch,” Germania, Aug. 5, 1906, Nr. 177. “Minister von Podbielski zum Fall Fischer-Tippelskirch,” Germania, Aug. 9, 1906, Nr. 180. “Zum Fall Tippelskirch,” Germania, Aug. 12, 1906, Nr. 183. “Landwirtschaftsminister von Podbielski,” Germania, Aug. 15, 1906, Nr. 185. “Dr. Schaedler über die Politik des Zentrums,” Germania, Sep. 5, 1906, Nr. 203. “Tippelskirch und Genossen,” KVZ, Aug. 8, 1906, Nr. 679. “Abgeordneter Erzberger über die Kolonialskandalen,” KVZ, Aug. 11, 1906, Nr. 688. “Die kolonialpolitische Diskussion,” KVZ, Aug. 13, 1906, Nr. 694. “Das Neueste in den Kolonialangelegenheiten,” KVZ, Aug. 14, 1906, Nr. 696. “Kolonialwirtschaft und Ähnliches,” KVZ, Aug. 16, 1906, Nr. 702. “Über die Kolonialangelegenheiten,” KVZ, Aug. 17, 1906, Nr. 705. Lerman, Chancellor as Courtier, 156–57. 32 Ortenburg to Luitpold, Aug. 23, 1906, Report 448, ByGB, 1078, ByHSA. Holstein to Bülow, Oct. 30, 1906, Nachlaß Holstein, 32, Film 62242:H191762, BAP. Lerman, Chancellor as Courtier, 156–57. 33 Podbielski to Bülow, Aug. 13, 1906, RKzA, 944:10, BAP. “Ich fühle mich frei gegenüber all den Unterstellungen, aber Euer Durchlaucht werden es mir nicht verdenken, wenn ich Sie bitte, Seiner Majestät dem Kaiser mein Entlassungsgesuch zu unterbreiten.” The Breach 315 resignation.34 This gambit backfired miserably when Podbielski decided to hold on to his office. The Berliner Lokalanzeiger immediately carried the general’s flat denial of the alleged resignation, forcing the Norddeutsche Allgemeine to justify itself. In the ensuing press interchange, the public became all too aware of the embarrassing rift within the Prussian cabinet.35 More importantly, Bülow had also directly jeopardized his position, for the Kaiser took exception to the chancellor’s attempt to dislodge one of his favorites. Having already yielded to Bülow over Björkö and followed him into the Algeciras fiasco, Wilhelm had then watched the chancellor’s Centrist partners deny Hohenlohe-Langenburg his rightful post and defeat a militarily essential colonial railroad. Now he perceived that Bülow, rendered lethargic in convalescence, was bowing to public pressure with the move against dear old “Pod.”36 From the Kaiser’s standpoint, this was the last straw. In early September 1906 Wilhelm seriously entertained Bülow’s dismissal and discussed possible successors with his advisers. He appears indeed to have sent his handpicked Foreign Secretary Heinrich von Tschirschky to Dresden to offer the chancellorship to the anticlerical ambassador to Rome, Anton Graf von Monts. Fortunately for Bülow, Monts considered the moment inopportune and declined the invitation.37

34 Ortenburg to Luitpold, Aug. 23, 1906, Report 448; Lerchenfeld to Luitpold, Nov. 9, 1906, Report 531, ByGB, 1078, ByHSA. Bülow to Hammann, Oct. 5, 1906, Secret, Nachlaß Hammann, 12:45–46, BAP. Holstein to Bülow, Oct. 30, 1906, Nachlaß Holstein, 32, Film 62242:H191762, BAP. Varnbüler to Weizsäcker, Nov. 3, 1906, Report 5, WüMAA, E50/03, 200, HSAS. 35 Ortenburg to Luitpold, Aug. 23, 1906, Report 448, ByGB, 1078, ByHSA. Esternaux to Hammann, Aug. 22, 1906, Nachlaß Hammann, 72:1–2, BAP. Bülow to Hammann, Aug. 25, 1906, Quite secret; Bülow to Hammann, Oct. 5, 1906, Secret, Nachlaß Hammann, 12:36–38, 45–46, BAP. “Zum Fall Podbielski-Tippelskirch-Woermann,” KVZ, Aug. 25, 1906, Nr. 730. “Die Entwicklung der Podbielski-Affäre,” KVZ, Aug. 28, 1906, Nr. 738. “Über die Kolonialangelegenheiten,” KVZ, Aug. 31, 1906, Nr. 748. 36 Wilhelm II, Aug. 29, 1906, Marginalia on “Die innere Politik der Woche,” Kreuzzeitung, Aug. 26, 1906, RKzA, 944:30–35, BAP. Ortenburg to Luitpold, Sep. 5, 1906, Report 462; Lerchenfeld to Luitpold, Nov. 9, 1906, Report 531, ByGB, 1078, ByHSA. Monts to Holstein, Sep. 11, Oct. 5, 1906, Nachlaß Holstein, 60, Film 62246:H194649–50, H194655, BAP. Alexander Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst to Hutten-Czapski, Sep. 19, 1906, Nachlaß Hutten-Czapski, 517, BAP. Varnbüler to Weizsäcker, Nov. 3, 1906, Report 5, WüMAA, E50/03, 200, HSAS. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:391. Cole, “Daily Telegraph,” in Kaiser Wilhelm II, ed. Röhl and Sombart, 250–51. 37 Tschirschky to Monts, Sep. 25, 1906, Apr. 18, 1907, cited in Monts, Erinnerungen und Gedanken, 445, 448. Monts, “Bülow,” in ibid., 157–58. Thimme, “Erläuterungen und 316 CHAPTER 11

Meanwhile, as the Kaiser’s determination to hold Podbielski became evident, Bülow had attempted to minimize the significance of his dispute with the general.38 However, given the public outcry against Podbielski’s involvement with Tippelskirch and Fischer, ministerial and conservative circles held that Bülow’s position before the Reichstag might well be untenable if the general were still in office by the time the parliament assembled on November 13.39 Even so, in the ten days preceding that date, the Kaiser twice ordered the now ailing Podbielski to remain at his post, stark testimony to Bülow’s weak standing with the monarch. Only at the last instant did the general relent and submit his resignation.40 Nonetheless, Bülow’s chancellorship had been shaken to its roots by a sequence of events initiated by the success of the Herero and Nama Uprisings in imposing tremendous costs upon the Reich.

The Roeren-Dernburg Duel over Togo

Having placed serious strains upon government-Center relations and rendered the chancellor’s position extremely precarious, African resistance to German imperialism was also largely responsible for the decisive breach between Bülow and the Catholic party in December 1906. This final conflict began with a sharp altercation over the Togo Affair. As illustrated previously, Anago and Dahomey civil resistance to official abuses in Togo had won the

Anmerkungen,” in ibid., 504–5. Haferkorn, Bülows Kampf, 108–9. Lerman, Chancellor as Courtier, 154. 38 Esternaux to Hammann, Aug. 22, 1906, Nachlaß Hammann, 72:1–2, BAP. Bülow to Hammann, Aug. 25, 1906, Quite secret; Bülow to Hammann, Oct. 5, 1906, Secret, Nachlaß Hammann, 12:36–38, 45–46, BAP. Wilhelm II, Aug. 29, 1906, Marginalia on “Die innere Politik der Woche,” Kreuzzeitung, Aug. 26, 1906, RKzA, 944:30–35, BAP. Ortenburg to Luitpold, Sep. 5, 1906, Report 462, ByGB, 1078, ByHSA. Varnbüler to Weizsäcker, Nov. 3, 1906, Report 5, WüMAA, E50/03, 200, HSAS. “Kolonialwirtschaft und Ähnliches,” KVZ, Aug. 16, 1906, Nr. 702. Lerman, Chancellor as Courtier, 158. 39 Lerman, Chancellor as Courtier, 158–59. Lerchenfeld to Luitpold, Nov. 9, 1906, Report 531, ByGB, 1078, ByHSA. Monts to Holstein, Sep. 11, Oct. 5, 1906, Nachlaß Holstein, 60, Film 62246:H194649–50, H194655, BAP. Holstein to Bülow, Oct. 30, 1906, Nachlaß Holstein, 32, Film 62242:H191762, BAP. 40 Berckheim to Marschall von Bieberstein, Nov. 10, 1906, Report 26, BdGB, Abt. 49/2039, GLAK. Lerchenfeld to Luitpold, Nov. 9, 1906, Report 531, ByGB, 1078, ByHSA. Bachem, Dec. 20, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 259:8, HASK. Lerman, Chancellor as Courtier, 159. Röhl, Kaiser and His Court, 123. The Breach 317 sympathies of the SVD mission and of Chief Clerk Emanuel Wistuba, and the Lome administration’s sharp retaliation against these German Catholics had in turn inspired the Eifel-Hunsrück populist Hermann Roeren to embrace their cause with great zeal in negotiations with the Colonial Department. Whereas a generally satiated SVD ceased to require Roeren’s services after November 1904, Wistuba proved less fortunate in his efforts to regain his colonial appointment and to secure impunity for liberties he had meanwhile taken against superiors in Berlin. However, he could not have asked for a stauncher patron than Roeren, whose outrage over colonial malfeasance against Africans and missionaries blinded him to the indiscretions of his protégé and to the ebbing of Centrist political leverage with the Bülow administration. Having already extracted Colonial Director Stuebel’s concession in December 1904 that Wistuba would not be charged for his assistance to the beleaguered missionaries in Togo, Roeren attempted throughout 1906 to use the Center’s parliamentary strength to protect the clerk from the disciplinary consequences of having leaked documents assembled by Poeplau to Roeren, Am Zehnhoff, and Hespers in October 1904.41 Thus, within a few weeks of Bülow’s decision of December 1905 to authorize a preliminary disciplinary investigation into Wistuba’s conduct of late 1904, Roeren had described the ‘Kulturkampf in Togo’ to the assembled Center caucus. He thereby secured that body’s permission to unleash the scandal of child rape, bloody floggings, and incarcerated missionaries at the colonial budget’s second reading in March, an intention Erzberger shortly announced to the plenum.42 Since the eventual decision whether to refer the investigation’s findings to the Disciplinary Chamber would also lie with the chancellor, Roeren then warned Bülow in a letter of February 11 that a discussion of the Togo Affair in the Reichstag would swing Catholic and particularly Centrist opinion against the colonies. Accordingly, Roeren requested that the chancellor order the Colonial Department to grant the Eifel-Hunsrück populist a new audience to help settle Wistuba’s fate prior to the second reading of the budget. Thoroughly overestimating his own leverage at this point, Roeren even indicated Wistuba’s willingness to forgo a return to his old post in Togo in exchange for a pension or for a position in Southwest Africa, the Foreign Office, or a

41 Regarding Wistuba’s activity of late 1904 and Roeren’s role therein, see chapter 9, footnotes 95, 96, and 98. 42 Erzberger, Jan. 19, 1906, RTSB, 668A. Bachem, Dec. 20, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 259:8, HASK. 318 CHAPTER 11 diplomatic mission.43 Indeed, the following day Assessor Edmund Brückner interrogating Roeren in the preliminary proceedings understood the populist to have threatened that, failing a satisfactory arrangement for Wistuba, the Center would reject the entire colonial budget.44 Nevertheless, although it merely reiterated Stuebel’s concession of December 1904, Roeren found Bülow’s reply to his letter so reassuring that he refrained from exposing the Togo Affair during the second reading of its budget in late March 1906.45 However, given the government’s silence after the conclusion of the disciplinary investigation in May, the Center populist’s confidence in a favorable outcome for Wistuba quickly eroded. Convinced that Wistuba’s exoneration was warranted in light of his conscientious support for the Catholic mission’s stand on Anago and Dahomey grievances, Roeren sent off a flurry of telegrams and letters in early June.46 Citing the government’s past assurances, the Centrist warned Chancellery Chief Friedrich von Loebell on June 8: “But if the affair is now driven into the Disciplinary Chamber, I will thereby be forced to discuss the entire arrest scandal to its very roots. . . . That the discussion of all these events is not in the interest of colonial politics goes without saying.”47 In fact, the initiation of disciplinary proceedings against Wistuba was then temporarily postponed, but only because the clerk had become a codefendant in a preliminary criminal investigation recently opened against two other officials of the colonial administration.48 This last development in no way diminished Roeren’s intent now to expose the Togo Affair in its entirety in the Reichstag and thereby to precipitate intense

43 Schnee, “Aufzeichnung betreffend den Bürovorstand Wistuba,” Sep. 20, 1906, RKzA, 945:71–72, BAP. König, [1906], Memorandum, Nachlaß König, 8:21, BAP. Dernburg, Dec. 3, 1906, RTSB, 4101C/D. 44 Schnee, “Aufzeichnung betreffend den Bürovorstand Wistuba,” Sep. 20, 1906, RKzA, 945:71, BAP. Dernburg, Dec. 3, 1906, RTSB, 4102B, 4116B. Roeren, Dec. 3, 1906, RTSB, 4114D–4115A. 45 Roeren to Loebell, June 8, 1906; Loebell to Roeren, June 9, 1906, R2387; Schnee, “Aufzeichnung betreffend den Bürovorstand Wistuba,” Sep. 20, 1906; Dernburg to Bülow, Mar. 20, 1907, CB1155/24322; Loebell to Bülow, Mar. 22, 1907, Secret memorandum, RKzA, 945:42–43, 45–46, 72, 237, 240, BAP. Bachem, Dec. 20, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 259:8, HASK. 46 Roeren to Loebell, June 8, 1906, Telegram; Roeren to Loebell, June 8, 13, 1906; Schnee, “Aufzeichnung betreffend den Bürovorstand Wistuba,” Sep. 20, 1906, RKzA, 945:41–43, 51–52, 73, BAP. 47 Roeren to Loebell, June 8, 1906, RKzA, 945:42–43, BAP. 48 Dernburg to Bülow, Sep. 21, 1906, KP14871/50854; Schnee, “Aufzeichnung betreffend den Bürovorstand Wistuba,” Sep. 20, 1906; Mühlberg to Loebell, Nov. 3, 1906, J.Nr. 12340, Secret, RKzA, 945:67–68, 73, 108, BAP. The Breach 319

Centrist revulsion against colonial spending. At a local party conference in Trier in October, he attacked the personnel policies of the colonial administration and alluded to details in his possession on clashes between missionaries and colonial officials over the latter’s treatment of indigenous peoples. Roeren concluded: “These are circumstances which do not dispose one toward further authorization of colonial spending. . . . If the government continues to prove resistant, and particularly if it continues to refuse the Reichstag . . . a greater voice [in colonial matters], then one must really seriously ask oneself whether one ought to authorize even a single penny for the colonies.”49 As the repercussions of African resistance to German rule were already fraying the fabric of the government-Center partnership and simultaneously undermining Bülow’s position with the Kaiser, the chancellor and his new acting colonial director Bernhard Dernburg attempted that autumn to enlist the Center jurists Peter Spahn and Adolf Gröber to thwart Roeren’s bid to turn Catholic opinion wholly against the colonial enterprise. During a two-hour meeting with Spahn and Gröber, Bülow and Dernburg provided the Center leaders with extensive documentation of the Togo Affair and Roeren’s aggressive interventions therein. Thoroughly convinced, Spahn and Gröber then pledged to attempt to dissuade Roeren from publicizing the scandal and gave the administration a free hand in defending itself should Roeren nonetheless refuse to comply.50 At the end of November, Spahn notified Dernburg that his

49 “Parteitag der Zentrumspartei des Regierungsbezirks Trier,” Trierische Landeszeitung, Oct. 22, 1906, Nr. 245, Nachlaß Korum, Abt. 108, 377:101, Bistumsarchiv Trier. 50 Lerchenfeld to Podewils, Dec. 16, 1906, Report 595, MA 95484, ByHSA. Lerchenfeld to Hertling, Dec. 9, 1906, Nachlaß Hertling, 50:6, BAK. Spahn to Martin Spahn, Dec. 17, 1906, Nachlaß Martin Spahn, 301, BAK. Dernburg, “Material für eine Lebensbeschreibung,” n.d., Nachlaß Dernburg, 11, BAK. Dernburg’s retrospective gives the date of this meeting as September 10, yet this is certainly much too early. First, while Spahn places the meeting in Berlin, Bülow was still in Norderney until mid-October (Guenther to Loebell, Sep. 2, 1906, Secret memorandum, RKzA, 926:106–7, BAP. Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Bülow, Sep. 4, 1906, Report KA14125, RKzA, 944:53–54, BAP. Bülow to Chancellery, Sep. 16, 1906, RKzA, 1663:25, BAP. Mut to Bülow, Oct. 13, 1906, Secret memorandum, RKzA, 945:79, BAP. Dernburg to Bülow, Oct. 19, 1906, KA15927, RKA, 852:74, BAP). Second, in his account Dernburg himself depicts the meeting as having occurred in the wake of the press attacks upon Dr. Hermann Kersting, yet these did not begin until after Wistuba filed charges against Kersting on October 3 (“Vorwürfe gegen Bezirksamtsmann Dr. Kersting,” Germania, Oct. 6, 1906, Nr. 230. “Zu den gegen den Bezirksamtsmann von Togo, Dr. Kersting, vorgebrachten Klagen,” Germania, Oct. 7, 1906, Nr. 231. “Zum Fall Kersting,” Germania, Oct. 23, 1906, Nr. 244). The actual date of the Center jurists’ meeting with Bülow and Dernburg must therefore have fallen between October 14 and November 21 (Dernburg to Spahn, Nov. 23, 1906, KA19101, RKA, 3920:134, BAP). 320 CHAPTER 11 efforts to deter Roeren and to hinder the Center delegation’s authorization of the Togo exposé had proved to no avail. Here again Spahn indicated to the colonial director that he might rebut Roeren’s attack however he saw fit.51 Although largely motivated by partisanship for Wistuba, Roeren’s opening speech of December 3, 1906, clearly reflected the centrality of African resistance to the original Togo Affair that had engendered the Wistuba dispute. In his indictment of the brutality of District Official Geo Schmidt, the Center populist cited verbatim the testimony of Fodenu, Dossa and Modedji, those Dahomey of Avete most grossly wounded by the vicious floggings at Atokodje in July 1903.52 Roeren also drew extensively upon the Togolese eyewitness accounts of the fatal beating of the porter Nyamum by District Judge Werner Freiherr von Rotberg in April 1903, and he quoted the highly respected Afro- Brazilian city elder of Lome, Oktaviano Olympio, who had described the rod Rotberg had used as “a cudgel with which one could have killed an ox.”53 Similarly, the Centrist recounted Togolese allegations that District Official Hermann Kersting of Sokode had beaten his Ewe cook Mesa to death. Having brought the corpse back to Lome from the distant hinterland, Mesa’s kin had called European attention to this homicide case with a conspicuous funeral demonstration in the capital.54 In his exposé of the Togo Affair, Roeren likewise depicted at length the official persecution of legitimate Anago resistance to Schmidt’s despotic rule in Atakpame. After Kukowina had leveled complaints with Governor Horn against the district official in 1902, the venerable chief had steadfastly defied Schmidt’s demand to retract his charges before the assembled Anago. The Center populist noted with ire that the accused was nonetheless able to jail his accuser with impunity.55 Roeren also identified with the anger with which both Christian and animist Anago had received Schmidt’s announcement of a fine to be imposed upon any mothers failing to send their daughters to a suspicious nocturnal dance in Rotberg’s honor.56 Finally, Saarburg’s delegate exposed the rape of young Adjaro Nyacuta and delineated the

51 Schnee to Stuebel, Nov. 26, 1906, KA19305, RKA, 3920:139, BAP. Spahn to Martin Spahn, Dec. 17, 1906, Nachlaß Martin Spahn, 301, BAK. Dernburg, “Material für eine Lebensbeschreibung,” n.d., Nachlaß Dernburg, 11, BAK. 52 Roeren, Dec. 3, 1906, RTSB, 4089C/D. See also chapter 9, footnote 43. 53 Roeren, Dec. 3, 1906, RTSB, 4090A/B. See also chapter 9, footnote 44. 54 Roeren, Dec. 3, 1906, RTSB, 4090B/C. 55 Ibid., 4091B/C. See also chapter 9, footnotes 24 and 25. 56 Roeren, Dec. 3, 1906, RTSB, 4091D–4092A. See also chapter 9, footnote 35. The Breach 321 damning testimony that the victim, her family, and Schmidt’s Afro-Brazilian cook Boko de Freitas had given against the district official. Roeren declared to the Reichstag, however, that Schmidt had again eluded punishment for this terrible crime through the intimidation of witnesses and the conspiracy of Rotberg, Lang, and others to subject the Catholic missionaries sympathetic to the Anago cause to disgraceful incarceration.57 The Eifel-Hunsrück populist concluded with an attack upon the Colonial Department itself for its failure to prosecute the criminal conduct of its officials and for continuing to employ all of them except Rotberg: “In my view, if such conditions persist despite continual censure here in the Reichstag, then one is truly obliged to ask one’s conscience whether one should authorize even one more penny for the colonies until this entire system is utterly abandoned.”58 Applauded by numerous Centrist and socialist delegates, Roeren had finally fulfilled his longstanding threat to embarrass the government with the Togo Affair. Forewarned and forearmed, however, Colonial Director Dernburg took the floor and launched a vigorous counteroffensive. Charging Roeren with “continuous attempts . . . to influence the course of the administration and even to intervene in the proceedings of the courts,” Dernburg quoted at length from Roeren’s February 11 letter to Bülow which included the proposals for Wistuba’s promotion and the populist’s threat to expose the Togo Affair in March.59 Alluding to the SVD ‘blacklist’ of September 1903, the colonial director described the ultimate surrender of the Stuebel administration before Roeren’s intense pressure in November 1904. Finally, accusing Roeren of inter- fering with due process, Dernburg cited both the Centrist’s June 1906 request that Bülow prevent the opening of disciplinary proceedings against Wistuba and Assessor Brückner’s report in February that Roeren had threatened that prosecution of the clerk would provoke the Center to sink the colonial budget.60 Triumphant, Dernburg concluded with feigned regret that it had been necessary to expose a respected member of the Center Party.61 An angry volley ensued between the furious Roeren and the sanguine Dernburg. Deeply offended by what he termed Dernburg’s crude insults, the Centrist accused the former bank director of introducing “the tone of the stock

57 Roeren, Dec. 3, 1906, RTSB, 4092B–4094B. See also chapter 9. 58 Roeren, Dec. 3, 1906, RTSB, 4094C. 59 Dernburg, Dec. 3, 1906, RTSB, 4098C, 4101C/D. 60 Ibid., 4102A/B. 61 Ibid., 4102C. 322 CHAPTER 11 speculator and the trading house” into the Reichstag.62 He charged the government with breach of confidence in making public his letter to Bülow and denied ever having made Wistuba’s exoneration a condition for even his own, let alone his party’s, vote for the colonial budget. Pointing out that Brückner had omitted all reference to the alleged threat in the protocol Roeren had signed, the populist dismissed the charge as the fabrication of a callow assessor.63 As for Dernburg, Roeren announced that, “in light of your whole past, you are not at all in a position to expose me.”64 Dernburg countered with a citation from Roeren’s request of Bülow in September 1904 that all the lawsuits in Togo and Kamerun be halted until he and Prefect Bücking could have another audience in the Colonial Department.65 The director then read to the Reichstag the brief Privy Councillor König had prepared after the audience of November 1904 in which Roeren had designated District Judge Tietz’s death the judgment of God and threatened the colonial administration with journalistic and parliamentary attacks if the mission’s stipulations were not met. Although Stuebel had resisted the demand for Secretary Lang’s transfer as a “Caudinian yoke,” Roeren had forced him to submit to this indignity.66 Dernburg further compromised the Center populist with the revelation of his 1904 admission to having approved of Wistuba’s efforts to avert prosecution by threatening to leak other scandals to the press.67 The colonial director finally closed with the pronouncement that Roeren’s improper intervention in executive and judicial prerogatives was “an abscess . . . [which] had to be lanced—and I have lanced it, and I will very gladly bear the consequences!”68 With the Roeren-Dernburg duel of December 3, 1906, over the Togo Affair, the breach that had opened between Center and government the previous May widened considerably. It is true that both sides sought to deescalate the crisis the following day. The Centrist president of the Reichstag, Franz Graf von Ballestrem, called Roeren retroactively to order, and the latter declared that the Catholic party had never discussed Wistuba’s case nor had he consulted it regarding any of his negotiations with the Colonial Department in the

62 Roeren, Dec. 3, 1906, RTSB, 4114A. 63 Ibid., 4114A–4115A. 64 Ibid., 4115B. 65 Dernburg, Dec. 3, 1906, RTSB, 4117A. 66 Ibid., 4117C–4118A. See also chapter 9, footnotes 97 and 99. 67 Dernburg, Dec. 3, 1906, RTSB, 4118A/B. See also chapter 9, footnote 95. 68 Dernburg, Dec. 3, 1906, RTSB, 4118D. The Breach 323 entire Togo Affair.69 Moreover, in his justification of Roeren’s original speech, Erzberger assured government and Reichstag alike that he nevertheless stood by remarks he had made several days earlier expressing confidence in the new colonial director.70 At the same time, while endorsing Dernburg’s rebuttal, Bülow acknowledged Roeren’s good faith, praised Erzberger’s observation of a colonial ceasefire that autumn, and expressed the wish that Roeren had followed his populist colleague’s example.71 Finally, Dernburg conceded to Erzberger that neither Brückner’s report nor König’s brief were actual protocols of Roeren’s earlier statements.72 However, the dissipation of the conflict was more apparent than real. At a caucus the previous evening, the Center delegation had voted down Spahn’s more governmental motion that the party chairman Alfred Graf von Hompesch himself should disavow Roeren. Instead, the deputies had opted to let Roeren save face with the above clarification and then to allow Erzberger to defend the overall legitimacy of his colleague’s actions.73 Evidently outraged by the disgraceful state of affairs in the colonies, the Center was in no mood in December 1906 for more than a partial retreat, even when a loose cannon in its ranks had caused it considerable embarrassment. On the other side of the equation, the details of the Roeren-Dernburg duel of December 3 provoked Wilhelm II to characterize the Center as “a villainous band of slanderers.”74 Accordingly, on December 6 the Kaiser congratulated Bülow on the vigor of Dernburg’s rebuttals: “Bravissimo! . . . The light of day and the cudgel blow have finally fallen upon the intrigues and machinations of the Center! The entire nation renders you enthusiastic thanks.”75 Indeed, it was within a day of receiving this jubilant imperial declaration at Centrist expense that Bülow requested and secured Wilhelm’s consent to a dissolution of the Reichstag in the increasingly likely event of cuts in the Supplementary Budget of 1906 for Southwest Africa.76

69 Ballestrem, President, Dec. 4, 1906, RTSB, 4123C–4124A. Roeren, Dec. 4, 1906, RTSB, 4124A. 70 Erzberger, Dec. 4, 1906, RTSB, 4146B, 4149A/B, 4151C. Erzberger, Nov. 30, 1906, RTSB, 4029C–4030A. 71 Bülow, Dec. 4, 1906, RTSB, 4124C/D. 72 Dernburg, Dec. 4, 1906, RTSB, 4153C/D. 73 Spahn to Martin Spahn, Dec. 17, 1906, Nachlaß Martin Spahn, 301, BAK. 74 Bülow, [circa 1910], Note, Strictly confidential, Nachlaß Bülow, 153:105, BAK. 75 Ibid., 153:287. 76 Bülow, Denkwürdigkeiten, 2:269–70. Theodor Eschenburg, Das Kaiserreich am Scheideweg: Bassermann, Bülow und der Block (Berlin: Verlag für Kulturpolitik, 1929), 41–42. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:414. Crothers, German Elections, 88n57. 324 CHAPTER 11

Parliamentary Showdown over Southwest Africa

Although by that December there were only a few hundred Nama, primarily Bondelswarts (!Gami=| nûn), remaining in the field, the German military’s sobering assessment of the resources required to defeat the guerrillas and assert full control of the colony prompted the Reich to request a supplementary budget of 29 million marks for 1906 and an anticipated 67 million for the regular 1907 budget. In addition, the Reichstag was presented with a second supplementary budget to authorize initiation of the recently rejected Kubub-Keetmanshoop Railroad, the entire length of which was to be built by April 1908 at a cost of 22 million.77 Finally, the government was reporting another thirty million in extrabudgetary expenditures for fiscal years 1904 and 1905.78 In sum, the military spending announced in late 1906 amounted to 20 million in renewed requests and 123 million in fresh demands. This brought the total of past and immediately foreseeable expenses involved in suppressing the Herero and Nama Uprisings to 456 million marks, the mathematical equivalent in 1906 to the cost of constructing twelve German dreadnoughts.79

77 DB, SupCB 1906, Nov. 15, 1906, RDS 551; DB, Second SupCB 1906, Nov. 23, 1906, RDS 572, MA 95403, ByHSA. Quade, Dec. 6, 1906, Statement, Enclosure to the Protocol of the 67th Session of the Budget Committee; BSWA 1907, RTA, 1099:39, 41, 43–44., 148–55, BAP. Dernburg, Nov. 28, 1906, RTSB, 3966C–3967C. Spahn, Reporter, Dec. 13, 1906, RTSB, 4359A. Haacke and Eiseb, Khoekhoegowab-English Glossary. 78 Stengel, Dec. 5, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1099:39, BAP. Stengel, Nov. 30, 1906, RTSB, 4044C–4045A. Schaedler, Nov. 28, 1906, RTSB, 3974C. Erzberger, Nov. 30, 1906, RTSB, 4038A/B. Spahn, Reporter, Dec. 13, 1906, RTSB, 4358D. 79 To avoid duplication or the inclusion of ultimately extraneous requests in the above figures, only the funds the Reichstag actually authorized through May 1906 for suppression of the Herero and Nama Uprisings have been included in the baseline to which known December estimates have then been added. The Reichstag had authorized all 4.6 million marks requested for budget year 1903, 106.8 of 109.3 million for 1904, and 117.1 of 118.7 million for 1905. As of May 31, 1906, however, it had approved only 84 of the 119.3 million that the government had thus far requested for that budget year. To the total of all the funds authorized as of June 1906 (312.5 million) have been added the government’s December 1906 estimates of its budget overruns for 1904 and 1905 (30 million) along with the funds requested in the two supplementary budgets for 1906 (38.1 million), the budget for 1907 (66.6 million), and the anticipated complementary budget for 1907 (8.6 million). See chapter 9, footnotes 106 and 107, and chapter 10, footnote 30. Peter- Christian Witt gives the estimated construction costs of a dreadnought in the 1906 naval budget as 36.5 million marks. Witt, Finanzpolitik, 143. The 21.5 million marks for constructing the Kubub-Keetmanshoop railroad were to have been divided in three installments over the second supplementary budget (8.9 million), the 1907 budget (4 of The Breach 325

Long since appalled by the inordinately high costs of suppressing the Nama, the Center resolved in early December 1906 to take a still firmer stand against excessive military expenditures, particularly given the apparent imminence of a German victory. Thus, in the Budget Committee on December 6, senior Centrists Peter Spahn and Albert Horn joined Erzberger in supporting the motion of Hanoverian judge Carl Engelen demanding that the troop count in Southwest Africa be reduced from the current level of 10,100 to 2,500 by April 1907 and that the 1906 Supplementary Budget be cut back to fifteen million marks. While not presuming to advocate the withdrawal of soldiers from the front line, the Centrists insisted that the other seventy-five percent of the colonial army, technicians and those assigned to guarding supply lines and African prisoners, could now readily be replaced with police troops at less than half the cost per man.80 Most Center delegates also initially subscribed to the argument that the purported savings in supply costs arising from the Kubub- Keetmanshoop Railroad would disappear once the unnecessary troops were withdrawn.81 The government, on the other hand, claimed that it would still require a minimum of 8,300 soldiers from April onward until completion of the Kubub- Keetmanshoop line permitted their reduction by another thousand. Treating the Center’s attempted stipulation of a specific reduction as an encroachment upon the executive’s power to command the military, the Reich refused to entertain the proposal to supplement the colonial troops in Southwest Africa

the 66.6 million), and the anticipated complementary budget (8.6 million). The inclusion of the four million marks of railroad costs in the 1907 budget accounts then for a minor discrepancy in the figures above—namely, while the new and renewed requests given in the main text would appear to total 147 million marks, reference is actually only made to 143 million (20 million plus 123 million marks) since the railroad is listed here separately. 80 Spahn, Dec. 5, 1906, ProtBc; Motion Engelen, Dec. 6, 1906, KDS 110; Erzberger, Spahn, Dec. 6, 1906, ProtBc; Quade, Dec. 6, 1906, Statement, Enclosure to the Protocol of the 67th Session of the Budget Committee, RTA, 1099:39–43, BAP. Erzberger, Nov. 30, 1906, RTSB, 4037D–4041C. Spahn, Reporter, Dec. 13, 1906, RTSB, 4357D–4359B. Spahn, Delegate, Dec. 13, 1906, RTSB, 4374A, 4374D–4376B. Bachem, Sep. 2, 1907, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 259:7, HASK. Loebell, Nov. 19, 1906, Memorandum, R4558, RKzA, 945:114–15, BAP. Deimling to Dernburg, Dec. 9, 1906, Telegram; [Colonial Department or General Staff?] to Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, Jan. 28, 1907, Manuscript, RKzA, 937:300, 324–30, BAP. “Württemberg: Erbach, 20. Januar,” Ulmer Volksbote, Jan. 20, 1907, Nachlaß Dernburg, 45, BAK. 81 Schaedler, Nov. 28, 1906, RTSB, 3974D. Erzberger, November 30, 1906, RTSB, 4042C/D. Bachem, Sep. 2, 1907, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 259:7, HASK. 326 CHAPTER 11 with cheaper police forces.82 Moderating its position somewhat, the Center then attempted to stipulate that, at the very least, steps should be taken prior to April in preparation for a reduction to 2,500 troops at an unspecified time during the fiscal year 1907.83 By December 13, the Catholic party had revised its position even further to include authorization of the railroad through the Erzberger Motion and acceptance of twenty of the requested twenty-nine million marks through the new version of Engelen’s proposal, the Hompesch Motion.84 While the latter was still incompatible with the government’s stance, these adjustments reflected the Center’s serious intention to negotiate. Having meanwhile withdrawn their initial support for the Engelen Motion, however, the Radical People’s Party introduced the Ablaß Motion. This amendment met with the government’s approval because its call for troop reductions during 1907 did not designate a particular number. Dissatisfied with this proposal, the Center still hoped at the supplementary budget’s second reading on December 13 for a more acceptable compromise in the days ahead.85 Nearly unanimously, the Catholic party joined with the Social Democrats and Poles to defeat both the Ablaß Motion and the supplementary budget, the former by

82 Dernburg, Dec. 6, 1906, ProtBc; Quade, Dec. 6, 1906, Statement, Enclosure to the Protocol of the 67th Session of the Budget Committee; Kuhl, Dec. 7, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1099:41– 43, 47, BAP. Deimling to Dernburg, Dec. 9, 1906, Telegram, RKzA, 937:300, BAP. Spahn to Martin Spahn, Dec. 17, 1906, Nachlaß Martin Spahn, 301, BAK. Spahn, Dec. 13, 1906, RTSB, 4375A. Bülow, Dec. 13, 1906, RTSB, 4359C/D, 4379A/D. Dernburg, Dec. 13, 1906, RTSB, 4369A–4370A. Quade, Dec. 13, 1906, RTSB, 4376C–4377C. Berckheim to Marschall von Bieberstein, Dec. 12, 1906, Report 30, Strictly secret, BdGB, Abt. 49/2039, GLAK. 83 Motion Engelen, Dec. 7, 1906, KDS 112; Erzberger, Spahn, Dec. 7, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1099:46–48, BAP. Spahn, Dec. 11, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1074:381, BAP. Spahn, Reporter, Dec. 13, 1906, RTSB, 4358C/D. Spahn, Delegate, Dec. 13, 1906, RTSB, 4374B/D, 4375D. 84 Motion Hompesch, Dec. 12, 1906, RDS 617; Bachem, Sep. 2, 1907, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 259:1, 7, HASK. Spahn, Dec. 12, 1906, ProtBc; Motion Erzberger, Dec. 12, 1906, KDS 116; Erzberger, Spahn, Dec. 13, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1099:79, 88–90, BAP. Spahn, Reporter, Dec. 13. 1906, RTSB, 4358D. Spahn, Delegate, Dec. 13, 1906, RTSB, 4374A. Berckheim to Marschall von Bieberstein, Dec. 14, 1906, Report 31, BdGB, Abt. 49/2039, GLAK. 85 Wiemer, Dec. 6, 1906, ProtBc; Kopsch, Dec. 7, 1906, ProtBc; Resolution Eickhoff, Dec. 10, 1906, KDS 113; Motion Eickhoff, Dec. 10, 1906, KDS 114; Dernburg, Kopsch, Wiemer, Dec. 11, 1906, ProtBc; Motion Ablaß, Dec. 12, 1906, RDS 612, RTA, 1099:42, 48–50, 54, 71, BAP. Motion Ablaß, Dec. 13, 1906, RDS 612 (Amended). Bachem, Dec. 20, 1906, June 11, Sep. 2, 1907, Notes, Nachlaß Bachem, 259:2, 7, 8, HASK. Eickhoff, Dec. 11, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1074:381, BAP. Dernburg, Dec. 13, 1906, RTSB, 4369D. Loebell to Bülow, Dec. 13, 1906, Secret memorandum, Immediately! RKzA, 939:135–36, BAP. Spahn to Martin Spahn, Dec. 17, 1906, Nachlaß Martin Spahn, 301, BAK. Lerchenfeld to Podewils, Dec. 14, 1906, Report 594, MA 95484, ByHSA. Eschenburg, Kaisserreich am Scheideweg, 41–42. The Breach 327 only five votes, the latter by just ten. Then, before the Hompesch Motion could come to a vote, Bülow rose and read the Kaiser’s order dissolving the Reichstag to the cheers of Left and Right and the silent discomfiture of the Center.86

Bondelswart Constitution and Reichstag Dissolution

Bülow’s decision to dissolve the Reichstag over this issue has correctly been attributed in large measure to the chancellor’s need to regain his dwindling credibility with the Kaiser.87 However, this observation has tended to lead to a disregard for the key role played by Africans in provoking the dissolution. In the words of historian Hans Pehl, the “ultimate and decisive reason for the dissolution was not the conflict in the colonial question; rather, this was only the external occasion for things that lay far deeper.”88 This inference, pervasive in the historiography but usually less explicit, has hitherto justified the virtually exclusive focus by scholars upon the domestic origins of a German political crisis with at least as many roots in Africa as in Berlin.89 While not baseless, the prevalent interpretation neglects a number of questions that, when posed to the sources, shed a rather different light upon the December crisis. First, the purely domestic political version too readily employs the particular case of the Supplementary Colonial Budget of 1906 to generalize regarding the pertinence of the colonial question as a whole. It can certainly be shown that by December 11 Bülow was deliberately seeking to precipitate the clash, and this might suggest that the supplementary budget itself was merely the occasion for the breach, not its cause.90 However, even within this framework, it has been demonstrated above that the chancellor would hardly have been looking for such an opportunity to break with the Catholic

86 Ballestrem, President, Dec. 13, 1906, RTSB, 4380B–4381A. Bülow, Dec. 13, 1906, RTSB, 4381B. Roll Call Votes, Motion Ablaß and SupB for Southwest Africa, 1906, Dec. 13, 1906, RTSB, 4382–84. Lerchenfeld to Podewils, Dec. 14, 1906, Report 594, MA 95484, ByHSA. Crothers, German Elections, 94. 87 Berckheim to Marschall von Bieberstein, Dec. 14, 1906, Report 31, BdGB, Abt. 49/2039, GLAK. Bachem, Dec. 20, 1906, Note, Nachlaß Bachem, 259:8, HASK. Haferkorn, Bülows Kampf, passim. Crothers, German Elections, 97–98. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 118–19. Lerman, Chancellor as Courtier, 127–66. 88 Pehl, “Deutsche Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 86. 89 Wolfgang Reinhard and Winfried Becker represent notable exceptions to this tendency. Reinhard, “Sozialimperialismus oder Entkolonisierung?” Becker, “Kulturkampf als Vorwand.” 90 See discussion below. 328 CHAPTER 11 party but for the impact African initiatives had already been having upon both Centrist political conduct and the Kaiser’s attitude toward Bülow.91 Second, by dubbing the colonial question “only the external occasion” of the breach, Pehl implies that another issue might just as easily have sparked the same far-reaching conflict between the government and the Center. However, he fails to offer any hypothetical alternative case, not surprisingly, for indeed none remained. First of all, without the Center the government could only form a Reichstag majority with the aid of the left liberals, yet no economic issue could have served as a rallying point for a coalition ranging from the German Conservatives to the Radical People’s Party. Other theoretically unifying programs, such as a renewed Kulturkampf or anti-socialist legislation, would likewise have met with resistance from the rightmost or leftmost wing of such an unusual bloc of parties. A majority without the Center could thus only be achieved through an appeal to German patriotism. Therefore, in the absence of the colonial conflict, only a hypothetical Centrist obstruction of an army or navy bill could have provoked the government to respond as it actually did to the party’s attempted modifications to the Supplementary Budget of 1906. However, neither of these other two alternatives still lay within the realm of the possible in the foreseeable future. It is true that insecurity at court had prompted Bülow to contemplate a Reichstag dissolution in the spring of 1905 in connection with the Center’s intent to strike a number of cavalry units from the quinquennial army bill. However, that hurdle had been safely passed.92 Even in the midst of that tempestuous year in colonial affairs, neither the Center nor the responsible military authorities had displayed any inclination to make significant difficulties for one another. Despite its aggravation over the chancellor’s defense of the mandatory dueling code for military officers, the Catholic party, and Erzberger in particular, had cooperated actively with Prussian War Minister Karl von Einem in effecting passage of the military pension law in the spring. At the same time, the Center had rendered indispensable support

91 Crothers acknowledges the link between the weakening of Bülow’s position with the Kaiser and the Center’s struggle with the colonial administration although he fails to associate the latter with the reverberations from African resistance (Crothers, German Elections, 98). Oddly enough, Pehl himself unwittingly alludes to the same link when he refers to Bülow’s fears regarding his recent “domestic political failures” and to the Center’s recent fueling of its own unpopularity within some circles (Pehl, “Deutsche Kolonialpolitik und Zentrum,” 86). 92 Förster, Doppelter Militarismus, 138–42. The Breach 329 to Naval Secretary Alfred von Tirpitz for construction of costly dreadnoughts for the fleet.93 For their part, Tirpitz and Einem had both rejected overtures by Bülow inviting the submission of more ambitious spending programs likely to have encountered resistance in the Reichstag.94 Under these circumstances, the colonial question cannot legitimately be relegated to the status of a mere “occasion” for a dissolution that would not have otherwise occurred; rather, African resistance to German rule was unquestionably a crucial factor in the breakdown of the government-Center partnership. Finally, the evidence suggests that the costs and course of the Nama War may in fact have played a more immediate role in the Reichstag dissolution than has generally been recognized. Admittedly, by December 11 Bülow appears to have been resolved to force a dissolution over the supplementary budget. Despite Spahn’s assurances regarding the eventuality of a retroactive authorization of extrabudgetary expenditures, the government refused to accept the proposed cut of nine million marks. Nor did the Center’s readiness to return troops in the event of unforeseen military developments appease the Bülow administration.95 Indeed, as of December 11 Bülow pointedly avoided negotiating with Spahn and ignored the jurist’s explanatory plenary speech on the thirteenth.96 That Bülow by then preferred a breach to a compromise also emerges from his dissolution of the Reichstag at the bill’s second, rather than at its third reading.97

93 Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:299–303, 313, 351; 9:187–90. Haferkorn, Bülows Kampf, 14–17. 94 This is not to assert that the officers restrained themselves out of consideration for the parliament. For the naval secretary, the public attention of controversy would have simply undermined his program by alarming the British. Similarly, the minister of war, having already taken all technical measures he believed necessary, saw the expansion of the army as the only desirable improvement, yet he would only advocate this if the diplomatic situation made it urgently necessary. Assessment of this necessity lay with Bülow, so pursuit of this approach would have thwarted the chancellor’s intent to make the military experts responsible for any controversial bill. Tirpitz, Politische Dokumente, 20–30. Haferkorn, Bülows Kampf, 20–24, 88–96, 123. Berghahn, Tirpitz-Plan, 500–504, 554–56. 95 Spahn, Dec. 13, 1906, RTSB, 4374A/C, 4375C, 4376A. The same maneuver, making a significant cut but exonerating Berlin in advance for extrabudgetary spending, had functioned far better for Spahn during the East Asian Occupation Brigade debate of March 1903. See chapter 8. 96 Bachem, Aug. 28, 1909, Dec. 20, 1906, June 11, 1907, Notes, Nachlaß Bachem, 259:4, 8, HASK. Lerman, Chancellor as Courtier, 165. 97 Lerchenfeld to Podewils, Dec. 14, 16, 1906, Reports 594 and 595, MA 95484, ByHSA. Lerman, Chancellor as Courtier, 165. 330 CHAPTER 11

Last but not least, the chancellor manifested his determination to drive the issue to a crisis through his maintenance of the strictest secrecy lest his intentions be thwarted by a last-minute interparty accord. Thus, on the eleventh Bülow told the Centrist Reichstag president Ballestrem that he was not considering a dissolution. This was an outright lie, for the Kaiser already supported the chancellor’s proposal and the Prussian cabinet was scheduled to discuss it that very day.98 Even on the thirteenth, Bülow obscured his plans by carrying the imperial dissolution order into the Reichstag in an ordinary white folder instead of the traditional red one.99 All this strongly suggests that by that point the chancellor was intent upon severing ties with the Center in order to regain the confidence of the Kaiser. However, the undeniable presence and significance of this ulterior motive in Bülow’s thinking is still not sufficient to define it as the ultimate reason for the Reichstag dissolution as the historiography’s almost exclusively domestic political treatment of the problem would suggest. First of all, an equally important prerequisite for the breach lay in Centrist resistance to the bill in question. Spahn had initially wished to recommend to the Center delegation that it accept the entire supplementary budget of twenty-nine million marks. It was only the news of the latest 1904 and 1905 extrabudgetary military expenditures on troops used against the Africans which caused him to balk and propose the employment of police troops.100 If Spahn’s chances of steering the Center toward full authorization would have been slight in any case, it was precisely because outrage over the Togo Affair and exasperation over the nearly half a billion marks spent since 1904 against the Nama and Herero had rendered the Catholic party exceedingly untractable.101 At the same time, the German military’s unequivocal respect for African strength and will to resist also played a role in the December eruption. Communications between Berlin and Keetmanshoop in late 1906 reveal that

98 Ballestrem, Dec. 11, 1906, Diary entry, Nachlaß Ballestrem, Tagebücher, GABS. Berckheim to Marschall von Bieberstein, Dec. 12, 1906, Report 30, Strictly secret, BdGB, Abt. 49/2039, GLAK. Bachem, Aug. 28, 1909, June 11, 1907, Notes, Nachlaß Bachem, 259:4, 8, HASK. Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, 6:389, 415. Eschenburg, Kaiserreich am Scheideweg, 43. Lerman, Chancellor as Courtier, 165. 99 “Der Reichstag aufgelöst,” Tag, Dec. 14, 1906, Nr. 634, Nachlaß Loebell, 6:5, BAK. Crothers, German Elections, 99. Lerman, Chancellor as Courtier, 165. 100 Spahn to Martin Spahn, Dec. 17, 1906, Nachlaß Martin Spahn, 301, BAK. Bülow, Denkwürdigkeiten, 2:269. 101 Loebell, Nov. 19, 1906, Memorandum, R4558, RKzA, 945:114–15, BAP. Lerchenfeld to Hertling, Dec. 9, 1906, Nachlaß Hertling, 50:6, BAK. Bachem, Dec. 20, 1906, Note; Bachem, Dec. 15, 1906, Note, Confidential; Bachem to Spahn, Dec. 10, 1906, Nachlaß Bachem, 259:8– 10, HASK. The Breach 331 the Bülow administration did not accept the demands of the Southwest African command unquestioningly. With the consent of the General Staff, Colonial Director Hohenlohe-Langenburg had informed Colonel von Deimling in mid- August that the latter’s April target should be seven thousand troops, not eight, and that the proposed gradual withdrawal of troops at a steady monthly rate was unacceptably expensive.102 While yielding on the tempo of the reduction, Deimling insisted, however, upon the necessity of retaining the eight thousand men. Pressed again in early October with a warning from Berlin that the Reichstag would not accept even seven thousand, the colonel also firmly maintained his position.103 Most significantly, even after Bülow had secured the Kaiser’s consent to the Reichstag dissolution, Dernburg attempted on December 8 to sway Deimling to acquiesce to a reduction to six thousand troops.104 Given Deimling’s already categorical assertions in previous months as well as the delicacy of the government’s situation in December 1906, it seems highly improbable that the colonial director would have made this final inquiry without Bülow’s express approval. In any case, the colonel emphatically rejected the proposal the following day with a delineation of the precariousness of the military situation:

Besides 16,400 prisoners whose desire for freedom [has] not [been] extin- guished [sic] and whose weapons [have] not all [been] seized, there are in the settled colony about 15,000 coloreds, in part still tribally organized and mounted; mountain Damara and Bushpeople not included. Along [the] border settlement regions [there are] about 3,000 [Herero] who have withdrawn to British soil, [and] in the Northeast an unknown number of Herero and finally the Ovambo. In the face of this, [the] troop strength [of] 8,000 [is] already the minimum estimate. Adherence to this number [is] necessary even after [the] Bondelswart tribe [is] suppressed because settlement and economic activity [is] only secure where [the] troops [are] ready to nip every flare-up [of the] uprising in the bud. [words omitted in telegram appear in brackets as interpolated by author]105

102 Under the colonel’s plan, the Supplementary Budget of 1906 would have totaled 59 million marks, twice the eventual figure. Dernburg to Loebell, “Kurze Zusammenstellung der von der Schutztruppe erstatteten Berichte,” Jan. 12, 1907, OK14 G.J.Pers., Memorandum; Dernburg to Loebell, Jan. 11, 1907, OK18 G.J.Pers., RKzA, 937:304, 315, BAP. 103 See previous footnote, RKzA, 937:304, 315–16, BAP. 104 Dernburg to Deimling, Dec. 8, 1906, Telegram, RKzA, 937:299, BAP. 105 Deimling to Dernburg, Dec. 9, 1906, Telegram, RKzA, 937:300, BAP. 332 CHAPTER 11

While thus inadvertently describing the bankruptcy of German imperialism in the colony, Deimling made clear that neither chancellor nor Reichstag could expect that a military so apprehensive of its African foes would prove sufficiently flexible to avert the parliamentary clash in Berlin. Assuming Bülow’s foreknowledge of this last inquiry prior to the dissolution, there seem to be only two good possible explanations for the colonial director’s telegram of December 8. Perhaps at that point the chancellor himself may have still wished for a compromise with the Reichstag. Alternatively, Bülow may have simply needed the military to reinforce its authoritative stance in order to convince the left liberals to cast their lot entirely with the government. Somewhat suggestive of the validity of the latter hypothesis is the fact that the Radical People’s Party abandoned the Engelen Motion on the eleventh directly after Dernburg read Deimling’s response to the Budget Committee.106 Regardless, the colonel’s unambiguous assessment of the gravity of the Nama and Herero threat evidently either eliminated Bülow’s last hope for a work- able accord with the Reichstag, or else it helped deliver the now indispensable left liberals into the government camp. In either case, German fears of African military effectiveness appear to have been pivotal for domestic political decisions taken in Berlin. Furthermore, these same German fears in combination with the Bondel swarts’ political constitution and understandable mistrust of the enemy quite likely contributed directly to the Reichstag dissolution in another way. On Christmas Eve 1906, eleven days after the dissolution, Deimling telegraphed Berlin with the wholly unexpected news of the surrender at Heirachabis of the Germans’ most formidable remaining foe, Johannes Christian (!Nanseb=| Khami=| Naoxamab) of the Bondelswart Nama. The terms of this Peace of Ukamas were also to extend to the numerous Bondelswarts then across the Oranje River upon their return to German soil.107 For the government in

106 Dernburg, Eickhoff, Dec. 11, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1074:381, BAP. Kopsch, Wiemer, Dec. 11, 1906, ProtBc, RTA, 1099:54, BAP. 107 Wolffsches Telegraphen-Bureau, “Vom Kriegsschauplatz,” Dec. 26, 1906, Nr. 5679; Dernburg to Loebell, “Kurze Zusammenstellung,” Jan. 12, 1907, OK14 G.J.Pers., Memorandum, RKzA, 937:291, 306–7, BAP. Deimling, “Von der alten in die neue Zeit,” 1929, Nachlaß Deimling, 3:38, BMAF. Dierks, “Data Base of Namibian Biographies.” The location of the German- Bondelswart peace negotiations had alternated between the Catholic mission station at Heirachabis and the German station of Ukamas. As the peace terms were signed at the latter location, the settlement is known as the Peace of Ukamas. However, the Bondelswarts actually relinquished their weapons at Heirachabis. The Breach 333 the midst of the election campaign, the Center’s stance on December 13 suddenly appeared embarrassingly prophetic.108 In fact, unbeknownst to either the Bülow administration or the Center Party, Christian had already been essentially at the negotiating table for two months prior to his surrender. In October 1906 the Bondelswart captain’s peace overtures through the Salesian Oblate priest Johann Malinowski had prompted Deimling to grant him safe passage to Heirachabis. Christian had arrived on October 24, and the next day the German colonel had halted all operations in southeastern Namaland. The delay in reaching an accord was due primarily to Christian’s reluctance to engage in binding talks in the absence of his brother Joseph and other key members of the now scattered Bondelswart leadership. As the captain’s messengers had failed to find the missing individuals, both sides had agreed in mid-November to send Malinowski himself into the mountains. However, the priest had had no more success in contacting the other leaders, who, it finally emerged, had retreated to British territory. Soon after Malinowski’s return, Johannes Christian and those elders present finally agreed to enter into formal negotiations on December 21 after a letter arrived from Joseph Christian sanctioning the initiation of talks.109 As for Deimling, his silence on the subject vis-à-vis his superiors in Berlin was a function of his differences with the civil colonial administration regarding the Bondelswarts’ will to resist. Prior to departing for Germany to defend the colony’s budget before the Reichstag, Governor Friedrich von Lindequist had given Deimling draconian guidelines regarding any potential peace talks. The governor had warned, namely, that it was necessary for every Nama tribe to be subjected to a lengthy period of imprisonment and be banished from its traditional homeland. However, Deimling was convinced that the Bondelswarts would fight to the last man rather than consent to imprisonment. Therefore, in October the colonel had promised the Bondelswarts their liberty and then omitted to report the initiation of talks to Berlin for fear of again evoking impractical instructions that would prolong the war indefinitely. Even so, the

108 “Die voreiligen Bondelzwarts,” Schlesische Volkszeitung, Dec. 29, 1906, Nr. 594, Nachlaß Bachem, 262:4, HASK. Mayer-Kaufbeuren, [late December 1906 or January 1907], Campaign speech, KE 442 (Nachlaß Mayer-Kaufbeuren), 10, BAK. Dernburg to Loebell, Jan. 7, 1907, Note; Loebell to Bülow, Jan. 7, 1907, Secret memorandum, RKzA, 937:294, 296–97, BAP. 109 Deimling, “Von der alten in die neue Zeit,” 1929, Nachlaß Deimling, 3:33–35, BMAF. Dernburg to Loebell, “Kurze Zusammenstellung,” Jan. 12, 1907, OK14 G.J.Pers., Memorandum; [Colonial Department or General Staff?] to Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, Jan. 28, 1907, Manuscript, RKzA, 937:307–8, 324–30, BAP. Bühler, Namaaufstand, 298–300. 334 CHAPTER 11 talks nearly collapsed on December 22 over the German attempt to impose the Bondelswarts’ resettlement from Warmbad to Keetmanshoop. When it was clear that Christian preferred to resume the war rather than accept this condition, Deimling relented here as well, and the accord was signed the next day.110 Within two short weeks of Christian’s surrender, Deimling was asked for a prognosis on the conclusion of hostilities with the remaining Nama and ordered to prepare to reduce the colony’s forces for the upcoming fiscal year to a peacetime level of four thousand soldiers plus six hundred policemen. Then, on March 31, 1907, the Kaiser declared an end to the state of war in Southwest Africa.111 Such a rapid denouement naturally raises intriguing questions regarding the likely course of events in Berlin under slightly different circumstances in Namaland. For example, if Deimling’s apprehension of continued war with the highly adept Bondelswart guerrillas had been somewhat less pronounced, he would almost certainly have dutifully reported to Berlin regarding Christian’s efforts to gather his people for peace talks. In that case, assuming for the sake of argument that Deimling prevailed over Lindequist on the imprisonment issue, Bülow would have known on December 7 that peace with the Bondelswarts was potentially imminent. This knowledge might have induced him to await the third reading of the supplementary budget in January before committing himself to requesting the Kaiser’s consent to the Reichstag dissolution. After Christian’s surrender the chancellor might have then altogether abandoned the planned coup as superfluous.112 More provocatively still, if Christian had dropped his procedural scru- ples just two or three weeks earlier, the peace accord eventually reached on December 23 would have coincided with the moment Deimling had to reply to Dernburg’s final inquiry regarding the feasibility of restricting 1907 troop levels to six thousand. Even if the colonel had nonetheless maintained his demand for eight thousand, it is reasonable to suppose that a Reichstag dissolution over the issue would have been much less likely. The military authorities in Berlin would probably have been prepared to order Deimling to accept a 1907 peacetime figure similar to the four thousand plus police that they actually imposed upon him in early January. Bülow would then have had much more room to reach a deal with the Reichstag without appearing to capitulate.

110 Deimling, “Von der alten in die neue Zeit,” 1929, Nachlaß Deimling, 3:34–38, BMAF. 111 Dernburg and Moltke to Deimling, Jan. 8, 1907, Telegram; Dernburg to Loebell, Jan. 11, 1907, OK18 G.J.Pers., RKzA, 937:314, 316, BAP. Deimling, “Von der alten in die neue Zeit,” 1929, Nachlaß Deimling, 3:39, BMAF. 112 Lerchenfeld to Podewils, Dec. 14, 1906, Report 594, MA 95484, ByHSA. The Breach 335

Admittedly, the chancellor would probably have still at least contemplated a dissolution to bolster his position with the Kaiser, particularly if news of the peace had reached him only after he had already suggested the parliamentary dissolution to the monarch. However, with the peace accord’s blurring of the patriotic issue and Bülow’s own increased maneuverability, the risk of a more contrived dissolution returning a less manageable Reichstag would have loomed larger for the chancellor. Even without the accord, such reservations were still strong enough in Bülow’s mind on the eleventh to prompt him to have Loebell raise with Spahn the possibility of a compromise on the basis of the Ablaß Motion.113 Therefore, Bülow might well have backed down from an ultimate confrontation if the peace had already been concluded with the Bondelswarts. Moreover, if the chancellor had nonetheless desired a dissolution, finding a formula to precipitate it would have been considerably more challenging. Given a hypothetically early peace accord, the higher the Reich left the projected troop count for 1907, the more difficult it would have been to persuade the left liberals to retreat from their support of an increasingly logical Engelen Motion. On the other hand, the greater the magnitude of the government’s own proposed cut, the larger the ‘risk’ that a reassured Center itself would relent and endorse the Ablaß Motion. Thus, consideration of this counterfactual scenario strongly suggests that the determination of the Bondelswart Nama to uphold their own constitution in wartime played a critical role in provoking the Reichstag dissolution of December 1906 and the ensuing bitter ‘Hottentot elections’ of 1907.

113 Bachem, Dec. 20, 1906, June 11, 1907, Notes, Nachlaß Bachem, 259:8, HASK. Spahn to Martin Spahn, Dec. 17, 1906, Nachlaß Martin Spahn, 301, BAK. Conclusion

Having salvaged his position with the Kaiser through his bold break with the Center, Bülow thrust his government into the thick of the ensuing electoral campaign against the “antinational arrogance” of the purported Red-Black alliance of Social Democracy and the Center. Meanwhile, his allies in the newly reunited liberal press raised the hue and cry against ultramontane domination of the Reich. However, such anticlerical sloganeering reminiscent of the Kulturkampf merely solidified German Catholic support for the suddenly ostracized Center. In fact, when it returned to the Reichstag in February 1907, the Center delegation had actually increased in size from 100 to 104 seats. Nevertheless, its strategic position in the parliament had been shattered by the devastating electoral defeat of the Social Democrats, whose representation had plummeted from 81 to 43 delegates, thanks not only to the government’s overall appeal to nationalism and colonial prestige, but also in large measure to the reservoir of anticlericalism among otherwise indifferent petty bourgeois voters in such socialist strongholds as staunchly Protestant Saxony. With the left liberals having forsaken the opposition for greener governmental pastures, the Center no longer commanded the decisive votes in the Reichstag. Rather, the improbable Bülow Bloc from the German Conservatives to the Radical People’s Party claimed the parliamentary majority in temporary defiance of the incompatible economic and political interests of its component parties. Deprived of influence upon the government for the first time in seventeen years, the Centrists reflected bitterly upon the ease with which Bülow had abandoned the party that had collaborated with Berlin on a decade’s worth of often difficult legislation. Two years later, however, the Center could take its revenge upon the faithless chancellor during the finance reform negotiations when the Conservatives preferred to arrange a capital gains tax with the Catholic party rather than accept Bülow’s insistence upon an inheritance tax at left liberal behest. Having already lost the Kaiser’s favor through his handling of the recent Daily Telegraph Affair, Bülow fell in June 1909 as the Bloc dissolved and the Center climbed back into the parliamentary saddle. As all of these developments except the Daily Telegraph incident were functions of the Reichstag dissolution of December 1906, they were also all contingent upon the surge of African resistance movements since 1903 which had battered and ultimately broken the government-Center partnership. If it were possible then to factor Anago, Dahomey, Herero, Nama, Maji Maji, and Duala resistance out of German history, Bülow would have had neither occasion nor

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004306875_014 Conclusion 337 pressing need for a rupture with the Center. If the next Reichstag elections had then been held as originally scheduled in June 1908 without the widespread nationalist, anticlerical, and antisocialist fervor of the ‘Hottentot elections,’ then the Social Democrats would probably have held their own or continued along the otherwise steady trajectory of electoral gains that culminated in their triumph of 1912. Under such alternative circumstances Bülow would likely have remained dependent upon continued Center cooperation, rather than upon that of the left liberals whose demands for an inheritance tax the chancellor could not sell to the Conservatives. In the absence of a Centrist vendetta against Bülow over 1906, the Catholic party might have assisted the chancellor in 1908/09 by mediating the finance reform negotiations, much as it did during the tariff controversy seven years earlier. The final package would probably still have taxed capital heavier than agriculture, but this result would not have amounted to the bankruptcy of Bülow’s parliamentary strategy. Whether the chancellor could have remained in office much beyond the Daily Telegraph Affair is doubtful in any case, but the parliamentary denouement of the latter might have been more constitutionally constructive in a Reichstag unimpaired by Centrist estrangement from the liberals. An equally interesting but unanswer- able question is whether liberals and Centrists might not have made greater strides in learning to cooperate with at least revisionist Social Democrats if there had been five more years of a large socialist delegation in the Reichstag prior to 1912. In sum, whereas the multiple African resistance movements were unquestionably a necessary precondition for the government-Center breach of December 1906, the full consequences of this African contribution to the Kaiserreich’s domestic political history will never be known. Much the same may be said of the Chinese, Cuban, Filipino, and Samoan contributions to the course of Wilhelmine domestic politics in the period from 1897 to 1901. The Big Sword slayings of Fathers Nies and Henle greatly facilitated passage of Tirpitz’s first naval law, and most scholars of the period have erred in their neglect of this fact. Indeed, evidence suggests that the Reich’s utilization of its opportunity in Shandong forestalled an otherwise inescapable necessity of conceding repeal of all or part of the Anti-Jesuit Law already in 1898. On the other hand, it cannot be conclusively proved that it was the Jiaozhou action that tipped the scales for most of the Centrists voting for the sextennial law in March 1898. Nevertheless, if the Zhangjiazhuang murders were most likely not quite as important for passage of the first naval law as domestic considerations, it still seems probable that without the Jiaozhou action the Center would have fared less well at the polls in June 1898 338 Conclusion as a consequence of its acquiescence to the Kaiser’s costly naval plans. If so, the passage of the already problematic second naval law of 1900 would have then proved that much more difficult. More decisive for Berlin’s success in pressing a program of rapid naval expansion through the Reichstag without confessional concessions were the contemporary cases of Cuban, Filipino, and Samoan resistance to Spanish, British, and American imperialism. First, Cuban and Filipino successes against Spain brought the United States charging onto the global stage as a formidable naval power in both the Atlantic and the Pacific, and the hopes of the Kaiser and Tirpitz for German annexation of the Philippines set the Reich sharply, if briefly, at odds with the victorious North American republic. Moreover, the same Spanish-American conflict which starkly demonstrated the necessity for a colonial power to maintain a modern navy simultaneously placed the sympathies of the Kaiser and his Catholic subjects emphatically on the same side of an issue. Likewise, the struggle of the Samoan majority to crown Mata’afa Iosefo against the wishes of British and American agents at Apia brought the Reich into heated conflict with both naval powers on an issue where German national and Roman Catholic interests were again closely aligned. Following as swiftly as it did on the heels of the Spanish-American War, the Samoan crisis then galvanized the Kaiser and Tirpitz into seeking the creation of the third and fourth battleship squadrons before the original sextennial law was even two years old. That this gambit succeeded in the Reichstag despite ample Centrist grounds for thwarting it may be ascribed in no small part to the international consequences of the three aforementioned insular resistance movements. In the first place, the very admissibility of the second naval bill as an object for parliamentary consideration depended for the Center upon the viability of the government’s argument that the likelihood of war with Britain or the United States had dramatically increased in the twenty-odd months since passage of the sextennial law. A plausible justification along these lines could never have been made, however, in the absence of the Spanish-American War and the Samoan crisis. Second, it was precisely these conflicts which had fostered German Catholic hostility toward Britain and the United States well before the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War. Finally, the Center feared that it would face serious repercussions at the polls if it rejected the new battleship squadrons at a moment when German Anglophobia was aroused throughout the Reich as a result of the Samoan as well as the Boer conflict. Consequently, in the absence of the Cuban, Filipino, and Samoan anti- imperialist struggles, there is every reason to suppose that the Center would Conclusion 339 have sunk Tirpitz’s second naval bill given the plenitude of domestic reasons the Catholic party already possessed for doing so. Under such circumstances Berlin’s concessions to the agrarians on the tariff question simply would not have sufficed. Indeed, it is quite possible that the government would not have even ventured to introduce the bill that year given both the lack of a cogent argument to justify early revision of the sextennial law and the Kaiser’s unwillingness to give any ground on the Jesuit question. Presumably then, if the Cubans, Filipinos, and Samoans had not rebelled, the introduction of the second naval bill in 1900 or a year or two later would have precipitated either an earlier repeal of all or part of the Anti-Jesuit Law or else a major constitutional conflict between Kaiser and Reichstag involving repeated dissolutions over the naval issue. The choice between these same two alternatives might also have emerged in Spring 1900 if Berlin had not resolved to disarm the threat Chinese resistance and resultant SVD-Reich antipathy posed to already reluctant Centrist consideration of the bill. If in either of these scenarios the Kaiser had then preferred repeated dissolutions over concessions on the confessional front, it is at least conceivable that such a domestic conflict in the Reich would have slowed the Anglo-German arms race preceding World War I. In any case, the Cuban, Filipino, and Samoan resistance movements enabled the Berlin government to accelerate its program of naval expansion without yet having to dismantle the Anti-Jesuit Law even partially. Once the second naval law had passed, the Yihetuan Uprising continued the pattern which the Zhangjiazhuang murders and insular resistance movements had established of keeping the Center in the government camp despite the exasperating lack of progress on the Jesuit issue. Influential members of the party’s jurist leadership were resolved in June 1900 to withhold all further cooperation from the Hohenlohe administration if the Anti-Jesuit Law did not fall in short order. However, by precipitating the Kaiser’s fiscally unauthorized dispatch of the East Asian Expedition to China, the Yihetuan unwittingly engendered a constitutional dispute in distant Berlin that served as a lightning rod for Centrist frustrations and thereby ironically averted a still more fundamental clash of government-party interests. Namely, if Chancellor Hohenlohe had been spared the embarrassment of the Kaiser’s gross violation of parliamentary prerogatives via the East Asian Expedition, he would still have faced an intractable Center and thus an unman- ageable Reichstag in Autumn 1900. Without his imperial master’s authorization for concessions on the Jesuit question, he would have found it impossible to guide important legislation through the Reichstag and might well have felt forced to resign under circumstances approaching a parliamentary vote of no 340 Conclusion confidence. Indeed, if neither the Center nor the Kaiser relented, the chancellor could have escaped the setting of an ominous parliamentarizing precedent only by persevering at his post until his death the following year. While Hohenlohe quite possibly might have managed this, the Yihetuan simplified matters enormously for the government. At one level, the plight of Catholics in China and the constitutional issue at home partly distracted the Center from the Jesuit question. At the same time, the flagrancy of Berlin’s transgression against Reichstag prerogatives expedited Hohenlohe’s early departure without the necessity of a major government-Center confrontation on the confessional issue. The new appointment in the chancellery thereupon virtually compelled the Catholic party to resume its stance of patience given that even a reputedly unprejudiced Protestant like Bülow would still require some time in office to muster sufficient influence with the Kaiser and Bundesrat to effect change on the Jesuit question. This Centrist return to forbearance was then made all the easier by Bülow’s readiness to seek indemnity for the dispatch of the East Asian Expedition, by his adeptness at making confessional concessions at Beijing’s expense, and by the Left’s vigorous attack upon the dubious proselytizing methods of the SVD. Thus, it is clear that in the years from 1897 to 1906 anti-imperialist resistance movements in Africa, Asia, the South Pacific, and the Caribbean influenced Wilhelmine domestic politics frequently and at times decisively. However, the tendency of that impact in Berlin was not uniform. In pseudocolonial or foreign colonial venues such as China, Cuba, the Philippines, and Samoa, German national and Roman Catholic interests were often closely aligned. There resistance movements up to 1901 usually redounded to the benefit of the Reich’s ruling elite by providing opportunities to gratify the Center’s constituency cheaply overseas, thereby distracting the party from the pursuit of desiderata closer to home. Resistance movements in German-occupied Africa, by contrast, arose after 1903 in contexts where church-state interests ran at loggerheads or where the costs of uprisings triggered acute fiscal concerns in the Center’s constituencies. As a result, anti-imperialist resistance in German-occupied Africa seriously undermined and ultimately destroyed the same government-Center partnership forged earlier in large part by comparable resistance in China, Cuba, the Philippines, and Samoa. Sources

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Sankt Ottilien Archiv der Abtei Sankt Ottilien Dar-es-Salaam 4, Regierung Dar-es-Salaam 6, Aufstände, Pastoral

Speyer Pfälzische Landesbibliothek Teilnachlaß Ernst Lieber, Autographen

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abolitionism 36, 64, 74, 82, 89, 97, 101–4, See also Anti-Jesuit Law; Kulturkampf; 198–202 ‘Kulturkampf in Togo’; Togo Affair Abushiri ibn Salim al-Harthi 82, 88, 103 Anti-Jesuit Law 43–44, 51–53, 87–88, 90–91, Adamaua 70, 75–76, 77 101, 103, 111–12, 119, 136, 156–57, 171, Adjaro Nyacuta 224–25, 227, 320 176–77, 182–86, 197, 208–9, 217, 236–43, Adowa 2 248, 251–52, 266, 272–73, 337, 339–40 Africa Association of German Catholics 102 See also anticlericalism; Kulturkampf Africa Fund 66 Anyang 77, 220 Afrikaners 85 Anzer, Johann Baptist (von) 96, 115–17, 123, See also Nama 125, 138–39, 142–53, 167–74, 175n1, Afro-Brazilians 86, 223, 320–21 181–82, 186, 189–90, 195–97, 204, 208 agrarians, Centrist 25–30, 33, 121, 154–55, Apia 56, 128, 134, 163, 338 158–61, 166, 215–17, 339 Arabs 79, 82, 88, 89, 102–3, 201, 289 See also peasants, Centrist; protectionism; Arenberg, Franz Prinz von 8, 10, 21–22, 104, tariffs 109–10, 132–33, 155, 169–71, 185, 187–88, agrarians, non-Centrist 154, 157, 184 191n42, 199–200, 211–12, 216–17, 232–36, agriculture 20, 25, 27–28, 30, 64n16, 67, 238–43, 245–46, 260–62, 265, 271, 78–79, 82, 84, 94, 98, 123, 126, 220, 223, 275–78, 282, 283n40, 284, 289, 293–94, 260, 283, 313, 337 305 See also agrarians, Centrist; agrarians, Arendt, Otto 264 non-Centrist; cloves; cotton; plantations aristocrats, Centrist 21–23, 26, 32, 104, 121, Aichbichler, Josef 27 133, 155, 161n120, 176, 188, 191, 198–99, Akwa, Dika 71, 198n65, 221, 290–91 202, 215, 233–34, 236, 240, 245, 248, 259, Akwa, Mpundo 198n65 262, 264, 266–67, 269, 274, 282, 283n40, Akwa petition. See Bonambela; Duala 287, 304–5 Algeciras 302, 310, 315 See also Arenberg, Franz Prinz von; See also Moroccan crisis Ballestrem, Franz Graf von; Heereman Alsace-Lorraine 28, 38, 88, 272, 309n17 von Zuydtwyck, Clemens Freiherr; Alsatians 17n1, 19n6, 88–89, 91, 101, 216n1, Hertling, Georg Freiherr von; 283n40 Hompesch-Rurich, Alfred Graf von Am Zehnhoff, Hugo 234–36, 241–43, army 43, 50, 156, 177, 187–88, 194, 302, 308, 245–47, 287, 295, 300, 305 328 Anago 70, 86, 220–25, 228–29, 300–301, 303, See also Colonial Army; East Asian 308, 310, 316–21 Expedition; Military Criminal Andani II 67 Procedure Code Anglicans 88, 89 army bills 21, 23, 25, 28n35, 32, 104, 120, 156, Anglo-Boer War 136, 162–63, 166, 338 328–29 Anglophobia 89–90, 98, 134–37, 163–66, 176, artisans 20, 24n22, 26, 30–32, 36, 121, 154, 338 286–87 See also Britain Arusha 83 anticlericalism 10, 12, 17n1, 18, 28n35, 37–41, assassination 177, 181–82, 205, 256–57 42n17, 43–49, 52–54, 57, 84–85, 88, See also homicide; killing; murder; slaying 90–91, 95, 101, 103, 109, 143, 149–51, 157, Atakpame 70, 86, 222–30, 243–44, 247, 320 177, 185, 208–11, 225–29, 233–35, Atokodje 230, 320 237–45, 248, 254, 264, 266, 270, 272–73, Augsburger Postzeitung 129, 137 298, 301–2, 307, 309–10, 315, 336–37 Australia 91, 99–100 370 Index

Austria 37–38, 47, 86, 117, 129 Berlin Act 94, 133–34 Avete 230–31, 235, 244, 320 Berliner Lokalanzeiger 315 Ayene 224 Besser, Bernhard von 198 Bethanians 57, 65, 85, 281 Bachama 77 See also Nama Bachem, Franz 171, 172n159, 275–76 Beti 75, 76 Bachem, Karl 6n10, 8, 10, 23, 166, 176–77, Big Sword Society 96, 123, 126–27, 129, 152, 183–86, 189, 191–92, 194–97, 205–6, 216, 249, 337 218, 237–38, 258n131, 259, 262–63, See also Jiaozhou; Zhangjiazhuang 277–79, 283, 285–87, 289, 294, 298, 300, bishops 10–11, 33–34, 40, 42–43, 45–51, 305, 307–8 89–90, 94, 116, 132–33, 204 Baden 12, 18–19, 27, 28n35, 39, 42, 45–46, 48, See also Anzer, Johann Baptist (von) 52, 121, 237, 299 Bismarck, Otto Fürst von 18, 42–43, 48–50, Bafut 75 55, 57, 85, 89–91, 94–95, 97–103, 110, Bagamoyo 87 118–19 Baining 57, 91, 94, 220, 258n132 Bismarck Archipelago 10, 90–91, 103, 220, Bakoko Basa 74 258n132 Bali 75 Black Fathers. See Spiritans Ballestrem, Franz Graf von 9, 22, 25, Boers 57n6, 62, 85, 136, 163, 166, 338 283n40, 305, 322, 330 Boki 77, 220 Bamenda Highlands 70, 75, 77 Boko. See Freitas, Boko de bandits 122–23, 125–27, 193 Bombassa 77, 220 Banjang 77, 220 Bonambela 71, 74, 198n65, 221, 268, 290–92, Baptists 86–87, 101 294 Barossa 10 See also Duala Baumann, Luitpold 25 Bondelswarts 12, 59, 64–65, 85–86, 219, 281, Bavaria 12, 18–34, 42–44, 46, 52, 90, 96, 98, 290, 324, 331–35 116, 121, 129, 137, 154–55, 159–60, 164, See also Nama 166, 189, 199, 216–17, 238, 271, 291, 299, Bötticher, Karl Heinrich von 111 310 bourgeois Centrists 21–27, 29–31, 121, Bayrische Vaterland, Das 98 215–16, 235–36, 238, 257–58, 283n40, Bebel, August 118, 187–95, 197–98, 200–202, 285–87, 289 204, 297, 299 See also jurists, Centrist Bechuanaland 86 Boxers. See Yihetuan Becker, Karl 24n22, 26 Brandeis, Eugen 293, 296–97, 299 Becker, Winfried 5–6, 327n89 Brandenburg 28 Behanzin 74 Brandt, Max August von 96, 189 Beijing 12, 117, 122–23, 138–40, 142, 145–47, Braunsberg 20 151, 152n88, 154, 168, 173, 177, 180, 189, Bremen 20n8, 57, 98, 101 195, 204–5 Bremerhaven 20n8, 179–80 See also China; Qing Britain 55, 57, 59, 62, 66–67, 71, 74, 76, 78, Belgium 8, 10, 71, 76 82, 85–95, 98–99, 101, 104, 112, 128, Bell, Manga 71 130–38, 141, 161–67, 175n1, 176, 180–81, Bell, Ndumbe 71 200, 237–38, 264, 281, 286, 329n94, 331, Bena 84, 220 333, 338–39 Benedictines 10, 90, 103 British East Africa Company 90 Benue River 71, 76 Broyer, Pierre 132–33 Berghahn, Volker 112 Brückner, Edmund 318, 321–23 Index 371

Brust, August 35, 36 industrial; and names of individual Center brutality, official. See corporal punishment; Party delegates and of individual states flogging and provinces Bubandjidda 76 Chabruma 84 Buchka, Gerhard von 13, 164 Chad, Lake 70, 74, 266 Bücking, Hermann 226–27, 229, 231–32, Chagga 83–84, 105, 198 236, 241–48, 322 Chambers, William 133–34 Budget Committee 9, 84, 99–101, 118, 155, Chancellery 11, 13, 296, 318 157–58, 160n119, 162, 165, 169–71, 182, Chari River 70 187–88, 194, 198–200, 206–8, 216–18, children 59, 62, 75, 144, 192–93, 200–202, 237–38, 261, 263–65, 276–78, 281, 224, 255–56, 297n92, 317 283–84, 292n75, 293, 298–99, 306, 325, China 2, 11, 36, 55, 56, 95–96, 113–29, 138–54, 332 163n129, 167–97, 203–8, 218, 236–37, Buea 56, 74, 87, 221, 247, 290, 292n75 249–52, 266, 329n95, 337, 339–40 Bukoba 83 See also Shandong Bülow, Bernhard Heinrich (Graf)(Fürst) Christian, Jan Abraham 64, 290 von 3, 4n7, 6n10, 8, 13, 21, 114–19, 133, Christian, Johannes 64–65, 281, 332–34 135–37, 140–42, 151–53, 156n107, 161–63, Christian, Joseph 333 168–76, 178, 182–95, 197, 203–8, 210, 232, Christian, Wilhelm 64 236, 238, 240, 246, 251–56, 261–64, 266, Church Mission Society 88, 89 269, 271, 273–77, 285, 287, 296, 302, clergy 26–29, 31, 33–35, 42, 43, 45–51, 52n52, 304–6, 308, 310–23, 326–40 88–89, 91, 100–101, 115–21, 143, 160, Bulu 76, 77, 198n65, 220 169–74, 215–16, 242–48, 258, 292–93 Bundesrat 44, 52–53, 101, 158n114, 187, 195, See also bishops; canons; priests, Catholic; 208, 237–38, 240, 249, 272–73, 277, 340 and names of individual clergy Burger, Franz 27 cloves 79 Burundi 78, 83 Coastal Uprising 36, 82, 88, 89, 90, 101–4 Bwana Heri 82 Cologne 8, 10–11, 23, 30, 33, 36, 42, 49, 102, 176, 196, 234, 237, 241–43, 294 Cahensly, Peter Paul 24–25, 98, 210–11 Colonial Army 187–88, 191n42, 207 Cameroon River 71 colonial attachés 237–38, 264 canons 7, 11, 26–29, 34, 217, 237, 241–42, 247, Colonial Department. See the names of 314, 317 individual colonies, colonial directors, See also clergy departmental personnel and colonial Cape Colony 57, 62, 279, 281 officials Caprivi, Leo (Graf) von 25, 32, 103 Colonial High Command 312–13 caravans 67, 76, 79, 83, 279 Colonial Office 6n10, 11, 264, 270–74, 301–2, Cardauns, Hermann 9, 183 304–11 cardinals 47, 49–50, 89, 101, 115–16, 171 colonial troops 59, 62–67, 74–77, 82–84, Caroline Islands 55, 100, 130, 131 88–89, 102–5, 198, 209–10, 219–20, 228, cattle 58–59, 79, 253, 257, 285, 293 230, 249–63, 265–70, 275–77, 279–87, See also livestock 292, 294, 312–14, 316, 324–26, 329–35 Center Party. See agrarians, Centrist; commerce 20, 23–25, 28, 66, 71, 75, 79, aristocrats, Centrist; artisans; bourgeois 82, 87, 95–96, 99, 102, 120, 122, 132, Centrists; clergy; estate owners, Centrist; 158, 216, 271 jurists, Centrist; peasants, Centrist; See also trade; traders populists, Centrist; press, Centrist; priests, Comoros 89 Catholic; Prussian Centrists; workers, concubines 211, 221, 224, 290 372 Index

See also rape; sexual abuse; women Dewey, George 130 Confucianism 96, 122–25, 181, 190, 208 dhpg. See Deutsche Handels- und Congo Conference 100 Plantagen-Gesellschaft Congo River 71, 100 Dibonge, Georg Njo a 291 Congregationalists 85, 94, 131 Diederichs, Otto von 130 Congregations Law 48, 51 Djama 224 Congress of German Catholics 35, 102, 183 Dja River 76, 77, 220 Conservative Party, German 17, 110, 157–58, doag. See Deutsch-Ostafrikanische 192, 276, 307n11, 312, 314, 328, 336–37 Gesellschaft constitution 38, 40, 45, 48, 99, 110, 120–21, Dominik, Hans 76, 209 175, 177–79, 182–88, 191–95, 237–38, Donga River 70 251–52, 254–55, 260–65, 273–79, 288, Dossa 230–31, 320 290–92, 302–3, 308–9, 312, 324–26, Douglas, Hugo Sholto Graf von 70 329–30, 332–37, 339–40 Duala 71, 74–75, 87, 198, 221, 247, 266, 268, corporal punishment 71, 74–75, 84, 198, 220, 290–92, 294, 301 222, 230n41, 289–90, 292–97, 320 See also flogging East Africa 3, 10, 12, 36, 56, 78–79, 82–84, cotton 84, 288–89 87–90, 101–5, 198, 200–202, 216, 220, Counter-Reformation 41, 111 238, 258, 261, 264–65, 268–79, 284, craft sections 34 288–89, 292, 294, 297, 301–3, 307–10 craftsmen. See artisans East Asian Expedition 12, 36, 174–75, 177–97, Crispi, Francesco 2 187n34, 189–90, 193, 203–9, 236–37, Cross River 71, 77, 220 249–53, 266, 280, 339–40 Cuba 14, 122, 128–29, 131, 137–38, 161, 163–64, East Asian Occupation Brigade 203–4, 166, 337–40 206–8, 266, 329n95 East Elbia 19, 28n34 Dagomba 67 See also Elbe River Dahlmann, Joseph 183 East Prussia 19, 20 Dahomey 66, 70, 74–75, 86, 105, 220–22, Echinger, Josef 24n22 230–31, 235, 244, 300–301, 303, 308, 310, Economic Union 260, 307n11 316–20 Edea 87, 211, 292 Daily Telegraph Affair 336–37 editors 29–33, 35, 129, 143, 171, 183, 185, 192, Dar-es-Salaam 56, 82, 238, 261, 271, 278, 284 216, 275 Dasbach, Georg Friedrich 9, 18, 23, 25, See also journalists; press; publicists 28–30, 34, 143–44, 153, 160, 169–72, 174, Ehende, Madeni 230–31 176, 182, 215, 217–18, 237–38, 258, 260, Eifel 18, 29, 121, 160, 217, 232, 246–49, 292–93 299–300, 317, 321 Daughters of the Sacred Heart 44, 53 See also Eifel-Hunsrück; Hunsrück December Uprising 71 Eifel-Hunsrück 121, 160, 232, 236, 246–49, Deeken, Richard 221 299–300, 317, 321 Deimling, Berthold von 12, 312, 331–34 See also Eifel; Hunsrück Dernburg, Bernhard 13, 319, 321–23, 331–32, Einem, Karl von 328–29 334 Ekoi 77, 220 Deutsche Handels- und Plantagen- Elbe River 19, 27 Gesellschaft (dhpg) 94 See also East Elbia Deutsche Togo Gesellschaft 70, 260 elections, Reichstag 3, 4n7, 6n10, 17, 20–23, Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Bank 264, 265 25, 28–32, 35–36, 41, 43, 46, 66, 99, 105, Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Gesellschaft 109–10, 118–21, 138, 215–16, 218, 333, (doag) 56, 82, 88, 90, 102 335–38 Index 373 emigration 25, 55, 67, 223, 225 Förster, Heinrich 42 encyclicals 48, 111–12 France 1–2, 38, 55, 66–67, 71, 74, 76, 79, Engelen, Carl 325–26, 332, 335 85–91, 94–96, 99–101, 115, 123, 131–32, Enhai 177 143n52, 163, 173, 181, 182n18, 188, 196, Ermland 19, 42 204, 223, 238, 264, 305 Erzberger, Matthias 4n6, 8, 32, 35–36, Franciscans 41n15, 95 216–18, 238, 254–60, 262–66, 268–69, François, Kurt von 62 271, 275–78, 280–301, 303–7, 311, 314, Franconia 19, 25, 27, 29–30, 34, 217, 237 317, 323, 325–26, 328 Frank, Wilhelm 34 Esso 77, 220 Fransfontein 63 estate owners, Centrist 24n22, 25–26, 287 Fransmans 65, 281 Estorff, Ludwig von 63 See also Nama Ethiopia 2 Fredericks, Cornelius 65, 281 Euler, Jacob 30 Fredericks, Joseph 57 Ewe 67, 70, 86, 235, 260, 320 Freemasons 43 excommunication 42, 46, 48 Freinademetz, Josef 117, 144–45, 148, 151 execution 59, 63, 83, 192, 198 Freitas, Boko de 321 See also homicide; killing; murder; slaying Fritzen, Alois 7, 165, 216, 289–90, 305, 308 Expatriation Law 47, 52 Fulani 76 Eyum, Franz 211 Fusangel, Johannes 31–32, 35, 119

Falk, Adalbert 43–44, 50 Ga 67 Falke 134–36, 141, 162 Gabon 87, 89 farmers. See agrarians, Centrist; estate Gazelle Peninsula 91, 94 owners, Centrist; peasants, Centrist genocide 59, 250, 255 Fashoda 163 German Colonial Association 22, 98 Fathers of the Holy Spirit. See Spiritans German Colonial Society 22, 98, 104, 272 Fathers of the Society of Mary. See Marists Germania 9, 25, 98, 100–102, 116, 144–45, 153, Ferry, Jules 2 170, 179, 185, 283, 314 Filipinos 128–30, 135, 137, 161, 163–64, 166, German People’s Party 17n1, 243 337–39 See also left liberals; liberals See also Philippines Gerstenberger, Liborius 29 Fischer, Major 6n10, 312–14, 316 Gesellschaft Nordwest-Kamerun (gnk) 77 flogging 75, 139, 211, 221, 226, 230, 290, 293, Gesellschaft Südkamerun (gsk) 76–77 297, 317, 320 Gibeon 62 See also corporal punishment Giesberts, Johann 33, 36 Fodenu 230–31, 320 gnk. See Gesellschaft Nordwest-Kamerun forced labor 63–64, 67, 71, 74–75, 84, 94, Gobabis 62, 63 198–99, 202, 212, 220–21, 230–31, Göring, Heinrich 59 288–90, 294 Goßler, Heinrich von 188, 197, 204 See also hard labor Gott will es! 102 Foreign Office 11, 21, 53, 56–57, 90–91, Götzen, Gustav Graf von 12, 265, 270–72, 100–101, 114, 132, 150, 168–69, 171–72, 175, 274, 284, 302, 309 182, 188, 193, 253, 274, 302, 304, 310, 317 Graef, Dr. 225–26, 228–30, 232, 234–35, 239 See also Bülow, Bernhard Heinrich (Graf) Grand Canal 122–23 (Fürst) von; Colonial Office; Marschall Gravenreuth 74 von Bieberstein, Adolf Freiherr; Great Rift Valley 78 Richthofen, Oswald Freiherr von; Gröber, Adolf 7–8, 18, 23, 104, 119, 165, Tschirschky und Bögendorff, Heinrich von 169–71, 176, 184–85, 195, 197, 200–202, 374 Index

Gröber, Adolf (cont.) Hille, Philipp 31, 34–35 210, 216, 218, 238, 258–59, 265, 279, Hinterwinkler, Georg 34 282–85, 287, 290–93, 298, 306, 319 Hitze, Franz 7, 31, 34–35, 217 gsk. See Gesellschaft Südkamerun Ho 67 Guam 55, 130 Hochland 238 Guangxu 181 Hoegn, Karl 209–11 guerrillas 65, 82, 270, 280, 324, 334 Hoensbroech, Paul Graf von 109 guilds 31 Hoensbroech, Wilhelm Graf von und zu 104–5 Hague Convention 206n6 Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Ernst Hamburg 98, 118 Erbprinz zu 13, 270, 272–74, 292, 295, Hamburger Nachrichten 118 306–11, 315, 331 Hammann, Otto 13 Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Chlodwig Hanover 17n1, 19, 37, 99, 283n40, 325 Fürst zu 13, 53, 110–12, 161, 163n129, 171, hard labor 104, 291 176–79, 182–84, 194, 339–40 See also forced labor Hohenzollern, enclave of 19 Hart, Robert 189 Hollmann, Friedrich von 111 Haunfelder, Bernd 159 Holstein, Friedrich von 13 Haußmann, Conrad 243 Holzapfel, Nikolaus 27 Haya 83 homicide 231, 245, 320 Hebel, Benedikt 29 See also assassination; execution; killing; Heereman von Zuydtwyck, Clemens massacre; murder; slaying Freiherr 9, 22, 98, 110 Hompesch-Rurich, Alfred Graf von 171, 287, Hehe 82–83, 104 323, 326–27 Heim, Georg 9, 25, 30, 159, 176, 189 Hoornkrans 62 Heinrich, Prince 110–11, 116, 138, 149–50 Horn, Albert 325 Heirachabis 86, 332–33 Horn, Waldemar 223, 225, 227, 229–30, 239, Helfferich, Karl 13 243, 320 Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty 104 ‘Hottentot elections’ 3, 4n7, 6n10, 66, 105, Hendrik, Hans 65 335, 337 Henle, Richard 113, 127, 144, 167, 337 Hottentots. See Nama Henrik 63 Huene, Karl Freiherr von Hoiningen- 99 Herbertshöhe 56, 57 Humann, Heinrich 27 Herero 3, 4n6, 5, 58–59, 62–65, 85, 215, ‘Hun letters’ 181, 192–93 219–20, 222, 242, 249–58, 260, 262–64, Hunsrück 18, 23, 121, 160, 217, 232, 236, 242, 266–67, 269, 279, 284–85, 290, 292, 246–49, 299–300, 317, 321 300–301, 303–4, 312–13, 316, 324, See also Eifel; Eifel-Hunsrück 330–32, 336 Hupfeld, Friedrich 67, 70 See also Southwest Africa; Southwest Hutten-Czapski, Bogdan Graf von 12 African Expedition Herold, Karl 9, 24n22, 26, 287 Imperial Party 17, 184 Hertling, Georg Freiherr von 8, 18, 22, 29, imprisonment 63–64, 211, 229, 333–34 121, 156, 171, 199–200, 205, 217, 238, 265, See also jail; prison; prisoners 284–85, 287, 294, 298, 305 indemnity, parliamentary 186–88, 193–94, Hespers, Karl 11, 241–42, 247, 317 251, 261–64, 276–77, 340 Hesse 19, 22, 25, 46, 52, 83, 121, 160, 198–200, Indians 79, 288–89 217, 299 industrialists 22, 24, 70, 136, 154, 157, 161n120 Hesse-Nassau 19, 23–25, 98 See also industry Heyking, Edmund Freiherr von 12, 117, 140, industry 1n1, 20, 24, 28, 36, 67, 154, 157, 288 142, 145–46, 148, 151 See also industrialists; workers, industrial Index 375

Inibena 211 Kalkfontein 64 Irmer, Georg 132 Kalkhoff, Richard 291–92, 294, 305 Isike 83 Kambatta 63 Italy 2, 38–39, 95, 114, 169, 185, 315 Kamerun 25, 55–56, 70–77, 86–87, 99, 101, ivory 71, 76–77, 79 105, 198, 201n75, 209–12, 220–22, 225, 230, 234–35, 241, 243–45, 247, 255, 260, Jaeschke, Paul 142, 144, 148–51 265–66, 268–69, 271, 284–85, 290–92, Jäger, Eugen 9, 32 294, 296, 301–2, 308, 322 jail 211, 225, 228, 320 Kamerun Superior Court 225, 229–30, See also imprisonment; prison; prisoners 234–35, 241, 245 Jaluit Gesellschaft 56 Kampo 87, 212 Janssen, Arnold 170 Kamptz, Oltwig von 76 Japan 96, 123, 125, 131, 180 Kannenberg, Karl 296–97, 299 Jaunde 76, 87, 209–10, 284, 292 Karas Mountains 64 Jebekolle 77, 220 Kassene 224–25 ‘Jesuit-related’ orders 53, 87, 88–89, 90–91, Kautz, Albert 134 101, 103 Kavikunua, Nikodemus 59 See also Anti-Jesuit Law Kayoza 83 Jesuits 40–41, 43–44, 52–53, 103, 109, 138, Kayser, Paul 105 177n4, 183–84, 240–41, 254 Keetmanshoop 282–83, 285, 304, 311–12, See also Anti-Jesuit Law 324–25, 330, 334 Jiaozhou 36, 55, 113–20, 122, 142–43, 152, 154, Kehr, Eckart 4n7, 6n10, 112, 157–59, 161 164, 167–70, 181, 190, 196, 215, 337 Kersting, Hermann 319n50, 320 See also Kiautschou Ketteler, Clemens Freiherr von 12, 151–54, Jiaxiang 152 168–69, 172–73, 177, 181–82, 205 Jietouzhuang 139–40, 143–44, 146 Khalifa, Sultan 82 Jinan 95–96, 123, 196 Kharaskhoma Syndicate 64 Jining 123, 152–53 Khaua 63–64, 199 Jobst, Walter 64, 290 See also Nama Johannes, Kurt 83–84, 198 Kiamutwara 83 Jolly, Julius 28n35 Kiautschou 11, 55–56, 118, 141–43, 145–47, Jordan Company 287 149–51, 169, 179, 182, 236–37 journalists 26, 28, 31, 36 See also Jiaozhou See also editors; press; publicists Kibosho 83–84 journals 10, 129, 149, 238, 314, 322 kidnapping 90, 94, 103, 144, 148 See also newspapers; press Kilimanjaro, Mount 78, 83–84, 88, 105, 198 Jukaduma 220 killing 144, 145, 177, 209, 250, 297, 320 jurists, Centrist 23–26, 98–99, 101, 119–20, See also assassination; execution; 165–66, 176–77, 191, 193, 198, 200–202, homicide; massacre; murder; slaying 234, 238, 240, 245, 255, 258–59, 262–69, Kilombero River 84, 220, 270 274–75, 277–79, 282–83, 285, 287–91, Kilwa 270, 288 293–95, 298, 304–6, 308, 310, 319, 329, Kinjalla, Omari 84 339 Kivu, Lake 78 Justice Office 53, 186 Kiziba 83 Juye 113, 117 Klehmet, Reinhold 172n163, 173 Knorr, Eduard 87, 89, 101 Kaiser. See Wilhelm II, Kaiser Kölnische Volkszeitung 9, 144–45, 153, 167, Kaiser-Wilhelms-Land 90 171, 183, 192–93, 275, 314 Kalahari Desert 58, 59 Kölnische Zeitung 248 Kalenga 82 Kolping, Adolf 30 376 Index

König, Bernhard von 13, 233n51, 236, liberals 17–18, 31, 37–44, 46, 48–49, 52–54, 242–43, 247–49, 295–97, 322–23 98, 102, 110, 116, 157, 179, 181, 184, 187–88, Konkomba 67 192, 194, 198–99, 208, 240, 243, 276, 281, Kopp, Georg von 116 283, 300, 306, 307, 309, 313–14, 328, 332, Koppel Company 262, 277 335–37 Kopper, Simon 65, 281 See also anticlericalism; Anti-Jesuit Law; Korum, Michael 11, 34 German People’s Party; Kulturkampf; Kost, Theodor 229 left liberals; National Liberals; Kpe 74 Radical Alliance; Radical Kraetke, Reinhold 90–91 People’s Party Krementz, Philipp 42 Li Bingheng 117 Kreuz und Schwert 212 Lieber, Ernst 7, 9, 23, 32, 35, 105, 109, 112, 119, Kribi 76, 87, 212 137, 155, 163n129, 164–65, 176–77, 183, Królik, Theophil 32 185–88, 191–95, 201, 210 Kübel, Lothar 42 Likenye, Kuva 74 Kubub 280–83, 285–86, 304, 311–12, 324–25 Limburg 10, 24, 45, 50, 210–11 Kugelmann, Max 210–11 Lindequist, Friedrich von 12, 333–34 Kukowina 223–24, 320 Lindi 288 Kulturkampf 18, 21, 28, 37–54, 84–85, 87, 95, livestock 29, 223, 253, 255, 257–58 97–100, 109, 177 See also cattle See also anticlericalism; Anti-Jesuit Law Liwale 278–79 ‘Kulturkampf in Togo’ 70, 86, 222–32, 300, Loebell, Friedrich Wilhelm von 13, 296, 318, 317 335 See also Togo Affair Logone River 70 Kunabembe 77, 220 Lolodorf 220 Lome 56, 67, 221–23, 225–31, 234–35, 239, Lamaze, Jean-Armand 94, 132 243, 261, 296, 317, 320 Lambert, Andreas 63 London Missionary Society 85, 94, 131 Lambert, Eduard 63 Loth, Wilfried 112 Lämmermann, Judge 291–92 Lüderitz, Franz Adolf 57, 85, 100 Lang, Friedrich Wilhelm 225–26, 228–30, Lüderitzbucht 279–80, 282–83, 286 232, 234–35, 239, 243–45, 321 Lukuledi River 84, 220, 270 Lang-son 2 Lavigerie, Charles 89, 101–3 Mabea 74 Lazarists 44, 53 Machemba 83, 198 Ledebour, Georg 256–57, 260 Madagascar 89 Ledochowski, Mieczyslaw 47, 49–50 Maharero 58–59 left liberals 17, 179, 181, 187–88, 194, 198–99, Maharero, Samuel 59, 290, 293 243, 283, 300, 306, 307n11, 328, 332, Mainz 19, 36, 160 335–37 Maji Maji 3, 10, 84, 90, 220, 268–72, 274–79, See also German People’s Party; liberals; 284, 288–89, 293, 301–3, 307–10, 336 Radical Alliance; Radical People’s Party See also East Africa Leist, Karl Theodor Heinrich 75, 105 Maka 77, 220 Lender, Franz Xaver 28n35 Makonde 83–84, 198 Leo XIII, Pope 11, 49–50, 89, 100, 111, 114–15, Malietoa Laupepa 94–95, 132–33 171 Malietoans 134 Lerchenfeld-Köfering, Hugo Graf von und Malietoa Tanumafili 133–34 zu 12, 238 Malinowski, Johann 86, 333 Leutwein, Theodor 12, 62–64 Mamadu 75 Index 377

Manenguba Mountains 266, 292, 301 186, 188–91, 195–97, 201, 203–5, 208–12, Manga, Victor 198n65 220–36, 238–49, 252–53, 259n132, Manila 130 266–67, 300, 308, 317–19, 321–22, Mankon 75 332n107, 333 Mankon, Battle of 75 See also names of specific Catholic manufacturers 24–25, 31, 160, 198, 217, 286 missionary societies Mapanda, Abdullah 84, 278 missions, Protestant 70, 85–95, 100–101, Mariana Islands 55, 131 131–32, 140–41, 177 Marists 94, 131–33 See also names of specific Protestant marriage 39, 48–49, 94, 185, 220, 295 missionary societies Marschall von Bieberstein, Adolf Mitigation Laws 50–51, 98 Freiherr 109, 111, 132 Mkwawa 82–83 Marshall Islands 55–56, 94, 132, 293, 296 Modedji 230–31, 320 Martin, Konrad 47 Mono River 66 Masai 79, 83 monsoons 79 massacre 62, 67, 74–75, 91, 174, 219 Montel von Treuenfest, Johannes Edler 115, See also homicide; killing; murder; slaying 118 Mata’afa Iosefo 94–95, 132–38, 163, 166, 338 Monts, Anton Graf von 13, 166, 315 Mata’afans 133–36, 138, 166 Morenga, Jakob 65, 281 Matandu River 84, 220, 270 Moroccan crisis 266n154, 275 Matumbi 83–84, 220, 270 See also Algeciras May Laws 45–48, 50, 100 Morsey, Rudolf 112 Mbanderu 58–59, 63 Moshi 83, 84 See also Herero mother houses 51, 84–85, 90, 95n83, 97, 101, Mbunga 82, 84 103, 104, 153 McKinley, William 128 Mpawmanku 77 Melchers, Paul 42, 49–50 Mputa 84 Meli 83 Mrogoro 238, 261 Mensah, Wilhelm 231, 246 Muansa 238 merchants 24, 79, 223, 289 Mühler, Heinrich von 43 Mesa 320 Mukotani 83 Methodists 85–86, 91 Mukuri, Muange 291 Mikindani 83, 198 Mulinu’u 133–34 Military Criminal Procedure Code 156, 177 Müller, Franz 224–31, 234–35, 239, 241–45, miners 32–35, 216 247 mining 25, 33, 57, 59, 140, 260, 263, 283, 286 Müller, Karl 10 Ministry of Culture, Prussian 42–45, 47–51, Müller-Fulda, Richard 25, 64, 83–84, 158, 104 160, 175, 194, 198–200, 202, 217–18, 238, Ministry of Interior, Prussian 104 258–60, 268, 275n13, 284–85, 298 Miquel, Johannes 118, 157 Müller-Sagan, Hermann 295, 300 Misahöhe 66–67 Mumm von Schwarzenstein, Alfons Missionaries of Our Lady of Africa. See White Freiherr 204 Fathers Münchner Neueste Nachrichten 116 Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. See murder 8, 10, 41, 63, 75, 90–91, 96, 103, Sacred Heart of Jesus, Missionaries of the 113–17, 119, 122, 127, 143–45, 153, 167, 177, missions, Catholic 10–12, 14, 20, 21–22, 191, 192–93, 221, 257, 290, 297n92, 337, 24–25, 36–37, 40–41, 44, 51, 54, 57, 70, 339 84–97, 100–105, 113–27, 131–33, 135, See also assassination; execution; 138–39, 142–54, 167–75, 177, 179, 181–82, homicide; killing; massacre; slaying 378 Index

Muslims 79, 88, 102 Neuguinea-Compagnie 56, 90–91 Mutahangarwa 83 New Guinea 10, 55–58, 90–91, 94, 103, 220, Mutatembwa 83 258n132 mutilation 75, 76 New Pomerania 10, 90–91, 94, 103, 220, Mwanga 90 258n132 Mwezi Gisabo 83 newspapers 9–10, 28–33, 35, 41, 98, 116, 129, 137, 143–45, 153–54, 167, 170–71, 179, 183, Nachtigal, Gustav 87, 101 185, 189, 192–93, 212, 216, 248, 275, 314 Nama 3, 5, 12, 57–65, 85, 199, 220, 222, 250, See also journals; press; and titles of 252–54, 256–60, 262, 264, 266–67, individual newspapers 269–70, 275–77, 279–86, 290, 300–301, Nfioni 297 303–4, 312–13, 316, 324–25, 329–30, Ngameya 84, 278 332–36 Ngindo 84, 220 See also Afrikaners; Bethanians; Ngoni 79, 84, 220 Bondelswarts; Fransmans; Khaua; Nguru 82 Red Nation; Southwest Africa; Nguvauva, Kahimemua 59 Southwest African Expedition; Ngwale Bokero, Kinjikitile 84 Swartboois; Topnaars; Nieberding, Rudolf Arnold 53, 186 Velskoendragers; Witboois; and names Nies, Franz 113, 119, 144, 167, 337 of individual Nama leaders Njem 77, 220 Namaland 269, 277, 279, 281, 283–84, Njong River 71, 76, 77, 220 333–34 Nofodji 231 Namib Desert 58 Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung 314 Namszanowski, Franz Adolf 43 Nordrheinische Volkszeitung 192–93 nationalism 4n7, 38, 40, 42, 98, 110, 115, 166, Noreseb, Manasse 65 181, 205, 219, 254, 336–37 Nyacuta, Adjaro. See Adjaro See also patriotism Nyamum 226, 231, 245, 320 National Liberals 17, 110, 157, 184, 192, 194, Nyamwezi 83 276, 281, 307 Nyassa, Lake 78, 84, 270 See also liberals Naukluft, Battle of 62 Oblates of Mary Immaculate 86 Nauru 55 Oblates of St. Francis de Sales. See Salesian naval bills 110–22, 135–38, 141–42, 154–72, Oblates 174, 176, 328, 337–39 Okahandja 58, 290 See also naval laws Okaharui 250 naval laws 112, 120–21, 131, 135–36, 143, 155, Old Catholics 42–43, 45 158, 160, 163–64, 166–67, 169, 174, Oldenburg 19, 20n8 176–77, 337–39 Olpe 32, 119 See also naval bills Olympio, Oktaviano 86, 223, 320 Naval Office 11, 56, 136n32 Omaheke Desert 59, 253, 255–56, 258 See also Hollmann, Friedrich von; Tirpitz, Oman 79 Alfred (von) Omaruru 58, 263 navy 10, 94, 99, 110, 114–16, 118, 120, 125, 127, Oranien Apothecary 287 130, 131, 135–36, 148, 155–56, 160–61, 169 Oranje River 57, 62, 64, 85, 332 Ndsimu 77, 220 Orlam 62, 85 Nekes, Hermann 209 Ossidinge 77 Netherlands 76, 86, 95n83 Otavi Gesellschaft 263–64 Neue Bayerische Zeitung 189 Ovaherero 58–59, 63 Index 379

Ovambo 58, 292 police action 141, 187 Oviumbo 250 Polynesians 91 Pope. See Leo XIII, Pope; Pius IX, Pope; Paasche, Hermann 194, 307, 311 Vatican Palau 55 populists, Centrist 9, 18, 21–23, 25–36, 64, Palime 243, 261 119, 121, 129, 137, 143, 158–60, 169, Pallottines 10, 25, 87, 101, 104, 105, 209–12, 175–76, 189, 194, 198, 215–18, 232–34, 222 236, 237–38, 242, 245–49, 254–60, Pangani 82 262–70, 274–78, 280–300, 303, 306–8, Papal Infallibility 39, 42 317–18, 320–23 parity 53, 100, 112 See also Dasbach, Georg Friedrich; particularism 37 Erzberger, Matthias; Fusangel, Joseph; patriotism 23–24, 55, 98, 104–5, 137, 143, 155, Heim, Georg; Müller-Fulda, Richard; 163, 166, 167, 191–93, 205, 254–55, 257, Roeren, Hermann; Speck, Karl 266, 269–70, 281, 328, 335 Posadowsky-Wehner, Arthur Graf von 162, See also nationalism 178, 307 Pavel, Kurt von 76 Posen 19, 44, 45, 47, 49, 116 Peace Laws 50–52, 100–101 postal steamships 99–100 peasants, Centrist 20, 24n22, 25–31, 33, 36, press 4n6, 9–10, 13, 28–33, 35, 134, 137, 155, 159, 217 142–44, 149, 153–54, 178, 181, 192–93, See also agrarians, Centrist; 233–34, 240, 242, 244–45, 248, 291, 300, protectionism; tariffs 314–15, 319n50, 322, 336 peasants, Chinese 123, 126, 144, 177 See also editors; journalists; journals; peasants associations 24n22, 25–30, 33, 159 newspapers; publicists; and names of Peng Yusun 146–48, 151 individual newspapers and journals People’s Association for Catholic priests, Catholic 26–29, 31, 33–35, 40, Germany 19n6, 32, 35, 216n1 42–49, 86, 91, 95, 117, 127, 139, 144, 148, Pep, Peter 211 153, 169, 209–11, 216, 222, 224, 228, 232, per diems 21, 183–84, 207, 216, 302, 311 235, 237, 241–42, 244, 260, 333 Peters, Carl 82–83, 87, 90, 105 See also bishops; canons; clergy; and petitions, colonial 67, 71, 74–75, 77, 133, 219, names of specific mission societies and 221, 268, 290–92, 294 individual priests petitions, domestic 43–44, 176 priests of Kolelo 84 petty bourgeoisie 24n22, 30, 55, 336 prison 43, 48, 64, 193, 199, 212, 229, 290–92 See also artisans; peasants, Centrist See also imprisonment; jail; prisoners Pfaff, Hermann von 271 prisoners 63–64, 75, 94, 180, 192, 199, 230–31, Philippines 122, 128, 130–31, 141, 181, 338, 340 250, 325, 331 See also Filipinos See also imprisonment; jail; prison Pichler, Franz Seraphim 29, 34 profiteering 284–85, 287, 313 Pius IX, Pope 38–41, 45–46, 48 protectionism 25, 49, 55 plantations 79, 82, 94, 212, 260 See also agrarians, Centrist; peasants, Plehn, Albert 211 Centrist; tariffs Podbielski, Viktor von 6n10, 312–16 Protestant Association 43, 52 Poeplau, Oskar 247, 295–97, 299–300, 317 Protestant League 52, 241, 272 Pogoro 84 Protestants 24, 33–38, 40–43, 48, 50–52, 54, Poles 17n1, 27, 32–33, 38, 44, 307, 326 57n6, 62, 70, 85–95, 101–2, 109, 111, 114, police 44, 47, 53, 67, 74–75, 224, 283, 325–26, 129, 131–32, 140, 154, 200, 208, 240–42, 330, 334 272, 301, 309, 336, 340 380 Index

See also anticlericalism; Anti-Jesuit Law; Redemptorists 44, 53 Kulturkampf; missions, Protestant; Red Fists 152–53, 167, 170 Protestant Association; Protestant Red Nation 65 League See also Nama Prussia 11, 17n1, 21, 26, 28, 32, 37–38, 40, Rehoboth 62, 262, 277 42–54, 97–98, 100–101, 104, 109, 111, 116, Reichensperger, August 99 118, 137, 157, 166, 169, 184, 186, 188, Reichensperger, Peter 101 245–46, 259, 277, 290, 294n82, 302, Reichspartei. See Imperial Party 313–15, 328, 330 Reinhard, Wolfgang 4–6, 327n89 See also Prussian Centrists; Prussian religious freedom 38, 45, 48, 97, 100, 104, 112, Landtag; and the names of individual 168, 189–90, 197 Prussian provinces religious orders 40, 44, 48, 51 Prussian Centrists 18–23, 24n22, 26–28, 32, See also names of specific orders and 50, 98, 111, 121, 137, 160, 215, 242, 245–46, missionary societies 277, 314 Rhenish Mission Society 85, 100 See also the names of individual Prussian Rhineland 18–21, 23, 26–31, 33, 85, 98, provinces and Centrist delegates from 100–101, 104, 120–21, 160, 165, 278, 283, Prussia 286, 289 Prussian Landtag 32, 45–48, 50–52, 98, 101, Richter, Eugen 187, 191, 306 111, 184, 245 Richthofen, Oswald Freiherr von 13, 189, publicists 18, 28, 34, 153, 160, 237, 278 233–34, 242 See also editors; journalists; press right of decree 288, 293 Pugu 90, 103 Rintelen, Victor 98–100 Pulpit Law 43, 48, 52n52 Rivinius, Karl 10, 171n156 Puttkamer, Jesko Freiherr von 12, 74, 210, Rizhao 139, 141–50, 152, 181 221, 255, 290–92 Roeren, Hermann 11–12, 18, 23, 25, 121, 160, 176, 215, 232–34, 236, 242–43, 245–49, Qing 117, 125, 138, 140, 147, 153, 177, 205, 252 295, 300, 308n14, 317–23 See also Beijing; China Rome 2, 10–11, 28, 38, 41, 49–51, 114–15, 169, Qingdao 55–56, 117, 118n43, 138–39, 144, 180, 217, 315 148–51, 154 Rose, Fritz 131–32, 297 See also Kiautschou Rotberg-Rheinweiler, Werner Freiherr Quade, Ferdinand 313 von 225–32, 234–35, 239–40, 245, 320–21 Radical Alliance 17n1 Rotenhan, Wolfram Freiherr von 168–69 See also left liberals; liberals Royal Court for Ecclesiastical Affairs, Radical People’s Party 17n1, 187, 198, 295–96, Prussian 40, 46, 47, 50 306, 326, 328, 332, 336 rubber 71, 76–77, 84, 220 See also left liberals; liberals Rufiji River 84, 220, 270 Raffel, Johannes 134 Ruhr 32, 35 railroads 34, 64, 66, 140, 142, 146, 178, 201, rupee 198, 289 216, 238, 261–63, 266, 277–78, 280, Rwanda 78 282–83, 286, 292, 301–2, 304, 311–12, 315, 324–26 Saar 34 See also names of individual colonies and Saarburg 23, 121, 242, 248, 320 of terminus locations Sacred Heart, Daughters of the. See Rampolla del Tindaro, Mariano 115, 118, 171 Daughters of the Sacred Heart rape 193, 224–27, 234, 239, 317, 320 Sacred Heart of Jesus, Missionaries of See also concubine; sexual abuse the 10, 90–91, 94, 103–4, 259n132 Rauh, Manfred 112 Sadani 82 Index 381

Sagara. See Usagara slaying 59, 63–64, 74, 84, 113n14, 117, 119, 122, Salesian Oblates 85–86, 333 145, 220, 252, 337 Samoa 12, 55–57, 94–95, 97, 122, 128, 130–37, See also homicide; killing; massacre; 141, 161–66, 221, 337–40 murder Sanaga River 71, 74, 87 Social Democrats 17, 33–35, 47, 49, 118, 120, Sansanne Mangu 67 157, 179, 181, 186–87, 189–95, 197–202, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha 270, 272 204–6, 215, 256–57, 260, 266n154, 307, Saxony 46, 336 313–14, 321, 326, 328, 336–37 Saxony, Provincial 19 social imperialism 2n3, 4, 6n10, 55 Schaedler, Franz Xaver 29, 217, 237, 314 Societas Jesu. See Jesuits Scheunemann, Peter 209–12 Societas Verbi Divini (svd) 10–12, 70, 86, Schmidt, Geo 12, 70, 220, 222–32, 234–36, 95–96, 113–27, 129, 138–54, 167–75, 179, 239–41, 243–45, 247–48, 320–21 181–82, 186, 189–91, 195–97, 204–5, 208, Schmitt, Adam 160 222–36, 239–48, 317, 321, 339–40 Schmitz, Peter 224, 227–29, 231, 234, 239, See also ‘Kulturkampf in Togo’; Shandong; 241–43, 247–48 Togo Affair Schönig, Nikolaus 232–35 Society of African Missions 86 schools 30, 32, 39, 42–44, 49, 51, 129, 132, 185, Society of the Divine Word. See Societas Verbi 296, 301, 302 Divini School Supervision Law, Prussian 43–44, 49 Soden, Julius Freiherr von 87, 101 schoolteachers 26, 30–32, 35–36, 42, 44, 48, Sokode 230, 320 159, 216 Solf, Wilhelm 12, 221, 249n102 Schutztruppe. See colonial troops Songea 84 Schwarze-Lippstadt, Wilhelm 260, 265, Southwest Africa 12, 55–66, 85–86, 98–100, 284–85, 289, 293–94, 305 199–200, 206, 219, 237, 242, 249–64, Seckendorff, Erwin Freiherr von 96 266–68, 270–71, 275–86, 290, 292–93, Seitz, Theodor 13 301, 304, 311–13, 317, 324–26, 329–35 Senden und Bibran, Gustav See also Deimling, Berthold von; Herero; Freiherr von 13 Leutwein, Theodor; Lindequist, Sesfontein 63 Friedrich von; Nama; Southwest Setonirive 231 African Expedition; Trotha, Lothar von settlers 64, 78, 252–53, 256–59, 267, 283–85, Southwest African Expedition 59, 62, 304, 311 65–66, 249–57, 275–76, 279–84, 313, sexual abuse 75, 145, 221, 224 324–26, 329–35 See also concubines; rape See also Deimling, Berthold von; Herero; Shandong 10, 55, 57, 95–96, 113–17, 119, Nama; Southwest Africa; Trotha, 121–29, 135–36, 138–42, 144–150, Lothar von 152–54, 162, 167–68, 171, 177, 179, Spahn, Peter 7–9, 23, 120–21, 207, 181, 189–90, 195–97, 204, 210, 216, 218, 238, 255, 258–60, 236, 337 262–65, 277–78, 282–85, 287, 289, shipping 98–99, 265, 287 293, 299, 304–6, 308, 319–20, 323, 325, shopkeepers 20, 31–32 329–30, 335 See also artisans Spain 55, 100, 128–31, 136–37, 161, 163–65, Silesia 9, 19–22, 27, 32–34, 99, 155, 259 338 Sina 83 See also Spanish-American War Sino-French War 2, 95 Spanish-American War 128–31, 136–37, 161, Sino-Japanese War 96, 123, 125 163–65, 338 Sir, Michael 24n22 See also Spain; United States slavery 36, 64, 74, 79, 82, 89, 97, 101–2, 104, Speck, Karl 160, 199–200, 202, 217–18, 260, 198–202 285 382 Index

Spiess, Cassian 10, 90 See also ‘Kulturkampf in Togo’; Togo Affair Spiritans 10, 44, 53, 87–90, 100–101, 103–4 Togo Affair 10–12, 70, 86, 220, 222–36, Stablewski, Florian von 116 239–49, 254, 268, 295, 300, 303, 308, Stenz, Georg 127, 139, 141–49, 151, 153, 169 316–23, 330 Stöcker, Adolf 200, 202 See also ‘Kulturkampf in Togo’; Societas Stötzel, Gerhard 32–33, 35 Verbi Divini; Togo Strzoda, Franz 27 Tonga 97 Stuebel, Oskar 94, 201–2, 210, 212, 228, 242, Topnaars 63 247–49, 256, 262, 270–74, 297, 299, 302, See also Nama 317–18, 321–22 Tove 67 Swahili 79, 82, 102–3 trade 1n1, 31, 66–67, 71, 74–77, 79, 82, 89, 102, Swakopmund 262, 263, 300 104, 162, 217, 220, 285 Swartbooi, David 63 See also commerce; slavery; traders Swartbooi, Lazarus 63 traders 64, 70, 84, 102, 201, 224, 284 Swartboois 63–64, 199 See also commerce; slavery; trade See also Nama trade unions 33–36, 156, 216 Swartbooi, Samuel 63 Trappists 90 Syllabus of Errors 38–40 Trier 9, 11, 18, 27–29, 34, 45, 143, 153, 160, 169, 237, 319 Tabora 238 Trierische Landeszeitung 9, 143 Tägliche Rundschau 185 Trimborn, Karl 8, 221, 287 Tamasese Titimaea 94, 132 Trotha, Lothar von 59, 62, 65, 250, 253, Tanganyika, Lake 78, 83, 89, 238 255–57, 261, 263–64 tariffs 25–26, 33, 53, 66, 157–60, 166, 203, trypanosomiasis 79 207–12, 337, 339 Tschirschky und Bögendorff, See also agrarians, Centrist; peasants, Heinrich von 13, 315 Centrist; protectionism tsetse fly 79 taxation 5, 20, 24–26, 32, 36, 55, 62, 66, Tsingtao. See Qingdao 82–84, 99, 104, 110, 120, 129, 155, 175–76, Tsintau. See Qingdao 181, 198, 203, 220–21, 253–54, 259, 280, 282–86, 288–90, 302–3, 336–37, 340 Uganda 89–90, 95 teachers. See schoolteachers Uhu 297 telegraph lines 177–78, 238 Uichamab, Jan 63 Thielmann, Maximilian von 158, 160, 166 Ujiji 238 Thierry, Gaston 296, 299 Ukamas, Peace of 332 Thirty Years War 41, 109, 242 Ukami 82, 87 Tianjin 96, 140, 146, 177 ultramontanism 38, 41, 42n17, 43, 45, 51–52, Tibati 76 114, 191, 240, 248, 309, 336 Tietz, Ferdinand 234, 239, 241, 248, 322 Umber, Lieutenant 211–12 Tippelskirch Company 259, 286–87, 312–14, United States 1, 25, 55, 94–95, 128–37, 316 140–41, 161–66, 181, 338 Tirpitz, Alfred (von) 13–14, 111–12, 114n16, Unyanyembe 83 115, 118–20, 122, 130–31, 135–38, 141, uprisings 3, 5, 36, 57, 59, 62–66, 71, 149–51, 155, 156n107, 161, 163–64, 167, 75–77, 82–84, 88–90, 99, 101–3, 169–71, 176, 329, 337–39 105, 126, 128, 139–43, 147, 153, See also naval bills; naval laws; Naval 163n129, 167, 170, 175, 179, 181, 189, Office 198, 209, 215, 218, 220, 222, 242, 249–50, Togo 55–56, 66–67, 70, 86, 99, 216, 260–61, 254–55, 257–58, 260, 262–63, 267–71, 292n75, 296 276–78, 280, 284–86, 288–89, 292–93, Index 383

299–300, 302–3, 307, 312–13, 316, 324, 250, 254, 256, 266, 270, 272–73, 331, 339–40 288, 298–99, 304–5, 307, 309–12, See also names of individual colonies, 314–16, 319, 323, 327–28, 330–31, populations and movements 334–36, 338–40 Usagara 82, 84, 87 Windhoek 56, 58, 62–63, 65, 219, 262, 277, Usambara 78, 82, 90 279 Uzaramo 84, 90 Windthorst, Ludwig 99–100, 102–4 Uzigua 82, 87 Wistuba, Emanuel 227, 231, 245–48, 295, 300, 317–18, 319n50, 320–22 Vailele, Battle of 134 Witbooi, Hendrik 62–63, 65, 256, 279 Varnbüler, Theodor Freiherr von 112n10, 164 Witboois 62–65, 280–81 Vatican 11, 38–39, 41, 45, 49, 87, 95, 100, 103, See also Nama 111, 114–15, 118, 156, 168–69, 172–73, 217 Witte, Anton 232, 235, 243–44 See also Leo XIII, Pope; Pius IX, Pope Woermann, Adolph 87 Velskoendragers 65, 280 Woermann Shipping 287 See also Nama women 12, 41, 44, 51, 53, 59, 62, 74–75, Vicari, Hermann von 42, 45 144–45, 192–93, 210, 212, 223–24, 226, Victoria-Nyanza, Lake 78, 83, 89, 238 231, 255–56, 288, 295, 297n92, 312, 320 Vieter, Heinrich 105, 210–12 See also Adjaro Nyacuta; Ayene; Vietnam 1–2 concubines; Inibena; rape; Setonirive; Vistula River 20 sexual abuse Volta River 66, 86 workers, industrial 20, 26, 31–36, 154, Vonderscheer, Leo 19n6, 216n1, 283n40 286–87 See also industry Wacker, Theodor 28n35 workers associations 32–35 Waldersee, Alfred Graf von 12, 206n6 Wuri River 71 Wallenborn, Quirin Peter 27 Württemberg 12, 18–19, 23, 32, 35–36, 119, Walvis Bay 59 121, 164, 176, 185, 216, 256, 299 Warmbad 64–65, 290, 334 Waterberg 58–59 Yanzhou 96, 117, 123, 144, 146, 181, 190, Weber, Theodor 94 195–96 Wehlan, Karl 74–75, 105 Yao 82–83, 198 Wehler, Hans-Ulrich 2n3, 4 Yellow River 122–23, 147n69 Weixian 140 Yendi 67 Weltpolitik 157, 190, 193 Yihetuan 152n88, 163n129, 174–77, 179–82, Wenzel, Johannes 34 187n34, 189–90, 193, 204, 208, 215, 218, Westdeutsche Arbeiterzeitung 33 249, 252, 267, 339–40 Westdeutsche Volkszeitung 154 Yizhou 140 Westfälische Volkszeitung 31, 35 Yola 76 Westphalia 19–23, 26–27, 30–32, 34–35, 98, Yue Er-mi-zi 126 119–20, 160, 266, 289, 293 Yuxian 146, 147n69, 152–53, 173 White Fathers 89–90, 103 White Lotus Sect 123, 126–27 Zanzibar 79, 82, 87, 102, 104 Wiegand, Heinrich 271 Zaramo. See Uzaramo Wilhelm I, Kaiser 50 Zedu 230, 239 Wilhelm II, Kaiser 4n6, 6n10, 13, 18, 52, 71, Zelewski, Emil von 82, 104 109–16, 119, 129–31, 134–36, 141, 149–50, Zentrums-Korrespondenz 120 155–56, 165–66, 171–72, 174–75, 177–84, Zhangjiazhuang 96, 113, 122, 127–29, 139, 186–88, 190, 192–93, 206n6, 207, 240, 143, 153, 169, 337, 339 384 Index

Zhang Rumei 147–49 Zimmerer, Eugen von 71 Zhang Zhidong 150 Zimmermann, Alfred 13 Zhili 174, 177, 206, 208, 236 Zubairu 76 Zigua. See Uzigua