BRITISH IDENTITY AND THE GERMAN OTHER A Dissertation ...

The military success of Bismarckian Germany did not win unqualified admiration, even in an age
fascinated with military accomplishments. As the stereotype of the arrogant Prussian quickly
supplanted that of the arrogant Frenchman, and as Bismarck was cast in the role of a new
Napoleon, one writer asked, “can any success earn complete absolution for the mixture of craft
and force which in seven years has so enlarged the borders of Prussia as to make of a second-rate
kingdom the arbiter of Europe, the possessor of a million armed men?” 40 Images of German
militarism and Machiavellian foreign policy reminiscent of Frederick the Great stayed fresh in
the British periodical press through World War I, recasting old notions of German philosophical
idealism and political naivete. Talk of the kaiser’s policy of the “mailed fist” (i.e., military and
naval strength) and events such as the Moroccan Crises of 1905 and 1911, and the Zabern Affair
in 1913, would further instil the association between German diplomacy and militarism and
sustain the image of Germany as an international bully and menace. 41
During the 1890s Anglo-German diplomatic relations took a decidedly negative turn.
Several factors have contributed to this view, most important being the adoption in both
40 C. C. C., “France and Germany,” letter to the editor of the Times, 1 August 1870, 9. See
also an article reprinted from the New York Times that appeared in the London Times on 19
September 1870, 10, recounting an anecdote that described the “habitual arrogance” of a Prussian
soldier who refused to accept the gentlemanly hospitality of his French captors.
41 Kennedy, Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 224. Kaiser Wilhelm II hope to cow
Britain into an alliance failed miserably. The arrival of the German gunboat Panther at the port
of Agadir during the Second Moroccan Crisis served only to increase Germany’s isolation and
further cement the Anglo-French Entente. The Zabern Affair occurred when insulting remarks
made by a Prussian lieutenant about the local populace of the Alsation town of Zabern touched
off public disorders that were dealt with summarily by the garrison commander, Colonel von
Reuter. Reuter escaped reprimand and his actions were sanctioned by the kaiser. The incident
demonstrated the predominance of the Prussian military clique in the upper echelons of German
government as well as the ineffectiveness of the Reichstag and civil law. See Gordon A. Craig,
Germany 1866-1945 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 298-99.
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