Björkö's contract

Wilhelm II. (Left, in Russian uniform) and Nikolaus II. (Right, in Prussian uniform) in Björkö 1905

The Björkö Treaty was a mutual assistance pact between the German Empire and Russia , signed by Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II in Björkö (the Swedish name of Primorsk, in Finnish Koivisto) on July 24, 1905 . It was never ratified due to opposition from major political circles on both sides, especially since it was directed against existing alliance obligations between Russia and France . The treaty provided for mutual assistance if one of the partners was attacked by a third European power and, according to the peace treaty, should be with RussiaJapan come into effect. It was initially to be kept secret and only made known to France after it came into force.

prehistory

The efforts of Wilhelm II were connected with the Entente cordiale between France and England, which was concluded in 1904, while tensions between England and Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904/05 aroused the hope of drawing Russia to the side of the German Empire . The defeat of Russia in the Tsushima naval battle of May 1905 was only a month ago and civil unrest broke out in the first half of 1905 ( revolution of 1905 , mutiny on the Potemkin in June). Not least because of the Dogger Bank incident , the Tsar was very angry with England, which was in an alliance with Japan (1902) against Russia in order to secure its interests in Asia. Russia, on the other hand, had been in an alliance with France ( French-Russian alliance ) since 1894 , but the Russians were disappointed that France had not given them arms aid in the Russo-Japanese war. Germany, on the other hand, had made it possible for the Russian fleet to leave the port by delivering coal and thus aroused the indignation of England. In addition, tensions arose between France and Germany in early 1905 during the First Morocco Crisis , combined with a visit by the Emperor on his yacht in Tangier in March 1905.

In July 1905 the emperor arrived at Björkö with his yacht "Hohenzollern" and met with the tsar, who was on his yacht Polarstern , on which the contract was finally to be signed. The emperor had been trying for a long time to reach a treaty with Russia and had a draft treaty submitted to the tsar on October 27, 1904, which he had worked out with Chancellor von Bülow. In July 1905, due to the political developments in Russia, the emperor finally saw an opportunity to achieve this.

Contract text

Björkö's contract

The text of the contract read:

Her Imperial Majesties, the Kaiser of Russia on the one hand, and the German Kaiser, on the other, agreed to the following points in a treatise on a protective and defensive alliance in order to secure peace in Europe.

Point 1: In the event of an attack on one of the two empires by a European power, each ally undertakes to provide assistance to the other with all of its land and naval forces.

Point 2: The high contracting parties undertake not to conclude a separate peace with a common opponent.

Item 3: The present treaty will come into force from the moment a peace is reached between Russia and Japan, and it will remain in force as long as it has not been terminated with one year's notice.

Point 4: After this treaty has come into force, the Emperor of all Russians undertakes to familiarize France with its content and to propose to it to join the treaty of the allies.

The contract was signed by the Emperor and Tsar as well as by the Russian diplomat Alexander Konstantinowitsch Benckendorff , the German State Secretary in the Foreign Office Heinrich von Tschirschky and the Russian Navy Minister Alexei Alexejewitsch Biriljow (1844-1915).

consequences

The emperor saw divine providence in his success, but his chancellor Bernhard von Bülow rejected the treaty - after a few days of deliberation - and threatened to resign after the State Secretary in the Foreign Office Oswald von Richthofen had previously insisted on teaching the emperor a lesson To give. In particular, von Bülow came up against the fact that the treaty was limited to Europe, a passage that the Kaiser had inserted without authorization (who had previously had a rough draft approved by Bülow). The emperor was completely surprised by the threat of resignation (he saw an assistance pact in Asia as unnecessary, since an attack by Russia on India was, in his opinion, completely illusory) and was deeply disappointed. In Russia, on the other hand, there had long been a strong pro-French faction that forced the tsar to resign from the treaty if France did not join it. In particular, the influential statesman Sergei Yulievich Witte , who was negotiating the Treaty of Portsmouth to end the Russo-Japanese War at the same time , and the Foreign Minister Vladimir Nikolayevich Graf Lamsdorf , who were not present at the signing and had not been consulted (the Tsar informed Lamsdorf only on August 30th at an audience and Witte was only informed by Wilhelm II on his return journey to Russia with the consent of the Tsar, whom he met on September 27th in Rominten ). The tsar now insisted on France's approval, which, however, was unrealistic, even if the emperor believed in it. Russia itself was dependent on French concession, as the country was close to national bankruptcy and was in negotiations to take out a loan of over 2 billion francs from France. France demanded support in the Moroccan crisis, which then came from Russia. Björkö's contract was as good as finished before the end of the year.

Despite the confidentiality clause, the draft treaty was known in Paris and London soon after it was signed and led to further rapprochement between the two countries. In 1907, instead of the rapprochement with Russia hoped for by the emperor, the forerunner of the Triple Entente between Russia, France and England in the Treaty of Saint Petersburg was primarily concerned with defusing the Anglo-Russian conflicts in Central Asia. Russia, on the other hand, supported the Franco-British position at the Algeciras Conference in 1906 and contributed to the further isolation of the German Empire. According to Roderick McLean, the failed agreement marks a turning point: instead of leading to a German hegemonic position on the continent, as the Kaiser had hoped, and a continental bloc against England, the basis of increasing alienation between Berlin and Saint Petersburg was laid, which continued with the refusal of the Approval of the emperor for the participation of German banks in an international bond for Russia (1906) and continued to deteriorate until the First World War.

The text of the contract became publicly known in 1917 through a publication in the magazine Izvestia on December 29th.

literature

Sidney B. Fay: The Kaiser's Secret Negotiations with the Tsar, 1904-1905. The American Historical Review, Volume 24, 1918, pp. 48-72
D. McDonald: United Government. Foreign Policy in Russia 1900–1914, Harvard UP 1992
Christopher M. Clark: Kaiser Wilhelm II, London 2000, pp. 140–142
JCG Röhl: Wilhelm II, Into the Abyss of War and Exile, Cambridge UP 2014
Roderick R. McLean: Dreams of a German Europe: Wilhelm II and the treaty of Björkö 1905, in: Annika Mombauer, Wilhelm Deist (eds.), The Kaiser: New research on Wilhelm II's role in imperial Germany, Cambridge UP 2004 , Pp. 119-142

Web links

A private story, Der Spiegel, September 9, 1959

Individual evidence

↑ Lujo Brentano, The Author of the World War, 1922, p. 48. The ships of the Hamburg-America Line, which delivered transport ships and coal to Russia, were initially not allowed to leave English ports.
^ Lujo Brentano , The authors of the world war, 1922, p. 47
↑ Röhl, Wilhelm II, Cambridge UP 2014, p. 382. When the contract became publicly known in 1917, Bülow tried to distance himself from the contract in an interview and ascribed it to the emperor's dilettantism. However, the draft was created in the Foreign Office and the diplomat Tschirschky accompanying the emperor was informed about it in advance.
^ Lujo Brentano, The authors of the world war, Munich 1922 , p. 48
↑ Michael Balfour, Der Kaiser Wilhelm II und seine Zeit, Propylaen 1973, pp. 275f. He quotes from the emperor's memories: The morning of July 24th, 1905, was a turning point in the history of Europe at Björkö, and a great relief of the situation for my dear fatherland, which will finally be freed from the hideous pincers of Gaul-Russia .. How is something like this possible ? The answer is very clear to me! So God put it together and wanted it, in defiance of all human jokes, in mockery of all human activity, he put together what belonged together!
^ Balfour, Wilhelm II, 1973, p. 276
↑ Balfour, Wilhelm II, p. 277, quotes the reaction of the emperor to von Bülow's threat of resignation: To be treated like this by the best, most intimate friend I have ... without giving any valid reason, that gave me one given a terrible shock that I collapsed completely and have to fear that I will succumb to a serious nervous disease!
^ Röhl, Wilhelm II, Cambridge UP 2014, p. 378
^ After McDonald: United Government. Foreign Policy in Russia 1900-1914, 1992, p. 80, Witte was quite inclined to accept the treaty after the conversation with Wilhelm II, but revised his view when he saw the treaty text back in Russia and joined the Lamsdorf opposition .
↑ Lujo Brentano, The authors of the world war, p. 49. The emperor even believed in being able to include Japan in an alliance with Russia, which would then be directed primarily against England.
↑ The English King Edward VII already knew about it in September 1905, after the Tsar, with the subsequent approval of Germany , had informed decisive anti-German forces at the court such as the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolajewitsch Romanov . Lujo Brentano, The Originators of the World War, 1922, p. 49
^ Roderick R. McLean: Dreams of a German Europe: Wilhelm II and the treaty of Björkö 1905, in: Annika Mombauer, Wilhelm Deist (eds.), The Kaiser: New research on Wilhelm II's role in imperial Germany, Cambridge UP 2004, p. 119f. McLean (p. 119): The whole history of the Europe and of the world could have been different as the result of the treaty of Björkö .

[1] Lujo Brentano, The Author of the World War, 1922, p. 48. The ships of the Hamburg-America Line, which delivered transport ships and coal to Russia, were initially not allowed to leave English ports.

[2] Lujo Brentano , The authors of the world war, 1922, p. 47

[3] Röhl, Wilhelm II, Cambridge UP 2014, p. 382. When the contract became publicly known in 1917, Bülow tried to distance himself from the contract in an interview and ascribed it to the emperor's dilettantism. However, the draft was created in the Foreign Office and the diplomat Tschirschky accompanying the emperor was informed about it in advance.

[4] Lujo Brentano, The authors of the world war, Munich 1922 , p. 48

[5] Michael Balfour, Der Kaiser Wilhelm II und seine Zeit, Propylaen 1973, pp. 275f. He quotes from the emperor's memories: The morning of July 24th, 1905, was a turning point in the history of Europe at Björkö, and a great relief of the situation for my dear fatherland, which will finally be freed from the hideous pincers of Gaul-Russia .. How is something like this possible ? The answer is very clear to me! So God put it together and wanted it, in defiance of all human jokes, in mockery of all human activity, he put together what belonged together!

[6] Balfour, Wilhelm II, 1973, p. 276

[7] Balfour, Wilhelm II, p. 277, quotes the reaction of the emperor to von Bülow's threat of resignation: To be treated like this by the best, most intimate friend I have ... without giving any valid reason, that gave me one given a terrible shock that I collapsed completely and have to fear that I will succumb to a serious nervous disease!

[8] Röhl, Wilhelm II, Cambridge UP 2014, p. 378

[9] After McDonald: United Government. Foreign Policy in Russia 1900-1914, 1992, p. 80, Witte was quite inclined to accept the treaty after the conversation with Wilhelm II, but revised his view when he saw the treaty text back in Russia and joined the Lamsdorf opposition .

[10] Lujo Brentano, The authors of the world war, p. 49. The emperor even believed in being able to include Japan in an alliance with Russia, which would then be directed primarily against England.

[11] The English King Edward VII already knew about it in September 1905, after the Tsar, with the subsequent approval of Germany , had informed decisive anti-German forces at the court such as the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolajewitsch Romanov . Lujo Brentano, The Originators of the World War, 1922, p. 49

[12] Roderick R. McLean: Dreams of a German Europe: Wilhelm II and the treaty of Björkö 1905, in: Annika Mombauer, Wilhelm Deist (eds.), The Kaiser: New research on Wilhelm II's role in imperial Germany, Cambridge UP 2004, p. 119f. McLean (p. 119): The whole history of the Europe and of the world could have been different as the result of the treaty of Björkö .