Dual Alliance
The double alliance was a secret defensive treaty that was signed on October 7, 1879 between the German Empire and Austria-Hungary . The text of the contract was not published until February 3, 1888.
prehistory
The dual alliance was part of Bismarck's rebuilding of his alliance system after the Berlin Congress of 1878. This rebuilding became necessary when Russia repealed the Three Emperor Agreement of 1873. The German Reich did not take sides for the Russian demands at the Berlin Congress, so that the peace of San Stefano (especially in favor of Austria-Hungary) was largely revised. With the conclusion of the dual alliance, Bismarck intended to reestablish an alliance system as quickly as possible in which Germany would play a key role.
Originally, Bismarck had proposed an extensive political and economic alliance between the two empires; this was rejected by Austria-Hungary (Foreign Minister Count Andrássy ), as it would only have been a "junior partner" in such a connection. In addition, such a deepened cooperation contradicted the interests of the non-German majority of the population of the Danube monarchy. The dual bundle was then formed as a minimal solution.
occurrence
After the Berlin Congress of 1878, the Pan-Slav circles in Russia saw themselves being ripped off by Germany for victory in the Russo-Ottoman War . Tsar Alexander II warned his uncle Kaiser Wilhelm I in a letter of disastrous consequences.
Chancellor Otto von Bismarck then wrote a 2,500-word letter to the emperor in which he tried to dissuade him from understanding Alexander's position. Instead, he announced that he would meet Count Andrássy in Bad Gastein to negotiate an alliance. The emperor, who wanted to avoid a break with Russia, sent Field Marshal Edwin von Manteuffel to the tsar in order to enable a meeting with him. Soon afterwards he met Alexander near Thorn , where the Tsar was holding maneuvers. The meeting went extremely smoothly, and the tsar asked his uncle to consider the letter as not written.
On his return the emperor learned Gdansk that Bismarck pushed ahead the defensive alliance with Austria and already the approval of Emperor Franz Joseph I had caught up. Wilhelm wrote a letter to his chancellor informing him of his own meeting with the tsar. An alliance with Austria could seem to the tsar like a hostile alliance that was concluded behind his back. Bismarck then complained about the dwindling of his strength and announced that he would submit his resignation in eight to ten days. The emperor then took a cure in Baden-Baden .
But Bismarck did not give up, he got Helmuth von Moltke to write a military memorandum on the necessity of an alliance with Austria and, for once, even got Empress Augusta and the Crown Prince couple on his side. The still reluctant emperor only managed to get the tsar informed that the agreement was just a kind of German federation . He added the words to his signature on the treaty: "Those who prompted me to take this step will one day have to answer for it up there." However, in a letter the tsar surprisingly showed understanding for the alliance between the Germans and their Austrians Tribal brothers.
Provisions
The double alliance obliged the contracting parties to support each other with all military power in the event of a Russian attack. The alliance case came under the contract also if another attacking power would receive Russian support.
In all other cases, for example in the case of a French attack on the German Reich, the contracting parties assured each other of benevolent neutrality . However, the German Reich did not expect France to attack the German Reich without Russian support.
The alliance was concluded for five years and should automatically be extended for three years if no objection from either party was received.
Impact history
As early as 1881, the two alliance achieved its goal of showing Russia its impending isolation in the power system and thus leading it back to rapprochement with the German Empire. Russia concluded the three emperor's alliance with the German Empire and Austria-Hungary . In 1882, the dual alliance was expanded when Italy joined the Triple Alliance.
After the collapse of Bismarck's alliance system in 1890, the two alliance was the only alliance that actually existed for Germany. This had the negative effect that the German Reich, in fateful loyalty to the Nibelung , believed it had to bind itself all the more tightly to its only remaining partner, Austria-Hungary, and was therefore significantly restricted in its foreign policy options in the period before the outbreak of the First World War . Thus the two alliance became the “fate of the German Reich”. At the end of the dual alliance, the contracting parties were defeated in World War I and the Prussian-German and Austro-Hungarian monarchies were completely broken up.
Reception in Austria
The dual alliance was also viewed critically on the Austrian side, in particular on the liberal and Habsburg-loyal side. Such views were represented by the former Austro-Hungarian War Minister Franz Kuhn von Kuhnenfeld , who was in office from 1868 to 1874 . The close ties to the neighboring, dominant, but politically increasingly isolated German Empire were also viewed as fatal by Crown Prince Rudolf and his circle Moritz Szeps , Maurice de Hirsch , especially when it became apparent that Friedrich III. would rule only briefly and the militaristic Wilhelm II, feared and despised by Rudolf , would come to power. Corresponding efforts to reverse the alliances (understanding the Danube monarchy with Russia, alliance with France and England) failed in 1888 due to Emperor Franz Joseph I's unconditional loyalty to the alliance and the strength of the German national, anti-liberal element in the Danube monarchy.
“Dual Alliance” as the name of the alliance between France and Russia
Sometimes the alliance between France and Russia from 1894 was or is referred to as a dual alliance . In order to distinguish between these two alliances, researchers occasionally speak of the two (he) alliance .
See also
literature
- Jürgen Angelow : Calculus and prestige. The dual alliance on the eve of the First World War. Cologne u. a. 2000.
- Moritz Csáky : Ideology of the Operetta and Viennese Modernism. A cultural-historical essay on Austrian identity. Vienna u. a. 1998.
- Helmut Rumpler : The “two alliance” 1879. The German-Austrian-Hungarian alliance and European diplomacy. Vienna 1996.
Web links
- Original text of the contract (English)
supporting documents
- ^ Golo Mann : German history of the 19th and 20th centuries . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1969 (revised and supplemented new edition), p. 454.
- ^ Siegfried Fischer-Fabian : Magnificent times. The Germans and their Empire . Droemer Knaur, Munich 1986; New edition: Bastei Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2005, pp. 151–160. The source is given there: Kaiser Wilhelm's letters, speeches and writings , edited by Ernst Berner, 2 vols., Berlin 1906.
- ^ Golo Mann: German history of the 19th and 20th centuries . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1969, p. 457.
- ^ Brigitte Hamann : Crown Prince Rudolf. The way to Mayerling . Goldmann Tb, 1980, especially p. 334 ff.