HOLSTEIN, FRIEDRICH VON (18371909)

This article appears in Volume V13, Page 618 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: HIG-HOR

HOLSTEIN, FRIEDRICH VON (18371909) , German states-man, for more than thirty years head of the political department of the German Foreign Office. Holstein's importanc.2 began with the dismissal of Bismarck in 189o. The new

chancellor

CHANCELLOR (M. Eng. and Anglo-Fr. canceler, chanceler, Fr. chancelier, Lat. cancellarius)

, Caprivi, was ignorant of foreign affairs; and Holstein, as the repository of the Bismarckian tradition, became indispensable. This reluctance to emerge into publicity has been ascribed to the part he had played under Bismarck in the Arnim affair, which had made him powerful enemies; it was, however, possibly due to a shrinking from the responsibility of office. Yet the weakness of his position lay just in the fact that he was not ultimately responsible. He protested against the despatch of the " Kruger telegram," but protested in vain. On the other hand, where his ideas were acceptable, he was generally able to realize them. Thus it was almost entirely due to him that Germany acquired Kiao-chau and asserted her interests in China, and the acquisition of Samoa was also largely his

work

WORK

. If the skill and pertinacity with which Holstein carried through his plans in these matters was learned in the school of Bismarck, he had not acquired Bismarck's faculty for foreseeing their ulterior consequences. This is true of his Chinese policy, and true also of his part in the Morocco crisis. The emperor William II.'s journey to Tangier was undertaken on his advice, as a protest against the supposed attempt at the isolation of Germany; but of the later developments of German policy in the Morocco question he did not approve, on the ground that the result would merely be to strengthen the Anglo-French entente; and from the 12th of

March

1906 onwards he took no active part in the matter. To the last he believed that the position of Germany would remain unsafe until an understanding had been arrived at with

Great

GREAT

Britain, and it was this belief that determined his attitude towards the question of the

fleet

FLEET

, " beside which," he wrote in February 1909, " all other questions are of lesser account." His views on this question were summarized in a memorandum of December 1907, of which Herr von

Rath

RATH, GERHARD VOM (183o-1888)

gives a resume. He objected to the programme of the German Navy League on three main grounds: (I) the ill-feeling likely to be aroused in

South

SOUTH
SOUTH, ROBERT (1634–1716)

Germany, (2) the inevitable dislocation of the finances through the huge additional charges involved, (3) the suspicion of Germany's motives in foreign countries, which would bind

Great

GREAT

Britain still closer to France. As for the idea that Germany's power would be increased, thishe wrote in reply to a

letter

LETTER (through Fr. lettre from Lat. littera or litera, letter of the alphabet; the origin of the Latin word is obscure; it has probably no connexion with the root of linere, to smear, i.e. with wax, for an inscription with a stilus)

from

Admiral

ADMIRAL

Galsterwas " a simple question of arithmetic "; for how would the sea-power of Germany be relatively increased if for every new German ship Great Britain built two? Herr von Holstein retired on the resignation of Prince Billow, and died on the 8th of May 1909.
See Hermann von

Rath

RATH, GERHARD VOM (183o-1888)

, " Erinnerungen an Herrn von Holstein " in the Deutsche Revue for October 1909. He is also frequently mentioned passim in Prince Chlodwig Hohenlohe's Memoirs.

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