Germany does not renew the Reinsurance Treaty

On 18 June 1890 the secret agreement between Germany and Russia known as the Reinsurance Treaty (PL) expired. Nobody denounced it: the three years for which it had been concluded simply ran out, and Germany, despite St Petersburg’s requests, refused to extend it. The decision had been taken in March by the men who had just taken over power from Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. With it snapped the last thread by which Bismarck had tied Berlin to St Petersburg.

Insurance against Russia

The treaty was a product of the Bulgarian crisis. The unification of Bulgaria in 1885 and Austrian support for the Serbs in their war with the Bulgarians set Russia and Austria-Hungary so far apart that in 1887 Tsar Alexander III refused to renew the Three Emperors’ agreement of 1881. Bismarck, who feared a rapprochement between Russia and France, accepted a Russian proposal for a separate bilateral agreement. In a conversation with the Russian ambassador in Berlin, Count Pavel Shuvalov (PL), he read out to him the text of the Dual Alliance with Austria-Hungary and declared that Germany would remain loyal to it.

The treaty was signed on 18 June 1887. If one of the parties found itself at war with a third Great Power, the other would maintain a benevolent neutrality. This did not apply, however, to a war against Austria or France resulting from an attack by one of the contracting parties. Germany thus did not have to stay neutral if Russia attacked Austria-Hungary, nor Russia if Germany attacked France. Berlin also recognised Russia’s “preponderating and decisive” influence in Bulgaria and the principle that the Turkish Straits be closed to foreign warships. In an “additional and very secret” protocol Germany promised benevolent neutrality and diplomatic support should the Tsar find it necessary to defend the entrance to the Black Sea himself in order to guard “the key of his empire”. Hence the name “reinsurance”: Germany, secured since 1879 by its alliance with Austria, was now insuring itself in the east as well, without breaking its obligations to Vienna.

The course after Bismarck

As late as December 1889 the Tsar agreed to talks on renewal, and in February 1890 Shuvalov and Bismarck agreed that the treaty should be extended. The Chancellor said that it was the expression of “a fixed and unchanging situation”. By then, however, his conflict with the young Emperor Wilhelm II had come to a head, and in mid-March the Emperor forced him to resign. Shuvalov arrived in Berlin with full powers to renew the treaty for six years, but in view of the crisis he held back from negotiating. On 21 March at eight in the morning Wilhelm II received him at the palace and assured him: “I am entirely disposed to renew our secret treaty. My foreign policy remains and will remain the same as it was in the time of my grandfather.”

The decision, however, was made by others. On 23 March the new Chancellor, General Leo von Caprivi, called a conference at the Foreign Office. Its instigator was the influential counsellor Friedrich von Holstein, an opponent of Bismarck’s policy towards Russia. The officials unanimously advised against renewal: all the advantages went to Russia, and if the Russians, or the embittered Bismarck himself, revealed the text, it would endanger the Triple Alliance and alienate Great Britain. Caprivi, who had no experience in foreign affairs, let himself be persuaded. On 27 March, together with the ambassador in St Petersburg, General von Schweinitz, he advised the Emperor to drop the treaty, and Wilhelm II agreed.

The Russian Foreign Minister, Nikolay Giers, received the news with consternation, for his whole policy rested on friendship with Berlin. The calmer Tsar noted on the report that Bismarck had been right when he said that the Emperor’s policy would change on the day of his departure. Giers proposed that instead of a treaty they might at least exchange notes or letters between the monarchs, and on 15 May he even agreed to give up the secret protocol and the provisions on Bulgaria. Berlin replied that it wished to pursue a “simple and transparent” policy and that there would be no treaty. On 18 June the agreement expired.

The American historian Sidney Fay held that the importance of this decision had been exaggerated, since other causes also led to the rapprochement between Russia and France. Russia, however, was left without obligations towards Germany, and a year later a French squadron paid a visit to Kronstadt. Bismarck revealed the existence of the treaty in the press in 1896, and its text was published only in 1918.