Thucydides' Trap
As the New Year of 1881 dawned, Germany was sweating through the cleanup of the Congo problem that Waldemar had stirred up.
France, claiming the north bank of the Congo River through the Makoko Treaty; Belgium, brandishing land contracts with the inland tribes; and Portugal, asserting sovereignty over the entire Congo—all three came charging in, and the debate inside Germany grew only fiercer.
“Our claim is far more legitimate, so why must we negotiate with those people? This isn’t even worth discussing. The Congo is our colony!”
Marquis Hohenlohe, the acting Foreign Minister who spoke for the expansionists within the empire, raised his voice.
“Raising your voice won’t let us swallow the Congo whole. We have to consider how the international community looks at us Germans.”
Bismarck and the advocates of stable hegemony, who wanted Germany to rise steadily and seize leadership in peace, opposed a German monopoly on the Congo.
While these men fought fiercely inside the government over colonies, the one who had actually started the trouble—Waldemar—was quietly taking his lessons.
“Your Highness, shall we begin the lesson now?”
“Yes.”
Professor Hans Delbrück, Waldemar’s private tutor, had been chosen by Victoria, Princess Royal herself and therefore followed the British liberal philosophy of education.
Thanks to that, Waldemar could listen to Delbrück’s history lessons with a relatively easy mind.
“Today’s lesson is about the Peloponnesian War.”
“The Peloponnesian War—Sparta and Athens fighting for hegemony, correct?”
“Precisely. You know it well.”
The professor calmly explained the causes of the war.
Listening, Waldemar raised his hand.
“Go ahead, Your Highness.”
“Yes. You located the cause of this war in Sparta’s fear of Athens’ rapid expansion. In that case, couldn’t we find a similar case in modern Europe?”
Professor Delbrück nodded.
“You’re speaking of Britain and our Germany.”
“Yes. I believe the structure of our Germany rising as a new power and Britain as the existing hegemon is far too similar to the Peloponnesian War you just described.”
“That is an overstatement on Your Highness’s part. The European situation today is quite different from then.”
Waldemar showed curiosity at the professor’s denial.
“In what way?”
“Today’s Germany is not a maritime empire like Athens of old, but a classic continental power. Its alliances are more solid than the Delian League of Athens, and it maintains friendly relations with the existing hegemon, Britain. After all, is not Your Highness’s own mother the eldest princess of Britain?”
Waldemar himself could not deny the influence his mother exerted on relations with Britain.
“That’s true.”
“Above all, today’s Europe is so tightly bound economically that a large-scale war is structurally difficult. If someone starts a war, everyone loses—who would easily decide on war?”
If war meant losses, then war would not happen.
That logic was not wrong either.
But history would prove, through the World Wars, that Thucydides’ Trap existed in Europe at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries as well.
Waldemar thought the professor’s view was excessively optimistic.
“I believe war can break out even if the politicians do not want it.”
The professor looked puzzled at Waldemar’s claim.
“What do you mean?”
“While Germany has been growing, Britain has gradually been losing the prosperous markets and jobs it once enjoyed. Do the British truly feel no resentment at that loss, no wariness toward German industry?”
Waldemar declared.
“I don’t believe so. Someday the British, unable to endure their irritation any longer, will erupt in anger. That will not be because we are wicked, nor because the British are selfish. It will be because our capitalism is encroaching on the interests of British capitalism.”
Professor Delbrück remained silent for a moment at Waldemar’s argument.
“Do you find my thoughts too extreme?”
“Of course not. Interest has always been an important motive driving nations.”
“Yes.”
“Then allow me to pose a problem for Your Highness to ponder. If Britain and Germany become enemies, what should Germany do?”
“If it were Crown Prince Billy, he would answer that he would build up the navy. To threaten a maritime nation like Britain, a navy is indeed essential, so that is not a wrong idea.”
“Does Your Highness think differently?”
“I would strip the British Empire of its will to fight.”
“Strip it of its will?”
Waldemar pointed to a spot on the globe resting on the desk.
“If Britain wants to bring Germany down, it will ultimately need allies on the Continent. The core of those will be France. The French have always hated Germany.”
“Correct.”
“But France, having the experience of defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, lacks the courage to face Germany alone, so it will need allies to fight with. There is only one candidate on earth for that.”
“Not Austria or Italy, then—Russia?”
“Yes. I believe that if we succeed in subduing that bear, we can eliminate the conditions under which Britain can start a war.”
Professor Delbrück thought Waldemar’s idea impossible in reality.
“Subdue Russia. Your Highness, that is a dream even Napoleon, who swept across Europe, failed to achieve.”
“Of course it is a difficult goal to reach in reality. Still, I think it easier than defeating the British navy.”
In actual history, even at its maximum growth the German navy never reached half the size of the British. Even if it reached the two-thirds level of the British navy that Tirpitz and Wilhelm II envisioned for their risk-fleet theory, beating Britain would not be easy.
That was because of Germany’s geopolitical limitations.
Germany was forced into a strategically disadvantageous position by the British Isles blocking the ocean.
What did that mean?
It meant that during war, Germany could not secure supplies while the gap in shipbuilding capacity with Britain remained.
In the end, unless the British navy was annihilated at the outset, the defeat of the German navy was an unavoidable fate.
Germany’s environment, bordering great powers by land, was also a disadvantageous factor in a naval arms race.
“And if Your Highness’s plan to subdue the bear does not go well?”
Waldemar answered reluctantly.
“Then we would have to stake everything on naval power, as Billy thinks.”
It was as good as a dead end, but there was no other choice.
Without demonstrating the ability to deal Britain a fatal blow, the British would never seriously consider a peace settlement with Germany.
At Waldemar’s answer, Professor Delbrück smiled bitterly.
“In fact, there is one error in the premise Your Highness has made.”
“What error?”
“Your Highness is overlooking the greatest reason Sparta was able to win the Peloponnesian War: help from someone.”
“Persia, you mean.”
“Exactly.”
In the First World War as well, the victory of the Entente owed decisively to help from an outside power—America.
“If by any chance Germany comes to fight Britain, someone outside Europe will come to Britain’s aid. Because just as Sparta could give Persia the coasts of Asia Minor, Britain will have many things it can offer a new friend.”
Waldemar agreed with the professor’s thinking.
“Therefore Germany must not even think of fighting Britain. Just as it took a low posture toward France before unification, it is right to quietly build strength until it has the certainty that it can defeat Britain.”
It was a logic similar to Deng Xiaoping’s strategy of hiding one’s light and biding one’s time.
Waldemar agreed with the professor’s words, but the man who would become Germany’s next leader was a man born to incur Britain’s wrath—Wilhelm II.
Could Wilhelm possibly carry out a hide-and-bide strategy?
That’s not even a funny joke.
Waldemar held not the slightest expectation for Billy’s genius diplomatic skills.
“The insight Your Highness has shown in today’s lesson was excellent.”
“You flatter me.”
The conversation with Professor Delbrück had been accidental, yet it helped solidify Waldemar’s long-term plans.
If I can neither trust the talents of the monarch Billy nor hope for victory in a world war, then isn’t it best that I move myself?
Passively waiting for defeat while merely devising ways to preserve his own assets would not do—the scale of the empire he was building was far too vast.
He had made plans of his own to massage public opinion through the press, but assets more extensive than the national wealth of most countries would not easily escape the hands of the Entente.
If they fell into those clutches, he would inevitably have vast assets stripped away, just as German-Americans had five hundred million dollars wrung from them by the federal government.
Sometimes being too large in scale was not a good thing either.
Then what if, through his maternal relatives in the British royal family, he voluntarily paid taxes in advance and sided with the Entente?
Waldemar’s thoughts were negative.
I didn’t reincarnate just to live watching other people’s faces.
Unless truly unavoidable, Waldemar had no intention of yielding the initiative to others.
Waldemar refined the idea that had come to him while talking with Professor Delbrück.
What if I eliminate Russia before the Triple Entente is formed? If only Russia is gone, then no matter what Billy does, Britain will be unable to touch Germany—that much is certain.
As a reincarnator, Waldemar also knew a concrete method for catching the bear in the east.
The Russian Revolution that would break out in 1905.
If that enormous event that shook the tsarist regime was used well, the Russian Empire itself could be brought down.
If the revolution only succeeds, the enemy in the east will disappear and the empire’s safety will be guaranteed.
Without that giant enemy in the east, Russia, France would not dare challenge Germany, and the British, unable to construct an encirclement of Germany, would tacitly acknowledge German hegemony in Europe.
Come to think of it, it was not as if the British had never conceded regional hegemony to a rival.
When Britain concluded it could not handle the United States on the American continent, it showed itself willing to cede regional hegemony to Washington.
There was no reason it should be different just because the other party was Germany.
Waldemar took up his pen and wrote the number 1904.
Then this year will be the only chance to guarantee the safety of my assets.