Berlin

Although understandable, such fears were totally unwarranted. In the wake of German unification, Bismarck was preoccupied not with expansion, but with preventing the new empire from being encircled by hostile powers. He knew he could not do much to allay the hostility of France, which could never forget its loss of Alsace-Lorraine. Bismarck’s prime concern therefore was to keep France from forming anti-German alliances with any other great power. To achieve this goal, the chancellor worked to shore up Germany’s relations with Austria and Russia, two former allies of Prussia’s in its wars against Napoleon. In this effort he stressed the threat that French republicanism posed to all the conservative monarchies. He also hoped that the challenge of a common enemy would help reconcile Russia and Austria to the appearance of a powerful new Germany.

Bismarck’s message eventually fell on receptive ears in St. Petersburg and Vienna, and not only because of a shared fear of republicanism. Austria and Russia were competing for influence in the Balkans, and each feared that Germany might make an exclusive alliance with the other, thereby giving the rival a signal advantage. A menage a trois seemed the best way to prevent a dangerous marriage. Thus when Wilhelm I invited Austria’s Kaiser Franz Josef to Berlin for alliance talks, Czar Alexander II rushed to secure an invitation for himself as well. Wilhelm, prodded by Bismarck, graciously invited both rulers to a “Three Emperors’ Meeting” in the German capital in September 1872.

As in June 1871, Berlin was once again en fete. Vizetelly, who has left us with the most vivid account of this occasion, was not terribly impressed with the city’s “outward adorning.” There was, he wrote,

a partial patching up and embellishing of the dingier houses on the Linden, and limited preparations for illuminating. The Russian embassy, which the Czar was to grace with his presence, had a fresh coat of paint given to it, and attempts were made to relieve the tiresome monotony of its long facade by decorating its balconies with flowers and creeping plants, brand new sentry boxes for the guard of honor being posted at the principal entrance.

Some of the grand hotels underwent hasty redecoration, which they could well afford for they would be housing dozens of imperial lackeys traveling on the nineteenth-century equivalent of the expense account.

The Czar arrived at Berlin’s Ostbahnhof (Eastern Railway Station) on September 5. The station was festooned with evergreens and the standards of Russia and Germany entwined. On the platform stood Kaiser Wilhelm, hemmed in, observed Vizetelly, “by a motley throng of princes, ministers, and dignitaries of the household, with bright steel and gilt helmets, white plumes and brilliant uniforms, and half the orders in the universe scintillating on their breasts.” As was customary, the Germans wore Russian uniforms to honor their guests, while the Russians dressed like Prussians—a “perfect military masquerade” that “rendered it extremely difficult to determine who was who in this complementary exchange of regimentals.” After a gushingly affectionate greeting, the two emperors and their suites hastened toward the Royal Palace in their carriages, though not quickly enough to prevent the Berlin drains from “carrying their vile odours to the nostrils of the imperial visitors.”

Kaiser Franz Josef arrived the following evening at the Potsdam station to a similar display of flags, martial salutes, and political cross-dressing. There was “something comical,” noted Vizetelly, “in the conceit of the victors in the war of 1866 decking themselves out in the uniform of the vanquished.” As if mindful of this black comedy, Franz Josef did not throw himself into the arms of Wilhelm, but merely proffered his hand. The Austrian emperor was also not amused by his hosts’ indelicate choice of routes from the station to the palace: it followed the Konig-gratzstrasse, named after the decisive Prussian victory in the Austro-Prussian war. Nor were there many Berliners in the streets to greet Franz Josef. According to Vizetelly, “the Berliners still regarded him as a slightly insignificant personage in comparison with the high and mighty austere Russian Czar, before whom they seemed almost disposed to prostrate themselves, while holding their noses high enough in the air in presence of the over-gracious Austrian Kaiser.”