Tirpitz and the Sultan of Witu
These are the moments you cherish. I have no idea whether this will make it into the final cut of the book. But I've been sitting down, staring at Jan Rüger's account of the expedition to extract revenge on Sultan Fumo Bakari for the deaths of a certain Herr Küntzel and his band of loggers. It's a wonderfully illustrative episode that Jan weaves deftly into his story of Heligoland. It's also offers a great sense of the sultan's sense of himself as a political agent. Unpacking how this sense of political agency was expressed will be interesting to explore. But what else might this episode signify? Am I missing something?
So I return to the Reichstag debate, where Chancellor Caprivi is brought to speak about it. He says some very unflattering things about Küntzel and implies that he more or less had it coming to him. But why is Caprivi talking about Witu in the Reichstag in the first place? Because he asked about it by the National Liberal Ludwig von Cuny, who has worked himself up into a lather about Germany not having a navy that can defend its citizens. Germany, he argues, has been forced to outsource its punitive expeditions to the British! Witu was an example of that, he says. What is the chancellor going to do about it? When are we going to get a decent navy?
'Typical pro-colonial National Liberal' I think to myself. 'Always banging on about protecting the rights of Germans overseas.'
Then it occurs to me. The story here is not just Heligoland or the sultan asserting himself (both still important), but also the fact that prior to Tirpitz (the man with the most metal beard in the Kaiserreich - take another look at the picture and say he doesn't remind you of Kerry King. OK, just a bit), there were active pressures on the government from the Reichstag and (predictably the Nat Libs) to build a globally competent navy.
So what if the story of the Sultan of Witu helps to unpick Volker Berghahn's old Tirpitz plan book? Not all of it, of course - it's a classic. But just the old Wehlerite part about the navy being a weapon against anti-parliamentarianism. It can't be too anti-parliamentary if the parliament has been calling for it before the admiralty and the Kaiser got around to it.
Which brings us back to the Kaiser of course, who is seen as the foundational figure of all things naval after 1888. I'm clearly not going to deny that Wilhelm II was inordinately interested in the navy. But to what extent were he and Tirpitz knocking on an at least partially open door?
So this was an exciting thought to have. Let's see what's left of it after I do some digging.
So I return to the Reichstag debate, where Chancellor Caprivi is brought to speak about it. He says some very unflattering things about Küntzel and implies that he more or less had it coming to him. But why is Caprivi talking about Witu in the Reichstag in the first place? Because he asked about it by the National Liberal Ludwig von Cuny, who has worked himself up into a lather about Germany not having a navy that can defend its citizens. Germany, he argues, has been forced to outsource its punitive expeditions to the British! Witu was an example of that, he says. What is the chancellor going to do about it? When are we going to get a decent navy?
'Typical pro-colonial National Liberal' I think to myself. 'Always banging on about protecting the rights of Germans overseas.'
Then it occurs to me. The story here is not just Heligoland or the sultan asserting himself (both still important), but also the fact that prior to Tirpitz (the man with the most metal beard in the Kaiserreich - take another look at the picture and say he doesn't remind you of Kerry King. OK, just a bit), there were active pressures on the government from the Reichstag and (predictably the Nat Libs) to build a globally competent navy.
So what if the story of the Sultan of Witu helps to unpick Volker Berghahn's old Tirpitz plan book? Not all of it, of course - it's a classic. But just the old Wehlerite part about the navy being a weapon against anti-parliamentarianism. It can't be too anti-parliamentary if the parliament has been calling for it before the admiralty and the Kaiser got around to it.
Which brings us back to the Kaiser of course, who is seen as the foundational figure of all things naval after 1888. I'm clearly not going to deny that Wilhelm II was inordinately interested in the navy. But to what extent were he and Tirpitz knocking on an at least partially open door?
So this was an exciting thought to have. Let's see what's left of it after I do some digging.
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