Both. In the short-term it was brilliant. In the long-term it affixed Germany to a long-term alliance with Austria, and drove Russia into the waiting arms of France. The Treaty of Berlin was a giant blunder of catastrophic proportions - culminating in WWI.

As such was it therefore good or bad?

Still both.

Such strategies had never been tried before (at least to such a great degree). This is the kind of mixed result most new military tactics achieve.

Russia's alliance with France was the result of Wilhelm II abandoning Bismarck's policies, not the policies themselves.

As such, in hindsight, was this approach to foreign policy good ar bad? I'm not teying to judge Bismarck, who could not see the results ahead. Just trying to determine if sublety, nuance, and sophistication result in a robust diplomatic order.

Ultimately bad, but understandable in light of the events of the time. Russia had just crushed Turkey in 1878. Bismarck was terrified of the Russian colossus. Little did he know that the Tsar's regime was a paper tiger, and would be humiliated by the Japanese in short order.

So do sublety and nuance contribute to stable relations in general? Or do they leave agreed equilibriums too vulnerable to failure through deliberate or accidental misunderstandings?

It's strange that you'd start talking about subtlety and nuance, and in the next breath demand a one-word answer to the question "was Bismarck's policy good or bad"...

hint: I'm against sublety and nuance. They're fragile and often dishonest. I'm trying to develop the argument against them here that we all agree with.

He ought to have been terrified of Russian rule over the whole of the Balkans. That threatened the integrity of Austria, and, for reasons obvious to Diplomacy players, a Slavic union from the Adriatic to the Pacific that also dominated the Middle East was something to be avoided at all costs.

And any way, it was the Balkan Wars just before WWI which screwed things up and made a European war over the area possible. Far from the 1878 treaty dooming Europe, it gave the Balkans stability as it hadn't seen since Greek independence. A general European war was probably inevitable, but it didn't need to have started in the Balkans. Look at the Moroccan crises and how by 1914 Germany needed a war with Russia for any reason to keep its military edge.

Good question. I'd say in the case of Taiwan they've led to stable relations. The very nuanced understandings of the texts of Sino-American agreements on the Taiwan question have managed to leave both Taiwan and mainland PRC satisfied and prevented escalations. I think the American and Soviet nuanced understandings of what detente entailed did the same. You need an agreement with sufficient ambiguity that you can go back to your home country making them believe you won concessions.

Bismarck's secret agreement with Russia was not sustainable in light of Russo-Austrian tensions. Franco-Russian relations were already very warm in the 1880s prior to their formal alliance, and that has everything to do with Bismarck's decision to form the Dual Alliance with Austria.

"And any way, it was the Balkan Wars just before WWI which screwed things up and made a European war over the area possible."

Austria's war lust wouldn't have been possible without German backing. Prior to Bismarck's long-term alliances, there had been sufficient flexibility among the great powers to prevent any disruption to the balance of power. With fixed alliances this flexibility was eliminated, and weak powers were led to believe they were stronger than they actually were.

As for the Balkan wars causing the crisis which led to war, you're overlooking A-H's unilateral annexation of Bosnia in 1908, which preceded the Balkan wars (actually contributed mightily to them). This annexation was only possible due to German backing.

@Putin33 good point on Taiwan; in order to be in a position within the PRC where you can address the issue, you are pretty much forced to be dishonest. Any politician who publicly considered Taiwan separate would never have a position of authority, even though that is the reality of things. That is a subtle issue.

In either case, Taiwan or detente, I don't think it's a stable equilibrium. They are fragile.

I accept your point that sublety and nuance sometimes cannot be avoided, but reject the idea that they contribute to stability. They are in fact what you are forced to resort to when tiptoeing around a powderkeg. To consider them as evidence of virtue is incorrect. Creating equlibriums that require sublety and nuance when you have another choice is irresponsible.

"Austria's war lust wouldn't have been possible without German backing."

Sure. But war between Serbia and Austria was only possible after it doubled in size after the Balkan wars. A Serbia centered just on Belgrade wasn't a threat to Austria. Nor was Serbia focused on liberating the South Slavs under Austrian rule while there were still South Slavs under Turkish rule. After the total victory over the Ottomans it didn't seem so outlandish for Serbian nationalists to dream of driving off the Austrians as well, and it didn't seem outlandish for the Austrians to worry about that.

And anyway, this is all long after Bismarck was out of office and dead.


I don't mean to overlook the importance of the annexation crisis. Since it upset the status quo in the Balkans it made the idea of pushing the Turks back to Anatolia worth considering. But it was the success of the allies in the Balkans wars over the Turks that set the stage for how the probably inevitable World War finally started. If the Ottomans had won, and they could have, everything would have been different. The war might have started over Kamerun or concessions in China or God knows what else.

"But war between Serbia and Austria was only possible after it doubled in size after the Balkan wars."

If anything the Balkan wars should have made conflict less likely - considering Serbia had fought two wars in two years and was spent militarily and financially from the wars. There's no way that Austria should have legitimately feared Serbian expansion into Bosnia when so much capital had been spent preventing war on that front in 1908. Serbia was much more concerned in 1913 with a Greater Bulgaria than the Hapburgs anyway, a problem which the Austrians had unleashed on Belgrade in 1908, not 1913.

In short, Austria was responsible for the instability in the Balkans. Both Serbia and the Turks were fearful of an independent Bulgaria, which Austria had made a reality. If the Turks had won the war in 1912 (which really wasn't a possibility), the problem of Bulgaria would still have existed. It was the strongest power in the region and its independence was a fact on the ground which couldn't be negated.

"The war might have started over Kamerun or concessions in China or God knows what else."

The Europeans had been very good about avoiding war on colonial issues. The West Berlin conference divided an entire continent without resort to force of arms.

Sorry, Berlin West Africa conference.

Tendmote, what agreement do you think constituted a stable equilibrium which involved a lack of nuance?

I really think you're discounting how momentous a thing the Balkan wars were. Too often they get crowded out by WWI. The Slavs and Greeks, without direct outside help, kicked the Turks out of Europe after they had ruled the Balkans for hundreds of years. The Serbian government might have been exhausted, but Serbian nationalism was at the crest of the wave.

At the same time, Austria saw a country with sizable claims on its own territory become, overnight, at least twice as powerful as before. In addition to that, it was now the only multinational empire in Europe. If the long Ottoman Balkans can now be entirely made up of nation-states, why not the absurd collection of lands ruled by the Habsburgs? Austria was now even more of an anachronism than it had been before. Romania had a Hollenzollern king, so it wasn't about to stir up trouble to gain Transylvania. But Serbia had no such dynastic leash, and its irredentist claims were an existential threat to the empire.


As for my proposed other causes for the war, I was just spit-balling. Not serious suggestions. However, the European powers weren't quite as good at avoiding colonial crises as you make it seem. I refer again to the Moroccan crisis, and also not to Samoa and, the crisis which lead to France ceding land added to Kamerun. The Second Morocco Crisis especially is the equal to at least the Bosnian one when it comes to bringing Europe to the brink of the inevitable war.

now to Samoa

"I really think you're discounting how momentous a thing the Balkan wars were."

I think you're discounting the fact that the Balkan states had been independent since the crushing defeat of the Turks in 1878 - a situation you say created more stability than any time since Greek independence half a century earlier. The Turks, contrary to your claims, were not the rulers of the Balkans in 1912. They had decades earlier lost Romania, lost Bulgaria in all but name, lost Serbia, Montenegro, etc. The only province that remained was Macedonia. Serbia did not "double in size", it gained 25,000 sq km in territory, about the same as Bulgaria gained after the two wars. Considering Serbia did the bulk of the heavy fighting in the first Balkan war and defeated Bulgaria after the latter's duplicitous attack in 1913, this wasn't a bad deal at all.

"If the long Ottoman Balkans can now be entirely made up of nation-states, why not the absurd collection of lands ruled by the Habsburgs?"

I fail to see why the partition of Macedonia mattered in this regard. The Ottomans still controlled the bulk of the Middle East and the Caucasus. The Russians controlled Poland, Finland, the Baltics, etc. And you're forgetting the massive overseas territories controlled by the British and the French. The loss of Macedonia didn't overnight turn the Austrians into the only multinational Empire. Even if Serbia had managed to dislodge Bosnia from Austrian rule, they still controlled huge swaths of territory in Central and eastern Europe. And WWI demonstrated that Austria-Hungary was not under any kind of serious nationalist threat from within, as the Croats, Slavic Muslims, and Poles fought loyally for the empire against their Slavic brothers.

" I refer again to the Moroccan crisis, and also not to Samoa and, the crisis which lead to France ceding land added to Kamerun.

I said they were good about resolving colonial issues without resorting to war. And none of your examples contradicts that, in fact I think they largely buttress it.

Consider the only major great power war of note during this period (New Imperialism) was the Russo-Japanese war, in which the historically hostile French and British were allied to opposing sides, and the result was the Entente Cordiale. The British and French, the two major overseas powers, did everything they could to avoid conflict with one another during the scramble for overseas territories. This can be clearly seen with the resolution of the Fashoda crisis. And indeed the first Moroccan crisis can be seen in this light too, as the Europeans held an international conference to resolve the dispute peacefully.

Considering just how many overseas territories were taken in such a short period of time, it is rather miraculous that wars between the European states did not break out.

Two examples of agreements that aren't nuanced powder-kegs are the Australia Act 1986 and the Canada Act 1982. Those agreements are not going to blow up.

But those are two agreements where the stakes were very low and there was no risk of conflict.

Please explain how you can apply this to more difficult situations.

Bismarck *introduced* a level of complexity that worked against stability. In fact he was aware of this, and warned that the Kaiser's ineptitude at operating after Bismarck's dismissal would lead to war. Bismarck should have considered that the agreements he was constructing would eventually be in the custody of diplomats and politicians of various levels of responsibility and diligence.

Treaties and laws should provide for the contingency that they will eventually be in the stewardship of incompetents, or worse, to the extent that it is possible. Subtlety and nuance work against this.

Personal relationships matter a lot in diplomacy (Obama has found this out the hard way). Treaties and agreements cannot always substitute for this, no matter how explicitly written. By 1890 it seemed that Wilhelm, at any rate, had a better working relationship with Alexander III than Bismarck did.

@Putin33 Personal relationships are subtle and fickle.

To the extent that subtlety, nuance, and personality are factors in foreign policy, they are evidence of fragility. Trying to advance an agenda by accumulating nuances creates a system that is vulnerable to ineptitude and "malefactors" (opposite of benefactors). Knowing that this is the case and proceeding anyway is irresponsible.

CONCLUSINO: Subtlety and nuance are to be avoided as much as possible. If they must be introduced because one or both parties to an agreement cannot or will not be honest, well, whaddyagonnado? Don't bet too much on the agreement lasting. Fragile. Needs to be replaced as soon as possible.