On two separate occasions prior to 1901, the United States and Imperial Germany almost fought each other. The first was over Samoa in 1889, and the second was in the Philippines shortly after we took them from Spain. Why? Because Kaiser Wilhelm wanted an empire worthy of the name, and that required coaling stations for his new navy and colonies that his navy could protect.
The results were very real plans to attack the northeastern United States and hold areas hostage to her goals, which were, among other things, to take over much of what we had just taken from Spain. This was to be a limited war, not an attempted conquest of the United States, and would involve limited German forces against what Germany felt was a weak American army and a fragmented navy. The only question is whether they were serious plans or simply war-gaming, called Winterarbeiten. Since the attacks never happened, we’ll never be certain.
However, some tantalizing clues indicate that the plans went far beyond the theoretical. Germany did send spies to check out the beaches of New England for landing sites-after earlier determining that an attack on Washington would not be sufficiently disruptive, since, in their words, “neither trade nor industry are of any significance there.” Apparently, politicians were deemed unimportant. The resulting report to Germany further said the attacks should be “unsparing, merciless assaults against northeastern trade and industrial centers.”
The German spies were sent by Admiral Otto von Diedrichs, chief of the Admiralty Staff, and a man who often dealt directly with the kaiser. Additionally, a letter written by Count Alfred von Schlieffen was recently discovered. At the time it was written, he was chief of the German General Staff, where he authored the infamous Schlieffen Plan for World War I. In his letter, General von Schlieffen complained that the attacks would cause a significant drain on the German army’s manpower.
The plans were important enough to be reviewed by those in highest authority in Germany’s army and navy and, quite likely, by Kaiser Wilhelm himself, which indicates that they were more than war-gaming. However serious Kaiser Wilhelm might have been, the crises passed without incident as events in Europe began to take on greater importance. And, as time went on and the U.S. Navy grew stronger, the plans became less and less feasible.
1901 is an attempt to show what might have happened had the kaiser’s Imperial German army landed on American soil.
Robert Conroy
War, thought the kaiser, was the natural order of the world, and only fools thought otherwise. It mattered not whether one was referring to animals, as Darwin had, or nations, as he now was. War was the lubricant that drove the successful to greatness and condemned the weak to a deserved obscurity. A nation that did not grow was doomed to shrivel and die. A nation that did not take from the weak was forever doomed to be weak herself. With so much of the world already under the jurisdiction of other powers, it was obvious that the essential growth that would spur Imperial Germany into the twentieth century could come only at the expense of others. Bismarck had understood that, but only to a point. To Kaiser Wilhelm II, it was a picture seen with utter clarity. For Germany’s sake, he thanked God it was he who ruled the empire for the past twelve years. He was the grandson of the man who had, with Bismarck’s help, formed the state of Germany. He was the descendant of Prussian kings whose military skills were feared; nevertheless, he had not yet fought a war. Worse, he knew that his English relatives thought him inadequate and had mocked him since his childhood. They would learn, he seethed; the world would learn.
The kaiser squinted and tried to see out the rain-streaked window of the small office on the second floor of the chancellery. On the street below, a handful of people out on the ugly night scurried for cover from the cold wet rain that had originated in the North Sea. They had, the kaiser smiled to himself, just lost a minor war with the elements. He tapped his fingers impatiently on the window ledge. He was always impatient of late. If he hadn’t been so impatient, he would have convened this meeting in the more convivial atmosphere of one of his residences and resolved matters over brandy and cigars. But no, he was in this dismal and sparsely furnished little room that would have better served as the office of a postal clerk than an emperor.
Yet perhaps this way was more advantageous. The pomp of a formal meeting would have attracted the noses of the swinish liberal press, or, worse, the Socialist creatures who inhabit the Reichstag.
