The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 'If only I knew what that was supposed to be.”

'We are supposed to be pursuing Weltpolitik,' the former chief of the General Staff General Alfred von Waldersee noted grumpily in his diary in January 1900. His contradictory utterances on the subject suggest that it was little more than the old policy of the 'free hand' with a larger navy and more menacing mood music.

Even Bernhard von Bulow, widely credited with establishing Weltpolitik as the guiding principle of German foreign policy, never produced a definitive account of what it was. Yet, while it connoted all these things, Weltpolitik never acquired a stable or precise meaning. It expressed the appetite for genuinely national projects that would help knit together the disparate regions of the German Empire and reflected the almost universal conviction that Germany, a late arrival at the imperial feast, would have to play catch-up if it wished to earn the respect of the other great powers. Weltpolitik meant the quest to expand foreign markets (at a time of declining export growth) it meant escaping from the constraints of the continental alliance system to operate on a broader world arena. The word resonated because it bundled together so many contemporary aspirations. “For a time, the word Weltpolitik seemed to capture the mood of the German middle classes and the national-minded quality press.

The sleepwalkers clark