Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter

Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter
State Secretary for Foreign Affairs
In office 27 June 1910 – 30 December 1912
Monarch	Wilhelm II
Chancellor	Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg
Preceded by	Wilhelm von Schoen
Succeeded by	Gottlieb von Jagow
German Minister to Romania
In office 21 January 1900 – June 1910
Preceded by	Hippolyt von Bray-Steinburg
Succeeded by	Friedrich Rosen
Personal details
Born	(1852-07-10)10 July 1852 Stuttgart, Kingdom of Württemberg
Died	30 December 1912(1912-12-30) (aged 60) Stuttgart, German Empire
Political party	Independent
Signature

Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter (né Alfred Kiderlen; 10 July 1852 – 30 December 1912) was a German diplomat and politician who served as Secretary of State and head of the Foreign Office from June 1910 to December 1912. He is best known for his reckless role in the Agadir Crisis in 1911, when France militarily expanded its control of Morocco. He demanded compensation in an aggressive saber-rattling fashion, sent a warship to the scene and whipped up nationalist sentiment inside Germany. A compromise was reached with France, which took control of Morocco and gave Germany a slice of the French Congo. However, the British were angry at German aggressiveness and talked of war. The episode, although small itself, permanently soured prewar relations between Berlin and London.

Biography

The son of a banker from Wurttemberg, Robert Kiderlen, and Baroness Marie von Waechter, he was born in Stuttgart. His father was elevated to the personal nobility in 1852. In 1868, Alfred's mother, Marie Kiderlen, and her children, Alfred, Sarah and Johanna, were elevated to the hereditary nobility with the name von Kiderlen-Waechter, combining the names and coats of arms of the Kiderlen and Waechter families. His name is occasionally spelled Kiderlen-Wächter, but the correct spelling is Kiderlen-Waechter.

Kiderlen-Waechter fought as a volunteer in the Franco-German War (1870–1871) and then studied at different universities and retained throughout his subsequent career a good deal of the jovial manner of a German student (burschikos). Following studies of law, he joined the foreign office in 1879. Some years later, he accompanied the emperor to Russia, Sweden and Denmark. He was minister in the free city of Hamburg in 1894 and was a diplomat stationed in Copenhagen, St. Petersburg, Paris and Constantinople. He served as envoy to Copenhagen from 1895 to 1896. Later still he was transferred to Bucharest, where he spent ten years.

In Romania he gathered a deep knowledge of Eastern European politics, which led to a temporary appointment as chief at the foreign office, and he acted also as ambassador at Constantinople during the illness of the actual ambassador. He negotiated the construction of the Baghdad Railway. In 1908, he was appointed by von Bülow as Deputy Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and returned to Berlin. He played a central role during the Bosnia Crisis. After badly misunderstanding France and Britain and recklessly stirring up German nationalists with his aggressiveness, he negotiated an agreement with France during the Second Morocco Crisis over Agadir in 1911.

After Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow resigned in November 1909, Kiderlen-Waechter became Secretary of State and worked closely with Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg on the protracted negotiations with the Triple Entete. Kiderlen-Waechter conducted negotiations in 1911 during the Agadir Crisis and was severely criticised both at home and abroad for his provocative attitude in the Panther incident, which had triggered it. His attempts to reach an understanding with other great powers largely failed. He endeavored to make a friend of Russia.

Kiderlen-Waechter died in Stuttgart in 1912. His personal papers are held in the Manuscripts and Archives division of the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University.

References

This article is based on "Kiderlen-Wächter, Alfred von" . Encyclopædia Britannica (12th ed.). 1922.

Further reading

• Barlow, Ima Christina. The Agadir Crisis (University of North Carolina Press, 1940).
• Clark, Christopher. The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 (2012) pp 204-13.
• Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Adelslexikon Band VI, Band 91 der Gesamtreihe, C. A. Starke Verlag, Limburg (Lahn) 1987, ISSN 0435-2408
• Ralf Forsbach, Alfred von Kiderlen-Wächter (1852–1912). Ein Diplomatenleben im Kaiserreich (= Schriftenreihe der Historischen Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Bd. 59), 2 Bde., Göttingen 1997.
• Ernst Jäckh, Kiderlen-Wächter der Staatsmann und Mensch, Briefwechsel und Nachlaß, 2 Bde., Stuttgart/Berlin/Leipzig 1924
• "Kiderlen-Wächter, Alfred von" . Encyclopædia Britannica (12th ed.). 1922.
• Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). "Kiderlen-Waechter, Alfred von" . Encyclopedia Americana.

External links

• Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter in the German National Library catalogue
• Newspaper clippings about Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW