The Inheritors

It is another one of those ironies that the men who were really most responsible for the war, were no longer in power when it finally broke out. A mild depression in the mid 90’s had resulted in an almost complete change of faces in the executive mansions and elected legislatures of the western democracies. Death, illness, and coups had changed many of the autocrats.

Wade Hampton, the fire eating radical, with the forceful oratory to match, quietly left office after his Confederate Home Party was swept almost completely out in the 97 elections. He was replaced by a more moderate but, still former military man, Joseph Wheeler. William Jennings Bryan, the man who will be most remembered for not ever being able to make up his mind, had left office a mere ten months before the Confederate elections. In England, the hand picked successor of William Gladstone, Archibald Primrose the Fifth Earl of Rosebery, lasted barely a year before he was replaced by the more conservative Robert Gascoyne-Cecil in June of 1895.

Gascoyne-Cecil, more commonly referred to as Lord Salisbury, was certainly not some new guy. This was his third, non-consecutive, term as Prime Minister and he had ample experience with foreign affairs. This was so much the case that Lord Salisbury actually took on the non traditional role of Foreign Secretary while also being Prime Minister. This should have left England more than prepared to handle the quickly approaching crisis but, the very circumstances surrounding Salisbury’s ascension to Ten Downing is testimony to how preoccupied England was with internal matters.

Lord Salisbury was seen as a man who could compromise with the liberals and his own cabinet was testimony to the fact that he was trying. His first policy speech to the House of Lords were echoed in Paris where President Boulanger was quite pleased. Salisbury promised Great Britain that he would pursue a course of “Splendid Isolation.” Exactly what that meant is quite open to interpretation, however, it is very clear that Boulanger read it the way he wanted to, in that England would not become involved in any matters on the continent. It could be further argued that this meant, to the French dictator, that the British were backing away from expanding their Empire.

Boulanger had only been in power for seven years at this point. His power over France was far from being consolidated. Boulanger was primarily relying on the fear of Germany to hold his fragile government together and even he had to realize this would not work forever. It was most certainly working, just fine, for the time being though. Boulanger was relying on the fact that his leadership scared the Germans more than the Germans scared his owned people. He had solid reasons to believe this was the case. Before he ascended to power, when he was just a General, his posting to a command on the German border was enough to prompt Germany to mobilize eighty-thousand reserves and that was before the temperamental Wilhelm came to power.

France and Germany, both with unstable leadership, spent a good deal of time, in the years leading up to the war, testing each others nerves. All the while France went quietly about the task of isolating Germany. Ironically, this meant giving Britain more problems than they could possibly manage and, with the help of the United States, the policy seemed quite successful by 1896. Lord Salisbury only seemed to confirm this and at that point it is quite possible that Boulanger decided it was time to have his war of revenge. Whether or not Boulanger actually planned on drawing Britain into the conflict is unknown. My opinion is that he only wished to tie the British down enough that it would allow him and his chief ally, the United States, to successfully wage the wars they were both planning. We will never know for sure.

What President Elihu Root thought of Lord Salisbury’s “splendid isolation” is also unknown. It is quite possible that he did not take notice or even care. What we do know is that his landslide victory over Bryan gave him the impression that the American people had mandated him to settle the debt with the Confederacy, once and for all. Root probably would have believed this even if his party had not won by a huge margin. What is known is that he had certainly been planning this conflict for nearly a decade.

The former Vice President to President Lincoln, Root had spent his four years out of office continuing the plans that he and John Hay had begun while they had access to the White House. Even at that time, when they were in power, they had used private business contacts for diplomacy so there was no reason they could not continue as private citizens. They had a lot of support for their goal and had no problem obtaining funds to operate. It was Roots work, in those years, that had earned him (even if no one said as much) the Presidential nomination in 96. There were many who expected him to lead his country into war the minute he took the oath.

You have to remember that this was not just a popular idea behind the closed doors of smoke filled rooms. By 1896 the majority of the country had either not been born when the last war took place or, were too young to remember it. Even for those who experienced it, first hand, the memory of the horrors had largely faded. By 96 the only true memory of the American 61 was that they, the United States, had been robbed of their victory just when it was at hand. Memories of George B McClellan were equally vague and now it was the majority opinion that the Confederates were the ones who cheated them.

President Root was far more subtle than Wade Hampton. There were no rousing speeches and no promises of glory and victory. He did nothing to telegraph his true intentions south of the border. There would be a time for all that but, for the time being, he saw his job to be one of putting the enemy to sleep just before he delivered his knock out blow. 

His surprise overture to President Wheeler, offering a new round of Langley talks, with the aim of a real peace treaty, was most certainly a ploy. What is not so clear is whether or not he actually thought them a success. There is no way he could have possibly known about the spark that would set it all off so it is not so clear if Root had actually planned to go war when he did. In fact, I’m fairly certain he was as swept up by events as everyone else.