36Cf. Heide W. Whelan, Alexander III and the State Counciclass="underline" Bureaucracy and Counter-Reform in Late Imperial Russia (New Brunswick, N.J., 1982); and more generally Jacob W. Kipp and W. Bruce Lincoln, “Autocracy and Reform: Bureaucratic Absolutism and Political Modernization in Nineteenth-Century Russia,” Russian History VI (1979), 1–21. The most detailed accounts of Russo-German economic and financial relations are from the DDR: Sigrid Kumpf-Korfes, Bismarcks “Draht nach Russland.” Zum Problem der sozialökonomischen Hintergründe der russisch-deutschen Entfremdung im Zeitraum von 1878 bis 1894 (Berlin 1968), and more generally, Joachim Mai, Das deutsche Kapital in Russland 1850–1894 (Berlin, 1970).
37Waldersee’s view of events is summarized in his Denkwürdigkeiten, ed. H. O. Meisner, 3 vols. (Stuttgart, 1923–25), I, 334 ff., especially the entries for Nov. 17 and Dec. 4. Moltke’s recommendation of Nov. 30 is in the Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes (hereafter cited as PAAA), Deutschland 121, Geheim 12a/1. General analyses of the preventive war issue in 1887 include Karl-Ernst Jeismann, Das Problem des Präventivkrieges im europäischen Staatensystem (Munich, 1957), esp. 116 ff.; and R. Koop, “Das Problem des Präventivkrieges in der Politik Bismarcks” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Freiburg, 1953). DDR scholar Konrad Canis goes to another extreme in asserting an essential identity of ends and interests between the chancellor and the general in Bismarck und Waldersee (Berlin, 1980). J. Alden Nichols, The Year of the Three Kaisers (Urbana 111., 1987) integrates Germany’s foreign and domestic politics in 1887/88.
38Bülow to Holstein, Dec. 10, 1887 and Jan. 5, 1888, in Holstein Papers III, 236 ff., 246 ff. Allegations that Bülow supported a preventive war during this period are strongly disproved by his letter of Dec. 25 to Philipp Eulenburg, in which he states that from a political perspective, war with Russia is not very promising, “and our politics must do everything consistent with our security and honor to avoid this ‘unproductive’ war.” Philipp Eulenburgs Politische Korrespon-denz, ed. J. C. G. Rohl, 3 vols. (Boppard, 1976–83), I, 257–258.
39“Bemerkungen Graf Ws zu einer Denkschrift des Generalleutnants v. Brandenstein vom November 1883, Jänuar 1884”; and comments of Oct. 14, 1885, on the Aufmarschplan of 1884/85, in Mohs, Waldersee II, 256–257, 277.
40Gordon Martel, Imperial Diplomacy: Rosebery and the Failure of Foreign Policy (Kingston, Montreal, 1986), 96–97.
41“Offensive gegen Russland,” April 15, 1889; and “Krieg gegen Russland,” Feb. 1890, in Mohs, Waldersee II, 323 ff., 327 ff. Cf. Wolfgang Foerster, Aus der Gedankenwerkstaat des deutschen Generalstabes (Berlin, 1931), 42ff.
42On the French army’s low self-image in this period see Alan Mitchell, “A Situation of Inferiority: French Military Reorganization after the Defeat of 1870,” American Historical Review LXXXVI (1981), 49–62.
43On the failure to renew the Reinsurance Treaty see the documents in Hallmann, Deutsch-russischen Rückversicherungsvertrages. Rich, Holstein I, 307 ff., is the most detailed treatment in English.
44The chief of staff explained himself in detail to, among others, the French deputy chief of staff in July, 1891; and to Giers in May, 1892. Cf. General Raoul de Boisdeffre’s report of July 16, 1891, in France, Ministére des Affaires Étran-géres, Documents Diplomatiques Français (1871–1914), 41 vols. (Paris, 1929–59), 1st Series, VIII, Nr. 424 (hereafter cited as DDF); and Obruchev to Giers, May 19, 1892, reproduced in George F. Kennan, The Fateful Alliance: France, Russia, and the Coming of the First World War (New York, 1984), 264 ff. Giers’s conversation with Alexander is noted in V. N. Lamsdorf, Dnevik, 1891–1892 (Moscow, 1934), 311–312.
45The position of Andreas Hillgruber, “Die deutsch-russischen politischen Beziehungen (1887–1917),” in Deutschland und Russland im Zeitalter des Kapitalismus, 213.
46Rich, Holstein II, 356 ff., presents the evolution of Holstein’s attitudes towards Russia.
47William C. Fuller, Civil-Military Conflict in Imperial Russia, 1881–1914 (Princeton, N.J.: 1985), 52 passim; Edward R. Goldstein, “Military Aspects of Russian Industrialization: The Defense Industries, 1890–1917” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Case/Western Reserve University, 1977).
48G. S. Holzer, “German Electrical Industry in Russia: From Economic Entrepreneurship to Political Activism” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Nebraska, 1970), is a good case study of economic relations between the two states. Cf. also B. Bonwetsch, “Handelspolitik und Industrialisierung. Zur aussenwirt-schaftlichen Abhängigkeit Russlands,” in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft im vorrevolutionären Russland, ed. D. Geyer (Koln, 1975), 277–299.
49Holstein to Radolin, July 2, 1895, Holstein Papers III, Nr. 541.
50Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism 1860–1914 (London, 1980). Gregor Schollgen, Imperialisms und Gleichgewicht. Deutschland, England und die orientalische Frage 1871–1914 (Munich, 1984); and Peter Winzen, “Die Englandpolitik Friedrich von Holsteins 1895–1901” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Koln, 1975), focus on the English question; Winzen adds a general dimension in Bülows Weltmachtkonzept (Boppard, 1977).
51Cf. inter alia Aaron L. Friedberg, The Weary Titan, Great Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 1895–1905 (Princeton, N.J., 1988); H. W. Koch, “The Anglo-German Alliance Negotiations: Missed Opportunity or Myth?” History LIV (1969), 378–392; and Paul M. Kennedy, The Realities behind Diplomacy: Background Influences on British External Policy, 1865–1980 (London, 1981); and “The Tradition of Appeasement in British Foreign Policy, 1865–1939, in Strategy and Diplomacy, 1870–1945 (London, 1983), 15–39.
52Keith Wilson, “The Invention of Germany,” in The Policy of the Entente. Essays on the Determinants of British Foreign Policy 1904–1914 (Cambridge, 1985), 100–120.
53The German naval threat was almost welcome as the one challenge Britain was on the whole confident of meeting successfully. For the diplomacy of appeasement at the turn of the century, cf. inter alia Christopher Andrew, Théophile Delcassé and the Making of the Entente Cordiale (New York, 1968); P. J. V. Rolo, Entente Cordiale: The Origins and Negotiations of the Anglo-French Agreements of 8 April, 1904 (London, 1969); F. R. Bridge, Great Britain and Austria-Hungary, 1906–1914: A Diplomatic History (London, 1972); Horst Jaeckel, Die Nordwestgrenze in der Verteidigung Indiens 1900–1908 und der Weg Englands zum russischen-britischen Abkommen von 1907 (Köln, 1968); and F. Kazemzadeh, Russia and Britain in Persia 1864–1914: A Study in Imperialism (New Haven, Conn., 1968), 447 passim.