The dawn of the 20th century was thus a time of anxiety for the British Empire. Challenged for the first time by the commercial, naval, and colonial might of many other industrializing nations, the British reconsidered the wisdom of splendid isolation. To be sure, in the Fashoda Incident of 1898 Britain succeeded in forcing France to retreat from the upper reaches of the Nile. But how much longer could Britain defend her empire alone? Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain began at once to sound out Berlin on the prospect of global collaboration.
A British demarche was precisely what the Germans had been expecting, but three attempts to reach an Anglo-German understanding, between 1898 and 1901, led to naught. In retrospect, it is hard to see how it could have been otherwise. The German foreign minister and, from 1900, chancellor, Bernhard, Fürst (prince) von Bülow, shared the kaiser’s and Holstein’s ambitions for world power. If, as Germany’s neo-Rankean historians proclaimed, the old European balance of power was giving way to a new world balance, then the future would surely belong to the Anglo-Saxons (British Empire and America) and Slavs (Russian Empire) unless Germany were able to achieve its own place in the sun. Bülow agreed that “our future lies on the water.”
German and British interests were simply irreconcilable. What Britain sought was German help in reducing Franco-Russian pressure on the British Empire and defending the balance of power. What Germany sought was British neutrality or cooperation while Germany expanded its own power in the world. Bülow still believed in Holstein’s “free hand” policy of playing the other powers off against each other and accordingly placed a high price on German support and invited Britain to join the Triple Alliance as a full military partner. Understandably, the British declined to underwrite Germany’s continental security.