Still Friends on the Eve of War: The Kiel Naval Review of June 1914

 

German Navy Zeppelin Overflies the Royal Naval Squadron
at Kiel, June 1914

Nothing quite captures the unthinkability for Europeans of the disastrous war that was about to engulf them than the German-British joint naval review under way at Kiel at the time of the assassination in Sarajevo. American correspondent Frederic Wile later wrote of the event, "By that occult agency which determines with diabolical delight the irony of fate, it was ordained that Kiel, 1914, should be the occasion of a spectacular Anglo-German love-feast, with a squadron of British super-dreadnoughts anchored in the midst of the peaceful German Armada as a sign to all the world of the nonexplosive warmth of English-German 'relations'."

In his ground breaking work on the outbreak of war, Dance of the Furies, Michael Neiberg nicely captures the sincerity of the good feelings and fellowship that surrounded the event.

The week, which had begun on 24 June, showed no signs whatsoever of tension between the British and German fleets. . . the Kaiser had boarded a British warship wearing a British admiral's uniform, an honor that came from a title given to him by his grandmother, Queen Victoria. Sailors from the two nations entertained one another with drinking, dancing, boxing, and a "boisterous Saturday night which melted into the Sunday of Sarajevo." . . .It seemed all hints of the Anglo-German naval rivalry of previous years had disappeared.

The assassination cast a temporary air of "gloom and foreboding" over the celebrations at Kiel, but it did not dampen the friendship between the English and the Germans. Men in both navies spoke enthusiastically about rumors that the Royal Navy would soon repay the hospitality of the new German friends. The assassination had created consequences at Fleet Week no graver than the cancellation of a few parties. One observer with close connections in both countries noted [later], "I am quite sure not a soul of us held himself capable of imagining that, because of that remote felony, Great Britain and Germany would be at war five weeks later."