A Study on the Bismarckian Alliance System: With a Focus on the German Empire’s Diversion Strategy of the Intra-European Tensional Factors to the Global Periphery
Authors:   Asia-Europe Perspective Association, Kim Seok-Koo 
Published: December 2024

The last two decades of the 19th century is still being called the period of new imperialism, when colonial scrambles for Asia and Africa were heated unprecedentedly among the European colonial pow- ers(colonial empires or metropoles). This article has focused on an analysis on the examples which show the new born German Empire had diverted regional tensions from the European core to its peripheries in a period between 1871 when German people achieved national unification and 1894 when the Sino-Japanese war broke out.
For this, King Kojong(高宗)’s evaluation of the international relations, his policy of drawing Russian power into the Chosun Kingdom as was counseled by his German advisor Möllendorff amid the two emeutes of 1882 and 1884, and overheated rivalry over Korea by the European colonial powers as well as by Qing(淸國) and Japan were analyzed - from the perspectives of modern theories of international politics such as realism, liberalism, and constructivism - in concert with the Bismarckian alliance system persisted during the European colonial period.
Since it was difficult for the core of European colonial empires to absorb all of the impacts which were generated by the unification of German people and had roughly shaken European political stage, Bismarck had thought outside the box to divert tensions and instabilities of the core areas to a periphery of northeast Asia, and consequently was successful. Möllendorff as an advisor to the Korean government, and Jacob Meckel to Japanese government were the persons who allegedly had carried out such important missions of analyzing respective domestic situation of northeast Asian countries, finding and exploiting the weaknesses deriving from the international relations among them.
Not a few Germany’s alliance treaties with other countries in and out of Europe, concluded by the initiatives of Bismarck during his service(1862-90), had been maintained even after his resignation. And the basic principles and practices applied to ruling the German Empire were continued except young Kaiser Wilhelm II’s overseas expansion policy(Weltpolitik).
The Russo-Korean secret agreement of March 1885 had triggered chained effects from the Port Hamilton incident(15 April 1885~27 February 1887), Russian Tsar’s decision to embark on the construction of Trans-Siberian Railroad(1886), adoption of sphere of influence logic by the Japanese government(1890) that seriously dreaded this railroad, and Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars.
Even though Russia who was tenaciously penetrating into the Balkan and Turkish straits after the end of Napoleonic war(1815) had turned her eyes to northeast Asia to some extent since 1886, it was impossible for her to exert powerful political influences on the region because of her lack in the inter- continental railroad.
Seen from the political perspectives of realism, liberalism, and constructivism, the strength and weak- nesses of the Bismarckian system are as follows. From the realist perspective, since use of all available means for achieving certain purposes can be justified, Bismarck’s policy of diverting intra-European ten- sions to northeast Asia was appropriate. His policy not only assured survival of German Empire, but prevented intra-European wars by reducing politico-military tensions inside Europe.
From the liberalist perspective, human-beings’ rational thought processes backed up by sound reasoning, universal values like natural order and tolerance are esteemed. Also, it is deemed necessary to establish parliamentary institutions by state, and a global government to abolish global anarchy. However, Bismarck’s manipulation of the masses and outdated German Reich’s parliamentary system which couldn’t effectively propose majority public opinions to the government deserve criticism.