The Media and the Road to Modernity | 87deep crisis (Bösch 2009: 373–93). The German Kaiser Wilhelm II was able to
mesmerise his hearers during his public appearances, but newspaper articles
about his aggressive rhetoric increasingly led to outrage across all party divides,
as did his ‘Hun Speech’ in the year 1900, that encouraged German soldiers to
slaughter Chinese (Bösch 2009: 393–420). The Kaiser likewise failed at the
new interview format. His ‘Daily Telegraph Affair’ in 1908 revealed how the
Kaiser’s haughty and contradictory utterances in interviews led to criticism
and international crises.
These interviews with the Kaiser occurred at a time of changing foreign
policy in the media age. Governments now tried to shape their foreign pol-
icies more directly by making well-chosen statements to the media (Bösch
and Hoeres 2013). Paid journalists in the latter days of the German Feder-
ation and the Age of Bismarck had already been employed for this purpose
(Kohnen 1995: 160). Reichskanzler Bülow (1900–1909), no less than the
Kaiser, banked on interviews with the foreign press, although these were
not yet common in Germany. As the German historian Dominik Geppert
has recently demonstrated, the conflicts played out in the media sometimes
influenced or substituted government action in German–British relations. As
unofficial emissaries, the media intervened in foreign policy and deliberately
cemented stereotypes. At the same time they attempted to promote an easing
of tensions by sending journalists from Britain and Germany to interview the
other country’s politicians (Geppert 2007: 351–86, 422f.).
The innumerable scandals in these decades, which were brought up in
every Western country, coincided with the development of the popular press,
too. Both media and public were outraged by cases of corruption, abuse of
power by the military and deviant sexual behaviour by politicians. This often
led to political crises that discredited the reputations of the elite. One has but
to recall the Panama and Dreyfus Affairs in France, the Cleveland Street and
Parnell Scandal in England, and the Eulenberg Affair in Germany to prove the
newfound might of the popular press. As ‘Fourth Power’ it now applied moral
standards as a means of monitoring politics and demanding political reform.
However, these scandals might also be set in motion by some politicians them-
selves who opted for a media-friendly type of communication in this new
political arena (Bösch 2009).
Not much research has been done to date on the extent to which the media
not only favoured political leaders but also strengthened the position of par-
liaments, for party-affiliated as well as non-party papers published regular and
detailed reports on parliamentary debates and printed long texts of speeches.
This publicity moved members of parliament into the political spotlight, and
their verbal slugfests were often followed with as much enthusiasm as boxing
matches (Bösch 2004). Media presence in the parliaments also created an
immense crush in the public galleries (Biefang 2009: 145).