Guillaume Schnaebelé
Guillaume Schnaebelé or Wilhelm Schnäbele[1] (1831 – 5 December 1900) was a French official from Alsace, best known for being arrested by Germans in the April 1887 Schnaebele incident (or Affair) which nearly led to war between France and Germany.
[2][3] Who caused the incident and why remains speculative, but it has been suggested that German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck was its instigator, for a number of possible reasons: inciting France into starting a war, gauging the extent of French support for Boulangism, or creating tensions with France to force the renewal of a Russian-German alliance of neutrality that was under debate at the Russian court.
Others see it as simply a series of unintended consequences, notable for the role played by France's General Georges Ernest Boulanger.
In a dispatch of the same date to the French ambassador at Berlin, Bismarck explained that, although the German Government considered, in view of the proofs of guilt, the arrest to be fully justified, it was deemed expedient to release Schnaebelé on the ground that business meetings between frontier officials "must always be regarded as protected by a mutually-assured safe conduct.
In France, the Cabinet voted 6 to 5 against an ultimatum demanding the release of Schnaebelé with an apology, which would almost certainly have meant war, as had happened with the Ems Dispatch in 1870.
However, he was, in truth, an embarrassment to the Republican government, who knew well that the French army was no better off than in 1870, when Germany quickly defeated it in the Franco-Prussian War.
[4] For this and other reasons, on 7 July 1887 Boulanger was released as Minister of War and dispatched by the government to a provincial post to be hopefully forgotten, but not before admiring throngs tried to stop his train from leaving Paris: loyal to his military orders, he was smuggled out in a switch engine.
Contemporary theorists include Elie de Cyon, who asserted[10] that Bismarck brought about the incident intentionally (for reasons explained below); that Czar Alexander III, made apprehensive for the peace of Europe, wrote an autographic letter to William I in regard to the matter, and that the Kaiser, going over the head of his chancellor Bismarck, ordered the release of Schnaebelé.
Several French politicians at the time suspected the incident of being a calculated experiment by Bismarck to gauge the depth of the anti-German feeling in France, a means of testing, by an incident, which could be closed at any time by a mere apology, without any shock to German national dignity, whether Boulanger had a sufficient following in public opinion to make Boulangism a real danger to peace.
[6] In Germany, the incident occurred during a time when Bismarck was trying to force a new and very expensive military law through the Reichstag,[11] and it has occasionally been speculated that it was necessary to inflame the menace of war to justify these new taxes.
Suddenly, a man in a gray blouse appears from the German side, hails Schnaebelé, then rushes at him, trying to lead him into Germany.
