Chlodwig von Hohenlohe appointed the Foreign Secretary Adolf Marschall von Bieberstein as Prussian Minister of State. He served also as a support in the Prussian cabinet and as his mouthpiece in the Reichstag. Bieberstein was increasingly involved in disputes with William II, who aspired to have a greater personal influence on foreign policy. He was also opposed by the Agrarians because he advocated the reduction of corn duties. In 1897, he was dismissed from both his offices and replaced by Bernhard von Bülow. In the same year William II initiated numerous reshuffles. Among them was the appointment of Alfred von Tirpitz as head of the German Imperial Naval Office. In sum, the imperial personnel policy meant a de facto disempowerment of Chlodwig von Hohenlohe. He was no longer able to halt the transition to an increasingly imperialist German world politics and the naval armaments. The rapprochement with Russia and the deterioration of relations with Great Britain (Kruger telegram in 1896, Samoan crisis in 1899) ran past him, same as the response to the Boxer Rebellion.