WILLIAM OF GERMANY
by
STANLEY SHAW, LL.D.
Trinity College Dublin
WITH A FRONTISPIECE
1913
The Frontispiece is from a photograph by E. Bieber, of Berlin
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. INTRODUCTORY....................................... 1
II. YOUTH (1859-1881).................................. 10
III. PRE-ACCESSION DAYS (1881-1887)..................... 42
IV. "VON GOTTES GNADEN"................................ 56
V. THE ACCESSION (1888-1890).......................... 69
VI. THE COURT OF THE EMPEROR........................... 105
VII. "DROPPING THE PILOT"............................... 125
VIII. SPACIOUS TIMES (1891-1899)......................... 144
IX. THE NEW CENTURY (1900-1901)........................ 189
X. THE EMPEROR AND THE ARTS........................... 205
XI. THE NEW CENTURY--_continued_ (1902-1904)........... 237
XII. MOROCCO (1905)..................................... 255
XIII. BEFORE THE "NOVEMBER STORM" (1906-1907)............ 275
XIV. THE NOVEMBER STORM (1908).......................... 289
XV. AFTER THE STORM (1909-1913)........................ 321
XVI. THE EMPEROR TO-DAY................................. 342
INDEX ................................................... 391
I. INTRODUCTORY.
William the Second, German Emperor and King of Prussia, Burgrave of
Nürnberg, Margrave of Brandenburg, Landgrave of Hessen and Thuringia,
Prince of Orange, Knight of the Garter and Field-Marshal of Great
Britain, etc., was born in Berlin on January 27, 1859, and ascended
the throne on June 15, 1888. He is, therefore, fifty-four years old
in the present year of his Jubilee, 1913, and his reign--happily yet
unfinished--has extended over a quarter of a century.
The Englishman who would understand the Emperor and his time must
imagine a country with a monarchy, a government, and a people--in
short, a political system--almost entirely different from his own. In
Germany, paradoxical though it may sound to English ears, there
is neither a government nor a people. The word "government" occurs
only once in the Imperial Constitution, the Magna Charta of modern
Germans, which in 1870 settled the relations between the Emperor and
what the Englishman calls the "people," and then only in an
unimportant context joined to the word "federal."
In Germany, instead of "the people" the Englishman speaks of when he
talks politics, and the democratic orator, Mr. Bryan, in America is
fond of calling the "peopul," there is a "folk," who neither claim
to be, nor apparently wish to be, a "people" in the English sense.
The German folk have their traditions as the English people have
traditions, and their place in the political system as the English
people have; but both traditions and place are wholly different from
those of the English people; indeed, it may be said are just the
reverse of them.
The German Emperor believes, and assumes his people to believe, that
the Hollenzollern monarch is specially chosen by Heaven to guide and
govern a folk entrusted to him as the talent was entrusted to the
steward in Scripture. Until 1848, a little over sixty years ago, the
Emperor (at that time only King of Prussia) was an absolute, or almost
absolute, monarch, supported by soldiers and police, and his wishes
were practically law to the folk. In that year, however, owing to the
influence of the French Revolution, the King by the gift of a
Constitution, abandoned part of his powers, but not any governing
powers, to the folk in the form of a parliament, with permission to
make laws for itself, though not for him. To pass them, that is; for
they were not to carry the laws into execution--that was a matter the
King kept, as the Emperor does still, in his own hands.
The business of making laws being, as experience shows, provocative of
discussion, discussion of argument, and argument of controversy, there
now arose a dozen or more parties in the Parliament, each with its own
set of controversial opinions, and these the parties applied to the
novel and interesting occupation of law-making.
However, it did not matter much to the King, so long as the folk did
not ask for further, or worse still, as occurred in England, for all
his powers; and accordingly the parties continued their discussions,
as they do to-day, sometimes accepting and sometimes rejecting their
own or the King's suggestions about law-making. Generally speaking,
the relation is not unlike that established by the dame who said to
her husband, "When we are of the same opinion, you are right, but when
we are of different opinions, I am right." If the Parliament does not
agree with the Emperor, the Emperor dissolves it.
These parties, from the situation of their seats in a parliament of
397 deputies, became known as the parties of the Right, or
Conservative parties, and the parties of the Left, or Liberal parties.
Between them sat the members of the Centre, who, as representing the
Catholic populations of Germany--roughly, twenty-two millions out of
sixty-six--became a powerful and unchanging phalanx of a hundred
deputies, which had interests and tactics of its own independently of
Right or Left.
By and by, one of the parties of the Left, representing the classes
who work with their hands as distinguished from the classes who work
with their heads, thought they would like to live under a political
system of their own making and began to show a strong desire to take
all power from the King and from the Parliament too. They agitated and
organized, and organized and agitated, until at length, having settled
on what was found to be an attractive theory, they made a wholly
separate party, almost a people and parliament of their own. This is
known as the Social Democracy, with, at present, no deputies.
Such, in a comparatively few sentences, is the political state of
things in Germany. It might indeed be expressed in still fewer words,
as follows: Heaven gave the royal house of Hohenzollern, as a present,
a folk. The Hohenzollerns gave the folk, as a present, a parliament, a
power to make laws without the power of executing them. The Social
Democrats broke off from the folk and took an anti-Hohenzollern and
anti-popular attitude, and the folk in their Parliament divided into
parties to pass the time, and--of course--make laws.
This may seem to be treating an important subject with levity. It is
intended merely as a statement of the facts. The system in Germany
works well, to an Englishman indeed surprisingly so. In England there
is no Heaven-appointed king; all the powers of the King, both that of
making laws and of administering them, have long ago been taken by the
people from the King and entrusted by them to a parliament, the
majority of whom, called the Government, represent the majority of the
electing voters. In the case of Germany the folk have surrendered some
of what an Englishman would term their "liberties," for example, the
right to govern, to the King, to be used for the common good; whereas
in the case of England, the people do not think it needful to
surrender any of their liberties, least of all the government of their
country, in order to attain the same end.
Thus, while the German Emperor and the German folk have the same aims
as the English King and the English people, the common weal and the
fair fame of their respective countries, the two monarchs and the two
peoples have agreed on almost contrary ways of trying to secure them.
The political system of Germany has had to be sketched introductorily
as for the Englishman, a necessary preliminary to an understanding of
the German Emperor's character and policy. One of the most important
results of the character and policy is the state of Anglo-German
relations; and the writer is convinced that if the character and
policy were better and more generally known there would be no
estrangement between the two countries, but, much more probably,
mutual respect and mutual good-will.
With the growth of this knowledge, the writer is tempted to believe,
would cease a delusion that appears to exist in the minds, or rather
the imaginations, of two great peoples, the delusion that the highest
national interests of both are fundamentally irreconcilable, and that
the policies of their Governments are fundamentally opposed.
It seems indeed as though neither in England nor in Germany has the
least attention been paid to the astonishing growth of commerce
between the countries or to the repeated declarations made through a
long series of years by the respective Governments on their countries'
behalf. The growth in commerce needs no statistics to prove it, for it
is a matter of everyday observation and comment. The English
Government declares it a vital necessity for an insular Power like
Great Britain, with colonies and duties appertaining to their
possession in all, and the most distant, parts of the world, to have a
navy twice as powerful as that of any other possibly hostile Power.
The ordinary German immediately cries out that England is planning to
attack him, to annihilate his fleet, destroy his commerce, and
diminish his prestige among the nations. The German Government
repeatedly declares that the German fleet is intended for defence not
aggression, that Germany does not aim at the seizure of other people's
property, but at protecting her growing commerce, at standing by her
subjects in all parts of the world if subjected to injury or insult,
and at increasing her prestige, and with it her power for good, in the
family of nations. The ordinary Englishman immediately cries out that
Germany is seeking to dispute his maritime supremacy, to rob him of
his colonies, and to appropriate his trade. Is it not conceivable that
both Governments are telling the truth, and that their designs are no
more and no less than the Governments represent them to be? The
necessity for Great Britain possessing an all-powerful fleet that will
keep her in touch with her colonies if she is not to lose them
altogether, is self-evident, and understood by even the most
Chauvinistic German. The necessity for Germany's possessing a fleet
strong enough to make her rights respected is as self-evident.
Moreover, if Germany's fleet is a luxury, as Mr. Winston Churchill
says it is, she deserves and can afford it. As a nation she has
prospered and grown great, not by a policy of war and conquest, but by
hard work, thrift, self-denial, fidelity to international engagements,
well-planned instruction, and first-rate organization. Why should she
not, if she thinks it advisable and is willing to spend the money on
it, supply herself with an arm of defence in proportion to her size,
her prosperity, and her desert? It may be that, as Mr. Norman Angell
holds, the entire policy of great armaments is based on economic
error; but unless and until it is clear that the German navy is
intended for aggression, its growth may be viewed by the rest of the
world with equanimity, and by the Englishman, as a connoisseur in such
matters, with admiration as well. A man may buy a motor-car which his
friends and neighbours think must be costly and pretentious beyond his
means; but that is his business; and if the man finds that, owing to
good management and industry and skill, his business is growing and
that a motor-car is, though in some not absolutely clear and definite
way, of advantage to him in business and satisfying to his legitimate
pride--why on earth should he not buy or build it?
The truth is that if our ordinary Englishman and German were to sit
down together, and with the help of books, maps, and newspapers,
carefully and without prejudice, consider the annals of their
respective countries for the last sixteen years with a view to
establishing the causes of their delusion, they could hardly fail to
confess that it was due to neither believing a word the other said; to
each crediting the other with motives which, as individuals and men of
honesty and integrity in the private relations of life, each would
indignantly repudiate; to each assuming the other to be in the
condition of barbarism mankind began to emerge from nineteen hundred
years ago; to both supposing that Christianity has had so little
influence on the world that peoples are still compelled to live and go
about their daily work armed to the teeth lest they may be bludgeoned
and robbed by their neighbours; that the hundreds of treaties solemnly
signed by contracting nations are mere pieces of waste paper only
testifying to the profundity and extent of human hypocrisy; that
churches and cathedrals have been built, universities, colleges, and
schools founded, only to fill the empty air with noise; that the
printing presses of all countries have been occupied turning out
myriads of books and papers which have had no effect on the reason or
conscience of mankind; that nations learn nothing from experience; and
to each supposing that he and his fellow-countrymen alone are the
monopolists of wisdom, honour, truth, justice, charity--in short, of
all the attributes and blessings of civilization. Is it not time to
discard such error, or must the nations always suspect each other? To
finish with our introduction, and notwithstanding that _qui s'excuse
s'accuse_, the biographer may be permitted to say a few words on his
own behalf. Inasmuch as the subject of his biography is still, as has
been said, happily alive, and is, moreover, in the prime of his
maturity, his life cannot be reviewed as a whole nor the ultimate
consequences of his character and policy be foretold. The biographer
of the living cannot write with the detachment permissible to the
historian of the dead. No private correspondence of the Emperor's is
available to throw light on his more intimate personal disposition and
relationships. There have been many rumours of war since his
accession, but no European war of great importance; and if a few minor
campaigns in tropical countries be excepted, Germany for over forty
years, thanks largely to the Emperor, has enjoyed the advantages of
peace.
From the pictorial and sensational point of view continuous peace is a
drawback for the biographer no less than for the historian. What would
history be without war?--almost inconceivable; since wars, not peace,
are the principal materials with which it deals and supply it with
most of its vitality and interest--must it also be admitted, its
charm? For what are Hannibal or Napoleon or Frederick the Great
remembered?--for their wars, and little else. Shakespeare has it
that--
"Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues
We write in water."
Who, asks Heine, can name the artist who designed the cathedral of
Cologne? In this regard the biographer of an emperor is almost as
dependent as the historian.
The biography of an emperor, again, must be to a large extent, the
history of his reign, and in no case is this more true than in that of
Emperor William. But he has been closely identified with every event
of general importance to the world since he mounted the throne, and
the world's attention has been fastened without intermission on his
words and conduct. The rise of the modern German Empire is the salient
fact of the world's history for the last half-century, and accordingly
only from this broader point of view will the Emperor's future
biographer, or the historian of the future, be able to do him or his
Empire justice.
Lastly, another difficulty, if one may call it so, experienced equally
by the biographer and the historian, is the fact that the life of the
Emperor has been blameless from the moral standpoint. On two or three
occasions early in the reign accounts were published of scandals at
the Court. They may not have been wholly baseless, but none of them
directly involved the Emperor, or even raised a doubt as to his
respectability or reputation. Take from history--or from biography for
that matter--the vices of those it treats of, and one-third, perhaps
one-half, of its "human interest" disappears.
In the circumstances, therefore, all the writer need add is that he
has done the best he could. He has ignored, certainly, at two or three
stages of his narration, the demands of strict chronological
succession; but if so, it has been to describe some of the more
important events of the reign in their totality. He has also felt it
necessary, as writing for English readers of a country not their own,
to combine a portion of history with his biography. If, at the same
time, he has ventured to infuse into both biography and history a
slight admixture of philosophy, he can only hope that the fusion will
not prove altogether disagreeable.
II.
YOUTH
1859-1881
As the education of a prince, and the surroundings in which he is
brought up, are usually different from the education and surroundings
of his subjects, it is not surprising if, at least during some portion
of his reign, and until he has graduated in the university of life,
misunderstandings, if nothing worse, should occur between them: indeed
the wonder is that princes and people succeed in living harmoniously
together. They are separated by great gulfs both of sentiment and
circumstance. Bismarck is quoted by one of his successors, Prince
Hohenlohe, as remarking that every King of Prussia, with whatever
popularity he began his reign, was invariably hated at the close of
it.
The prince that would rule well has to study the science of
government, itself a difficult and incompletely explored subject, and
the art of administration; he has to know history, and above all the
history of his own country; not that history is a safe or certain
guide, but that it informs him of traditions he will be expected to
continue in his own country and respect in that of others; he must
understand the political system under which his people choose to live,
and the play of political, religious, economic, and social forces
which are ever at work in a community; he must learn to speak and
understand (not always quite the same thing) other languages besides
his own; and concurrently with these studies he must endeavour to
develop in himself the personal qualities demanded by his high
office--health and activity of body, quick comprehension and decision,
a tenacious memory for names and faces, capacity for public speaking,
patience, and that command over the passions and prejudices, natural
or acquired, which is necessary for his moral influence as a ruler. On
what percentage of his subjects is such a curriculum imposed, and what
allowances should not be made if a full measure of success is not
achieved?
But even when the prince has done all this, there is still a study,
the most comprehensive and most important of all, in which he should
be learned--the study of humanity, and in especial that part of it
with the care of whose interests and happiness he is to be charged. A
few people seem to have this knowledge instinctively, others acquire
something of it in the school of sad experience. It is not the fault
of the Emperor, if, in his youth, his knowledge of humanity was not
profound. There was always a strong vein of idealism and romance among
Hohenzollerns, the vein of a Lohengrin, a Tancred, or some mediæval
knight. The Emperor, of course, never lived among the common people;
never had to work for a living in competition with a thousand others
more fortunate than he, or better endowed by nature with the qualities
and gifts that make for worldly success; never, so far as is known to
a watchful and exceptionally curious public, endured domestic sorrow
of a deep or lasting kind; never suffered materially or in his proper
person from ingratitude, carelessness, or neglect; never knew the
"penalty of Adam, the seasons' difference"; never, in short, felt
those pains one or more of which almost all the rest of mankind have
at one time or other to bear as best they may.
The Emperor has always been happy in his family, happy in seeing his
country prosperous, happy in the admiration and respect of the people
of all nations; and if he has passed through some dark hours, he must
feel happy in having nobly borne them. Want of knowledge of the trials
of ordinary humanity is, of course, no matter of reproach to him; on
the contrary, it is matter of congratulation; and, as several of his
frankest deliverances show, he has, both as man and monarch, felt many
a pang, many a regret, many a disappointment, the intensity of which
cannot be gauged by those who have not felt the weight of his
responsibilities.
A discharge of 101 guns in the gardens of Crown Prince Frederick's
palace in Berlin on the morning of January 27, 1859, announced the
birth of the future Emperor. There were no portents in that hour.
Nature proceeded calmly with her ordinary tasks. Heaven gave no
special sign that a new member of the Hohenzollern family had appeared
on the planet Earth. Nothing, in short, occurred to strengthen the
faith of those who believe in the doctrine of kingship by divine
appointment.
It was a time of political and social turmoil in many countries, the
groundswell, doubtless, of the revolutionary wave of 1848. The Crimean
War, the Indian Mutiny, and the war with China had kept England in a
continual state of martial fever, and the agitation for electoral
reform was beginning. Lord Palmerston was Prime Minister, with Lord
Odo Russell as Minister for Foreign Affairs and Mr. Gladstone as
Minister of Finance. Napoleon III was at war with Austria as the ally
of Italy, where King Emmanuel II and Cavour were laying the
foundations of their country's unity. Russia, after defeating Schamyl,
the hero of the Caucasus, was pursuing her policy of penetration in
Central Asia.
In Prussia the unrest was chiefly domestic. The country, while
nominally a Great Power, was neutral during the Crimean War, and
played for the moment but a small part in foreign politics. Bismarck,
in his "Gedanke und Erinnerungen," compares her submission to Austria
to the patience of the French noble-man he heard of when minister in
Paris, whose conduct in condoning twenty-four acts of flagrant
infidelity on the part of his wife was regarded by the French as an
act of great forbearance and magnanimity. Prince William, the
Emperor's grandfather, afterwards William I, first German Emperor, was
on the throne, acting as Prince Regent for his brother, Frederick
William IV, incapacitated from ruling by an affection of the brain.
The head of the Prussian Ministry, Manteuffel, had been dismissed, and
a "new era," with ministers of more liberal tendencies, among them von
Bethmann Hollweg, an ancestor of the present Chancellor, had begun.
General von Roon was Minister of War and Marine, offices at that time
united in one department. The Italian War had roused Germany anew to a
desire for union, and a great "national society" was founded at
Frankfurt, with the Liberal leader, Rudolf von Bennigsen, at its head.
Public attention was occupied with the subject of reorganizing the
army and increasing it from 150,000 to 210,000 men. Parliament was on
the eve of a bitter constitutional quarrel with Bismarck, who became
Prussian Prime Minister (Minister President) in 1862, about the grant
of the necessary army funds. Most of the great intellects of
Germany--Kant, Goethe, Schiller, Hegel, Fichte, Schleiermacher--had
long passed away. Heinrich Heine died in Paris in 1856. Frederick
Nietzsche was a youth, Richard Wagner's "Tannhäuser" had just been
greeted, in the presence of the composer, with a storm of hisses in
the Opera house at Paris. The social condition of Germany may be
partially realized if one remembers that the death-rate was over 28
per _mille_, as compared with 17 per _mille_ to-day; that only a start
had been made with railway construction; that the country, with its
not very generous soil, depended wholly upon agriculture; that
savings-bank deposits were not one-twelfth of what they are now; that
there were 60 training schools where there are 221 to-day, and 338
evening classes as against 4,588 in 1910; that many of the principal
towns were still lighted by oil; that there was practically no navy;
and that the bulk of the aristocracy lived on about the same scale as
the contemporary English yeoman farmer. Berlin contained a little less
than half a million inhabitants, compared with its three and a half
millions of to-day, and the state of its sanitation may be imagined
from the fact that open drains ran down the streets.
The Emperor's father, Frederick III, second German Emperor, was
affectionately known to his people as "unser Fritz," because of his
liberal sympathies and of his high and kindly character. To most
Englishmen he is perhaps better known as the husband of the Princess,
afterwards Empress, Adelaide Victoria, eldest daughter of Queen
Victoria, and mother of the Emperor. Frederick III had no great share
in the political events which were the birth-pangs of modern Germany,
unless his not particularly distinguished leadership in the war of
1866 and that with France be so considered. The greater part of his
life was passed as Crown Prince, and a Crown Prince in Germany leads a
life more or less removed from political responsibilities. He
succeeded his father, William I, on the latter's death, March 9, 1888,
reigned for ninety-nine days, and died, on June 15th following, from
cancer of the throat, after an illness borne with exemplary fortitude.
To what extent the character of his parents affected the character of
the Emperor it is impossible to determine. The Emperor seldom refers
to his parents in his speeches, and reserves most of his panegyric for
his grandfather and his grandfather's mother, Queen Louise; but the
comparative neglect is probably due to no want of filial admiration
and respect, while the frequent references to his grandfather in
particular are explained by the great share the latter took in the
formation of the Empire and by his unbounded popularity. The Crown
Prince was an affectionate but not an easy-going father, with a
passion for the arts and sciences; his mother also was a
disciplinarian, and, equally with her husband, passionately fond of
art; and it is therefore not improbable that these traits descended to
the Emperor. As to whether the alleged "liberality" of the Crown
Prince descended to him depends on the sense given to the word
"liberal." If it is taken to mean an ardent desire for the good and
happiness of the people, it did; if it is taken to mean any
inclination to give the people authority to govern themselves and
direct their own destinies, it did not.
The mother of the Emperor, the Empress Frederick, had much of Queen
Victoria's good sense and still more of her strong will. A thoroughly
English princess, she had, in German eyes, one serious defect: she
failed to see, or at least to acknowledge, the superiority of most
things German to most things English. She had an English nurse, Emma
Hobbs, to assist at the birth of the future Emperor. She made English
the language of the family life, and never lost her English tastes and
sympathies; consequently she was called, always with an accent of
reproach, "the Engländerin," and in German writings is represented as
having wished to anglicize not only her husband, her children, and her
Court, but also her adopted country and its people. A chaplain of the
English Church in Berlin, the Rev. J.H. Fry, who met her many times,
describes her as follows:--
"She was not the wife for a German Emperor, she so English
and insisted so strongly on her English ways. The result was
that she was very unpopular in Germany, and the Germans said
many wicked things of her. She hated Berlin, and if her son,
the present Emperor, had not required that she should come
to the capital every winter, she would have lived altogether
at Cronberg in the villa an Italian friend bequeathed to
her.
"She was extremely musical, had extensively cultivated her
talents in this respect, and was an accomplished linguist.
Like her mother, Queen Victoria, she was unusually
strong-minded, and was always believed to rule over her
amiable and gentle husband. Her interest in the English
community was great, another reason for the dislike with
which the Germans regarded her. To her the community owes
the pretty little English church in the Mon Bijou Platz
(Berlin), which she used to attend regularly, and where a
funeral service, at which the Emperor was present, was held
in memory of her.
"German feeling was further embittered against her by the
Morell Mackenzie incident, and to this day controversy rages
round the famous English surgeon's name. The controversy is
as to whether or not Morell Mackenzie honestly believed what
he said when he diagnosed the Emperor's illness as
non-cancerous in opposition to the opinion of distinguished
German doctors like Professor Bergmann. Under German law no
one can mount the throne of Prussia who is afflicted with a
mortal sickness. For long it had been suspected that the
Emperor's throat was fatally affected, and, therefore, when
King William was dying, it became of dynastic and national
importance to establish the fact one way or other. Queen
Victoria was ardently desirous of seeing her daughter an
Empress, and sent Sir Morrell Mackenzie to Germany to
examine the royal patient. On the verdict being given that
the disease was not cancer, the Crown Prince mounted the
throne, and Queen Victoria's ambition for her daughter was
realized.
"The Empress also put the aristocracy against her by
introducing several relaxations into Court etiquette which
had up to her time been stiff and formal. Her relations with
Bismarck, as is well known, were for many years strained,
and on one occasion she made the remark that the tears he
had caused her to shed 'would fill tumblers.' On the whole
she was an excellent wife and mother. She was no doubt in
some degree responsible for the admiration of England as a
country and of the English as a people which is a marked
feature of the Emperor's character."
This account is fairly correct in its estimation of the Empress
Frederick's character and abilities, but it repeats a popular error in
saying that German law lays down that no one can mount the Prussian
throne if he is afflicted with a mortal sickness. There is no "German
law" on the subject, and the law intended to be referred to is the
so-called "house-law," which, as in the case of other German noble
families, regulates the domestic concerns of the House of
Hohenzollern. Bismarck disposes of the assertion that a Hohenzollern
prince mortally stricken is not capable of succession as a "fable,"
and adds that the Constitution, too, contains no stipulation of the
sort. The influence of his mother on the Emperor's character did not
extend beyond his childhood, while probably the only natural
dispositions he inherited from her were his strength of will and his
appreciation of classical art and music. Many of her political ideas
were diametrically opposed to those of her son. Her love of art made
her pro-French, and her visit to Paris, it will be remembered, not
being made _incognito_, led to international unpleasantness,
originating in the foolish Chauvinism of some leading French painters
whose ateliers she desired to inspect. She believed in a homogeneous
German Empire without any federation of kingdoms and states, advocated
a Constitution for Russia, and was satisfied that the common sense of
a people outweighed its ignorance and stupidity.
The Emperor has four sisters and a brother. The sisters are Charlotte,
born in 1860, and married to the Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Meiningen;
Victoria, born in 1866, and married to Prince Adolphus of
Schaumberg-Lippe; Sophie, born in 1870, and married to King
Constantine, of Greece; and Margarete, born in 1872, and married to
Prince Friederich Karl of Hessen.
The Emperor's only brother, Prince Henry of Prussia, was born in 1862,
and is married to Princess Irene of Hessen. He is probably the most
popular Hohenzollern to-day. He adopted the navy as a profession and
devotes himself to its duties, taking no part in politics. Like the
Emperor himself and the Emperor's heir, the Crown Prince, he is a
great promoter of sport, and while a fair golfer (with a handicap of
14) and tennis player, gives much of his leisure to the encouragement
of the automobile and other industries. Every Hohenzollern is supposed
to learn a handicraft. The Emperor did not, owing to his shortened
left arm. Prince Henry learned book-binding under a leading Berlin
bookbinder, Herr Collin. The Crown Prince is a turner. Prince Henry
seems perfectly satisfied with his position in the Empire as
Inspector-General of the Fleet, stands to attention when talking to
the Emperor in public, and on formal occasions addresses him as
"Majesty" like every one else. Only in private conversation does he
allow himself the use of the familiar _Du_. The Emperor has a strong
affection for him, and always calls him "Heinrich."
Many stories are current in Germany relating to the early part of the
Emperor's boyhood. Some are true, others partially so, while others
again are wholly apochryphal. All, however, are more or less
characteristic of the boy and his surroundings, and for this reason a
selection of them may be given. Apropos of his birth, the following
story is told. An artillery officer went to receive orders for the
salute to be discharged when the birth occurred. They were given him
by the then Prince Regent, afterwards Emperor William I. The officer
showed signs of perplexity. "Well, is there anything else?" inquired
the Regent. "Yes, Royal Highness; I have instructions for the birth of
a prince and for that of a princess (which would be 30 guns); but what
if it should be twins?" The Regent laughed. "In that case," he said,
"follow the Prussian rule--_suum cuique_."
When the child was born the news ran like wildfire through Berlin, and
all the high civil and military officials drove off in any vehicle
they could find to offer their congratulations. The Regent, who was at
the Foreign Office, jumped into a common cab. Immediately after him
appeared tough old Field-Marshal Wrangel, the hero of the Danish wars.
He wrote his name in the callers' book, and on issuing from the palace
shouted to the assembled crowd, "Children, it's all right: a fine
stout recruit." On the evening of the birth a telegram came from Queen
Victoria, "Is it a fine boy?" and the answer went back, "Yes, a very
fine boy."
Another story describes how the child was brought to submit cheerfully
to the ordeal of the tub. He was "water-shy," like the vast majority
of Germans at that time, and the nurses had to complain to his father,
Crown Prince Frederick, of his resistance. The Crown Prince thereupon
directed the sentry at the palace gate not to salute the boy when he
was taken out for his customary airing. The boy remarked the neglect
and complained to his father, who explained that "sentries were not
allowed to present arms to an unwashed prince." The stratagem
succeeded, and thereafter the lad submitted to the bathing with a good
grace.
Like all boys, the lad was fond of the water, though now in another
sense. At the age of two, nursery chroniclers relate, he had a toy
boat, the _Fortuna_, in which he sat and see-sawed--and learned not to
be sea-sick! At three he was put into sailor's costume, with the
bell-shaped trousers so dear to the hearts of English mothers fifty
years ago.
At the age of four he had a memorable experience, though it is hardly
likely that now, after the lapse of half a century, he remembers much
about it. This was his first visit to England in 1863, when he was
taken by his parents to be present at the marriage of his uncle, King
Edward VII, then Prince of Wales. The boy, in pretty Highland costume,
was an object of general attention, and occupies a prominent place in
the well-known picture of the wedding scene by the artist Frith. The
ensuing fifteen years saw him often on English soil with his father
and mother, staying usually at Osborne Castle, in the Isle of Wight.
Here, it may be assumed, he first came in close contact with the
ocean, watched the English warships passing up and down, and imbibed
some of that delight in the sea which is not the least part of the
heritage of Englishmen. The visits had a decided effect on him, for at
ten we find him with a row-boat on the Havel and learning to swim, and
on one occasion rowing a distance of twenty-five miles between 6 a.m.
and 3 p.m. About this time he used to take part with his parents in
excursions on the _Royal Louise_, a miniature frigate presented by
George IV to Frederick William III.
Still another story concerns the boy and his father. The former came
one day in much excitement to his tutor and said his father had just
blamed him unjustly. He told the tutor what had really happened and
asked him, if, under the circumstances, he was to blame. The tutor was
in perplexity, for if he said the father had acted unjustly, as in
fact he thought he had, he might lessen the son's filial respect.
However, he gave his candid opinion. "My Prince," he said, "the
greatest men of all times have occasionally made mistakes, for to err
is human. I must admit I think your father was in the wrong."
"Really!" cried the lad, who looked pained. "I thought you would tell
me I was in the wrong, and as I know how right you always are I was
ready to go to papa and beg his pardon. What shall I do now?" "Leave
it to me," the tutor said, and afterwards told the Crown Prince what
had passed. The Crown Prince sent for his son, who came and stood with
downcast eyes some paces off. The Crown Prince only uttered the two
words, "My son," but in a tone of great affection. As he folded the
Prince in his arms he reached his hand to the tutor, saying, "I thank
you. Be always as true to me and to my son as you have been in this
case."
The last anecdote belongs also to the young Prince's private tutor
days. At one time a certain Dr. D. was teaching him. Every morning at
eleven work was dropped for a quarter of an hour to enable the pair,
teacher and pupil, to take what is called in German "second
breakfast." The Prince always had a piece of white bread and butter,
with an apple, a pear, or other fruit, while the teacher was as
regularly provided with something warm--chop, a cutlet, a slice of
fish, salmon, perch, trout, or whatever was in season, accompanied by
salad and potatoes. The smell of the meat never failed to appeal to
the olfactory nerves of the Prince, and he often looked, longingly
enough, at the luxuries served to his tutor. The latter noticed it and
felt sorry for him; but there was nothing to be done: the royal orders
were strict and could not be disobeyed. One day, however, the lesson,
one of repetition, had gone so well that in a moment of gratitude the
tutor decided to reward his pupil at all hazards. The lunch appeared,
steaming "perch-in-butter" for the tutor, and a plate of bread and
butter and some grapes for the pupil. The Prince cast a glance at the
savoury dish and was then about to attack his frugal fare when the
tutor suddenly said, "Prince, I'm very fond of grapes. Can't we for
once exchange? You eat my perch and I--" The Prince joyfully agreed,
plates were exchanged, and both were heartily enjoying the meal when
the Crown Prince walked in. Both pupil and tutor blushed a little, but
the Crown Prince said nothing and seemed pleased to hear how well the
lesson had gone that day. At noon, however, as the tutor was leaving
the palace, a servant stopped him and said, "His Royal Highness the
Crown Prince would like to speak with the Herr Doktor."
"Herr Doktor," said the Crown Prince, "tell me how it was that the
Prince to-day was eating the warm breakfast and you the cold."
The tutor tried to make as little of the affair as possible. It was a
joke, he said, he had allowed himself, he had been so well pleased
with his pupil that morning.
"Well, I will pass it over this time," said the Crown Prince,
"but I must ask you to let the Prince get accustomed to bear
the preference shown to his tutor and allow him to be
satisfied with the simple food suitable for his age. What
will he eat twenty years hence, if he now gets roast meat?
Bread and fruit make a wholesome and perfectly satisfactory
meal for a lad of his years."
During second breakfast next day, the Prince took care not to look up
from his plate of fruit, but when he had finished, murmured as though
by way of grace, "After all, a fine bunch of grapes is a splendid
lunch, and I really think I prefer it, Herr Doktor, to your
nice-smelling perch-in-butter."
The time had now come when the young Prince was to leave the paternal
castle and submit to the discipline of school. The parents, one may be
sure, held many a conference on the subject. The boy was beginning to
have a character of his own, and his parents doubtless often had in
mind Goethe's lines:--
"Denn wir können die Kinder nach unserem Willen nicht formen,
So wie Gott sie uns gab, so muss man sie lieben und haben,
Sie erzielen aufs best und jeglichen lassen gewähren."
("We cannot have children according to our will:
as God gave them so must we love and keep them:
bring them up as best we can and leave each to its own
development.")
It had always been Hohenzollern practice to educate the Heir to the
Throne privately until he was of an age to go to the university, but
the royal parents now decided to make an important departure from it
by sending their boy to an ordinary public school in some carefully
chosen place. The choice fell on Cassel, a quiet and beautiful spot
not far from Wilhelmshohe, near Homburg, where there is a Hohenzollern
castle, and which was the scene of Napoleon's temporary detention
after the capitulation of Sedan. Here at the Gymnasium, or _lycée_,
founded by Frederick the Great, the boy was to go through the regular
school course, sit on the same bench with the sons of ordinary
burghers, and in all respects conform to the Gymnasium's regulations.
The decision to have the lad taught for a time in this democratic
fashion was probably due to the influence of his English mother, who
may have had in mind the advantages of an English public school. The
experiment proved in every way successful, though it was at the time
adversely criticized by some ultra-patriotic writers in the press. To
the boy himself it must have been an interesting and agreeable
novelty. Hitherto he had been brought up in the company of his
brothers and sisters in Berlin or Potsdam, with an occasional
"week-end" at the royal farm of Bornstedt near the latter, the only
occasions when he was absent from home being sundry visits to the
Grand Ducal Court at Karlsruhe, where the Grand Duchess was an aunt on
his father's side, and to the Court at Darmstadt, where the Grand
Duchess was an aunt on the side of his mother.
An important ceremony, however, had to be performed before his
departure for school--his confirmation. It took place at Potsdam on
September 1, 1874, amid a brilliant crowd of relatives and friends,
and included the following formal declaration by the young Prince:
"I will, in childlike faith, be devoted to God all the days
of my life, put my trust in Him and at all times thank Him
for His grace. I believe in Jesus Christ, the Saviour and
Redeemer. Him who first loved me I will love in return, and
will show this love by love to my parents, my dear
grandparents, my sisters and brothers and relatives, but
also to all men. I know that hard tasks await me in life,
but they will brace me up, not overcome me. I will pray to
God for strength and develop my bodily powers."
The boy and his brother Henry stayed in Cassel for three years, in the
winter occupying a villa near the Gymnasium with Dr. Hinzpeter, and in
summer living in the castle of Wilhelmshohe hard by. Besides attending
the usual school classes, they were instructed by private tutors in
dancing, fencing, and music. Both pupils are represented as having
been conscientious, and as moving among their schoolmates without
affectation or any special consciousness of their birth or rank. Many
years afterwards the Emperor, when revisiting Cassel, thus referred to
his schooldays there:
"I do not regret for an instant a time which then seemed so
hard to me, and I can truly say that work and the working
life have become to me a second nature. For this I owe
thanks to Cassel soil;"
and later in the same speech:
"I am pleased to be on the ground where, directed by expert
hands, I learned that work exists not only for its own sake,
but that man in work shall find his entire joy."
This is the right spirit; but if he had said "greatest joy" and "can
find," he would have said something more completely true.
The life at Cassel was simple, and the day strictly divided. The
future Emperor rose at six, winter and summer, and after a breakfast
of coffee and rolls refreshed his memory of the home repetition-work
learned the previous evening. He then went to the Gymnasium, and when
his lessons there were over, took a walk with his tutor before lunch.
Home tasks followed, and on certain days private instruction was
received in English, French, and drawing. His English and French
became all but faultless, and he learned to draw in rough-and-ready,
if not professionally expert fashion. Wednesdays and Saturdays, which
were half-holidays, were spent roving in the country, especially in
the forest, with two or three companions of his own age. In winter
there was skating on the ponds. The Sunday dinner was a formal affair,
at which royal relatives, who doubtless came to see how the princes
were getting on, and high officials from Berlin, were usually present.
After dinner the princes took young friends up to their private rooms
and played charades, in which on occasion they amused themselves with
the ever-delightful sport of taking off and satirizing their
instructors. At this time the future Emperor's favourite subjects were
history and literature, and he was fond of displaying his rhetorical
talent before the class. The classical authors of his choice were
Homer, Sophocles, and Horace. Homer particularly attracted him; it is
easy to imagine the conviction with which, as a Hohenzollern, he would
deliver the declaration of King Agamemnon to Achilles:--
"And hence, to all the host it shall be known
That kings are subject to the gods alone."
The young Prince left Cassel in January, 1877, after passing the exit
(_abiturient_) examination, a rather severe test, twelfth in a class
of seventeen. The result of the examination was officially described
as "satisfactory," the term used for those who were second in degree
of merit. On leaving he was awarded a gold medal for good conduct, one
of three annually presented by a patron of the Gymnasium.
A foreign resident in Germany, who saw the young Prince at this time,
tells of an incident which refers to the lad's appearance, and shows
that even at that early date anti-English feeling existed among the
people. It was at the military manoeuvres at Stettin:
"Then the old Emperor came by. Tremendous cheers. Then
Bismarck and Moltke. Great acclaim. Then passed in a
carriage a thin, weakly-looking youth, and people in the
crowd said, 'Look at that boy who is to be our future
Emperor--his good German blood has been ruined by his
English training.'"
Before closing the Emperor's record as a schoolboy it will be of
interest to learn the opinion of him formed by his French tutor at
Cassel, Monsieur Ayme, who has published a small volume on the
education of his pupil, and who, though evidently not too well
satisfied with his remuneration of £7 10s. a month, or with being
required to pay his own fare back from Germany to France, writes
favourably of the young princes. "The life of these young people
(Prince William and Prince Henry) was," he says,