KAISER WILHELM IN VIENNA
Vienna, startled for an instant by the events connected with the
meeting of the Austro-Hungarian Delegations, soon sank back again
into complete apathy as regards foreign politics. The Sanjak railway
was forgotten and everyone was thinking of how the short time between
Easter and the “Derby,” the final event of the Vienna summer season,
was to be spent, when news came that Kaiser Wilhelm was about to visit
Vienna. He proposed to come to celebrate the aged Emperor’s jubilee
and to bring his whole family with him. The Viennese considered this
most tactless. Emperor Francis Joseph had lost his only son in a
drunken brawl, and now his professed friend wished to remind him of
the fact by bringing a family of handsome young men to accentuate the
contrast between the lonely old man and the Kaiser in the prime of
life, surrounded by his six sons. The Kaiser secretly planned another
“honour” for the Emperor. All the Federal Princes were to arrive in
Vienna before the Kaiser and to await him on the platform. The Kaiser
arranged for them and their retinue to reach Vienna separately and
almost in secrecy. No receptions were to be given them on arrival. He
only broke the news to the Emperor privately when all the arrangements
were complete and some of the Princes already on their way to Vienna.
The Emperor thereupon lost his temper, which had already been sorely
tried by the proposal to bring so many Imperial Princes. He sent a
message to say that his health would not allow of him receiving anyone
excepting the Kaiser. The Kaiser had to abandon his plan, which was
to have the Emperor of Austria and the German Federal Princes grouped
together on the little platform at Penzing, awaiting his arrival “like
the rising sun,” as the Vienna papers put it, and allow the Emperor to
do homage to him among his vassals, thus recognising him as overlord of
all the German-speaking peoples.
The Press said what it thought of the Kaiser’s overweening ambition,
and he was very surprised. The Austrians were not so stupid as he had
thought. They had grasped his plan to make himself the man of the hour
instead of leaving the first place to the monarch whose jubilee was
being celebrated.
Wilhelm’s fertile, restless brain had hardly abandoned one project
before it conceived another. He left his bevy of handsome sons at
home, but took his only daughter with him to Vienna. The heir to the
Austrian throne, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, had made a morganatic
marriage; his children could not succeed. Archduke Carl Francis Joseph,
the son of Archduke Otto, who had lately died a horrible death, would
be the next heir. Why should Princess Louise not become Empress of
Austria and Queen of Hungary? There was the little difficulty about
religion, but that could be managed. Louise and her mother, the
Empress, were informed that they would be allowed to accompany the
Kaiser. It is likely that the ladies had but small notice, for Princess
Louise wore skirts that were perfectly appropriate to the palace at
Potsdam, where she ranked as the greatest tomboy of the family, but
they were decidedly too short and too tight for the Austrian Court,
where ample petticoats are _de rigueur_. A tall, thin girl, looking
absolutely irrepressive, stalked up the platform by her mother’s side.
Distracted ladies-in-waiting had attempted to teach her the Austrian
Court curtsey--a most complicated manœuvre that takes years to learn.
They also tried to instil some ideas of the strictness of the Austrian
Court etiquette into her mind. She was the terror of the palace at
home; the ladies-in-waiting stood in great awe of the spoilt child.
They trembled when their turn to attend upon Her Royal Highness came
round. They feared what would happen when she got to Vienna. The change
from the free and easy manners of the Berlin Court to the unchangeable
rules and regulations of Vienna was enough to upset a more placid girl.
All the bowing and smiling upset Princess Louise, whose education had
been very “Protestant.” She put out her tongue at one of the stately
Archduchesses--behind her back, it is true, but the incident did not go
unnoticed. She dropped a bouquet that had been presented to her because
the weight annoyed her. The Empress of Germany looked dismayed at the
dismal failure. She had some idea of the Kaiser’s plans, and was aware
five minutes after the special train had pulled up on the platform
that the project had fallen through. Wilhelm, who is not by any means
sensitive, had not marked the by-play. The look on the horrified
face of the Empress should have warned him from committing a further
error; but he was always quite oblivious to atmospheres. He turned
round and, with a rough shoulder movement that was visible to everyone
on the platform, he actually “shoved”--no other word can describe the
movement--the Princess towards the young Archduke. The Princess, well
used to her father’s abrupt manners, smiled at the young Archduke,
who rose to the occasion in a manner worthy of the traditions of his
family, which is celebrated for its fine manners. But Kaiser Wilhelm’s
matrimonial plans had failed before they were really made. All the
women were against it. The Habsburgs objected to the presence of a
Protestant in their midst even though she might forsake her religion.
They knew that anything so foreign to themselves could never preside at
the Court of Vienna. Their opinion was shared by their guest, who hated
the gloomy Hofburg, and cared but little for Schönbrunn, where the
strict etiquette rendered the mother of the future heir to the throne a
mere puppet in the hands of attendants, who would not even allow her to
educate or control the destinies of her children. Princess Louise put a
final seal upon any possibility of negotiations being renewed by her
very decided conduct during the subsequent proceedings. Vienna was full
of stories of the strong-mindedness of the Kaiser’s only daughter. It
had had experience of strong-minded Princesses in the past. It wished
for nothing more of the same kind. Kaiser Wilhelm had lost.
Baulked in his matrimonial schemes, he now turned to the political
situation. Emperor Francis Joseph was irritable. The visit, although on
a much smaller scale than had been originally planned, cost him much
money, and, though he had been extremely generous in his youth, the
Emperor had become strangely parsimonious in his old age. He grudged
the great expense that was invariably entailed by the Kaiser’s State
visits. The programme usually included some expensive outing. Sometimes
five miles of road had to be improved up to the royal automobile
standard. At another time Wilhelm would take a fancy to go shooting
after his stay in Vienna, and could not be induced to accept the
simple life that was the joy of the Emperor of Austria when among the
peasants. The hunting-box, the whole forest, had to be brought up to
the standard of an American millionaire. The Habsburgs, whose claim
to rank was too ancient and too secure to need any artificial pomp
to keep it up, rode through the deep forests on small, hardy ponies.
The Emperor of Germany required a road, and insisted upon its being
cut right through the forest. He was never secure of his position.
Beyond all these minor inconveniences he expected to be treated with
the utmost ceremony, and considered that it was incumbent upon the
frail old monarch in Schönbrunn to fetch him at the railway station,
to take him to his rooms along the chilly corridors of Schönbrunn
Palace, and to expose himself, in season and out of season, in order
to magnify the importance of his guest. It was further reported in
Vienna that Kaiser Wilhelm, ever penurious, had come to borrow money
from the aged Emperor--one of the richest sovereigns in Europe, if,
indeed, not the richest of all. All these things did not endear
Emperor Wilhelm to the Viennese. They showed their feelings by
refusing to get out the best bunting and by cheering their Emperor
frantically when alone, and pointedly refraining from any exhibition
of enthusiasm when the visitors passed. The people, too, perhaps, had
a true perception of what Kaiser Wilhelm sought, and recognised that
he was really patronising the old Emperor, suggesting that it was
time he took a back seat in a dozen insidious ways. Kaiser Wilhelm
hoped Archduke Francis Ferdinand would be easy to manage, but was not
convinced of this. Emperor Francis Joseph watched the growing intimacy
between his heir and the Kaiser with great misgivings. He knew that
toils were being wound round the Archduke, who believed that he could
accept obligations and not be called upon to pay for them. The aged
diplomatist at his side knew better. The experience of three-quarters
of a century had taught him the true inwardness of things. It was vain,
however, to utter warnings. He was not even discreet. When in a fit of
rage--such as attacks all the Habsburgs who are epileptic--nothing was
sacred. A man who was not able to control himself could not be trusted
with secrets that might imperil Austria’s relations with Germany. Thus
things drifted. Germany obtained increasing power in Austrian councils;
the only man who could lay a restraining hand upon his heir was old and
weary and unwilling for anything that spelt change or unrest.