It was on the evening of June 7th, 1894, that a carriage, the servants
of which wore court liveries, drew up at the entrance of that old
building on the avenue known as "Unter Den Linden," which serves as
a military prison of the Berlin garrison. From this equipage alighted
two men, each of them a well-known figure in the great world of the
Prussian metropolis. The one in uniform was General Count von Hahnke,
chief of the military household of the emperor, while the other, who
was in civilian attire, was Baron von Kotze, master of ceremonies at
the court of Berlin, one of the most well-to-do and jovial of _bons
vivants_, and who up to that time had stood so high in the favor of
the reigning family that his sovereign was accustomed to address him
by his Christian name, and by the so familiar equivalent pronoun in
German of "thou."
Shortly afterwards General von Hahnke reappeared alone, entered the
carriage hurriedly, and drove back to the palace. On the following
morning it became known that Baron von Kotze had been suddenly
arrested, and lodged in the military prison by personal order of the
kaiser, and without the warrant of any tribunal or magistrate, either
military or civil.
While the general public was speculating as to the cause of this
mysterious and startling disciplinary measure against a nobleman so
well known and so prominent in every way as Baron von Kotze, the court
gossips were rubbing their hands, chuckling with satisfaction, and
congratulating themselves on the fact that success had at length
crowned the efforts made to bring to book the author of the hundreds
of anonymous letters that had been circulated in the great world of
Berlin during the two preceding years.
Gradually the circumstances which had led to the arrest of Baron Kotze
became public property, and people both at home and abroad were made
aware for the first time of the existence of a scandal which for over
four-and-twenty months had set court and society by the ears, and
which had caused every man and woman to regard with suspicion not
merely their acquaintances, but even their most intimate friends and
nearest relatives. No one, with the exception of the emperor, the
empress, and the widow of Emperor Frederick, can be said to have been
altogether exempt from this reflection on their honor. For among those
who were at one time most strongly suspected of being the author
of these letters were the eldest sister of the kaiser, Princess
Charlotte, and the only brother of the empress, Duke Ernest-Gunther of
Schleswig-Holstein.
Color was given to these suspicions by the fact that many of the
anonymous letters contained remarks and information that manifestly
emanated from the imperial family, while some of the views expressed
in the letters were known not merely to have been shared, but even
to have been uttered in conversation by the prince and princess in
question. What gave still further weight to these suppositions was the
extraordinary fact that incidents which had occurred within what may
be described as the most intimate circle of the court,--incidents,
indeed, of which no one could be aware, save royal personages
themselves and those few chosen friends and associates who were
with them at the time when the incidents in question occurred,--were
revealed a few days later in the anonymous letters, twisted and
distorted in such a manner as to admit only of the most shameful
interpretation.
Added to this was the knowledge that there are few women at the Court
of Berlin more cruelly satirical or have a keener sense of ridicule
than Princess Charlotte, or any more inveterate gossip than Duke
Ernest-Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein.
The anonymous letters had literally spared no one, not even that most
blameless and excellent of women, the Empress Augusta-Victoria; nor
was there anybody of mark who had not received at least several of
them. But for some reason or other which was not understood at the
time, they seemed to be imbued with an especially relentless and
savage animosity against the charming Countess "Fritz" von Hohenau,
who must not be confounded with her less attractive sister-in-law,
Countess "Willy" von Hohenau; for whereas the latter is by birth a
princess of Hohenlohe and a niece of the imperial chancellor of
that ilk, Countess Fritz is by birth a Countess von der Decken, and
rejoices in the Christian name of Charlotte.
If Countess Fritz has one weakness which in any degree lends itself to
unfriendly criticism and ridicule it is the pride which she manifests
in her relationship through marriage to the reigning house of Prussia,
and in her being the sister-in-law of that Prince Albert of Prussia,
who is regent of the Duchy of Brunswick, her husband, Count Fritz von
Hohenau, being a half-brother to Prince Albert. It is owing to
this very innocent weakness of the countess that she was nicknamed
"_Lottchen von Preussen_," or "_Die Preussiche Lotte_" that is to say
"_Lotte of Prussia_" and at least a third of the hundreds of anonymous
letters confided to the mails during the period extending between 1892
and 1896 were filled with the most scurrilous remarks concerning the
unfortunate "_Lottchen von Preussen_."
The letters imputed to the countess almost every crime under the sun.
Inasmuch as her husband's principal friend was Baron Schrader, who
was of course frequently seen in her company at the races and at the
opera, it naturally followed that she was charged with an altogether
questionable intimacy with him. In fact, she was accused of sharing
her favors between him and the emperor, and in the letters that
reached both the kaiser and his consort, it was asserted that she was,
moreover, in the habit of constantly boasting among her friends about
the influence which as "_Sultana"_ she was able to exercise over the
ruler of the German Empire.
It was on the receipt of one of these letters that the emperor without
a moment's warning abruptly ordered Count and Countess Fritz Hohenau
to leave Berlin and to transfer their residence to Hanover. The count
and countess were not long in discovering the cause of their disgrace,
and bitterly incensed, at once resolved to leave no stone unturned in
their efforts to discover the culprit.
In this determination they were supported by the "Willy" von Hohenaus,
by the various members of the Hohenlohe family, by Baron Schrader,
Baron Hugo Reischach, chamberlain to the Empress Frederick, Prince and
Princess Aribert of Anhalt, the latter being a granddaughter of Queen
Victoria, Prince and Princess Albert of Saxe-Altenburg, and last, but
not least, Baron von Tausch, the chief of the secret police attached
to the particular service of the emperor.
I have already mentioned that suspicions had at first been
directed against the empress's only brother, Duke Ernest-Gunther of
Schleswig-Holstein. Somehow or other, probably through reading the
detective novels of Gaboriau, Baron Schrader became imbued with the
idea that the most successful manner of discovering the identity of
the suspected writer of the anonymous letters would be to carefully
examine the blotting-pads which either he or she were in the habit of
using. Accordingly, Countess Fritz von Hohenau took advantage of the
admiration and devotion entertained for her by Count Augustus Bismarck
to induce him to bring to her the blotting-pad habitually used by the
duke, to whose household he belonged, as chief aid-de-camp. The count,
very reluctantly, it is true, brought to Madame von Hohenau, the said
blotting-pad, and it was immediately submitted to a most careful and
even microscopical examination by her husband, herself, and their
friends. But in spite of every effort it was impossible to discover
the slightest analogy between the writing of the anonymous letters and
the impressions left on the blotting-pad of the duke. The countess and
her assistants in this queer task, therefore, came to the conclusion
that they would have to search in a different direction.
It is impossible to say with any degree of certainty how suspicion was
then directed towards Baron Kotze. But I am under the impression that
his name was first mentioned in connection with the affair by Baron
Schrader, who like himself was a Master of Ceremonies of the Court
of Berlin. The vast wealth enjoyed by the Kotzes, as well as the
extraordinary favor manifested towards them by the emperor and the
members of the reigning family, had not unnaturally rendered them
objects of no little jealousy on the part of other personages
belonging to the court circle. The exceedingly sarcastic and
malevolent tongue of the Baroness Kotze, and the somewhat coarse
flavor of the ever-ready jest and quip of her jovial, loud-voiced,
hail-fellow-well-met mannered husband did not tend to render the
couple very popular.
Baron Kotze's mother had been an heiress in her own right as the
daughter of the court banker, Krause, while the baron's wife is the
daughter of that extraordinary old General von Treskow, who for so
long commanded the division of Guards, and whose reputation as one of
the bravest and most dashing officers of the war of 1870, alone saved
him from the ridicule which his corseted waist, his painted cheeks,
his dyed moustache, and his youthful wig, would otherwise have
excited. While he himself has no drop of Jewish blood in his veins,
both his daughter, Madame Kotze, and her brother possess the facial
features of the Semitic race in a most marked degree, and despite
their protestations to the contrary, have undoubtedly Hebrew
ancestors, if not on the father's side, at any rate on that of the
mother. Old General Treskow was very rich indeed, his country seat at
Friedrichsfeld being one of the most magnificent country seats in the
neighborhood of Berlin.
During the early years of the reign of Emperor William, his eldest
sister, Princess Charlotte, and her husband, Prince Bernhardt of
Saxe-Meiningen, occupied a lovely little palace, or rather, I should
say large and roomy villa on the outskirts of the Thiergarten, at
Berlin. Among their near neighbors were Baron and Baroness Kotze.
Little Ursula Kotze, the daughter of the baroness, was precisely of
the same age as Princess Fedora of Saxe-Meiningen, the only child of
Princess Charlotte, and the two young girls soon became inseparable
friends. The relations thus established soon extended to the parents,
and while Princess Charlotte,--herself disposed to satirizing and
ridiculing everybody, and like many royal personages, passionately
fond of gossip, especially when spiced with scandal,--found
never-ceasing entertainment in the witty comments of the baroness
about the social events of the day, and in her reports of the latest
stories current concerning mutual acquaintances and friends, Prince
Bernhardt, in spite of his seriousness, and his fond predilection
for Hellenic research, could not help laughing and enjoying the merry
sallies of Baron Kotze. In fact, the Kotzes ended by becoming the most
intimate friends of the princely Saxe-Meiningen couple, whose taste
for their society was eventually shared by the Empress Frederick to
a degree that excited the utmost jealousy and ill-will of her
chamberlain, Baron Reischach. The latter was, therefore, only too
ready to accept the view expressed by his friend. Baron Schrader, to
the effect that Baron Kotze was the author of the anonymous letters.
I think that it was in the latter part of 1892 that the Prince and
Princess of Saxe-Meiningen, having made up their minds to visit Greece
and the Holy Land, invited Baron and Baroness Kotze to accompany
them. Some quarrel, however, took place between the princess and the
baroness during this trip, which they did not complete together, and
when they took up their residence once more at Berlin the formerly so
intimate relations between the two families ceased absolutely. It was
about this time that it became known that Princess Charlotte either
during her trip to the Orient, or just before she started, had in some
unexplainable manner lost the diary in which she had, like so many
members of the fair sex, been accustomed to describe her daily
impressions, and to the pages of which she was wont to impart
sentiments and opinions that she did not venture to confide to anybody
else.
For a considerable time after the return of the princess from the
Orient the anonymous letters contained phrases and peculiarities of
expression that clearly indicated Princess Charlotte, and to such an
extent was this the case that those in pursuit of the sender of the
missives would have ascribed their authorship to the princess, had it
not been that she herself was referred to in many of the letters in
a particularly savage and scurrilous manner. Baron Schrader, the
Hohenaus and their friends, being aware of the existence of the
quarrel between the Kotzes and the Saxe-Meiningens, naturally became
more convinced than ever that it was either Baron Kotze, or his
"viper-tongued" wife, as they described her, who were the culprits,
and insisted that it was the baroness who had taken advantage of her
intimacy with the princess to get possession of her royal highness's
diary, the contents of which were now being used in so many of the
letters.
What has now become of the diary it is impossible to say, but
judging by the excerpts used in the anonymous letters, it must have
constituted a particularly piquant volume or series of volumes!
Thus there was one remark about the emperor which ridiculed "his
intolerable swagger." There were also some comical references to
Princess Victoria of Prussia, who was jilted by the late Prince
Alexander of Battenberg, on the very eve of the day appointed for the
wedding, and that for the sake of a little actress. This princess
has since then married Prince Adolph of Schaumburg, who was recently
ousted from the regency of the tiny principality of Lippe. "_Poor
Vicky_" was described as being "_many-sided_" owing to the number of
her _affaires de coeur_, notably those with Baron Hugo von Reischach,
at that time a very handsome lieutenant of the "Garde-du-Corps,"
but who afterward became gentleman-in-waiting to the widowed Empress
Frederick, and married one of the princesses of Hohenlohe. This
flirtation between Baron Reischach and Princess Victoria formed
the theme of quite a number of the anonymous letters, in which
the princess was charged with every kind of indelicacy, while the
unfortunate baron was ridiculed in connection with the modernity
of his nobility. Other love affairs of "_poor Vicky_" were likewise
discussed in no friendly manner, and she was represented as being to
such a degree infatuated for Count Andrassy, the eldest son of the
famous Austro-Hungarian statesman, that the young fellow, it
is declared, was forced to resign his secretaryship to the
Austro-Hungarian Embassy, at Berlin, and to flee from the Prussian
Court, in order to escape from the demonstrative attentions of the
princess: "If it is like this now," said one of the letters, "what in
Heaven's name will it be when '_Vicky_' marries!"
There were, moreover, all sorts of matters relating to the _vie
intime_ of the imperial family discussed in these anonymous
communications, such as bickerings between the emperor and his mother,
quarrels with his English relatives, flirtations of the younger
princesses, etc., which no one could possibly have known about, save
members of the imperial family, and which were just the sort of thing
that Princess Charlotte would have written in her diary, in her witty
and sarcastic manner.
In fact there was so much of the phraseology and style habitual to
Princess Charlotte in the letters, that they would inevitably have
been, as I remarked above, positively ascribed to her had it not been
for the grossly improper and even disgusting twist and construction
that was invariably added to her well-known manner of writing.
Although a terrible flirt as well as a daring coquette, the princess
has never been charged with anything more serious than trivial
_affaires de coeur_, excepting by the writer of the anonymous letters.
Then too, as I have also already stated many of these letters assailed
the princess herself, in the most unscrupulous fashion; an abominable
and impossible story, picked up from the filthiest of Berlin gutters,
impugning the legitimacy of the only child of the princess, being thus
circulated far and wide. This vile fabrication alleged that Charlotte
had been married off in a hurry to Prince Bernhardt of Saxe-Meiningen,
in order to avoid a public scandal. It is only necessary to recall the
fact that the sole child of Princess Charlotte, Princess Fedora, now
married to Prince Henry of Reuss, was born twelve months after her
mother's marriage, in order to show how utterly without foundation was
this shameful slander. At least a dozen anonymous letters sent to the
emperor and to various other personages dealt with an episode said to
have taken place during a trip undertaken by the princess in Norway
and Sweden. She was attended on that occasion by a Captain von Berger,
and his wife, who were her gentleman and lady-in-waiting, and there
was also in her suite a diminutive officer holding the rank of
lieutenant, and bearing the old Silesian name of Count Schack, who
acted as aid-de-camp.
According to the anonymous letters, Princess Charlotte made a kind
of toy of the little officer, and behaved in a most volatile manner.
There was evidence of such intense malignity in these letters against
Princess Charlotte that they were attributed to a jealous woman,
and that if not actually written by one, they had at any rate been
inspired by a member of the fair sex.
There can be no doubt that Princess Charlotte and her husband ended by
sharing the opinion entertained by the Schrader-Hohenau clique, about
the letters being inspired by Baroness Kotze, and written by her
husband, and it must be confessed that there was a certain amount of
ground for their doing so. The blotting pads used by Baron Kotze,
both at the Union Club and elsewhere, were subjected to much the
same microscopic examination as those of Duke Ernest-Gunther of
Schleswig-Holstein, and when at length a distinct degree of similarity
was discovered to exist between the caligraphy of the anonymous
letter writer and the impressions which figured on the blotting pads
habitually used by Baron Kotze, Baron Schrader drew up a report on the
subject, charging Baron Kotze with being the author of the letters,
and presented it to the emperor. The latter hesitated a little before
taking any action in the matter, and would doubtless have yielded
to the advice of the minister of the imperial household, Prince
Stolberg-Wernigrode, who urged him to institute a very careful secret
investigation of his own before rushing the _denouement_, cautioning
him that Baron Schrader's evidence was inadequate, had it not been for
the pressure brought to bear upon his majesty by the Saxe-Meiningens
and other members of his family, who were all convinced that Baron
Kotze was the guilty party.
It was due entirely to this pressure that the kaiser, incensed beyond
measure at the persistency and the malignity of these letters, took
the extraordinary step of having Baron von Kotze arrested by the chief
of his military household, General von Hahnke merely on the strength
of his imperial order, dispensing with any legal warrant. That Count
Hahnke should have been selected for this duty, and that a military
prison, rather than the ordinary house of detention, should have been
chosen for the incarceration of Baron Kotze, must be ascribed to
the fact that the latter was at the time a captain of cavalry on the
reserve lists, and that in a military prison the authority of the
emperor, as head of the army, is supreme and absolute, which cannot be
said of the ordinary civil prisons, the officers of which are subject
above everything else to the tribunals and to the laws of the land.
Of course, from the very moment when the baron was arrested, the
entire scandal, that is to say the existence of a conspiracy for the
writing and distribution of anonymous letters, became public, and
served to furnish material for articles both in the German and the
foreign press on the alleged moral rottenness of the Court of Berlin.
At first there is no doubt that society, and even the ordinary public,
accepted the guilt of Baron Kotze as assured, and were further led
to believe the story about the baroness having been the instigator of
many of the letters, by her at once withdrawing to her country-seat at
Friedrichsfeld, and refusing to receive anyone.
Doubts as to the baron's guilt, however, commenced to arise when it
was found that in spite of his incarceration, the anonymous letters
continued to be sent as before, without any interruption, while all
efforts to bring home the guilt to the baron completely failed in
every sense of the word. Not only did the famous expert in caligraphy,
Langenbuch, declare that the handwriting of the letters had nothing
whatsoever in common with that of Baron Kotze, but that those written
during his incarceration were exactly similar to the others. The
emperor himself received anonymous letters, describing him to be a
fool for having unjustly imprisoned an altogether innocent man, and
recommending him to look after his brother-in-law, Duke Ernest-Gunther
of Schleswig-Holstein.
At the end of a fortnight, therefore, the military governor of Berlin,
old Field Marshal Count Pape, declared to his majesty that he would
do well to immediately set Baron Kotze at liberty, since there was
no adequate ground for keeping him under arrest. The field marshal,
however, suggested that in view of the seriousness of the charge that
had been made against the baron, the only thing to do would be to
hold a court-martial, permitting the baron meanwhile to reside "_on
parole_" at Friedrichsfeld. The whole matter was thereupon turned over
to General Prince Frederick of Hohenzollern, brother of the King
of Roumania, commanding the metropolitan division of troops, to the
reserve force of which Baron Kotze belonged.
Nine months after his arrest. Baron Kotze appeared before a
court-martial, composed of a colonel, who acted as president, and
eight other officers, and after a lengthy trial, during the course of
which Baron Schrader acted not merely as witness against Kotze,
but likewise as prosecutor, endeavoring to show analogy between the
writing of the anonymous letters, and the caligraphy, not merely of
Baron Kotze, but also of the baroness, the court-martial acquitted
the prisoner, and the emperor not only signified his approval of the
verdict, but a week later took the occasion of the Easter festivities
to send to his former favorite Kotze, a huge floral piece in the shape
of an Easter egg, bound with ribbons in the national colors.
William, however, refrained from intimating to Kotze his desire that
he should resume his service at court as master of ceremonies, and
this taken in conjunction with the fact that the procedure of the
court-martial remained a secret, left a painful degree of suspicion
resting upon the character of the unfortunate Baron Kotze. It is
perfectly true that many of those members of the court, and of
society, who had been most bitter in their denunciation of him,
left cards at his residence, but the Hohenau clique still remained
obdurate, and in spite of every possible intervention, persisted
in regarding Baron Kotze as having been unable to clear himself
completely. His most obdurate detractor remained Baron Schrader.
Kotze learning the part which Schrader had played in the entire
affair, after having consulted with his friends, came to the
conclusion that the injury done to him by his fellow master of
ceremonies, was far too great to admit of its being expiated, or
atoned for by a mere exchange of bullets on the duelling field, and
he accordingly instituted criminal proceedings against him. The
preliminaries to this sort of thing are exceedingly intricate and
tedious in Germany, and the legal authorities having received the
impression in one way or another that the public trial in connection
with the scandal would be viewed with displeasure in high quarters,
naturally placed every obstacle in Baron Kotze's way. Of course,
having instituted legal proceedings against Schrader, he was
debarred by the so-called code of honor from challenging Schrader, a
circumstance of which the latter took advantage to insinuate that if
Kotze had refrained from calling him to account on the field of honor,
it was because he did not feel sufficiently sure of his ground.
This insinuation was taken up by Kotze's cousin, Captain Dietrich
Kotze, who challenged Schrader and fought a duel with him, slightly
wounding him. Kotze himself meanwhile challenged, and fought a duel
with another of his persecutors, Baron Hugo Reischach, the chamberlain
of Empress Frederick, and received a rather severe wound, which kept
him in bed for several weeks.
As legal proceedings were pending, which were expected to eventually
clear up the entire scandal, and show who was the author of the
anonymous letters, it was generally assumed that Baron von Kotze could
not be regarded as altogether cleared from the suspicion which rested
upon him, until the case had come up for trial. Meanwhile poor Kotze
remained under a cloud. Nearly nine months elapsed before the criminal
authorities declared that there was no ground for a criminal suit
against Schrader. Kotze thereupon endeavored to institute a civil
suit, this requiring still more time, and when at length the matter
came into court, Kotze was non-suited virtually without any hearing,
on the ground that the statutes of limitation had disqualified him
from any civil redress against Baron Schrader.
Kotze being thus frustrated in his efforts to obtain punishment
for his foe and persecutor through the courts of law, came to the
conclusion that there was no other means left him to vindicate his
honor, but a challenge to fight a duel. His demand for satisfaction,
however, was declined by Baron Schrader, on the ground that it was too
late for Kotze to resort to arms, and that if he had stood in need of
satisfaction of this kind, he should not have allowed so long a period
to elapse before demanding it. The matter was referred to a so-called
court of honor, which sustained the contention of Baron Schrader, and
declared that inasmuch as Baron Kotze had by his dilatoriness placed
himself beyond the power of exacting satisfaction from Baron Schrader
for the indignities to which he had been subjected, he was no longer
worthy to wear the uniform of a Prussian officer. This decision of the
court of honor was ratified by Prince Frederick of Hohenzollern, the
general commanding the division of Guards, to the reserve force of
which Baron Kotze belonged, but it was annulled by the emperor, an
action on the part of his majesty which led Prince Frederick to resign
his command, and to withdraw for the time from the Court of Berlin.
The emperor thereupon entrusted the affair to another jury of honor
at Hanover, which rendered a decision, blaming Baron Kotze for
his dilatoriness in demanding satisfaction of Baron Schrader, but
authorizing him to continue to wear the uniform, and to remain in the
service of the emperor as an officer. This verdict was ratified by the
emperor himself and on the strength thereof the long delayed duel
took place between the two barons. In June, 1896, Baron Schrader was
wounded in the abdomen by Baron Kotze, a wound to which he succumbed
on the following day. That seemed to settle, in the minds of all, the
innocence of Baron Kotze, for after spending the customary few months
in nominal imprisonment for infraction of the civil laws, which
prohibit the fighting of those very duels which are prescribed by the
military code, he was invited to resume his service as master of the
ceremonies at court, was treated once more with the utmost distinction
by the emperor, while his wife spent several weeks in the autumn of
that year as the guest of Princess Charlotte of Saxe-Meiningen, at the
latter's country seat.
But who was the author of the anonymous letters?
That is a question with which I propose to deal in the following
chapter, at the same time showing how this most sensational court
scandal of the latter half of the nineteenth century led to the
exodus from Berlin, and the desertion of its court by numerous royal
personages and great nobles.