War is a fiery winnower of incapacities. Many reputations have gone to
the scrap-heap since August, 1914. None more surely than that of the
braggart Crown Prince. It is said that this terrible catastrophe was
largely of his bringing about and his great desire and hope.
Well--he has got his desire, and more than he expected.
He was going to do mighty things--to smash through the frontier and lead
the German hordes triumphantly through France. And what has he done?
In the treacherous surprise of the moment he got across the frontier,
and there the weighty French fist met the Imperial optic, and has since
developed many stars in it. He has been held, wasting men, time,
opportunity, and his own little apology for a soul. He has done nothing
to justify his position or even his existence. He has wrecked his
home-life by wanton indulgence. He has made himself notorious by his
private lootings of the chateaux cursed with his presence.
Even in 1870 the native cupidity of the far finer breed of conquerors
could not resist the spoils of war, and, to their eternal disgrace,
trainloads of loot were sent away to decorate German homes--as burglars'
wives might wear the jewellery acquired by their adventurous menfolk in
the course of their nefarious operations.
But we never heard of "Unser Fritz," the then Crown Prince, ransacking
the mansions he stayed in. He was a great man and a good--the very last
German gentleman. And this decadent is his grandson!
"Unser Fritz" was a very noble-looking man. His grandson--oh, well, look
at him and judge for yourselves! Of a surety the sight is calculated to
heighten one's amazement that any nation under the sun, or craving it,
could find in such a personality, even as representative of a once great
but now exploding idea, anything whatever even to put up with, much less
to worship and die for.
The race of Hohenzollern has wilted and ravelled out to this. The whole
world, outside Prussia, devoutly hopes ere long to have seen the last of
it.
It has been at all times, with the single exception above noted, a
hustling, grabbing, self-seeking race. May the eyes of Germany soon be
opened! Then, surely, it will be thrust back into the obscurity whence
heaven can only have permitted it to escape for the flagellation of a
world which was losing its ideals and needed bracing back with a sharp,
stern twist.