THE HUNDRED DAYS' REIGN
On the morning of March 9, 1888, the Crown Prince was walking in the
gardens of the Villa Zirio, when a telegram was brought to him. He took
it up with languid interest, but when he read the address, "To His
Imperial Majesty the Emperor Frederick William," there was no need to
open the envelope, and it is said that his habitual self-control
deserted him, and he burst into tears.
A pathetic, and yet in its way a magnificent, scene followed in the
great drawing-room on the ground floor of the villa. The Households of
the new Emperor and Empress had assembled there and stood in a circle
waiting....
Suddenly the Emperor appeared, and we have the following striking
description from one who claims to have been a witness of what occurred:
"He had become handsome again, as in the radiant days of his youth. His
beard, with a few silver streaks, glowed in the brilliant light cast by
the chandelier. Tall and well built, he dominated the entire company.
His blue eyes were slightly misty. His delicate complexion, now
heightened with a little colour, seemed to show the real tranquillity
which had taken possession of his soul; and his mouth with the red lips
had now that fascinating smile which characterised him. With a firm step
he walked straight to a small table in the middle of the drawing-room
and wrote--for the tube in his throat prevented him from speaking--a few
lines, which he signed. An officer read out the paper aloud--it was the
announcement of the death of the Emperor William I and of his own
accession as Frederick III. The Emperor then walked towards the Empress,
made a long and reverent bow, paying full homage to his wife's devotion,
and with a grave and tender gesture passed round her neck the Ribbon of
the Black Eagle."
It is also recorded that the Emperor walked up to Dr. Morell Mackenzie
and, after shaking him warmly by the hand, wrote for him the following
words: "I thank you for having made me live long enough to recompense
the valiant courage of my wife."
The Emperor Frederick, with the Empress and their daughters, set out for
Berlin on March 10, making what was then the swiftest journey in the
records of Continental travel. The only interruption, and that was very
short, was to enable the Emperor to receive the greetings of his old
friend, King Humbert of Italy, who had himself travelled by forced
marches for the purpose.
Amid a terrible storm of sleet and snow, on the night of March 11, the
Imperial party entered Berlin.
Those who then saw the Emperor, whatever their political predilections,
were amazed at his look of health and strength. For months past a thick
veil of secrecy had been drawn over the life at the Villa Zirio.
Naturally, therefore, rumour had had it all her own way, and in Germany
the general pessimism was undoubtedly fostered by the medical
profession. They had persuaded themselves that the Emperor was already
_in articula mortis_, and the Empress was openly censured for bringing
him back at all. It was even believed by many that he might very well
die on the journey owing to the sudden transition from the warm, equable
climate of San Remo to the biting cold of Berlin.
The one certain fact which had been published was that he had undergone
the operation of tracheotomy, and that he could not speak owing to the
tube in his throat. But, apart from that, to the general astonishment,
the Emperor was, or seemed to be, not very different from his normal
condition. At once he took up the reins of power, granting audiences,
and dealing for many hours every day with State affairs.
Though the joy with which the friends of the new Emperor and Empress
hailed their accession was dashed by the thought of how brief must be
the new reign, yet it is abundantly evident that no such idea occurred
to the Empress herself, and that very fact seems to enhance the
poignancy of the whole tragedy.
At the beginning of the Emperor Frederick's reign, a distinguished
German wrote to a friend: "The Empress, as you have rightly judged, is
making her way among the people. However brief her tenure of power will
be, the more will the public at large perceive the truly astounding
richness and resource, the practised leadership, and the affectionate
disposition of that rare creature. She is indefatigable, and gives a
fresh indication of the grand aims she has in view each day."
It is significant to note how all those who knew the Empress even
slightly welcomed the fact of the Emperor's accession. Thus Mrs.
Augustus Craven: "Somehow I hope the present Emperor will live. Anyhow I
am thankful that he is still alive, and that _she_ is Empress of
Germany, also that perhaps after all the very great deal there is in her
is not to be lost for Germany and for Europe."
The feeling in the Court and political world is clearly shown in the
_memoirs_ of Prince Hohenlohe. He was received by the Empress a week
after her return to Berlin, and he says that he found her unchanged;
"her frank and cheerful manner filled me with astonishment."
Three days later Prince Hohenlohe noted in his diary that already
officials were complaining of the interference of the Empress in public
business.
[Illustration: THE LATE EMPRESS FREDERICK]
Bötticher told him that she had induced the Emperor to refuse his
signature to the Anti-Socialist Bill, and that he had only given way
after Bismarck had explained the matter to the Empress. The Minister
added that the Emperor had little power of resistance to the influence
of the Empress, and that she, again, was under the influence of "certain
advanced ladies." If the Emperor's illness, he went on, was of long
duration, all kinds of things might happen, but if the Emperor were
well, or should become so, the influence of the Empress would diminish.
A few days later Prince Hohenlohe was himself able to judge how far this
was true about the Empress, for he went out to call on his Sovereign at
Charlottenburg, and found him with his wife. The Empress excused her
presence by pleading the necessity of supporting the Emperor during the
audience. The whole of the conversation had to be carried on, so far as
the Emperor was concerned, by means of writing-tablets. Hohenlohe
observed that the Emperor would benefit by the amount of work he had to
do, at which the Sovereign nodded approvingly. At the end of the
interview:
"The Emperor placed his hand on my shoulder and smiled sadly, so that I
could hardly restrain my tears. He gave me the impression of a martyr;
and, indeed, no martyrdom in the world is comparable with this slow
death. Everyone who comes near him is full of admiration for his
courageous and quiet resignation to a fate which is inevitable, and
which he fully realises."
But it is plain that the Empress had not yet resigned herself to
consider his death as in any way imminent. Later in the same month,
Hohenlohe had an audience of the Empress, and during their conversation
she said something which made it clear to her old friend that she still
entertained illusions as to her husband's real condition--indeed, he was
himself so shaken by what she said that he wrote in his diary: "It is
perhaps possible that the illness will be of long duration. The
expectation of a speedy end has not yet been confirmed."
There can be no doubt that the accession of the Emperor Frederick was
expected in not a few quarters to mean the almost immediate fall of
Bismarck, but this expectation left out of account various important
factors of the situation. Both the new Emperor and his Empress, though,
as we have seen, they profoundly disapproved of Bismarck's policy as a
whole, nevertheless fully realised the Chancellor's patriotism and the
unparalleled services which he had been able to render to the German
people. Bismarck, in his own account of his relations with the Emperor,
recalls that they began as far back as 1848, when Prince Frederick
William was only seventeen, and he had since received from him various
proofs of personal confidence, notably on the occasion of the Dantzig
episode in 1863. This confidence was, Bismarck declares, quite
independent of political principles and differences of opinion, and
though many attempts to shake it were made from interested quarters,
they had no permanent success.
Later Bismarck also asserted roundly that the Emperor Frederick made it
easy for him, by his amiability and confidence, to transfer to him the
affection he had cherished for his father. He was both more open than
his father had been to the constitutional idea of Ministerial
responsibility, and also less hampered by family traditions in adjusting
himself to political necessities. And Bismarck goes on to state that
"all assertions of lasting discord in our relations are unfounded."
On the subject of the Crown Princess's influence Bismarck said:
"I could not assume that his wife had the same kindly feeling for me;
her natural innate sympathy for her home had, from the beginning, shown
itself in the attempt to turn the weight of Prusso-German influence in
the groupings of European power into the scale of her native land; and
she never ceased to regard England as her country. In the differences of
interest between the two Asiatic Powers, England and Russia, she wished
to see the German power applied in the interests of England if it came
to a breach. This difference of opinion, which rested on the difference
of nationality, caused many a discussion between her Royal Highness and
me on the Eastern question, including the Battenberg question. Her
influence on her husband was at all times great, and it increased with
years, to culminate at the time when he was Emperor. She also, however,
shared with him the conviction that in the interests of the dynasty it
was necessary that I should be maintained in office at the change of
reign."
It is interesting here to recall that on August 31, 1870, after the
battle of Beaumont, Busch obtained from Bismarck the following opinion
of the then Crown Prince:
"He will be reasonable later on, and allow his Ministers to govern more,
and not put himself too much forward, and in general he will get rid of
many bad habits that render old gentlemen of his trade sometimes rather
troublesome. [It is to be feared that this uncomplimentary allusion is
to the old Emperor.] For the rest, he is unaffected and straightforward;
but he does not care to work much, and is quite happy if he has plenty
of money and amusements, and if the newspapers praise him."
A very superficial judgment of the Emperor Frederick, and the suggestion
that he was too fond of money is particularly gratuitous. As a matter of
fact, only the year before his accession, in 1887, a certain Frenchman,
Ballardin by name, died, leaving the whole of his fortune, valued at
several million francs, to the then Crown Prince. M. Ballardin appeared
to have been so embittered by disputes with the French authorities that
he determined to show his hatred and contempt for his native country by
the novel method of bequeathing his property to the German Crown Prince,
who, however, absolutely refused to accept even the smallest portion of
the legacy. That is certainly not the action of a man who could be
accused of a love of money.
It may here be stated, on this subject of money, that when the Emperor
Frederick succeeded to the throne, there was in the hands of Baron Kohn,
the private banker of the old Emperor William, a sum of fifty-four
million marks (£2,700,000), which was bequeathed to the Emperor
Frederick as a kind of family treasure, to be controlled by the head of
the House of Hohenzollern for the time being. When the Emperor Frederick
died, however, it was found that the great bulk of this money had been
invested abroad by his orders in the name of his widow; her uncle, the
Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and her cousin, King Leopold of Belgium,
being the trustees. It is even asserted that the late Prince Stolberg
resigned at the time his office of Minister of the Imperial Household in
consequence of what he considered the diversion of this sum of money
from the Hohenzollern family. According to another version, however,
only a portion of this money became the absolute property of the
Empress, the remainder being hers for life, with power of appointment
among her younger children.
To return to Busch; he also obtained from Bismarck a curious anecdote of
the Empress:
"I took the liberty to ask further what sort of woman the Crown Princess
was, and whether she had much influence over her husband. 'I think not,'
the Count said; 'and as to her intelligence, she is a clever woman;
clever in a womanly way. She is not able to disguise her feelings, or at
least not always. I have cost her many tears, and she could not conceal
how angry she was with me after the annexations (that is to say of
Schleswig and Hanover). She could hardly bear the sight of me, but that
feeling has now somewhat subsided. She once asked me to bring her a
glass of water, and as I handed it to her she said to a lady-in-waiting
who sat near and whose name I forget, 'He has cost me as many tears as
there is water in this glass.' But that is all over now."
This incident about the glass of water evidently much impressed
Bismarck, for he told it to Busch again some months later, when he said
of the Crown Princess, "She is in general a very clever person, and
really agreeable in her way, but she should not interfere in politics."
The Empress's relations with Bismarck after her husband's accession were
more pleasant than they had ever been before. The Emperor naturally
leaned upon his wife, and her influence perhaps appeared greater than it
was. But, whatever its precise extent, Bismarck, with his intensely
practical mind, saw that it was at any rate a factor in the situation,
and he made use of it accordingly. It was, indeed, as natural for him to
cultivate her good will now, as it was for him a little later to heap
contumely and insult on her head. Such conduct was utterly
incomprehensible to the Empress, with her upright, loyal nature; she
would have suffered less from the Chancellor had she been able to find
the key to both his greatness and his littleness.
But, even at this time, when Bismarck had the strongest reasons for
conciliating the Empress, there was one question, that of the Battenberg
marriage, on which he felt compelled to do battle with her, and in which
he vanquished her in fair fight.
The Empress, different as she was in many respects from her mother, was
absolutely at one with Queen Victoria in her views of everything which
should regulate family life. Thus, she was as firm a believer in the
importance of securing happy marriages for her sons and daughters as the
Queen had proved herself to be. That the union of two human beings
should be guided by State considerations was to her abhorrent. She had
welcomed with eager delight her niece, Princess Irene of Hesse, as a
daughter-in-law; she knew that the latter's sister, Princess Victoria,
had formed a happy marriage with Prince Louis of Battenberg. Now it was
Prince Louis's brother, Alexander of Bulgaria, who had been from boyhood
a favourite with her sister, Princess Alice, whom the Empress desired to
see married to her second daughter, Princess Victoria. The alliance had
been mooted some four years before, but was then considered, by Bismarck
especially, as quite out of the question, if only because the hero of
Slivnitza had earned the intense hostility of the Tsar Alexander.
In July, 1885, Bismarck told Hohenlohe that, whereas the Emperor and the
Crown Prince were in favour of the marriage of Princess Victoria with
the King of Portugal, the Crown Princess and the young Princess herself
preferred the Prince of Bulgaria, and that there was "great skirmishing"
going on over the business.
More than a year later, in October, 1886, the old Emperor himself spoke
to Hohenlohe of the matter, and with some bitterness, declaring that the
Crown Princess and Princess Victoria still entertained the idea of this
alliance. He said he had questioned the Crown Prince, who had denied it,
and he further observed that in politics his son was ruled by his wife.
In 1888 the Empress still desired the marriage because she believed that
the affections of her daughter were seriously engaged. But, changed as
were all the conditions of her own and the new Emperor's life, she at
once found arrayed against her the same powerful influences as before,
with the addition of that of her eldest son, the new Crown Prince. The
difference of opinion in the Imperial family became known to the whole
of Europe, and was very frankly discussed in the English and Continental
Press. Matters seemed at a deadlock. On the one side were ranged the
Empress and all those Royal personages who by kinship or marriage were
connected with the Battenberg family; on the other were the Crown
Prince, Bismarck, and, it was whispered, the Emperor Frederick himself,
who had a great dislike to any marriage that savoured of a
_mésalliance_.
This was the position when Queen Victoria arrived at Charlottenburg to
visit her stricken son-in-law. Bismarck, with his usual unerring eye for
the potentialities of a situation, seized the opportunity. He sought an
audience of the Queen, and succeeded in convincing her by his arguments
that the Battenberg alliance was really extremely inadvisable. Not until
she found her mother ranged among the opponents of the marriage did the
Empress yield, and consent, to use her own phrase, "to sacrifice her
daughter's happiness on the altar of the Fatherland."
We have a slightly different, and probably less accurate, account of the
termination of the affair in Hohenlohe's journal of May 17, 1888:
"The Empress had said that in the end it would be no misfortune if
Bismarck did retire. This was at once retailed to him, whereupon the
newspaper war. Malet reported to Queen Victoria at Florence that it was
very disadvantageous for English interests that the Queen should appear
to interest herself in the Battenberg match. It would be well, more
particularly in view of her impending visit to Berlin, to prevent people
from thinking she favoured the marriage. The English Ministry also
concurred in this. Thereupon Queen Victoria wrote a severe letter to her
daughter, the Empress; and during her stay also she expounded her views
in an energetic fashion, which produced unhappy and tearful scenes. The
relations between Queen Victoria and the Imperial Chancellor have shaped
very well. They were enchanted with each other."
The Empress's belief that she had been fighting for her daughter's
happiness added a special bitterness to her defeat at the hands of
Bismarck. It may, however, be stated that the day came when the Empress
Frederick acknowledged that she had been mistaken, at least to some
extent, in the qualities which she had attributed to Alexander of
Battenberg, and she lived to see her daughter make a happier marriage
than the Battenberg alliance would probably have ever been.
Not the least pathetic feature of the Hundred Day's reign was the
gallant persistence of the Empress in fulfilling the duties of her new
station. She only held one Court, and one who was present has left a
vivid description of the strange scene:
"The Empress was dressed in the deepest mourning, indeed wrapped in
black from head to foot, her face hidden by a crape veil, while a long
procession of women likewise veiled in crape filed past the throne,
their black gowns high in the neck and skirts banded with crape a
quarter of a yard wide, while long folds of double crape fell upon the
floor in guise of Court trains."
On May 24, the marriage of Prince Henry, the second son of the Emperor
and Empress, to his cousin, Princess Irene of Hesse, was celebrated at
Charlottenburg. It was a bright and happy day in the midst of sadness,
and everything was done to surround the ceremony with brilliance.
Death was now drawing very near to the doomed Emperor. On June 1 he was
conveyed by boat from Charlottenburg to the New Palace, where he had
been born, where he had spent the happiest days of his married life, and
the name of which he now changed to "Friedrichskron." But he was not
allowed to die in peace; his last days were disturbed by what is known
as the Puttkamer incident.
Puttkamer, a typical Bismarckian, had been Minister of the Interior for
seven years. In his official announcement of the old Emperor's death, he
had actually made no allusion to the new Emperor; the latter in
consequence insisted on the Minister's retirement as the condition of
his signing the Bill prolonging the life of the Reichstag to five
years. Puttkamer's resignation was gazetted on June 11, and on the same
evening Prince Bismarck gave a dinner at which the fallen Minister was
the guest of honour.
The Emperor Frederick died at Friedrichskron on June 15. The first
message written by the widowed Empress was to the aged Empress Augusta:
"She whose one pride and happiness it was to be the wife of your son
grieves with you, afflicted mother. No mother ever had so good a son. Be
proud and strong in your sorrow."