War Lord: "Phili hasn't left?"

"He is awaiting Your Majesty's further commands."

"Tell him to get ready for Essen."

"He begs to remind Your Majesty that he is not in the Baroness's good

graces."

"Am I not painfully aware of that? She would prefer the measles to a

morning call from Phili."

"Then he is to stay on the train while Your Majesty visits Villa

Huegel?"

"Until I require him. He may be needed to quicken her ladyship's

decision about matters in hand, as under pressure of his presence she

will consent more readily, just to get your precious cousin out of the

house."

*CHAPTER XXIV*

*THE WAR LORD'S DAY IN ESSEN*

The Krupp Free Hotel--The War Lord and the Cinder--Bertha's

Little Surprise--The Blue Ribbon of the Son--A Mad Idea--The War

Lord Apes the Expert--Enter the Pawn--A Wily Game--Disposing of

Franz

"A wonderful country, the United States," said the War Lord to

Chief-Engineer Franz; "it produced two Maxims. The British War Office

captured Hiram, but there is another, Hudson, who seems to know as much

about explosives and guns as his more celebrated namesake. I want you

to take a year's leave and study him--him and Pittsburgh. Your salary

goes on, of course, and there will be a suitable allowance for expense.

I will arrange this with the Director-General."

Franz bowed his thanks, for Wilhelm, big with his subject, showed

plainly that he meant to do all the talking.

"Hudson Maxim," he continued, "claims priority as inventor of half a

hundred discoveries that would seem to spell success in war. He knows a

lot about dynamite, torpedoes, and detonating fuses too, and is great in

chemistry. Try and learn all he knows by fair means or--foul," he

added. Then, musingly:

"I have lately looked into some recipes suggesting chemical preparations

for means of attack. The War Office will furnish details. Consult

Hudson Maxim and other American authorities on the subject, using the

utmost discretion, of course, for I don't quite trust those Yankees.

They manage to cover up their British sympathies, but I have had a peep

or two beneath the surface. I know Armour." His mind took a sudden

leap. "How soon will you start?" he demanded. "Do you want a week's

time? Very well."

"May it please Your Majesty, Frau Krupp invited me to accompany herself

and daughters on their jaunt--sort of _marechal de logis_----" ventured

Franz.

"Duty, sir! Fatherland first. Tuesday's French liner, then; and don't

fail to investigate whether steamers of this class are liable to be of

use as auxiliary vessels in case of war. Ballin and the Norddeutscher

Lloyd people pronounce them veritable men-of-war. But, to my mind,

Ballin and Company are after subsidies."

Thus was Franz politely requested and cruelly coerced to leave Villa

Huegel. It was on the eve of the day after the interview between War

Lord and Chancellor. Events had moved swiftly since then.

A comfortable night on Majesty's train _de luxe_, preceded by a variety

performance by Phili Eulenburg, star impersonator.

Breakfast, 9 A.M., at the Krupp villa, better and more plentiful than at

home.

A drive next? No; Uncle Majesty would not allow Bertha to handle the

ribbons of the four-in-hand. Never doubted her ability, of course--yet

that experience of his at Count Dohna's. No amateurs on the box for

him. "His little girl was to sit by his side," and they were to discuss

"grave business matters."

Wilhelm, who always looks for chances to combine business with pleasure,

asked to be driven to the _Essener Hof_, a hotel in the city of Essen

proper, where intending buyers of guns and ammunition are lodged, and,

it may be added, wined and feasted at the War Lady's expense. Be sure

that the Krupp hostelry is never lacking in guests pretending to be

unsatisfied with the tests of war material conducted for their benefit

as long as there is the slightest excuse for delay in going home, since,

once satisfied, they must buy, and, the deal concluded, give up their

comfortable apartments at the _Hof_.

Wilhelm left half a dozen of his large, ugly visiting-cards at the door

of the hotel for the Jap, Chinese, Turkish and other representatives,

bending down the lower right-hand corner of the pasteboards to indicate

his regrets that he had failed to find the gentlemen in.

"If any of them attempt to pay me a return visit, I shall put them under

'old Fritz' and pulverise their yellow bones," he said to Bertha.

But before they had finished laughing at the piece of raillery the War

Lord uttered a cry of anguish. An infinitesimal cinder or a bit of soot

had got into his left ear, causing him the most excruciating pains.

"Home," he gasped piteously. "Let's pick up a physician on the way."

(For some reason or other no doctor was included in the small Imperial

party.)

Dr. Shrader was dumbfounded when the royal chasseur, in feather hat,

broadsword at his side, summoned him. "My consulting hour; dozens of

people waiting," he protested. The chasseur bent over the doctor's ear

and whispered, whereupon Shrader ran into the street in his

dressing-gown, apparently to interview the gutter, for, in his anxiety

to pacify the War Lord with stammered excuses, his nose was close to the

stream of mucky water running down the hill.

Naturally, the humour of the thing did not appeal to Wilhelm, racked

with pain as he was. He rose from the seat, and, pushing the obsequious

doctor aside, jumped up the steps, saying: "Attend me, I command." Of

course, in the meanwhile the doctor's household had got wind of the

royal radiance, and flocked from parlour, bedrooms and scullery, males

and females and children, all eager to prostrate themselves in hall or

on staircases, wherever they might be.

The War Lord turned to Shrader: "Send them upstairs; lock them in if

necessary." And, with a look through the glass door of the

waiting-room: "These people must leave instantly; I won't be their

_Grossebeest_."

He let himself drop into the doctor's ample desk-chair.

"The ear-pump and antiseptics!" he commanded with a cry of pain. Then,

as the doctor approached with the instruments: "Oh, take off that dirty

dressing-gown first. Roll up your sleeves. Wash your hands."

More insulting orders were thundered at the man of science by a supposed

gentleman, but their execution gave Shrader time to recover.

He handled the ear-pump with consummate ease, as he happened to be a

specialist in the line, and soon had the satisfaction of showing the War

Lord the annoying fragment of cinder which his skill had discovered and

extracted.

"May it please Your Majesty, it would be well to clear all the passages

by blowing air through them," he humbly suggested.

"Do all that's necessary, doctor."

Shrader produced another instrument fitted with a spiral trumpet and a

long rubber tube, and went to work vigorously. By the time the War Lord

was ready to leave the doctor laid down his microscope: "I congratulate

Your Majesty; no evidence of putrefaction, hence no gangrenous

inflammation."

"Who said there was?" demanded the War Lord severely.

"I meant to submit to Your Majesty that the ear will give no further

trouble."

"That's better," said Wilhelm in a pleasant voice. He strode through

the hall at such a pace that the chasseur had hardly time to open the

door for him.

The street was black with people. "Hochs!" resounded from a thousand

throats, basso, tenor, soprano, what not. A good many people had been

talking to Bertha--all at once, of course. "Prating of their

misfortunes--the usual racket," suggested the War Lord, with a look of

contempt, as he sat down beside the heiress. And when the carriage was

clear of the mob he added: "You ought to have walked the horses up and

down in the neighbourhood while I was with the doctor."

"I thought of that, likewise that the carriage might not have been on

hand when you wanted to start, Uncle Majesty. You told me the remark of

the French king: 'I almost waited,'" replied Fraulein Krupp.

Dr. Shrader had indeed relieved the Majesty, who felt fresh and buoyant

after the invigorating ride over the hills and along the

shooting-ranges. The latter, while fully manned, were silent, for the

chasseur had telephoned to Count Helmuth von Moltke, and the adjutant

had countermanded all trial practice.

"Let's look at 'old Fritz' again," said the War Lord, after

refreshments. Unlike Charles V., the War Lord is never awakened during

the night to swallow some favourite dish, but five meals a day are his

rule, and to revive his animal spirits he takes a number of raw eggs in

a glass of cognac after the slightest exertion, when at home, i.e. at

his own expense, while more substantial and elaborate provision is

expected at friends' houses.

At Villa Huegel he is never disappointed. Even if he brought those

"forty scientist friends" he once imposed upon Dom Carlos of Portugal,

poor man!--indeed, even if he asked Frau Krupp to lodge and feed a whole

regiment of gold-laced or fringe-trousered nobodies or impostors, there

would be the most generous response on her part and no questions asked.

"When I heard you were coming, Uncle Majesty, I planned a little

surprise," said Bertha, when showing the War Lord a short cut to "old

Fritz's" habitat. She led the way to a section of the armour-plate

department, whose employes burst into feverish activity at their

approach. No doubt they were expected.

"Eighty tons," said Bertha, pointing towards the huge crucible steel

block being placed under a giant hydraulic press.

"How will you move a cannon of that size?" queried the War Lord, who is

liable to get his figures mixed.

"But it is not going to be a cannon, Uncle Majesty," explained the

mistress of the works.

"You are going to roll it out into an armour-plate for Chimborazo,

then?"

"Once more Uncle Majesty is pleased to be mistaken."

"Maybe it's a statue of England's lord high admiral you are making?"

"Burning," said the smiling Bertha; "it has something to do with the

sea."

There was more guessing and repartee during the first half of the thirty

minutes required to coax and squeeze and handle and form the block and

drag its slow length along--150 feet of it. Seeing that, the War Lord

no longer could master his curiosity.

"What is it to be, Bertha?" he asked in a tone that would not be denied,

and the wonder is that he did not add the polite: "I command!" of

average Prussian bully ship.

"The shaft of a big steamer, Uncle Majesty; the biggest----"

"I know, I know," shouted the War Lord above the din of machinery, "for

Ballin. Wants to snatch the speed record from Bremen. Fetch the

superintendent, Bertha."

To the official, who was undecided whether he ought to drop dead with

devotion or burst with pride, he said in the tone of an ancient Father

of the Church: "Work of the utmost importance is entrusted to you--in a

measure you are the guardian of the Fatherland's supremacy at sea.

England is building a giant steamship to steal our speed record. Her

new ocean greyhound is to be ready for passenger service in 1907. Pray

to God fervently, asking Him to grant you success that you may help to

defeat the enemy of German commerce and our development as a sea power.

To assist in taking the blue ribbon of sea power away from Great Britain

should be the aim of all good Germans, even as it is your War Lord's

duty to secure for the Fatherland the ocean coast-lines she needs." He

dismissed the man with a wave of the hand.

It is interesting to note here that this speech was delivered a month

before Wilhelm met King Edward at Wilhelmshohe to spout "his sincere

wishes for a frank understanding with Great Britain" and for the

"desirability of common action" where German or British interests were

involved.

Meanwhile the shaft had been completed, a towering, solid mass, and the

War Lord, walking round it, remarked admiringly: "Fine, looks as if come

out of Vulcan's own smithy. What next?" he added, with his customary

impatience.

The young girl was anxious to show her familiarity with the business.

Had she not undergone much coaching by Franz for this very reason?

"Extracting the kernel," she answered, with an air of superiority.

"I should like to see the removal of the kernel," ordered the War Lord,

as if the idea were original with him. Bertha pulled his sleeve and

whispered again, after which Wilhelm admonished the superintendent:

"Take care that it comes out in one piece."

No doubt the man would have died of mortification if the well-known

"cussedness" of "inanimate objects" had played him a trick; but, luckily

for him, it refrained, which encourages the thought that the supposed

"inanimation" is not quite so hopeless after all. Maybe in this case

the "inanimate object" was intent upon beating the War Lord out of a

chance to scold and air his views on mechanics.

"Any more novelties?" asked Wilhelm, disappointed because the machinery

worked to perfection.

"The hydraulic shears are busy in the next shop," said Bertha.

There the War Lord saw sections of armour-plates for one of his

Dreadnoughts cut as if they were so many enormous Swiss cheeses.

"Some fine day," he commented, "we will mount one of these shears on the

Calais coast, and next to it a giant magnet." He paused, contemplating

the picture of his imagination.

"Yes, yes, Uncle Majesty!" cried the eager Bertha.

"The magnet," continued the War Lord, "will pull the English Dreadnought

fleet out of the Channel, and toss ship after ship over into the jaws of

the shears to be made mincemeat of. Fine heap of scrap-iron for you,

Bertha."

"But the sailors!" cried the young girl.

"_Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori_," declared the War Lord,

shrugging.

Next they looked at some enormous presses capable of bending

armour-plates to any shape desired. This amused the Majesty hugely. He

likes to bend men and things.

"Any shape desired?"

"Any Your Majesty will be pleased to command."

"Very well. Model one on the left half of my moustache."

The supervisor shouted orders and the machinery stopped for a little

while, then turned out the desired shape with photographic accuracy. But

the War Lord would not have it: "The point's missing," he declared.

"I leave it to Fraulein," murmured the superintendent, wincing under the

rebuke. And with the vivacity and carelessness of youth Bertha divined

the situation, and instantly came to her employe's rescue.

"Herr Grier is right; Your Majesty's moustaches are not trimmed alike.

The left one is much shorter."

Wilhelm put his hand up to his cheek. "So it is," he admitted

grudgingly. "I remember I set fire to it last night on the train

lighting a cigarette." This was addressed to Bertha. He was too small

a person to excuse his rudeness to the superintendent.

"There is a ninety-ton block of steel making. Would Uncle Majesty like

to see how it's done?" said Bertha, on the way back to Villa Huegel.

"Ninety tons! What a cannon that would make! Of course I would like to

see it."

Bertha led the way to the crucible works, where at that moment fifty

pairs of workers were engaged in carrying about on long bars white-hot

crucibles of metal. They were acting with the utmost precision, and one

shudders to think of the wounds and mutilation that would have ensued

had either one of them stumbled or been seized by sudden illness. As

each couple of men advanced and tilted the glowing mass into the mould,

the War Lord observed:

"Much too long-winded and laborious. I will talk to the

Director-General about that, Bertha."

And, turning to the supervisor, he demanded curtly: "The composition of

the mixture?"

The man bowed to the ground to hide his confusion, and once more Bertha

jumped into the breach.

"He doesn't know--nor do I. Secret formula of Grandfather Frederick.

Don't press him, Uncle Majesty, for even to speculate on these

technicalities means dismissal and disgrace for an employe." Though she

spoke in a pleading tone of voice, the War Lord continued to frown.

"Perhaps he is allowed to explain why no shorter process is used."

The supervisor fairly beamed with readiness and satisfaction. "May it

please Your Majesty, our way--I beg Fraulein's pardon, the Krupp way--is

the only absolutely sure method to forestall bubbles and flaws."

"And a flaw, is it a serious matter?" asked the War Lord, very much

alert.

"Indeed, Your Majesty, for it may cause the shattering of a shaft, the

breakdown of machinery, the bursting of cannon."

"And all cannon turned out by the works have the benefit of this

process?"

"All without exception, Your Majesty."

A bystander says he heard the War Lord mutter under his breath: "What

rot!" And there is a further report that he burst into the

Director-General's room, and roared: "Fine kettle of fish I discovered.

Guarding against flaws in cannon intended for enemy countries! Why not

turn over to France and England and Russia all the secret plans of the

German War Office?"

But no authoritative record of Wilhelm's sayings relating to this

particular point has been obtainable. As a matter of fact, it isn't

worth the pains of special research. It is to be noted, however, that

after the Turkish defeat at Lule Burgas and Kirk Kilisse Bertha's

husband was moved to say that the stories about the "inefficiency of

Krupp guns and Krupp workmanship" were "fables," and that he was ready

at any time "to take the field against all comers with Krupp guns and

Krupp armour."

After tea the War Lord had a long, serious talk with Frau Krupp.

Happily her ladyship had been mistaken. Bertha was not actually in love

with Franz; just a sort of sisterly attachment, momentarily intensified

by girlish longings. So much the better, since the right sort of

husband for his ward had been found: Doctor von Bohlen und Halbach, the

young diplomat, distinguished, well-bred, sound business head and

ambitious. "Highest ambition to serve his king."

"Supposing Your Majesty understood Bertha correctly with respect to

Franz, her change of heart does not mean that she will fall in love with

Your Majesty's candidate for her hand," said Frau Krupp.

"Preparing to jump," thought Wilhelm; "I wish Phili were here." And as

accident would have it, His Highness was announced that very moment.

Eulenburg, or Hohenzollern luck?

The Baroness opened her mouth to deny herself to the visitor on the plea

of unavoidable business, but Wilhelm got ahead of her. "The Prince is

most welcome," he said to the major-domo.

There is no denying that His Highness, ten or more years ago, was a

striking personality and had a peculiar charm. As Murat knew more about

the art of dressing than Napoleon, so Eulenburg overshadowed Wilhelm as

a glass of fashion, avoiding the latter's all-too-apparent striving for

effect and pretence.

Despite their close relations, he greeted Wilhelm without a trace of

familiarity and kissed Frau Krupp's hand.

"Just in time," cried the War Lord. "I was telling the Baroness about

the Chancellor's young friend, von Bohlen. Buelow told me he would ask

you to allow him sight of your records concerning the diplomat. Was he

satisfied? Tell us all you know about Bohlen?"

That he was well aware of Frau Krupp's loathing for him need not be

reiterated, and that in her ladyship's eyes praise from Sir Phili spelt

the worst of condemnation for the party approved of he fully realised,

and framed his answer accordingly:

"I am pained to acknowledge that I have no personal acquaintance with

the young man who rejoices in the great Pontiff's love and

friendship----"

"You have Pius's own opinion," cried the War Lord. His astonishment was

equalled only by his appreciation of the lie told.

"At Your Majesty's service--through the kindness of the papal legate.

When Majesty commissioned me to get reliable information about our

foreign representatives, I went to headquarters--may it please Your

Majesty."

"It pleases me immensely. What did the Pontiff say?"

"Exemplary habits, God-fearing, able and ambitious--these few words sum

up the Holy Father's estimate of Bohlen."

"Did you hear that?" asked Wilhelm, addressing Frau Krupp. "We will get

the details from Buelow." And turning to Phili, he said: "You wanted to

meet my ward. I will summon her, and she shall show you over the house

and grounds. Beats Liebenberg," he added in an undertone.

Phili beamed. "His Majesty is joking," he said to Frau Krupp. "To

compare my poor Tusculum to Villa Huegel and surroundings is to put my

Skalde songs next to the immortal ballads of Beranger."

Frau Krupp dared not object to Wilhelm's arrangements. She played into

the War Lord's hands.

"I will meet you and His Highness at the fountain in five minutes," she

told Bertha--a welcome cue to Uncle Majesty.

"Aside from the Pope's estimate, does the Chancellor himself approve of

Herr von Bohlen?" asked Frau Krupp.

"Enthusiastically. Bohlen's record in Washington and in Peking equalled

his success at the Holy See. _Gnaedige Frau_," added Wilhelm in a tone

of conviction, "let's hope that the estimable young man's heart is still

free. I have no doubt that he would be a _dieu-donne_ to Bertha,

yourself and--Essen."

"And Your Majesty desires me to broach the matter to my daughter?"

"What is _gnaedige Frau_ thinking of? Do you suppose I would have wooed

Augusta if I had known that Bismarck wanted me to marry her? No, no;

matters of that kind must be left to accident, or apparent accident.

This is the time for diplomatic furloughs. Tell me where you want to

take the girls on their holiday, and I will have your son-in-law-to-be

introduced quite casually. Buelow will manage."

"Bertha spoke of having another look into Rome before the hot season,"

said the Baroness.

"Fate," cried Wilhelm (if he was a Catholic he would have crossed

himself). "God's will," he corrected his lapsus _linguae_. "Herr von

Bohlen und Halbach will be ordered not to leave his post until further

notice. When you are in Rome he will present himself with Buelow's

compliments, offering to act as my ward's cicerone. This will give you

abundant opportunity for intimate observation and Bertha a chance to

fall in love if she cares.

"All's arranged, then," he added in the finality vein peculiar to his

nature, when he kissed Frau Krupp's hand at the door, which he had

opened for her. In the Teuton Majesty's eye this was a great and almost

overpowering act of condescension; the twentieth-century

Prussian-en-chef rather prides himself on such mannerisms, fondly

mistaking them for dignity.

Well satisfied with the success of his stratagem, Wilhelm rang for his

adjutant and dictated to him a long dispatch to the Chancellor, giving a

well-coloured version of the interview with Frau Krupp and instructing

Count Buelow how to answer the lady's forthcoming inquiries.

"The holiest of the holies, of course," ordered Wilhelm, referring to

the telegraphic code. "I don't trust these Essen fellows," he deigned

to explain; "the Chasseur shall take the message to Duesseldorf and

personally hand it to the President to be sent over the official wire."

Afterwards he joined the ladies and Phili, finishing up the day's

strenuous work of intrigue and sight-seeing with the talk to Franz,

recorded at the opening of this chapter.

Just before leaving Villa Huegel he had another _tete-a-tete_ with Frau

Krupp. "I have conferred signal honours on your protege" (meaning the

chief engineer), he said. "I am sending him to the States to study new

inventions and investigate patents relating to war materials--greatest

chance that ever came to a young man. If he does as well as I expect, I

will make him special representative of my General Staff. Is your

Ladyship satisfied now?"

Frau Krupp breathed her humblest thanks. What else could she do?

*CHAPTER XXV*

*A ROYAL LIAR*

High-Placed Plagiarists--Diplomatic Trickery--The Kaiser

Whitewashes Himself--"What of the German Navy?"--Clumsy

Espionage

_October 10th_, 1905, 6 _p.m._

The red disc betraying the War Lord's presence at the other end of the

wire thrust itself between the Chancellor's eyes and the copy of _Echo

de Paris_ he was reading.

"I command Bohlen," said Wilhelm's impatient voice.

"I am afraid he is not available just now, Your Majesty. Gone shopping

with his fiancee the last I heard."

"Order Wedell to find him. He shall be at the Chancellery at nine

sharp, when I expect to find you too, Prince."

"Gracing my wife's soiree?"

"Soiree to-night? Excellent! I will order all my boys to kiss Madame's

hand. It will put her into good humour, and she will the more readily

allow you to attend to business."

"And, Majesty," said Buelow, hopefully, "the Princess Maria is counting

on having the honour of Your Majesty's presence."

"I will send the insignia of _dell' Annunciata_ instead."

"I beg Your Majesty, don't. Maria might not remember that Charles XII.

sent his boots to preside at the Swedish Council of State."

As before remarked, it is one of Buelow's tricks always to have on the

tip of his tongue some historic _bon mot_ suitable to the occasion.

There was an outburst of rough laughter. "He did, did he? And yet they

called him the Madman of the North. Next time Herr Bebel has a

congress, I will send the Reds a pair of my riding breeches, and no new

ones either. But _revenons a_ Bohlen. Devil of a chap! Made Bertha

his goods, his chattel, his stuff, his field, his barn, his horse, his

ox, his ass, his everything! That's the way! Make them eat out of your

hand, Prince!"

Buelow was a Prince since the 6th of June, and the War Lord never tired

of calling him by the title of his own creation. He had just borrowed

boldly from the Bard, and the theft being apparently undiscovered by his

literary Chancellor, Wilhelm felt justified in relaxing his imperious

mien some more.

"Can't you prescribe a dose of sleeping sickness for that fool Liebert?

His shouting about 'our war' to obtain supreme sea power is

co-responsible for the _Entente Cordiale_. Of course I like to strike

terror into the hearts of the enemy, but in his Navy League speech

Liebert went too far. If he keeps it up, I shall put him on half-pay.

Tell him so." (The War Lord referred to General von Liebert,

ex-Governor of German East Africa, who had made a speech threatening

Great Britain and France.)

And more talk of that kind. The more gossipy, the better for Buelow, as

there had been no time to digest the _Echo de Paris_ article and to

enter into its discussion before he had fully made up his mind what to

say about the reported Anglo-Franco-Russo-Japanese Alliance. His

comments might lead to serious dissension with Majesty, for Wilhelm was

sure to fasten on to some supposed negligible point in the Chancellor's

argument to distort the whole tenor of his interpretation.

Tit for tat. Only when Buelow was the victim, there was no

prearrangement like in the case of the repudiations of the Joseph

Chamberlain and the London _Daily Telegraph_ interviews.

When in England five years before, the War Lord had prompted Mr.

Chamberlain to make his historic appeal in favour of co-operation

between Great Britain, Germany and the United States, assuring him that

Germany's future policy would rest on such an understanding as on a

_roche de bronze_.

Mr. Chamberlain, being under the impression that only gentlemen were

invited to Sandringham House, thought His Majesty sincere and gave

public utterance to the message, promising peace and mutual

understanding.

But the _Roi de Prusse_ had no sooner shaken the dust of England from

his boots than Buelow was ordered to repudiate the whole thing (without

directly impugning his Sovereign's word, of course) and to ridicule

Chamberlain's "Utopian schemes."

Notwithstanding, the then German Ambassador in London, Count

Wolff-Metternich, later had the impudence to complain to Sir F.

Lascelles, British representative in Berlin, that the state of English

opinion toward Germany and the British Foreign Office's coldness toward

the Wilhelmstrasse gave him considerable uneasiness; whereupon Sir

Lascelles demanded to know whether Germany expected British Secretaries

of State, having been struck in the face, were to turn the other cheek

for further castigation and insult?

Three years after the birth of the Quadruple Alliance, at which we are

now assisting, the War Lord and his Chancellor had another repudiation

game between them. Mr. Harcourt having prepared the way in his amazing

Lancashire speech,[#] Wilhelm strove to outdo the Father of Lies in the

notorious _Daily Telegraph_ interview, the general theme of which was:

[#] Mr. Harcourt's speech in Lancashire, October, 1908: "I wil not offer

to other nations the temptation which would be afforded by a defenceless

England, but let me assure you ... there has not been any period in the

last ten or fifteen years--and I speak with knowledge and a sense of

deep responsibility--in which our relations with Germany--commercial,

colonial, political, and dynastic--have been on a firmer and more

friendly footing than they are to-day.

"Our rivalries are only in trade and education, and though I should

claim for us the supremacy of the former, I would yield to Germany the

palm for perfection in the latter; but of personal animosity there is

none between the rulers, the Governments, or the peoples. And if in

either country there is a small class of publicists who, for selfish and

unpatriotic ends, desire to set the nations at variance--well, they are

the footpads of politics and the enemies of the human race."

"You English are mad, mad--mad as March hares. What has come over you

that you are so completely given over to suspicions quite unworthy of a

great nation? What more can I do than I have done? I declared with all

the emphasis at my command, in my speech at Guildhall, that my heart is

set upon peace, and that it is one of my dearest wishes to live on the

best of terms with England. Have I ever been false to my word?

Falsehood and prevarication are alien to my nature.

"My actions ought to speak for themselves, but you listen, not to them,

but to those who misinterpret and distort them. That is a personal

insult which I feel and resent. To be for ever misjudged, to have my

repeated offers of friendship weighed and scrutinised with jealous,

mistrustful eyes, taxes my patience severely. I have said time after

time that I am a friend of England, and your Press--or, at least, a

considerable section of it--bids the people of England refuse my

proffered hand, and insinuates that the other holds a dagger.

"I repeat that I am the friend of England, but you make things difficult

for me. My task is not of the easiest. The prevailing sentiment of

large sections of the middle and the lower classes of my country is not

friendly to England. I am therefore, so to speak, in a minority in my

own land.

"It is commonly believed in England that throughout the South African

War Germany was hostile to her. German opinion undoubtedly was

hostile--bitterly hostile. The Press was hostile; private opinion was

hostile. But what of official Germany? Let my critics ask themselves

what brought to a sudden stop, and indeed caused the absolute collapse

of the European tour of the Boer delegates who were striving to obtain

European intervention? They were feted in Holland; France gave them a

rapturous welcome. They wished to come to Berlin where the German

people would have crowned them with flowers. But when they asked me to

receive them I refused. The agitation immediately died away, and the

delegation returned empty-handed. Was that, I ask, the action of a

secret enemy?

"Again, when the struggle was at its height, the German Government was

invited by the Governments of France and Russia to join with them in

calling upon England to put an end to the war. The moment had come,

they said, not only to save the Boer Republics, but also to humiliate

England to the dust. What was my reply? I said that, so far from

Germany joining in any concerted European action to put pressure upon

England and bring about her downfall, Germany would always keep aloof

from politics that could bring her into complications with a Sea Power

like England.

"Posterity will one day read the exact terms of the telegram--now in the

archives at Windsor Castle--in which I informed the Sovereign of England

of the answer I had returned to the Powers which then sought to compass

her fall. Englishmen who now insult me by doubting my word should know

what were my actions in the hour of their adversity.

"Nor was that all. Just at the time of your Black Week, in December of

1899, when disasters followed one another in rapid succession, I

received a letter from Queen Victoria, my revered grandmother, written

in sorrow and affliction, and bearing manifest traces of the anxieties

which were preying upon her mind and health. I at once returned a

sympathetic reply. Nay, I did more. I bade one of my officers procure

for me as exact an account as he could obtain of the number of

combatants in South Africa on both sides, and of the actual position of

the opposing forces.

"With the figures before me I worked out what I considered to be the

best plan of campaign under the circumstances, and submitted it to my

General Staff for their criticism. Then I dispatched it to England, and

that document, likewise, is among the State papers at Windsor Castle,

awaiting the serenely impartial verdict of history.

"And, as a matter of curious coincidence, let me add, that the plan

which I formulated ran very much on the same lines as that which was

actually adopted by Lord Roberts, and carried by him into successful

operation. Was that, I repeat, the act of one who wished England ill?

Let Englishmen be just.

"But you will say, what of the German Navy? Surely that is a menace to

England. Against whom but England are my squadrons being prepared? If

England is not in the minds of those Germans who are bent on creating a

powerful fleet, why is Germany asked to consent to such new and heavy

burdens of taxation? My answer is clear. Germany is a young and growing

empire. She has a world-wide commerce, which is rapidly expanding and

to which the legitimate ambition of patriotic Germans refuses to assign

any bounds.

"Germany must have a powerful fleet to protect that commerce and her

manifold interests in even the most distant seas. She expects those

interests to go on growing, and she must be able to champion them

manfully in any quarter of the globe. Germany looks ahead. Her

horizons stretch far away. She must be prepared for any eventualities

in the Far East. Who can foresee what may take place in the Pacific in

the days to come, days not so distant as some believe, but days at any

rate for which all European Powers with Far Eastern interests ought

steadily to prepare?

"Look at the accomplished rise of Japan; think of the possible national

awakening of China; and then judge of the vast problems of the Pacific.

Only those Powers which have great navies will be listened to with

respect, when the future of the Pacific comes to be solved; and if for

that reason only, Germany must have a powerful fleet. It may be that

even England herself will be glad that Germany has a fleet when they

speak together on the same side in the momentous debates of the future."

When the interview set the world guessing, disputing, imputing and

passing the lie freely, Prince Buelow again disavowed his master, with

His Majesty's consent and at his instigation, of course, otherwise the

fate of Bismarck would have seemed much too good for the obstreperous

servant.

But to return to the 10th of October, 1905, 6 P.M. While the

Chancelleries of all Europe were quaking with deliberations on the

Anglo-Russian _rapprochement_ in connection with the Anglo-Japanese

Alliance, the War Lord's chief minister spent an anxious _quart d'heure_

trying to convince His Majesty that he was not intriguing against one of

the numerous Eulenburg-maggots, fattening in the public cheese,

Limburger brand.

Majesty, it seems, was deeply concerned about a certain titled member of

the German Embassy in London who had befouled his record by spying.

This pretty gentleman attended the Essex manoeuvres in the fall of 1904,

notebook in hand, and sent elaborate reports, accompanied by sketches

and diagrams, to the Berlin General Staff, acting the part of Secret

Service agent no less treacherously, but rather more clumsily, than the

German aristocrat who was convicted at Edinburgh in 1911.

Subsequently, of course, no British Army officer could afford to know

this individual, and Mayfair, too, showed a decided inclination to cut

dead the _chevalier d'espionnage_.

"Quite naturally!" Prince Buelow saved himself by adding: "From the

English standpoint."

The telephone fairly "zizzled" as the War Lord shouted back:

"What? Ostracise a man who has done nothing but his ---- duty toward me

and the Fatherland. Intolerable! ----!! He must be reinstated in

clubs and Society. He must be able to hold up his head in Piccadilly as

proudly as in Unter den Linden. I command it. Speak to Lascelles about

it, and have this boycott ended at once.

Of course Buelow promised--with his left hand on his back, which, as

explained, allows a good German to vow one thing and mean another.

*CHAPTER XXVI*

*EXPLAINING "THE DAY"*

The True Wilhelm--The War Lord is Angry--More

Disclosures--Buelow Sums Up--Dreams of Conquest--The Subjugation

of England--Peace Must Wait on War--The New Big Gun--von Bohlen

is Dense

Prince Buelow emptied a small phial of double-distilled extract of eau

de Cologne on his handkerchief, for a message from the palace said that

the War Lord's ear trouble had again become acute, and that,

consequently, all windows and doors must be hermetically shut during his

visit at the Chancellery. Again he was called up. Wilhelm had

dismissed his Chasseur, with a record of twenty years' faithful service,

because the man kept the carriage door open while he asked whether a

hot-water bag was wanted. "Instanter!" Wouldn't suffer him to take his

place on the box again.

"Pleasant evening in store for us, Herr von Bohlen," said the Prince to

Bertha's fiance.

He rang for his adjutant. "You would not like to go back to

Brandenburg?" he began pleasantly.

"Nor to any other provincial hole, Your Highness," answered the Baron

Reiff, clicking his heels together.

"In that case see that His Majesty does not complain of draughts while

here."

The adjutant raised a hand to his left ear. Buelow nodded. "I will have

to hold you responsible, Reiff," he said in tones of unwonted severity.

The Chancellor's palace was _en fete_. The brilliantly lit corridors

and stairs were alive with guests, eager to pay homage to Princess

Maria: Scions of Royalty and mere beggar counts, as the great Frederick

used to style poor nobles; masters of statecraft and prima donnas;

generals and blue-blooded cornets, courtiers and members of the

hierarchy. And as many lackeys in blue and silver as visitors.

Most of the guests longed for sight of the Chancellor, and would have

given much to have a peep at the room where Bismarck bullied and ruled

Europe, but the glass doors leading to the grand garden salon were

guarded inside and out by Secret Service men, while Baron Reiff flitted

to and fro, scrutinising faces and keeping an eye on everybody.

In the grand salon of the Bel Etage, Enrico Caruso was exchanging notes

of purity for the immaculate ones of the Bank of England, when the siren

of the royal automobile cried shame on Verdi. Three blasts and a half.

Her Highness's master of ceremony, at the foot of the staircase, rapped

frantically; the doorkeeper rushed forward with an enormous umbrella,

though the sky was clear; Baron Reiff looked daggers, and conversation

was cut as by the executioner's axe.

Narrow lips frozen together under a carroty-greyish moustache with

points threatening the white of his eyes; face a dead yellow; a

masterful, defiant chin thrust forward; eyes flashing, but dark of

aspect in general appearance despite his white, red and silver

accoutrements, the War Lord strode into the Chancellor's room.

He looked so stony, a stranger both to joy and pity, that Herr von

Bohlen told Bertha afterwards that the War Lord seemed, to him, like a

man whose veins were clogged with salt and clay instead of running warm

blood.

A stiff, mechanical salute, squaring of shoulders, inflating of chest,

pecking at the two men, who nearly bent double. Wilhelm acted as if his

spine were paralysed. No graven image of his own design appears

stiffer, more jointless. Somebody has likened him to a coloured plate

out of a book of etiquette. He certainly looked it, for etiquette

taboos smiles, real courtesy, humanity itself.

While his eyes swept the room, the silver helmet came crashing down on a

table. He would have given much to discover reasons for complaint, and

Prince Buelow's precautions against draughts discomforted him more than

his negligence would have done; it robbed him of the chance for flying

into a passion.

"Pretty goings on at Downing Street and Quai d'Orsay," he snarled.

"Yesterday it was Kiau-chau. To-day it's German Belgium and Northern

France they ask. Any additional insults since then?"

"All the dispatches are in Your Majesty's hands," replied the

Chancellor, looking significantly at Herr von Bohlen.

"Report." If the Lord of Statecraft and gentleman born and bred,

Chancellor and Prince, had been a thieving valet, Wilhelm could not have

spoken with more contemptuous severity.

"Will Your Majesty be pleased to be seated?" This with another

questioning look at Bertha's fiance. Prince von Buelow had more than a

little respect for the dignity of his office.

"Without reserve," muttered the War Lord, dropping into an arm-chair.

"I want him to know, and knowing, to understand the imperativeness of

his duties as head of the Krupp works. Report, sir."

The Chancellor, who wore Hussar uniform with the insignia of

Major-General and more decorations than the most beloved of cotillon

favourites at 2 A.M., bowed ceremoniously, then stood bolt upright and

somewhat constrainedly.

"May it please Your Majesty," he began, weighing a parcel of dispatches

in his hand, but not looking at them. "The Paris disclosures just made

seem to be the direct outcome of the friendly understanding between

Great Britain and France----"

"The abortion called _Entente Cordiale_," interrupted the War Lord--a

red rag to a bull already wounded.

The Chancellor continued: "The British assume that we are planning the

destruction of France, and, that accomplished, the invasion of England.

British statesmen recognise that the French army is no match for ours,

that even with the assistance of the English Yeomanry----"

"Miserable hirelings, whom the German Boers thrashed four years in

succession," cried Wilhelm, rising and stamping his foot.

"Even with their assistance Germany would remain supreme on land,"

resumed Prince Buelow. "Hence Quai d'Orsay's overtures to Downing

Street: Paralyse German land supremacy by supremacy on sea, and----"

"Steal my colonies, that's their game," thundered the War Lord,

addressing Bohlen. "Do you know what that means, sir? That the

Hohenzollern wouldn't have a stone to lay his head on when the Reds have

their way. To me colonies are entailed estates, on which to fall back

when the civil list at home fails us. Suppose Germany--which God

forbid--turned republic. Off we are to Africa like a shot, there to

await our chance to return at the proper time. And there won't be any

doffing the chapeau to the mob if we do come back, I warrant you."[#]

[#] In March, 1848, Frederick Wilhelm IV., Wilhelm's grand-uncle, was

ordered by the Berlin revolutionists to come out on the balcony and to

salute when the victims of his soldiery were carried past the castle.

He bowed obsequiously--an act that is gall and wormwood to the War Lord.

Hence it is permissible in the Fatherland to call Frederick Wilhelm IV.

an ass--no more or less. An editor who called him a mouse-coloured ass

got three months for his pains.

"It must be conceded, though," said the Chancellor, with a conciliatory

smile, "that the British are profoundly pacific and that there is no

itch for war in the Island Kingdoms. If ever there was, it lies buried

somewhere on the African veld. Neither is France likely to provoke war."

"She knows better," cried Wilhelm. "French women don't want children."

"So much for the _Entente Cordiale_," continued Prince Buelow--the War

Lord had sat down on the edge of a table, swinging his right leg to and

fro--"British statesmanship contending that Europe needs a strong

France, and that a blow struck at France is a blow aimed at England."

"Donnersmarck's talk. If it was not for his money and his age, I would

muzzle the old fool. But as I told him only the other day, he will be

punished sure enough."

Donnersmarck is a Prince of the War Lord's creation, better known by his

hereditary title of Count Henckel. The family achieved the lower grades

of nobility at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and has always

been noted for considerable landed possessions. Prince Guido is one of

the richest men on the Continent, and the King of Prussia sometimes uses

him as a speaking tube, never scrupling of course to disavow his

utterances when it suits the Majesty-souffleur. In the disclosures

referred to, Donnersmarck and Professor Schiemann had boldly announced

in Paris that, if France contracted an alliance with England, Germany

would fall upon her, crush her and exact a staggering indemnity, enough

to pay for all damage the British fleet could possibly do to the German

merchant marine and trade.

These threats were not repudiated at the time (the latter half of June)

and the War Lord had considered them quite legitimate clubs for pounding

French opinion while the _Entente Cordiale pourparlers_ were on.

Professor Schiemann is a publicist, a historian and a lecturer on

military academics. He is held responsible for some of the

misinformation on historic topics the War Lord frequently betrays in his

public utterances.

"We now come to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance," said Prince Buelow.

"Aiming at Kiau-chau," finished the War Lord grimly.

"Which Your Majesty's foresight will preserve for the Fatherland,"

declaimed Buelow, who ought to have been a great courtier instead of an

indifferent chancellor. But the War Lord was not in the mood for

compliments. He was out to smash things.

"By Heaven!" he vowed, "I would rather turn the Pacific and the Yellow

Seas into Red Seas and exterminate those brown devils to the last than

allow a stone to be touched in my glorious colony of Kiau-chau."

"Spoken like an emperor," seconded Buelow. Then, with a look at the

clock: "May it please Your Majesty, I would submit that our young friend

here must not be misled by the statements in the Press. I have here a

copy of the agreement, stating clearly that the Alliance becomes

operative only by reason of attack or aggressive action resulting in war

against either England or Japan."

"Words, words!" cried the War Lord contemptuously. "I suppose Herr von

Bohlen's heard of Bismarck's editing of the Ems dispatch! But proceed."

Buelow cleared his throat before he approached the momentary _cause

celebre_.

"To-day it is reported from Paris, Tokyo, London and Petersburg--in the

leading journals, though not officially--that a quadruple alliance is

about to be ratified, terminating once and for all the seemingly

interminable quarrels between Great Britain and Russia, and drawing each

empire's own ally into close relations with the other: Britain's ally,

Japan, automatically becomes Russia's ally, while Russia's

brother-in-arms, France, becomes England's, and all four have agreed to

defend either when driven to war by unprovoked attack."

"Four to three," mused the War Lord gloomily, "and number three as

unreliable as a girl with nerves."

"Majesty is pleased to forget Turkey."

"What's an ally without a navy in a conflict with Great Britain?"

demanded Wilhelm. "That old thief, Abdul, rather invests in Circassian

beauties than cruisers. But" (impatiently) "sum up, Buelow, sum up!"

The Prince resumed his lecture: "It is argued that Japan, being bound to

give military support to Great Britain under certain eventualities, is

of course interested in maintaining amicable relations between the other

three empires and joined as a logical consequence of her alliance with

England."

"England, always England," cried the War Lord. "Ostertag writes that it

was on the advice of England that the fortifications of Antwerp and the

Meuse were strengthened before and after the Morocco trouble."

(Ostertag, German military attache at the Court of St. James's.)

"Bohlen," he continued abruptly, "is there anything in the situation

that is not quite clear to you?"

The Councillor of Legation with the bulldog jaw and the cruel eyes

answered modestly, but firmly: "May it please Your Majesty, I think I

understand fully."

"Then you also understand what is expected of you as future head of the

Krupp works," quoth the War Lord, laying his heavy right hand on

Bohlen's shoulder.

"To obey Your Majesty's instructions and carry them out as a Prussian

officer should."

The only great king Prussia boasts, Frederick, said on his death-bed: "I

am tired of ruling slaves." His successor would have his Prime Minister

_une ame damnee_, and never tires of telling about his "great, his

inestimable reward" to a sentinel who murdered a man. The latter was

drunk, German fashion, and did not at once respond to the sentinel's

"Who goes there?" Bang, bang popped the sentinel's gun, and the man in

mufti was ready for the undertaker.

"Next day, while a vile Press was assailing the soldier," said the War

Lord, "I had him called before the ranks, promoted him, decorated him

and, as a supreme honour, shook him by the hand."

"Obey Your Majesty's instructions." The War Lord, who would tell the

Deity what to do, had expected as much of course, but Bohlen's evident

sincerity, nay, enthusiasm, was not to be despised, particularly since

it outweighed the latent fear that, after all, Bertha, when of age,

might elect to take the bit between her teeth and make trouble.

"My advice and commands shall never fail you," said Wilhelm, with the

air of a great Lord conferring L500 for life upon a dustman. "Now to

Germany's aims--the grand future in store for her under my guidance.

When you know my plans, you will begin to realise the magnitude of the

work expected of Essen--of you."

"At Your Majesty's orders," saluted von Bohlen.

The War Lord was too excited to accept the gilded and crowned arm-chair

Buelow offered, thereby obliging the older man in tight-fitting

accoutrements and high boots to remain standing. "We must have an

adequate seaboard," he poured forth; "the waters between the English,

French and Belgian coasts and the harbours, fortresses and towns

commanding that area will do for a start. That means Calais and Dover,

Portsmouth and Boulogne, Antwerp and perhaps Havre, for Germany's future

lies on the water, as I have said time and again, and those few miles of

wet element circumscribe the focus of the world's trade, which must be

ours by reason of superior military, scientific and commercial

achievements--by our Kultur."

"Your Majesty orders a further extension of the Germania shipyards,"

submitted Bohlen.

"Everything in time," corrected the War Lord. "We may lay down ships as

fast as our utmost resources permit, or faster. Still those confounded

English can beat us. A great navy we will have, of course a greater and

a better one even than the skunks of the London gutter Press credit my

imagination with, but not to be knocked to bits. We will keep it safe,

and at the end of the war will augment it by the French fleet and the

fleets of the minor countries. Then good-bye for ever, British Sea

Power!

"Of course," continued Wilhelm, "the French and Belgians will have to be

forced before they recognise my claims to those parts of their territory

that formerly belonged to Germany. Flanders is German to the core, Liege

and Limburg provinces were never anything but German, while the southern

half of the Netherlands belonged to Germany since Charles the Fat, even

as Alsace and Lorraine. Franche Comte is German of course, and Toul and

Verdun were once German Free Cities like Metz."

As he dilated on his claims the War Lord grabbed a walking-stick leaning

against von Buelow's desk, and tapped and stabbed at the map of Europe

on the wall, puncturing and piercing it in places he particularly

coveted.

"Montbeliard," he continued, "is Moempelgard, an old-time apanage of

Wuertemberg. My title to the principality of Orange is more legitimate

than King Edward's as Emperor of India, and who will deny that Bourgogne

is German Burgund, and that the original Burgunders came from the Mark

and West Prussia? Not to have inserted Duc de Bourgogne in the grand

title of the _roi de Prusse_ is a mistake, for which its maker ought to

be kicked."

He had nearly ruined the map, when his fury changed to an attitude of

calm deliberation. With an air of magnanimity, he said: "However, as to

France, I am willing to exchange these inland territories for the coast

departments, from Dieppe to Dunkirk, provided we do not find it

necessary, from a strategic standpoint, to annex Havre too."

He paused, and von Buelow tried to curry favour by suggesting: "Your

Majesty intends the absolute conquest of France?"

"As a preliminary to the subjugation of England," said the War Lord

solemnly.

"I am half-English myself," he continued, "and have no illusions

whatever as to Great Britain's submission. After our victory the

Wilhelmstrasse and Downing Street will have to enter into a gentleman's

agreement: Myself, Admiral of the Atlantic; the United Kingdom to retain

home-rule; Germany to be confirmed in the possession of the whole

Continental shore of the Straits of Dover and in that of the French and

Belgian Colonies; we, on the other hand, to guarantee England's

occupation of India.

"Now to the part Essen will play in the coming upheaval."

Wilhelm was facing von Bohlen, and took hold of a button of his

silver-braided Hussar jacket, the button nearest the throat. If he had

intended to throttle Bertha's future husband, his grip and mien could

not have been more menacing.

"We will probably have less than ten years to prepare; it's time that

you get to work, young man," he said. "How do you stand with Bertha?

Has she agreed to leave business to you?"

"Everything, according to Your Majesty's wishes. She promised me only

to-day. We have divided our kingdom. I to be regent of the works under

Your Majesty's guidance; Bertha to devote herself exclusively to social

work and charities."

"Approved," said Wilhelm like a schoolmaster handing out diplomas.

"When is the wedding to be?"

"May it please Your Majesty, we fixed on the second week of October next

year."

"It doesn't please me a bit. Why lose so much time postponing?"

"Her ladyship will not have Bertha marry before her twentieth birthday."

"The Baroness, of course," cried the War Lord, with an oath. "When it

comes to doing things, there is always a woman in the way. But I will

thwart her. You shall take virtual, if not active, control of the Krupp

works at once. Your resignation as my Councillor of Legation is

accepted as from to-day," he added, with a look at Buelow.

The Chancellor smiled. "I submit that Herr von Bohlen is entitled to

six months' leave of absence."

"Six months for making yourself solid with my ward, and prepare for the

greatest job ever entrusted to one man," decided the War Lord. "Now

listen:

"I've already told you that I will hack my way to Calais and crush

France absolutely. Essen's business, then, is to make all so-called

works of peace wait upon the necessities of war--all, everything I say.

Is that clear?"

"We are to attend only to orders from the German General Staff," replied

von Bohlen.

"They come first, of course," said the War Lord, "but foreign orders for

guns and ammunition must also be attended to if Berlin so advises. On

that point there will be special instructions. But it's only the

beginning--an obvious one, and the Krupp's have always been more than

equal to regular demands from my War Office. However, in future these

are sure to increase immeasurably, out of all proportion both in size

and in variety."

Exhausted by the intense mobility of his ideas, the War Lord abruptly

threw himself into the armchair, held in readiness for him by the

obsequious Buelow, crossed his legs and struck a match. He carried it

to his lips, holding it there; then, having burnt his fingers and

moustache, dropped it, cursing madly. He now took a cigarette out of

the silver gilt box offered him for the tenth time or oftener, but was

too busy to light it.

"Krupp," he said, "I mean Bohlen--Krupp von Bohlen, a good name, we'll

stick to it--Krupp, I want you to make me a gun capable of mowing down

Dover Castle from Calais. Can't be done? It will have to be done!" And

he brought his fist down on the table with a bang.

"I looked in at the Photographic Society the other day," he proceeded,

"and saw an Adolf Menzel photo enlarged five times the original size.

The operator just extended a piece of framework. I don't suppose it's

quite as easy to double or treble the size or range of cannon, but the

mind and energy now experimenting with my new twelve-inch howitzer

should be capable of turning out a seventeen-inch or twenty-inch

howitzer, and that's what you will have to do, Krupp."

The ex-Councillor of Legation, just renamed, bowed low. "I assure Your

Majesty that, as head of the Krupp works, I will not rest until such a

war machine is produced," he vowed.

"And take my word that I won't let you go to sleep." The War Lord's

tone was a cross between banter and threat, but its brutal meaning was

photographed on the speaker's face. "You will now make your bow to

Madame la Princess," he continued, pulling out his watch: "Return in

fifteen minutes.

"Bertha's husband must not know everything at the start," he said, when

the door closed behind Krupp von Bohlen. "As to that twelve-inch

howitzer, I did not have a chance to talk to you about my recent

clandestine visit to Meppen, where we had the final test. The

twelve-inch howitzer quite suffices for Calais if the plans for longer

range guns miscarry or war comes quicker than we calculated. At Calais,

you know, the Channel narrows to a width of twenty-two and a half miles,

and the new twelve-incher covers fourteen miles."

"That means Kent is safe for the present," the Chancellor made bold to

comment.

"It is easy to see that you are a general of cavalry and not of

artillery," he was immediately corrected, "else you would perceive that

a howitzer of the range given, planted at Calais, will allow our

warships to advance within eight and a half miles of the English coast

and pound everything into muck and pulp there. Where--what will your

Kent be then? A heap of rubbish and scrap-iron!"

"I presume Tirpitz is satisfied that there can be no blockade?"

"We will guard against that by mine fields and destroyers, submarines,

cruisers, scouts and Zeppelins," explained Wilhelm. "Old Zep's _Echte_"

(alluding to the cigar-like shape of Zeppelins) "will be as safe in our

French harbours--for we will probably take Havre and Dieppe at the same

time as Calais--as in Kiel Canal."

The War Lord was going strong on technical details when the return of

Krupp von Bohlen was announced.

"So the ladies dismissed you!" he cried, at the same time unbending

enough to ask von Buelow to be seated, while the younger man must remain

standing. "Got the howitzer-Calais-Dover question pat, have you not?

Well, the twenty-three miles' range gun is only one of the achievements

you owe me and the Fatherland. In addition, the Krupp works and

associated interests must extend their facilities for mines and

mine-laying a hundred-fold, for we will have to cut Portsmouth and

Plymouth off from the North Sea and provide safety zones for our

warships the whole breadth of the Channel.

"Thirdly, Essen will have to turn out submarines at a much faster rate

than your firm is doing now; have to arm the numerous forts we will set

up along the French-Belgian coast with the heaviest of artillery, and

furnish air fleets to prosecute a guerilla war against English trade

and--stomachs."

Von Bohlen looked puzzled. He had imbibed enough of the Krupp spirit to

encourage him in the belief that he might rival an earthquake as a

destroyer of life and property, but his ambition had never extended to

interference with other people's digestion.

"Explain, Buelow," ordered the War Lord, considering it beneath his

dignity to give information on so trifling a subject.

"His Majesty refers, of course, to the disturbance of England's food

supplies. Unlike Germany, Great Britain cannot feed herself, being

dependent for the sustenance of the inner man on imports. And these His

Majesty intends to stop by the means referred to."

"And, speaking of aircraft, you must provide means for bringing airships

down," continued the War Lord, "for there is every indication that the

enemy will attempt to fight our aerial fire with ditto fire, especially

the French. The slow English will fall behind, of course." Abruptly:

"Have you got any ideas to offer in that line?"

"Not at the moment," confessed von Bohlen; "but I will ask Bertha to

lend me her most enterprising constructor of light ordnance and the

airship expert. They will be given three months for experiments."

The War Lord nodded. "Not half bad, but offer a premium if the question

is solved within three weeks."[#]

[#] Neither three weeks nor three months nor three years sufficed, and

Krupp's balloon-gun, mounted on automobile carriages, is one of the

latest additions to the German artillery. It is effective at about 7,000

yards, and throws projectiles weighing 12 lb. Its dead weight of 11,000

lb. operates against its usefulness in the field, but it is well adapted

to forts and fortresses. This gun can describe a complete circle in the

horizontal plane and can fire vertically.

He rose. "More of this in a day or two, after I have seen Moltke,

Tirpitz and old Zep. In the meantime remember this: Super is the thing.

We must have super-guns, super-submarines, super-aircraft--ordinary arms

will not do in the struggle to come. Our enemies are ordinary men,

fighting with ordinary means, while we are supermen bent on superhuman

effort, and consequently need super-arms."

He turned from Bohlen. "Announce me to the Princess Maria," he

commanded Buelow.

*CHAPTER XXVII*

*BERTHA'S WEDDING DAY*

Krupp Hospitality--A Nasty Custom--"Old Fritz at Play--The Bride

Arrayed--Abdul's Present--The Wedding Service--A Glimpse of

Essen

On October the 15th, 1906, Bertha Krupp was married, and, presto!

Wilhelm jumped into the saddle: Krupp _en croupe_ was meant for both the

heiress and her husband-to-be.

To be sure, Essen was _en fete_ for the War Lady and Gustav. For them

flags and garlands and paper flowers. Rivers and oceans of paper

flowers! They recalled Unter den Linden when some yellow or brown, or

maybe a white, majesty is expected to make his state entry through the

Brandenburg Gate. And almost as many girls in white as paper flowers on

lantern posts and over doorways, while every boy had his face and his

hands washed, and all the professors and directors wore their locks in

curls.

To-day all victims of Moloch labour, of burns and crashing irons, of

scaffolds that gave way and mountains of steel a-tremble, of engines

gone wrong and cars off the track, and a thousand and one other

accidents connected with work, were freshly shaved and voluble of their

sufferings and Fraulein's kindness. Johann gave a leg to prevent

bubbles in the casting of a royal Prussian cannon, and Fraulein bought

him an artificial one, offering this advantage over the real article: he

might throw it at his wife when nettled. Heinrich had lost the sight of

an eye in the service of the works, and Fraulein not only procured him a

glass one, but added a steel pince-nez that made him look like a

twopenny clerk. And Mariechen and Maertchen had good jobs in the

ammunition shops, since their husbands were killed in an earth-slide at

the Germania shipyards near Kiel--"Fraulein looks after everything and

everybody." In short, city and country-side, town hall and hospital,

the well-to-do and the poor, old and young, the joyous and the lame and

the halt--all looked their best in Bertha's honour and acted

_gemuetlich_-like (which was mostly noise) in Bertha's honour--when the

War Lord came into sight!

Once upon a time the War Lady had been sternly admonished not to bring

more than three attendants on her state visit to Berlin; in repaying

that visit--for his intervening comings to Essen were more or less

impromptu or on business--the War Lord brought twenty times three,

sixty: personal friends, courtiers, generals and army officers.

When, years before, he inflicted two-thirds of this number on King

Christian, the Continent stood aghast at his inconsiderate impudence,

for the Copenhagen Court was notoriously poor then. But Bertha was his

ward and was under his thumb, and, besides, had "money to burn."

So he embraced this opportunity for paying off old debts by inviting to

Essen a number of nobles whose hospitality he had enjoyed, for there

they would be more sumptuously lodged and dined and wined than at his

own house.

The call to Villa Huegel was snapped up by all who could crowd into the

Imperial train, for Krupp hospitality is proverbial in the Fatherland's

mansions and country houses; and the Prussian aristocrat, living at home

on superannuated venison, herrings and potatoes, washed down by diluted

fusel-oil called Schnapps, likes nothing better than to gorge himself at

the expense of persons whose lack of rank precludes dreaded return

visits.

Savings in the household exchequer weigh heavy enough with the War Lord

to put him into royal good humour, but the limelight radiating from

Essen, because the richest girl on the planet married a poor but capable

man, was the main thing, of course. For the Wolff Bureau, that feeds

the Continental Press with "pap" about "All Highest" doings and with

governmental lies, would mention Wilhelm and his myrmidons twenty times

as often as the bride and groom.

There would be--as a matter of fact, there were beforehand--long-winded

litanies about the War Lord's love for his ward and his surpassing

efficiency as a guardian; his consummate wisdom in the selection of a

husband for Bertha; the unheard-of increase in the value of the Krupp

property under Wilhelm's guidance--columns of that sort of symphony to

Imperial ears.

And the War Lord's show: State coach and six, forty more horses from the

royal stables, one hundred flunkeys, and the "great surprise!"--but that

did not come off. "That woman wouldn't stand it."

When the War Lord was shown into Frau Krupp's boudoir he beamed most

graciously. "I cannot make Bertha a Royal Princess," he said, "but I

will treat her like one. How many guests have we?"

"In the villa a little over three hundred, Your Majesty."

"Well, I had a thousand ribbons printed--have the rest distributed among

the loyal people. But let the police do it, as there is sure to be a

terrible scramble for these souvenirs, and we don't want the Moscow

tragedy repeated." (He referred to the crushing and killing of hundreds

of men, women and children at the People's Festival during the Tsar's

coronation.)

Meanwhile the Master of Ceremonies had opened the silver-gilt casket

filled with layers upon layers of pieces of white ribbon, about one inch

broad by five long. There was a baronial crown above the letter "B" at

the top, and gold fringe at the bottom.

The Baroness turned purple at the sight, but her son-in-law pulled her

sleeve in time. "Mamma will arrange with His Excellency," he said; and

the unsuspecting War Lord got busy with one of his quintette of meals,

served to him separately.

"An unheard-of honour," pleaded Herr Krupp von Bohlen, who had followed

Her Ladyship into an inner room, as he dangled one of the garter-ribbons

before her eyes.

"I call it a nasty, indecent custom, and my daughter will have none of

it," replied Frau Krupp hotly.

Krupp von Bohlen looked both hurt and indignant. "Pardon me, madam, the

customs of our Royal Family must not be spoken of in that style where I

am. And what is deemed honourable for Royal Prussian Princesses can but

add dignity and renown to a subject favoured like one of them."

"If an announcement of that kind is considered fair and decent in royal

circles," angrily replied Frau Krupp, "it is their affair; as to the

daughter of the Baroness von Ende, she would blush to think of such a

custom."

Krupp von Bohlen advanced his chin an inch more.

"Matters affecting the Royal Family are beyond discussion," he said

haughtily, "and if you ever again approach the subject, please remember

that I am a Prussian officer. But that aside. His Majesty has

graciously commanded, and the order is to be carried out to the letter."

He bowed stiffly and retired.

The Baroness let herself fall into an arm-chair, and, elbows on knees,

buried her face in both hands. A scandal in the air, but she was

determined to risk it. Let the feelings of Prussian Princesses be what

they may in regard to the ancient custom; there was to be no

distribution of _her_ daughter's garter for the War Lord's friends and

her own cottagers to gloat over.

She had spent half an hour in this sort of brown study, agitated by

reflections bordering on _lese-majeste_ most horrible, when Barbara

rushed in: "Oh, Mamma, Uncle Majesty and everybody are at 'Old Fritz's,'

and Uncle wants all the gentlemen to take chances under the hammer. He

is making them give up watches and decorations, and he whispered to me

he hopes some get smashed. Come and see the fun."

To be sure Frau Krupp was in no humour to attend the Imperial circus--it

is a stock joke with Wilhelm to frighten under-dogs out of their wits by

subjecting their valuables to seeming destruction, and Her Ladyship had

been an unwilling witness more than once. But Barbara's naive: "What a

beautiful box--more presents?" made her sit up. Why should not "Fritz,"

oldest of family servants, essay to _corriger la fortune de la maison de

Krupp_? A chance in a million, but stranger things have happened!

As everybody knows, "Fritz" has a falling weight of fifty tons, and has

been hammering steel blocks into shape since 1860. When Bertha's

grandfather started building it family, friends and competitors the

world over thought him crazy, and said so, but "Fritz" has never missed

a day's work in fifty-four years, and seems to be good for a century

still. Indeed, the marvellous delicacy of his adjustment remains

unimpaired, and occasionally the manager makes him crack nuts without

injuring the kernel.

The War Lord was smashing his friends' watch-glasses without hurt to

dial or hands when Frau Krupp and Barbara came upon the scene.

"The trunk of the Krupp heiress, containing some of her choicest

wardrobe," explained Wilhelm banteringly in an undertone. Then aloud:

"I'll forfeit ten marks to any charity madam may name if Fritz injures

the casket in the slightest. Those with me raise a hand." Two dozen

hands went up. "Sorry I did not make it a hundred marks," whispered

Wilhelm to von Scholl, as he placed the casket on the steel table.

Then, standing off, he commanded: "One--two--three."

Down came the Brobdingnagian not like fifty, but like a hundred thousand

tons, hitting the table an earthquake-like smack. It was all over in a

second, but both Wilhelm and the War Lady's mother thought a lot in that

tiny fragment of time. The casket was, of course, as flat as a

window-pane and not much thicker, while of its contents there was no

trace, the silk having become part and parcel of the metal. Nothing

short of the melting-pot, said the expert, would yield isolated strains

of the thousand bedizened ribbons. And, on top of it, Fraulein Krupp

collected 250 marks for her orphanage!

Was it the loss of his ten marks, the blotting out of his "indecent

surprise," or thoughts of the murderous fruit which the marriage about

to be solemnised would yield him that clouded the War Lord's brow as he

walked up the middle aisle of the chapel? He was to give the bride

away. The groom was the War Lord's man, his discovery, his creature!

He found him secretary of legation with the least of the kings, grubbing

along on a salary of five hundred pounds a year, and destined in all

probability to marry either a spindle-shanked or a bull-necked "Fraulein

von" with an infinitesimal dot. The goal of his ambition: a berth as

minister plenipotentiary at the Court of a minor king! Salary: seven

hundred pounds per year.

Well, he (the War Lord) was about to give in marriage this candidate for

polite poverty and subaltern honours a nice, healthy, well bred and

intelligent girl of good family, likewise revenues compared with which

the civil list of the average German king were twopence! It surely

should follow as a matter of course that common gratitude, if not inborn

discipline, would make Krupp von Bohlen the instrument of any warlike

mischief the author of his good luck might contemplate. Indeed, he had

vowed so much.

Now Lohengrin and rustling silks: The bride and groom.

The latter, like most of the men present, in showy uniform, blue and

gold; the War Lady in lilac _crepe de Chine_, myrtles in her blonde

hair.

She was rather pleasant than pretty to look upon: a massive face,

indicating a not unkindly disposition; blue eyes, wavy hair, a firm

mouth; a bit strong on figure.

Her head-dress was typical enough for Germany: myrtle, the "bleeding,"

commemorating the cruelty of the barbarous islanders who pierced the

shipwrecked with spears and arrows!

Ancient history aside, the sign of the myrtle leaf was indeed prophetic

of the horrors this marriage would impose upon humanity, in accordance

with the compact between the War Lady's husband and the War Lord; but,

as nine out of every ten German brides are myrtle-bedecked, the

fashionable crowd in the chapel had no mind for the augury.

Still, why mauve, the colour of mourning and old age, for the wedding

gown? Since it was of the War Lady's own selection, it suggested almost

a premonition of the evil in store for Europe.

Did Bertha's lens of imagery conjure up the ghosts of the millions who

must die by the output of her factories that her own unborn offspring

have more milliards to play with, and was she mourning in advance for

the children she would render fatherless, for the hosts doomed to

extinction because profits in the wholesale murder of men are surpassing

high?

Who knows?

It is almost inconceivable that a person like the War Lady, engaged in

the appalling trade of death-dealing, regarded her business other than a

gigantic slaughter monopoly--a privileged one, to be sure, yet the most

heinous of crimes against God and men just the same.

At the Courts of the eighteenth century "punishment boys" were kept, to

be thrashed when small highnesses deserved to have their jacket warmed.

Here, at the altar, Bertha, used to Royal State on account of her

wealth, was about to engage a punishment boy. In future Gustav was to

take the blame for all the enormities her factories would visit upon

humanity!

The old-time punishment boys were well paid for their pains; the Krupp

punishment boy was to have an income of seven hundred and fifty thousand

pounds sterling per annum. The old-time punishment boys were frequently

loved by the masters for whom they suffered; Herr Krupp von Bohlen was

loved by the young woman whom he relieved of grievous responsibility.

Yet the note of mourning in her attire, and at her bosom the mark of

"Abdul Hamid the Damned"!

The War Lady is sincerely religious, and so is the War Lord's Imperial

lady, only more so. Indeed, with Her Majesty the Church is almost an

obsession, yet both the Queen of Prussia and the Queen of Essen have

accepted presents from the wholesale assassin of Christians, who

remembered only one thing to his credit in the course of thirty-three

years of absolute rule: that he did not murder his brother. This was

his plea to the Young Turks when deposed.

For many years the Berlin Court was a pensioner of the man who prided

himself on having spared the life of his mother's son, making up for

this unnatural restraint by spilling the blood of forty thousand

"Christian dogs." Five millions cash "Abdul the Damned" lent to the War

Lord (and he is still whistling for its return), and season after season

he sent material for the Queen of Prussia's underlinen and summer

dresses. Bales of Oriental stuffs, gauzes, linens, laces and silks from

Tscheragan Serai used to be delivered at the Neues Palais about every

April the first, filling the house with real "Turkish delight," of which

Her Majesty's sisters, the rich and the poor, likewise partook according

to their needs or the favour in which they were held at the moment.

And when Her Prussian Majesty is _en grande tenue_ she often augments

the great Napoleon's diamonds, captured at Waterloo (the same that once

blushed at the generous bosom of his sister Paulette), by those that the

great Frederick gave to his lovely mistress La Barbarina, the dancer,

and took back again when he tired of her; and when even multiplication

fails to give satisfaction--for a Queen of Prussia must have more

diamonds than an American multi-millionairess--she adds the parure of

brilliants and the numerous brooches and buttons and bracelets given her

by The Damned.

After all, this seems appropriate enough for the Queen of a country

pieced together of territories gained by assassination, war, treachery

and other atrocities; but think of the War Lady accepting gifts from the

most despicable of men and kings! Surely there must be some

fellow-feeling of malign camaraderie between the makers of murderous

tools and their users, a sort of revival of swordsmiths-worship and the

veneration in which the great men of old held their Curtanas and

Flamberges!

Possible, or shall we set it down to mere female thoughtlessness, which

in some respects seems akin to that of half-savages after the style of

the story Mark Twain once told the War Lord:

"Where is 'Liza?" asked the master of the house, when he missed the

coloured waitress at breakfast.

"Can't come round for a few days. Just had a tiny wee baby," answered

the housemaid, grinning.

"A baby! How's that?"

"Oh, just nigger-shiftlessness, I reckon."

But it wasn't thoughtlessness, or shiftlessness alone, that made the War

Lady pin to her breast the grand cordon of the _Osmanie_ Order of

Virtue; it spelled, at the same time, a bid for war material, decreed by

the businesslike groom. The War Lord saw it and smiled. "Bravo,

Gustav, you are the stuff," and "Bertha, as is fit, the yielding lamb."

And the organ pealed and cooed, and the chorus of cathedral singers

chanted off the key, and the voice of the officiating minister droned,

and everybody thought it most "heavenly," but boring; and the generals

and army officers smacked their lips, anticipating the table delicacies

in store; and the courtiers congratulated themselves because it was all

fun and no work; and each lady thought she looked a heap better than her

best-beloved friend; and the War Lord stared at the ceiling

contemplating ways and means for mining the Krupp quarry of wealth and

efficiency to within an inch of hell.

"And so I pronounce you man and wife," sang out the minister, expecting

the biggest fee!

"Hail thee, Frankenstein," thought Wilhelm. He inflated his chest as the

archangel aspiring to omnipotence may have done: from this moment on the

means for such aggrandisement as only Napoleon dreamt of were in his

hands, and he was free to plunge the world into irremediable ruin if he

liked.

Through Bertha's resignation, through von Bohlen's connivance, he now

owned the Krupp works; he _was_ Frankenstein--Frankenstein, the hideous,

the abhorred, whose malignity was equalled only by the accumulated

wretchedness he meant to visit on all resisting.

Even as he extended his hand to the bride, with lip congratulations, he

thought of the riot of despair the troth just sealed spelt for his own

people and the nations to be subdued! Was he then--is he then--the

hideous fantasm of one bent on naught but destruction?

God knows--mere physical observation discerns no more than the frightful

selfishness that has lashed the War Lord to ever-increasing efforts of

fury since Bertha's wedding day and is driving him still.

As overlord of the greatest industrial plant in the world, he

deliberately diverted it from its legitimate _raison d'etre_ as a cradle

of life and progress and turned it into a dividend-mill for the

cultivation of human hatred and the making of corpses, at the same time

endowing it with a soul still more monstrous: his thrice-abhorred

Kultur.

He had steel hammers enough to line, side by side, a road reaching from

Liverpool Street Station to Hyde Park; steel boilers enough to start a

second Pittsburgh; more machinery than the rest of the kingdom boasts;

more electric motors than Paris or London employs in its public

conveyances, etc.; and with unparalleled selfishness in evil suborned

them exclusively to his passion for destruction, adding unlimited

capital and business capacity, utter disregard for human life and

extraordinary facilities for chemical-physical research, begetting

inventive genius of a high order. There is the explanation of the

frightful catalogue of Hunnish sins that have disgraced civilisation

since the 29th of July, 1914, according to the findings of Lord Bryce's

Committee.

"The _Kapellmeister_, at Your Majesty's orders?" reported Count

Eulenburg.

"Hohenfriedberger March," replied the War Lord, locking his teeth.

Hohenfriedberg is a shining mark in Prussian history, for in June, 1745,

Frederick the Great overwhelmed the Austrians near the small Silesian

village, nearly annihilating Prince Karl and his Saxon allies. He

composed a march in honour of the event, a rather stirring piece of

musical claptrap, among the best that came from his pen.

"I can drive the Austrians too," thought the War Lord, as he stepped

from the chapel, the bride's mother on his arm. And, the military band

outside executing some flourishes when he passed, he added grimly:

"Bayonet in back, if necessary."

*CHAPTER XXVIII*

*A FORESHADOWING OF "LUSITANIAISM"*

The Rise of Herr Ballin--A Woman's Vanity--Herr Ballin at the

Schloss--"Frightfulness" on the Sea--Smoothing the Way--The War

Lord and Wedell--A Spy Plot--Overrunning England with Spies

On the eve of the day when the _Lusitania_ snatched the world's speed

record from the North German Lloyd, the red discs in the Chancellor's

and in Count Wedell's office bobbed up almost simultaneously:

"I want to see the Jew Ballin. To-morrow morning at the earliest. You

heard about the _Lusitania_?" Before Prince Buelow could say "Yes," the

War Lord had hung up the receiver, simultaneously pressing the button

marked Wedell, whom he asked to bring in the Ballin personalia.

"No ordinary Jew," explained the chief of the Secret Service.

"But common stock?"

"Very, Your Majesty."

"How does Ballin dress?"

"Affects the American business man, All Highest, in demeanour and

dress."

"A genius, you said?"

"For making money, absolutely, Your Majesty."

"Let's hear about his beginnings." The War Lord sat down in a low chair

and lit a cigarette. No such luxuries for Count Wedell, though. The

head of the Secret Service stood while he read from his card index in

telegraphic style:

"Born emigrant agents.--Son, brother and nephew of drummers-up of

steerage cargo.--Learnt rudiments of trade in his native

Hamburg.--Finished in London----"

"Perfect finishing school for aspiring German boys," interrupted the War

Lord; "the English educating their future business rivals--touching!"

"I have often thought about that in connection with our war," said

Wedell. "Of course, Your Majesty expects to win, but victory does not

beget good will. Suppose London, Birmingham, Liverpool and the rest say

no more foreign clerks and other employes, especially none of Teutonic

origin?"

"Don't you worry. Any little game of that kind will be forestalled in

the terms of peace. Finish your Ballin."

"Returned home," read Wedell from his cards, "secured employment in

minor steamship line to bring Poles and Hungarians to Hamburg for

shipment to the States. Hapag people soon awoke to the fact that the

devil of a genius was weaning their quarry away from them.--Approached

Ballin with promises of double salary. Ballin refused--then acquired

controlling interest in employer's line.--Then sold out to Hapag."

"That happened when?"

"In 1886, Your Majesty."

"Since then business has grown immensely, hasn't it?"

"Its gross profits climbed from L125,000 to L2,825,000 per annum in

twenty-five years, while its fleet increased from twenty-six to one

hundred and eighty pennants. Tonnage in 1886, 50,000; to-day, exceeding

one million."

"That will do," said Wilhelm. "Send in Haeseler."

Count Haeseler had arrived the night before from Konopischt, had been

waiting to report to His Majesty for an hour or more, and, to kill time,

had been paying visits to officials and pensioners living in the big

pile. There had been cigars and cognac galore, and Gottlieb was on

excellent terms with himself when he saw His Majesty.

"Went to bed with an attack of the heart, and got up refreshed and

happy," he said.

"I see Franz Ferdinand's reputation at home is of the value of nothing,

but, still, he treated you like a white man," interpreted the War Lord.

"Majesty hit the nail upon the head, as usual. Not an Austrian,

Hungarian, Croatian, Servian, Bosniak or Pollack alive would not gladly

spend his last _heller_ to buy a dose of prussic acid for the heir to

the throne, but to Your Majesty's representative he was all charm.

Nearly gave me a horse."

"Forgot to send it to the station with the other baggage, eh? Well,

aside from cheating my field marshal, how is he going on?"

"Like a steam-roller. The next time Your Majesty will deign to inspect

the Sixth Infantry or the Wilhelm Hussars, Majesty will not recognise

them. Fellows like me are being relegated to the scrap-heap by the

dozen, and he cares no more for archdukes' privileges than the white

souls of valets de chambre. His iron broom is busy with horse, foot and

artillery, with the navy and the air fleet all at the same time, and

wherever he touches there is a clean sweep and a howl of dismay, pitiful

enough to move a tiger, but not Nero."

"He is stirring them up," rejoiced the War Lord.

"He is making the Austrian army a worthy adjunct of Your Majesty's

forces," said Haeseler, very earnestly.

"And you taught him these new stratagems?"

"I would never have been allowed to leave the country alive if the

Hungarians knew what I did teach Nero."

"Dirty trick," said the War Lord, "not to give Gottlieb the horse."

Then imperiously: "I expect your detailed report about all the reforms

in the Austrian army and navy in a fortnight."

"There will be no gun missing, I promise Your Majesty."

Count Haeseler referred, of course, to the astounding memory and

precision of the great Napoleon. Once, when occupied by much business,

the Emperor sent an officer to Belgium to investigate military stores.

The officer handed in his report. Napoleon gave him back the document

with these words: "There are two guns missing at Ostend." And there

were two missing.

"And your general opinion of Franz based on intimate observation?"

queried Wilhelm.

"He seems to regard himself as a sort of necessary barricade to

progress, yet has no patience with the idea uppermost in Austria that

_laissez faire_ must be perpetuated for ever and a day simply because

it's as old as the hills."

"And the Duchess?"

"With Your Majesty's leave, confidently expects to be Empress of

Austria."

"Must have Pan-German leanings."

"No, Your Majesty; only the truly womanly passion to be the most envied

of her sex."

"Slav conflict with Austria suits me all right," said the War Lord.

"The Czechs and Hungarians wanting Sophie, the Austrian Germans will

feel the more inclined to join my Germanic Federation."

"But," said Haeseler, "Franz counts upon Your Majesty to help at the

enthronisation of Sophie by force, if necessary."

The War Lord went to a bookshelf and pulled out a volume bound in red

with atrocious gold decorations. "And Franz brags about having read

every strategic work ever written," he commented.

"Majesty refers to Moltke's introduction of the Franco-Prussian war."

"Yes, but this isn't the volume. Can you quote from memory?"

"I will try my utmost, Your Majesty: 'The days are past when for

dynastical ends armies went forth----'"

"Take an '_echte_,' Edward's brand," said the War Lord.

There was a royal carriage at the station for Herr Ballin, and the royal

coachman, keen for marks, waved his whip frantically to attract

attention, and coin: the shipping king, emerging from a first-class

compartment, affected not to see. Berlin has two kinds of cabs, and

Ballin chose the Noah's Ark brand at threepence a mile. When he said

"Schloss," the driver quizzed him curiously and decided at once to put

him down at the kitchen entrance. "Must be a relative of some

housemaid," he calculated, and could not understand at all why the royal

carriage, though empty, drove plumb ahead of him when they reached the

Schlossplatz. Of course the War Lord's livery meant to impress upon the

Court Marshal that he had been on the spot.

Court Marshal von Liebenau left the reception to his aide and ran

upstairs.

"With Majesty's permission. Regular Jewski, second-class cab. How long

shall he wait?"

"Show him up instantly."

From this it may be gathered as from the scene witnessed at the

Wilhelmstrasse, that waiting for Majesty is a punishment meted out on

religious or other grounds.

Ballin had anticipated questions, and received instructions. "The

_Lusitania_," said the War Lord, after the curtest, not to say abruptest

of welcomes, "must teach you Hamburgers and the Lloyd people this

important lesson: In the ocean greyhound to be built hereafter, the

naval value is obviously of greater importance than trade or dividend

considerations, for the moment war is declared all your vessels will

pass under my exclusive control, and I need all the auxiliaries, with a

prodigious coal supply and a speed unsurpassable by cruisers, I can get.

If war with England came to-morrow, the _Lusitania_ would be turned

loose upon our commerce at once, and neither Wilhelmshaven, nor Bremen

nor Hamburg boasts a vessel capable of overtaking her. She can sink our

ships right and left, and show a clean pair of heels every time. Until

yesterday I considered _Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, der Kroenprinz, die

Deutschland_ and the flyer named after me capable commerce destroyers,

but the _Lusitania_ could sink either of these giants, and boast of her

record in the nearest English harbour protected by mines."

"But Majesty doesn't anticipate that merchantman will turn upon

merchantman, and that passenger steamers in particular will be sunk

either by vessels of the same lay calibre or by regular men-of-war?"

ventured Herr Ballin, who evidently believed at that time in "scraps of

paper."

"Herr Ballin," said the War Lord, "you were described to me as the most

far-seeing and progressive of sea lords outside of my navy. Surely you

can't be of opinion that in the great war to come international niceties

will be allowed to cut any figure? If Germany must draw the sword

before my navy is superior to the British, I propose to save my

men-of-war and trust to submarines."

"But passenger steamers----" quoth Herr Ballin rather more timidly.

"Passenger steamers carry freight, and in time of war all goods that

might possibly be of use to the enemy in any way, manner or form I

consider contraband. And contraband spells destruction."

"Does Your Majesty anticipate that the English, French or Russians would

attack Hamburg liners while engaged in the passenger traffic?"

"If they half know their business they will. For my part, I would not

hesitate a moment to sink the _Lusitania_, or any other Cunarder at

sight, since all are supposed to be in the service or, at least, at the

service of their Government."

Herr Ballin breathed hard as he said: "May it please Your Majesty, what

about neutrals? Like the Cunarders, the Hapag carries on every journey

hundreds of American citizens."

"I don't know anything about a Yankee's food value," replied the War

Lord cynically. "I think the denizens of the big herring-pond will have

to make the best of them."