The first few months of 1889 present nothing of special note to the
observer. There was perhaps a trifle more nervousness on the bourses
during that early spring-time which, for some occult reason, is the
chosen season of alarmist war rumours, than had been usual in the
lifetime of the old Kaiser, but this signified no more than a vague
uneasiness born of the sword-clanking reputation which had preceded
William’s accession to the throne. The surface of events at Berlin
seemed smooth enough, although dissensions and jealousies were warring
fiercely underneath. Everybody was talking about the tremendous battle
going on between the Bismarcks and the Waldersees, but of public
evidence of this conflict there was none, This very reticence shows that
the Chancellor must thus early have become impressed with the menacing
power of the combinations confronting him, for it was never his habit to
be silent about quarrels in which he was confident of victory. He
must have become truly alarmed when, on February 25th, he gave a great
dinner, at which the Kaiser and Waldersee were the principal guests. So
far from creating a false impression of cordiality, this banquet, with
its incongruous people and its hollow gaiety, only strengthened the
notion that Bismarck was toppling.
In May, however, two things happened which at the time much occupied the
world’s attention--the abortive Strasburg visit incident and the great
miners’ strike in Westphalia. These two episodes are particularly
noteworthy in that they for the first time show us William confronted
by something bigger than questions of personal politics and individual
piques and prejudices. A dangerous international quarrel and a
threatening domestic convulsion loomed up suddenly side by side before
him--and the experience left him a wiser and more serious man.
To glance first at the incident which, creating the greater furor at the
time, has left the slighter mark upon history--the King of Italy, with
his son and his Premier, came, on May 21st, to visit William in Berlin,
There were many reasons why the reception extended to him should have
been, as indeed it was, of the most affectionate and enthusiastic
character. The old Emperor William had grown to be considered at the
Quirinal as Victor Emmanuel’s best friend, and Prussia was proudly
pleased to be thought of as the chief protector and sponsor of young
United Italy. The more romantic Frederic had cultivated a highly
sentimental intimacy, later on, with King Humbert and Queen Marguerite,
and had made all Rome a party to it by that celebrated spectacular
appearance on the balcony of the Quirinal with the little Italian Crown
Prince in his arms. Thus peculiarly emotional ties bound Humbert now to
Frederic’s son, and his coming to Berlin was hailed as the arrival of a
warm personal friend even more than as the advent of a powerful ally.
It may have been from mere lightness of heart--conceivably there was a
deeper motive--but at all events William proposed to this good friend
that on his way home they should together visit Strasburg, and the
amiable Humbert, a slow, patient, honest fellow, consented. The
assertion has since been authoritatively made by Italian statesmen that
the idea really originated with the adventurous Italian Premier, Crispi,
and that Bismarck and William merely fell in with it. However that
may it is fact that the visit was agreed upon, and that orders were
despatched to Strasburg to make things ready for the royal party.
When the news of this intended trip became public, its effect was that
of a shock of earthquake. During the twenty-four hours which elapsed
before the frightened Crispi could issue a statement that the report of
such a visit was a pure Bourse canard, Europe was sensibly nearer a war
than at any time in the last fifteen years. The French press raised
a clamorous and vibrant call to arms, and the politicians of Rome and
Vienna kept the wires to Berlin hot with panic-stricken protests. What
it all meant was, of course, that Europe has tacitly consented to regard
the possession of Alsace-Lorraine as an open question, to be
finally settled when France and Germany fight next time. Upon this
understanding, no outside sovereign has formally sanctioned the
annexation of 1871 by appearing in person within the disputed territory.
King Humbert’s violation of this point of international etiquette would
have been a deliberate blow in the face of the French Republic. Luckily
he had the courage to draw back when the lightnings began playing upon
his path, and with diminishing storm mutterings the cloud passed away.
Its net result had been to show the world William’s foolhardiness in
favouring such a wanton insult to France, and his humiliation in having
publicly to abandon an advertised intention--and the spectacle was not
reassuring.
The episode is chiefly interesting now because it seems to have been of
great educational value to the young Emperor. It really marked out for
him, in a striking object lesson, the grave international limitations
by which his position is hemmed in. He has never since made another such
false step. Indeed the solitary other cause of friction between France
and Germany which has arisen during his reign proceeded from an action
of a diametrically opposite nature--to wit, an attempt to conciliate
instead of offend.
Of much more permanent importance in the history of William and of his
Empire was the great miners’ strike in Westphalia, which may be said to
have begun on the 1st of May. This tremendous upheaval of labour at one
time involved the idleness of over 100,000 men--by no means all miners
or all Westphalians. The shortened coal supply affected industries
everywhere, and other trades struck because the spirit of mutiny was
in the air. In many districts the military were called out to guard the
pits’ mouths, and sanguinary conflicts with the strikers ensued.
Evidently this big convulsion took William completely by surprise. Up
to this time he had been deeply engrossed in the spectacular side of his
position--the showy and laborious routine of an Emperor who is also a
practical working soldier. Such thought as he had given to the great
economic problems pressing for solution all about him, seems to have
been of the most casual sort and cast wholly in the Bismarckian mould.
What Bismarck’s views on this subject were and are, is well known. He
believes that over-education has filled the labouring classes of Germany
with unnatural and unreasonable discontent, which is sedulously played
upon by depraved Socialist agitators, and that the only way to deal
with the trouble is to imprison or banish as many of these latter as
possible, and crush out the disaffection by physical force wherever it
manifests itself. He decorates this position with varying sophistical
frills and furbelows from time to time, but in its essence that is
what he thinks. And up to May of 1889 that is apparently what William
thought, too.
The huge proportions of this sudden revolt of labour made William
nervous, however, and in this excited state he was open to new
impressions. The anti-Bismarck coalition saw their chance and swiftly
utilized it. With all haste they summoned Dr. Hinzpeter from his home at
Bielefeld, and persuaded William to confer with his old tutor upon this
alarming industrial complication, with which it was clearly enough to be
seen his other advisers did not know how to deal. No exact date is given
for the interview which William had with Dr. Hinzpeter, but the day upon
which it was held should be a memorable one in German history. For
then dawned upon the mind of the young Kaiser that dream of Christian
Socialism with the influence of which we must always thereafter count.
It is true that the angered and dispossessed ex-Chancellor declares now
that William never was morally affected by the painful aspects of the
labour question, and that he took the side of the workmen solely because
he thought it would pay politically. But men who know the Kaiser equally
well, and who have the added advantage of speaking dispassionately, say
that the new humanitarian views which Dr. Hinzpeter now unfolded to him
took deep hold upon his imagination, and made a lasting mark upon his
character. Even if the weight of evidence were not on its side, one
would like to believe this rather than the cynical theory propounded
from Friedrichsruh.
William did not become a full-fledged economic philosopher all at once
under this new influence.
There was a great deal of the rough absolutist in the little harangue
he delivered to the three working-men delegates who, on May 14th, were
admitted to his presence to lay the case of the strikers before him.
He listened gravely to their recital of grievances, asked numerous
questions, and seemed considerably impressed. When their spokesman
had finished he said that he was anxiously watching the situation,
had ordered a careful inquiry into all the facts, and would see that
evenhanded justice was done. Then, in a sharper voice, he warned them
to avoid like poison all Socialist agitators, and specially to see to
it that there were no riots or attempts to prevent the non-strikers
from working. If this warning was not heeded, he concluded, in high
peremptory tones, he would send his troops “to batter and shoot them
down in heaps.”
It must be admitted that this sentiment does not touch the high-water
mark of Christian Socialism, but the drift of the Kaiser’s mind was
obviously forward. Two days later he received a delegation of mine
masters, and to them spoke rather bitterly of the perversity and
greed of capitalists, and their selfish unwillingness to “make certain
sacrifices in order to terminate this perilous and troublous state
of things.” On May 17th it was announced that Dr. Hinzpeter had been
commissioned to travel through the disturbed districts and report to
the Kaiser upon the origin and merits of the strike. This practically
settled the matter. The masters as a whole made concessions, under which
work was resumed. Those owners who displayed stubbornness were in one
way or another made to feel the imperial displeasure, and soon the
trouble was at an end. It is worthy of note that Germany has since that
time been far less agitated by labour troubles than any of the states
by which she is surrounded, and that upon the occasion of the recent
May-day demonstrations German workmen were practically the only ones on
the Continent who did not come into collision with the police.
But, after all, the vitally important thing was the reappearance of Dr.
Hinzpeter, involving, as it did, the revival in the young Kaiser’s daily
thoughts and moods of the gentle and softening influences of those old
school days at Cassel, before Bonn and the Bismarcks came to harden and
pervert.
*****
Upon the heels of the Strasburg incident followed another flurry in
international politics, which for the moment seemed almost as menacing,
and which hurried forward a highly significant step on the part of
William.
The precipitate haste with which the young Kaiser had rushed off to
visit St. Petersburg, almost before the public signs of mourning for his
father had been removed in Berlin and Potsdam, had impressed everybody
as curious. Nearly a year had now elapsed, and the failure of the Czar
to say anything about returning the visit was growing to seem odder
still. It was, of course no secret that the Czar did not like William.
No two men could present greater points of difference, physically and
mentally. The autocrat of all the Russias is a huge, lumbering, slow,
and tenacious man, growing somewhat fat with increasing years, hating
all forms of regular exercise, and cherishing a veritable horror of
noisy, overzealous, and bustling people. Every smart public servant
in Russia is governed by the knowledge that his imperial master has
a peculiar aversion to all forms of bother, and values his officials
precisely in proportion as they make short and infrequent reports, free
from all accounts of unpleasant things, and, still more important, from
all meddlesome suggestions of reform. When a Russian diplomat was asked,
a year ago, what the Czar’s personal attitude toward William was, he
answered expressively by shrugging his shoulders and putting his fingers
in his ears.
But now the Czar, from passively affronting William by not returning his
visit, summoned the energy for a direct provocation. A palace luncheon
was given in St. Petersburg, celebrating the betrothal of a Montenegrin
Princess to a Russian Grand Duke, and the Czar, standing and in a loud,
clear voice, drank to Prince Nikolo of Montenegro as “the only sincere
and faithful friend Russia had” among European sovereigns. That there
might be no doubt about this, the Czar had the words printed next day in
the _Official Messenger_.
Germany was not slow to comprehend the meaning of this remarkable
speech. But to make it still clearer the Czarowitch, three weeks later,
paid a formal visit to Stuttgart to attend some Court festivities, and
passed through Berlin both going and coming--though the Breslau-Dresden
route would have been more direct--apparently for no other purpose
than to insult the Kaiser by stopping for an hour each time inside the
railway station, as if there were no such people as the Hohenzollerns
to so much as leave a card upon. As a capstone to this insolence, the
Russian officers of his suite refused to drink the toast to the German
Empire at the Stuttgart banquet, and, when a dispute arose, left the
room in a body.
The immediate effect of this was to remove the last vestige of reserve
existing between William and his English relatives. He at once sent word
that, if convenient, he would visit his grandmother, the Queen, at the
beginning of August. An assurance of hearty welcome was as promptly
returned.
This decision marked another stage in the decline of Bismarck’s power.
We have seen how he had been gradually pushed aside in the management of
German internal affairs. Now the Kaiser was to break through the dearest
traditions of Bismarck’s foreign policy--the cultivation of Russian
amiability at whatever cost of dignity, and the contemptuous snubbing of
England. With a fatal inability to distinguish between the promptings
of passion and the dictates of true policy, the Chancellor had been led
into a position where he could maintain himself only if every one of the
elements and chances combined to play his game for him, and keep William
at daggers-drawn with all things English. The miracle did not happen.
As we have seen, even the Czar took it into his head to interfere to the
damage of Bismarck’s plans.
So the perplexed and baffled old Chancellor, noting with new rage and
mortification how power was slipping from his hands, yet helpless to do
other than fight doggedly to hold what yet remained, stopped behind in
Berlin, the while Kaiser William steamed at the head of his splendid
new squadron into Portsmouth Harbour, and the very sea shook with the
thunderous cannon roar of his welcome. The world had never before seen
such a show of fighting ships as was gathered before Cowes to greet him.
There was one other thing which may be assumed to have been unique
in human chronicles. William, in the exuberance of his delight at his
really splendid reception, and at being created a British Admiral,
issued a solemn imperial order making his grandmother a Colonel of
Dragoons.
The English did well to surround the young Kaiser’s visit with all
imaginable pomp and display of overwhelming naval force, for it meant
very much more both to them and to him than any one is likely to have
imagined at the time. The splendour of the material spectacle, and the
sentimental interest attaching to the fact that this young man coming
to greet his grandmother was the first German Emperor to set foot on
English soil since the days of the Crusaders, were much-dwelt upon in
the press. To us who have been striving to trace the inner workings of
the influences shaping the young man’s character, the event has a nearer
significance. It meant that William--having for years been estranged
from the liberalizing English impulses and feelings of his boyish
education; having since his majority exulted in the false notion that to
be truly German involved hatred of all things English--had come to see
his mistake.
It is not possible to exaggerate the importance of this visit, and of
the causes leading up to it, upon William’s mind. The Hohenzollerns,
until within our own times the comparatively needy Princes of a poor
country, have always been greatly impressed by the superior wealth
and luxurious civilization of the English. The famous Double-Marriage
project of Frederic William I’s days was clung to in Berlin through
years of British snubs and rebuffs because thrifty Prussian eyes saw
these islands through a golden mist. To the imagination of German
royalty, English Princesses appear in the guise of fairies, not
invariably beautiful, perhaps, but each bearing the purse of Fortunatus.
This view of the English colours the thoughts of more lowly-born
Germans. When Freytag * seeks to explain the late Kaiser Frederic’s
complete and almost worshipping subjection to his wife, he says: “She
had come to him from superior surroundings.”
* “The Crown Prince and the German Imperial Crown,” p. 49.
William had tried hard, in his ultra-German days, to despise English
wealth along with English political ideas. The theory of a Spartan
severity, governing expenditure and all other conditions of daily life,
was the keynote of his Teutonic period. But when he became Kaiser he had
yielded to the temptation of getting the Reichstag to augment his annual
civil list by 3,500,000 marks. That in itself considerably modified his
austere hatred of luxury. Now, as the guest of the richest nation in
the-world, he was able to feel himself a relative, and wholly at home.
The English conquest of William was complete.
No hint of unfilial conduct had been heard, now, for a long time, nor
was henceforth to be heard. William had by this time become fully
reconciled to his mother, and in the following month, September of 1889,
he purchased for and presented to her the Villa Reiss, a delightful
summer _chateau_ in the Taunus Mountains.
Thereafter a strong sympathy with England has manifested itself in all
his actions. The Czar did at last, in the most frosty, formal manner,
pay a brief visit to Berlin, and William the following year returned the
courtesy by attending the Russian manoeuvres, but this has not at all
affected his open preference for English friendship. He always spoke
German with an English accent--which now is more marked than ever.
He has a bewildering variety of uniforms, but the one which affords
him the greatest pride is the dress of the British Admiral. He wears it
whenever the least excuse offers. Upon his journey to Athens in October
of 1889, to attend the wedding of his sister and the Greek Crown Prince,
he was so much affected by his new English naval title that when he
steamed into the classic Ægean Sea on his imperial yacht he flew the
British Admiral’s flag from her top. A British fleet was also there
to participate in the ceremonies, and William took his new position so
seriously, and had such delight in descending suddenly upon the squadron
at unexpected and unreasonable hours, and routing everybody out for
parade and inspection, that the British officers themselves revolted and
preferred an informal complaint to the British Minister. “This thing is
played out,” they said. “If he would merely wear the uniform and let
it end with that, we shouldn’t mind. But we didn’t make him Admiral to
worry the lives out of us in this fashion.”