The first and most obvious thing to be said of the twelvemonth during
which the Ship of State has sailed with no Bismarck at the helm, is that
the course has been one of novel smoothness. Since the foundation of
the Empire Germany has not known such another tranquil and comfortable
period. Nothing has arisen calculated to make men regret the
ex-Chancellor’s retirement. Almost every month has contributed some new
warrant for the now practically unanimous sense of satisfaction in his
being out of office. When astounded Germany first grasped the fact of
his downfall, even those whose hatred of him was most implacable could
not dissemble their nervousness lest Germany should be the sufferer
in some way by it. He had so persistently kept before the mind of the
nation that they were surrounded by vindictive armed enemies; he had
year after year so industriously beaten the war drum and predicted the
speedy breaking of the storm-clouds if his own way were denied him;
he had so accustomed everybody to the idea that he was personally
responsible for the continued existence from day to day of the German
Empire, the peace of Europe, and almost every other desirable thing,
that the mere thought of what would happen now he was actually gone
dazed and terrified the public mind.
But lo! nothing whatever happened. The world continued its placid sweep
through space without the sign of an interruption. The spring sun rose
in the marshes of the Vistula and set behind the fir-clad ridges of the
Vosges, just the same as ever. When Germany recovered her breath after
the shock, it was to discover that respiration was an easier matter than
it had formerly been. It was really a weight which had been lifted from
the national breast. The sensation gradually took form as one of great
relief, akin to that of filling the lungs to their utmost with the
cool morning air after a night of confinement, unrest, and a tainted
atmosphere. It is too much to say that apprehension fled at once;
the anxious habit of mind still exists in Germany, and, indeed, must
continue to exist so long as France and Russia stand on the map where
they do. But a very short space of time served to make clear that
Germany was in adroit and capable hands, and that the old-time notion of
the impossibility of supporting national life without Bismarck had been
the most childish of chimeras. Then little by little the new civility,
freedom, and absence of friction which began to mark Parliamentary
debates and official administration, attracted notice. The spectacle of
a Chancellor who actually assumed the patriotism and personal honour
of his political opponents in the Reichstag, who spoke to them like
reasonable beings, and who said their views and criticisms would always
receive his-respectful consideration, was not lost upon the German
brain. People found themselves, before long, actively liking the new
_régime_.
In reaching this attitude they were greatly helped by Bismarck’s own
behaviour, after he retired to Friedrichsruh. It does not fall within
the purpose of this work to dwell upon the unhappy way in which, during
the year, this statesman who was so great has laboured to belittle
himself in the eyes of the world. Allusion to it is made here only
to append the note that the Kaiser, under extreme provocation,
has steadfastly declined to sanction the slightest movement toward
reprisals. Although Bismarck has permitted himself to affront authority
much more openly and seriously than Count Harry von Arnim ever did, his
threats, his revelations, and his incitements to schism have all been
treated with serene indifference. And so, too, we may pass them by, and
push on to greater matters.
On May 6th the new Reichstag was opened by a speech from the throne,
almost exclusively reflecting the Emperor’s absorption in schemes of
social reform and progress, and the new Chancellor, Caprivi, laid before
Parliament a Trades Law Amendment Act, as a first attempt at embodying
these schemes. After a year of deliberation this measure has just
been passed, and, unless the Federal Council interposes some wholly
unlooked-for obstacles, will come into effect on April 1, 1892. By this
law Sunday labour is absolutely forbidden in all industries, save
a selected few connected with entertainment and travelling, and the
integrity of the great Church festival holidays is also secured. The
Federal Council is given the power to supervise and control the maximum
hours of labour in such trades as endanger the health of workmen by
overwork. Both journeymen and apprentices are to be able to bring
suit against their employers for wrongful dismissal. Female labour is
forbidden at night, and is given at all times a maximum of eleven hours.
Careful restrictions are also placed upon juvenile labour, and after
April of 1894 children under the age of thirteen are not to be employed
at all in factories. These reforms, which practically embody the
recommendations of the Labour Conference, do little more than bring
Germany abreast of England and America. A more extended programme of
social reform is promised when the Reichstag meets again next November.
But it is not on specific achievements that the tremendous popularity
which William has won for himself during the past year is founded. We
are by no means within view of the end of the game, but it is already
apparent that his greatest strength lies in the certainty and sureness
of touch with which he appeals to the inborn German liking for lofty and
noble visions of actions. The possibility--probability if you like--that
these visions will never get themselves materialized, is not so
important as it seems. Socialism in Germany is far more a matter of
imagination than of fact. Mr. Baring-Gould quotes an observer of the
election phenomena of 1878, to show that “decorous people, dressed in
an unexceptionable manner, and even to some extent wearing kid-gloves,”
went to the polls as Socialists then. This has been still more true
of later elections. The element of imaginative men who had themselves
little or nothing to complain of, but who dreamed of a vague Social
Democracy as an idealized refuge from the harsh, dry bureaucracy and
brutal militarism of Bismarck’s government, played a large and larger
part in each successive augmentation of the Socialists’ voting strength.
For want of a better word we may say that William is a dreamer too. In
place of their amorphous Utopia, he throws upon the canvas before the
Socialists the splendid fantasy of a beneficent absolutism which shall
be also a democracy, in which everybody shall be good to everybody else,
and all shall sleep soundly every night, rocked in the consciousness
that their Kaiser is looking out for them, to see justice done in every
corner, and happiness the law of the land.
It is all fantastic, no doubt, but it _is_ generous and elevated and
inspiring. Granted the premises of government by dreams, it is a much
better dream than any which flames in the weak brains of the miners at
Fourmies or in the dwarfed skulls of the Berlin slums. And the Germany
which, under the impulse of a chivalrous and ardent young leader, finds
itself thrilled now by this apocalyptic picture of ideals realized,
and of government by the best that is in men instead of the worst, is
certainly a much pleasanter subject for contemplation than that recent
Germany which, under Bismarck, sneered at every spiritualizing ambition
or thought, and roughly thrust its visionaries into prison or exile.
The chronological record of what remained of 1890 is meagre enough.
Caprivi’s first quarter in office was rendered brilliant by the bargain
which gave Heligoland to Germany, and discussion over this notable
piece of fortune was prolonged until the idleness of the summer solstice
withdrew men’s minds from politics. William made visits to Scandinavia,
first of all, and then to the south shore of England, to Russia, and to
Austria. In November the excitement over Dr. Koch’s alleged specific for
tuberculosis was promptly reflected by the Emperor’s interest. He gave
personal audience to the eminent microscopist, saying that he felt it
his duty to buy the wonderful invention and confer the benefit of it
freely upon not only his own people but the world at large. A fortnight
later he bestowed upon Dr. Koch the order of the Red Eagle of the first
class--a novel innovation upon the rule that there must be regular
progression in the inferior degrees of the order.
In the same month William accepted the resignation of Court Chaplain
Stoecker, and met Dr. Windhorst in conversation for the first time. The
two events are bracketed thus because they have an interesting bearing
upon the altered state of the religious question in Germany.
The _Kulturkampf_ had already, as we have seen, dwindled greatly under
the parliamentary necessities of Bismarck’s last years in power. But
there had been no reconciliation, and the unjust old quarrel still drew
a malignant gash of division through the political and social relations
of the German people. Anti-Semitism in the same way lingered on,
powerless for much overt mischief, but serving to keep alive the
miserable race dissensions which have wrought such harm in Germany, and
lending the apparent sanction of the Court to Berlin’s, social ostracism
of the Jews. William’s broadening perceptions grasped now the necessity
of putting an end to both these survivals of intolerance. The blatant
Stoecker was given the hint to resign and an enlightened clergyman was
installed in his place. At a Parliamentary dinner, given by Caprivi
on November 25th, to which, according to the new order of things, the
leaders in opposition were invited quite as freely as supporters of
the Ministry, the Emperor met Dr. Windhorst, the venerable chief of
the Ultramontane party. All present noted the exceptional courtesy and
attention which William paid to “the Pearl of Meppen,” and construed it
to signify that the days of anti-Catholic bias were dead and gone. This
judgment has been so far justified by events that, when Dr. Windhorst
died in the succeeding March, it was said of him that of all his aims he
left only the readmission of the Jesuits unaccomplished.
William’s speeches during the year marked a distinct advance in the art
of oratory, and gave fewer evidences of loose and random thinking after
he rose to his feet than were offered by his earlier harangues. At the
swearing-in of the recruits for the Berlin garrison, on November 20th,
he delivered a curiously theological address, saying that though the
situation abroad was peaceful enough, the soldiers must bear their share
with other honest Germans in combating an internal foe, who was only to
be overcome by the aid of Christianity. No one could be a good soldier
without being a good Christian, and therefore the recruits who took an
oath of allegiance to their earthly master, should even more resolve to
be true to their heavenly Lord and Saviour.
Ten days later William made a speech of a notably different sort in
front of the statue of the Great Elector, the 250th anniversary of whose
accession to the throne of Brandenburg fell upon the 1st of December.
Reference has heretofore been made to the powerful effect produced
upon the young man’s mind by reading the story of this ancestor, in
preparation for this speech. There was nothing at all in it about
loyalty to celestial sovereignties, but it bristled with fervent
eulogies of the fighting Hohenzollerns, and was filled with military
similes and phraseology. It contained as well the veiled comparison
between Schwarzenberg and Bismarck which has been spoken of elsewhere.
Within the week the Kaiser delivered another speech, much longer than
the other, and of vastly closer human interest. It had evidently been
thought out with great care, and may unquestionably be described as the
most important public deliverance of his reign. When he ascended the
throne no one on earth would have hazarded the guess that, at the
expiration of three years, William’s principal speech would remain one
upon the subject of middle education!
The occasion was a special conference convened by him to discuss
educational reform in Prussia, and the gathering included not only the
most distinguished professors and specialists within the kingdom, but
representative men from various other German states. A list of the
members would present to the reader the names of half the living Germans
who are illustrious in literature and the sciences. The session was
opened by the Emperor as presiding officer at Berlin, on December 4th.
It was wholly characteristic of the young man that, having tabled
a series of inquiries upon the subject, he should start off with a
comprehensive and sustained attack upon the whole _gymnasium_, or
higher public school, system of the country. The Conference, having been
summoned to examine the possibility of any further improvement upon
this system, heard with astonishment its imperial chairman open the
proceedings by roundly assailing everything connected with, and typical
of, the entire institution.
The importance of the speech can best be grasped by keeping in mind the
unique reputation which the Prussian school system has for years enjoyed
in the eyes of the world. Its praises have been the burden of whole
libraries of books. The amazing succession of victories on the fields of
1870-71 which rendered the Franco-Prussian War so pitifully one-sided
a conflict, have been over and over again ascribed to the superior
education of the German _gymnasia_ even more than to the needle-gun--and
this too by French writers among the rest. The Germans are justifiably
proud of their wonderful army, but it is probable that a year ago
they had an even loftier pride in their schools. The teachers are in
themselves an army, and have traditionally exerted an influence, and
commanded a measure of public deference, which the pedagogues of other
lands know nothing about. It required, therefore, an abnormal degree of
moral courage for even an Emperor to stand up in cold blood and make an
attack upon the sacred institution of the _gymnasium_. It is even more
remarkable that what the young man had to say was so fresh and strong
and nervously to the point, that it carried conviction to the minds of a
great majority of the scholastic greybeards who heard it.
He began by saying that the _gymnasia_ (answering roughly to the Latin
schools of England and the grammar-schools or academies of America) had
in their time done good service, but no longer answered the requirements
of the nation or the necessities of the time. They produced crammed
minds, not virile men; wasting on musty Latin and general classical lore
the time which should be devoted to inculcating a knowledge of German
language and history--knowledge which was of infinitely more value to a
German than all the chronicles of an alien antiquity combined. Had
these schools done anything to combat the follies and chimeras of Social
Democracy? Alas! the answer must be something worse than a negative--and
tell not alone of an urgent duty left undone, but of evil wrought on the
other side. He himself had sat on the various forms of a _gymnasium_
at Cassel--a very fair sample of that whole class of schools--and he
therefore knew all about their ways and methods, and the sooner these
were mended the better it would be for every one.
It was undoubtedly true, William went on to admit, that in 1864, 1866,
and 1870 the Prussian teachers’ work showed to advantage. They had
in those past years done a good deal to inculcate, and thus help to
fruition, the idea of national unity--and it was safe to say that during
that period every one who completed his _gymnasium_ course went away
after the final examination convinced that the German Empire should be
reestablished, and crowned by the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine. But
with 1871 this practical process of education came abruptly to an end,
although as a matter of fact there was more than ever a need of teaching
young Germans the importance of preserving their Empire and its
political system intact. The consequence was that certain malignant
forces had grown up and developed to a threatening degree, and for this
the schools were clearly to blame.
Since 1870, he proceeded, there had been in German education a veritable
reign of the philologists. They had been sitting there enthroned in
the _gymnasia_, devoting all their attention to stuffing their pupils’
skulls with mere book-learning, without even a thought of striving to
form their characters aright, or training them for the real needs and
trials of practical life. This evil had gone so far that it could go no
farther. He knew that it was the custom to describe him as a fanatical
foe to the _gymnasium_ system. This was not true; only he had an open
eye for its defects as well as its merits--of which, unfortunately,
there seemed a heavy preponderance of the former.
Chief among these defects, to his mind, was a preposterous partiality
for the classics. He submitted to his hearers, as patriots no less than
professors, that the basis of this public school education should be
German, and the aim kept always in view should be to turn out young
Germans, not young Greeks and Romans. There must be an end to this
folly. They must courageously break away from the mediaeval and monkish
habit of mumbling over much Latin and some Greek, and take to the German
language as the basis of their teaching. This remark applied also
to history. Thoroughness in German history, both authenticated and
legendary, and in its geographical and ethnological connections, should
be first of all insisted upon. It was only when, they were wholly
familiar with the ins and outs of their own house that they could afford
the time to moon about in a museum.
“When I was at school at Cassel,” said William, “the Great Elector, for
instance, was to me only a nebulous personage. As for the Seven Years’
War, it lay outside my region of study altogether, and for me history
ended with the French Revolution at the close of the last century. The
Liberation Wars, all-important as they are for the young German,
were not even mentioned, and it was only, thank God! by means of
supplementary and most valuable lectures from my private tutor, Dr.
Hinzpeter, whom I rejoice now to see before me, that I got to know
anything at all about modern history. How is it that so many of our
young Germans are seduced from the path of political virtue? How is it
that we have so many muddleheaded would-be world-improvers amongst us?
“How is it that we all the time hear so much nagging at our own
government and so much praise of every other government under the sun?
The answer is very easy. It is due to the simple ignorance of all
these professional reformers and renovators as to the genesis of modern
Germany. They were not taught, the boys of to-day are not taught, to
comprehend at all the transition period between the French Revolution
and our own time, by the light of which alone can our present questions
be understood!”
“Not only would the _gymnasia_ have to mend their methods,” he continued,
both as to matter taught and the method of teaching it, but they must
also reduce the time burden under which they now crush their pupils. It
was cruel and inhuman to compel boys to work so hard at their books that
they had no leisure for healthful recreation, and the necessary physical
training and development of the body. If he himself, while at Cassel,
had not had special opportunities for riding to and fro, and looking
about him a little, he would never have got to know at all what the
outside world was like. It was this barbarous one-sided and eternal
cramming which had already made the nation suffer from a plethora of
learned and so-called educated people, the number of whom was now more
than the people themselves could bear, or the Empire either. So true
it was what Bismarck had once said about all this “proletariat of
pass-men”--this army of what were called hunger candidates, and of
journalists who were also for the most part unsuccessful graduates of
the _gymnasia_, was here on their hands, forming a class truly dangerous
to society!
The speech contained a great many practical and even technical
references to bad ventilation, the curse of near-sightedness, and other
details which need no mention here, but which indicated deep interest
in, and a very comprehensive grasp of, the entire subject. At the close
of the Conference, on December 17th, he made another address, from which
we may cull a paragraph as a peroration to this whole curious imperial
deliverance upon education. After an apology for having in his previous
remarks neglected any reference to religion--upon which his profound
belief that his duty as King was to foster religious sentiments and
a Christian spirit was as clearly visible to the German people as the
noonday light itself--he struck this true _fin de siécle_ note as the
key to his attitude on the entire subject:
“We find ourselves now, after marking step so long, upon the order of a
general forward movement into the new century. My ancestors, with their
fingers upon the pulse of time, have ever kept an alert and intelligent
lookout upon the promises and threats of the future, and thus have
throughout been able to maintain themselves at the head of whatever
movement they resolved to embrace and direct. I believe that I have
mastered the aims and impulses of this new spirit which thrills the
expiring century. As on the question of social reform, so in this grave
matter of the teaching of our young, I have decided to lead, rather than
oppose, the working out of these new and progressive tendencies. The
maxim of my family, ‘To every one his due,’ has for its true meaning ‘To
each what is properly his,’ which is a very different thing from ‘_The
same to all._’ Thus interpreted the motto governs our position here, and
the decisions we have arrived at. Hitherto our course in education has
been from Thermopylae, by Cannæ, up to Rossbach and Vionville. It is my
desire to lead the youth of Germany from the starting-point of Sedan and
Gravelotte, by Leuthen and Rossbach, back to Mantinea and Thermopylae,
which I hold to be the more excellent way.”
The effect of this pronouncement upon the German public was electrical.
For years there had been growing up in the popular mind a notion that
something was wrong with the _gymnasium_, but no one had had the courage
to define, much less proclaim, what the real trouble was. Parents had
seen their sons condemned to thirty hours per week in the _gymnasium_
(involving an even greater study time outside), and vaguely marvelled
that of these thirty hours ten should be given to Latin and six to
Greek, whereas mathematics claimed only four, geography and history
combined got only three, German and French had but two each, natural
science fluctuated between two and one, and English did not appear at
all. * But though there was everywhere a nebulous suspicion and dislike
of the system, it enjoyed the sacred immunity from attack of a fetich.
So wonderful a thing was it held to be, in all printed and spoken
speech, that people hardly dared harbour their own skeptical thoughts
about it. But when the young Kaiser bluntly announced his conviction
that it was all stupid and vicious and harmful, and pledged himself with
boldness to sweep away the classical rubbish and put practical modern
education in its place, the parents of Germany, to use Herr von Bunsen’s
phrase, were simply enchanted.
*See the interesting tabular statement in S. Baring-Gould’s
“Germany Past and Present,” p. 181. London, 1881.
During the five months which have elapsed no miracle has been wrought;
the character of the _gymnasia_ has not been changed by magic. But it is
perfectly understood by everybody that the Kaiser intends having his own
way, and being as good as his word. Important steps have already been
taken to enforce his views upon the system--notably by a change in the
Ministry of Instruction.
Dr. Gustav von Gossler had held the portfolio for ten years, and was so
entrenched in the liking of the great body of professors and teachers
that he assumed his position to be perfectly secure. When, in the summer
of 1889, the young Emperor despatched to him a long memorandum on the
reforms necessary in the higher schools of Prussia, he received it
submissively, even sympathetically, put it in a pigeon-hole, and went
on in the same old dry-as-dust classical rut. William said nothing more,
but eighteen months later, when he summoned the Educational Conference,
he simultaneously published the text of the memorandum of the previous
year. Even then Gossler seems to have suspected no danger, and made
an official speech at the opening of the session full of amiable
and confident commonplaces. On the following New Year’s Day,
however--January 1st, of the present year--a peremptory warning came to
him in the form of a gift from the palace. It was a handsomely framed
photograph of William II, and above the dashing signature were written
the significant words, “_Sic volo, sic jubeo_.” It is not strange that
shortly thereafter the retirement of von Gossler was announced.
His successor, Count Zedlitz-Trutschler, although beginning his career
in the army, long ago revealed abilities which suggested his being
drafted off into civil work. He has sat in the Reichstag as a Free
Conservative, has been Governor of Silesia, and is both an excellent
speaker and a man of great tact and resource. Among the reforms which he
has already seen his way to enforce is one by which the students of the
_gymnasia_ report the number of hours out of school in which they are
compelled to study to keep up with their lessons--these reports serving
as a basis for the monthly rearrangement of tasks in such a way as to
leave enough time for recreation. The study of German and other modern
tongues has also largely displaced the classical curriculum in the
three lower classes of the _gymnasia_. Count Zedlitz is the Minister,
moreover, having to deal with ecclesiastical affairs, and his sympathies
are all upon the side of toleration and of a good understanding with the
Vatican.
On this same New Year’s Day William sent a photograph also to the
venerable Postmaster-General, Herr von Stephan, bearing a written legend
not less characteristic than the other. It ran thus: “Intercommunication
is the sign under which the world stands at the close of the present
century. The barriers separating nations are thereby overthrown, and new
relations established between them.” Upon the sentiment thus expressed
much of great importance to Germany and to Europe depends.
Brief as has been the career of the present German Empire among nations,
its history already covers one very remarkable and complete _volte face_
on economic subjects, and the beginnings of what promises to be a second
and almost as sweeping change. Up to 1876, with Delbrück as President of
the Chancellery and Camphausen as Minister of Finance, Germany stood
for as liberal a spirit of international trade relations as at least
any other nation on the Continent. But in that year Bismarck, by a
combination of the various Conservative factions which leaned toward
high tariffs, inaugurated a Protectionist policy which forced these
Ministers out and ranged the German Empire definitely on the other side
of the economic wall. To the end of Bismarck’s rule, Germany steadily
drifted away from Free Trade and toward the ideals of Russia, Thibet,
and the Republican party in the United States. But even before
Bismarck’s fall it became apparent that the young Emperor took broader
views on this subject than his Chancellor, and during the past year
several important steps have been taken toward bringing Germany forward
once more into line with modern conceptions of emancipated trade. A
liberal Treaty of Commerce has been signed with Austro-Hungary--the
precursor, it is believed, of others with countries now committed to
stupid and injurious tariff wars, while at home no secret is made of the
ministerial intention to in time reduce duties on cereals, lumber, and
other necessaries, and generally pursue a tariff reform policy. The
Reichstag has during the year passed a bill which, beginning in August
of 1892, spreads over five years the extinction of the sugar bounties,
another great bulwark of the rich protectionist ring. An attack upon the
spirit bounties is expected next, while the Upper House of the Prussian
Diet has just passed the new Graded Income Tax Bill which is to pave the
way to a return from tariff to direct taxation.
The inspiring source of these reforms is Dr. Miquel, whose rise to
imperial favour during the labour crisis has been noted, and who
succeeded von Scholz as Minister of Finance in June of 1890. He
furnishes still another illustration of the debt which German public
life owes to the absorption, two centuries ago, of that leaven of
Huguenot blood to which reference has heretofore been made--and which
has long played in Prussia as disproportionately important a part as the
remaining Protestant strain has in the politics of France. Herr Miquel
looks like a Frenchman, and his manner, at once polished, genial, and
grave, is that of a statesman reared on the Seine rather than the Vecht.
In one sense he is scarcely a new man, since he sat in the Prussian
Parliament before the days of the Empire, and was years ago regarded as
dividing with Bennigsen the leadership of the National Liberal party.
He is in his sixty-third year, and might long since have been a Minister
had he not felt it incompatible with his self-respect to take a portfolio
under Bismarck’s whimsical and arrogant mastership. In this present
period of uncertainty in German politics, filled as it is with warring
rumours of impending reconciliations and hints of even more deeply
embittered quarrels, prophecy is forbidden, but no one on either side
attempts a forecast of the future which does not assign to Miquel a
predominant part.
His administrative abilities are of a very high order, and he combines
with them much breadth of vision and great personal authority. The
reliance placed upon him by the Emperor has been a subject of comment,
almost from the first meeting of the two men, and German public opinion
gives him no rival in influence over the imperial mind. It was at the
dinner-table of this Minister last February that William is said to have
replied to a long argument by Baron Kardorff in favour of bimetallism:
“Personally I am a gold man, and for the rest I leave everything to
Miquel.”
With the impending retirement of von Maybach, Minister of Public Works
and Railways, von Boetticher will be the only remaining Minister of
eleven who held portfolios when William I died in March, 1888. It seems
probable that the present year will outlive even this exception. The
change in governmental spirit and methods of which Berlin is more
and more conscious, is not wholly a matter of new men. The weight of
militarism is being lifted. Generals no longer play the part they did in
purely civil affairs. Count Waldersee’s retirement from his great
post as Chief of the General Staff is popularly ascribed to his having
attempted to interfere with the amount and distribution of the military
budget. Five years ago such an interference would have seemed to
everybody the most natural thing in the world. The Emperor, too, grows
less fond of obtruding the martial side of his training and temperament.
From a beginning in which he seemed to think that Germany existed
principally for the purpose of supporting an army, he has grown to see
the true proportion of things and to give military matters hardly more
than their legitimate share of his attention. The death of Moltke has
removed the last great soldier who could speak authoritatively for the
army in the Reichstag. In that sense at least he has left no heir.
In the more troubled domain of foreign affairs, the year without
Bismarck has been marked by fewer visible changes. We are well along
into “a year without Crispi,” also, but the Triple Alliance, if less
demonstrative in its professions of mutual affection and pride than
formerly, seems no whit diminished in substantial unity. At the moment,
peace appears to be as secure as it has been during any year since
1880--which is another way of saying that the weight of force and
determination is still on the side of the Triple Alliance.
There has been during the twelvemonth only one sensational incident to
mar the polite, business-like relations which Caprivi maintains with the
nations of the earth. The unfortunate incidents attending the visit in
February of the Empress Frederic to Paris, are too fresh in the public
memory to call for recapitulation here. It seems fair to say that it is
not easy to imagine so pacific and sensible an ending to such a stormy
episode having been arrived at in the days of Bismarck. The young
Kaiser, whom Europe thought of as a firebrand when he ascended the
throne, kept his temper, or at least prevented its making a mark upon
the policy of his government, in a striking manner. He had just gone out
of his way to conciliate French feeling by writing a graceful message
of condolence upon the death of Meissonier. The foolish insults to his
mother, with which this act of courtesy was answered by the Parisian
rabble, failed to provoke any retort in kind. Indeed, when it was
represented to him that the increased rigour of passport regulations in
Alsace-Lorraine was being construed as a reprisal, he issued orders to
modify this rigour.
With this exhibition of judicious restraint, which rises to the full
measure of the vast responsibilities and anxious necessities of his
position, our chronological record of William’s three-years’ reign may
be fittingly brought to a close. The added narrative which is held in
store for us by the future may be tempestuous and discoloured by fire
and blood; far better, it may be a gentle story of increasing wisdom, of
good deeds done and peace made a natural state instead of an emergency
in the minds of men. But whichever betides, we have seen enough to feel
that it will be the chronicle of a real man, active, self-centred, eager
to achieve and resolute to act, of high temper and great ambitions,
and who has been given such a chance by the fates to help or hurt his
fellow-mortals as perhaps no other young man ever had.
In a concluding chapter some notice may properly be taken of the
personal attributes of William, and of his daily walk and talk as a
human being as well as a Kaiser.