GERMANY BEFORE THE WAR
BY
BARON BEYENS
LATE BELGIAN MINISTER AT THE COURT OF BERLIN
TRANSLATED BY PAUL V. COHN, B.A.
THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, LTD.
_London, Edinburgh, and New York_
_First published March 1916._
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION 7
I. THE EMPEROR WILLIAM 13
II. THE IMPERIAL FAMILY, COURT, AND GOVERNMENT 55
III. THE ARMY AND NAVY—THE WAR PARTY 106
IV. THE REICHSTAG AND POLITICAL PARTIES 138
V. PUBLIC OPINION—ECONOMIC CAUSES OF THE WAR 177
VI. THE MOROCCAN QUESTION 215
VII. THE EASTERN QUESTION 240
VIII. THE WEEK OF TRAGEDY 270
IX. BELGIAN NEUTRALITY AND THE INVASION OF BELGIUM 312
CONCLUSION 355
APPENDIX 365
INTRODUCTION.
At the close of the nineteenth century and the opening of the
twentieth, several efforts were made, both in Europe and America,
towards the prevention of future wars, by substituting legal methods
for brute force in the settlement of international disputes. It is
worth while to recall the preliminary steps that some high-minded
rulers took in this direction. Tsar Nicholas invited foreign
governments to the first of those peace conferences which met at the
Hague. Successive presidents of the United States, for their part,
strove to obtain an immediate practical result by means of treaties
concluded with various nations. The object of these treaties was to
submit to a court of arbitration any disputes that might arise among
the signatories. The two Hague Conferences failed, indeed, to realize
the ideal aims which their promoters had in view. They were unable to
establish compulsory arbitration. On the other hand, they organized
procedure, and set up machinery, such as the permanent court of
arbitration, to facilitate the peaceful settlement of disputes. They
succeeded, to some extent, in regulating the employment and checking
the abuse of certain weapons and methods of warfare, and in drawing
up a sort of legal code for belligerents. The international Hague
Conventions have justly been called a charter of rights for the nations
in war time. Unfortunately, the observance of these rules cannot be
enforced by any court of justice, and depends entirely upon the honesty
or good will of the Powers that have accepted them.
Apart from all this State action, several valiant efforts were made
by private individuals, inspired with the noblest ideals. Politicians
who had grown gray in the public service, such as M. Beernaert, a
Belgian Minister of State, devoted all their remaining vigour of body
and mind to the task of spreading the influence of peace conferences
and leagues, by making them more numerous. In meetings at which many
eloquent speeches were delivered they tried to discover means of
superseding the _ultima ratio_ of a resort to arms by the permanent
use of arbitral tribunals. Baron D’Estournelles de Constant and
Lord Weardale—to mention only the most energetic apostles of their
creed—preached with unflagging zeal the gospel of pacifism, which, by
smoothing over international differences, was to lead mankind towards
the Golden Age of universal peace.
In all countries except Germany, the Socialists, Collectivists, Labour
Party, or whatever they might style themselves, could not stand aloof
from a movement which aimed at the abolition of war. The pacifist
movement, though indeed striving towards a different goal, was quite in
harmony with the teachings of Socialists, and would have helped them
to secure one of the main planks in their platform—that is, to remove
national barriers and frontiers by creating an international solidarity
among the workers, in place of the old particularist notions of country
and fatherland behind which the capitalists and the middle classes
remain entrenched. Inspired by pacifist ideas, some of the leaders of
French Socialism, notably Jaurès, even made overtures to the Social
Democrats of Germany, with a view to bringing about an understanding
between the two countries. Two congresses, held at Berne in 1912
and 1913 respectively, were attended by a large number of French
parliamentary deputies; but the group of delegates from the Reichstag,
Socialists for the most part, was insignificant. Their good intentions
were frustrated by the problem of Alsace-Lorraine, which barred all
further progress. Neither side could find a means of removing this
obstacle without wounding the sensitive patriotism of the two nations.
The thunder of the guns in the Balkan War, while revealing to pacifists
the grim realities of the battlefield, did not awake them from their
dreams. On the contrary, the pacifists persisted all the more in
their illusions. After all, they urged, this war was not a European
conflict, but an episode in the eternal Eastern question. Throughout
the crisis, the Great Powers, by the conferences of their ambassadors
and the utterances of their statesmen, had shown their earnest desire
for peace. The Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente, those two
good-natured giants, both showed the same conciliatory disposition.
The balance of power between these two groups compelled them, even had
they wished otherwise, to maintain a pacific attitude, while the Balkan
conflagration, being thus localized, was dying out at their feet. After
so searching a test, the prospect for the future seemed bright indeed.
Life in the clouds of pacifism was not conducive to the realization of
the ever-growing danger. It was enough to live in Berlin, amid such
circles as were in touch with the Imperial Government and the foreign
embassies. The heart of the German capital was indeed the meeting-place
for the principal wires of world-politics. During the last few years,
the air that one breathed there was strangely oppressive; the ground
quaked beneath one’s feet, as in the neighbourhood of a volcanic
eruption. One never ceased gazing anxiously at the horizon, now towards
the Vosges, now towards the Balkans, wherever the storm-clouds, charged
with electricity, were gathering at the moment. A gust of fresh wind
would scatter these clouds, but they would gather again after the
briefest interval. As one felt only too clearly, the peace was so
fragile that the slightest incident might serve to break it. Should
Greece and Turkey wrangle over the possession of a few barren rocks in
the Ægean, should a Zeppelin once more come to earth in some town of
Lorraine, or should a party of Teuton tourists be again molested by
some discourteous French students, the artificial security that reigned
in Central Europe would be at an end.
These recurring attacks of fever were bound to result in a fatal
crisis. War has at last broken out, sooner than the most gloomy
pessimists anticipated, and in a more terrible form than they dared
to imagine—a war that has set three-fourths of Europe ablaze, and has
spread like wildfire to other continents and other seas. What was
the immediate cause of this general outbreak? “A political murder of
unexampled brutality, and the need for severely punishing a little
nation of conspirators,” say the two Germanic empires with one voice.
“Mere pretexts,” is the convincing reply of the Entente Powers. The
origins of the war, of course, go much further back, and the causes lie
deeper and are less obvious to the eye. The German intellectuals, now
that they have cast aside their official servility and are discoursing
freely on the lot that awaits their nation, have the honesty to admit
as much themselves.
In the present work I have endeavoured, as others have done before
me, to trace these causes and to assign the responsibility for the
disastrous events that we are witnessing. My conclusions are based
mainly on the personal observations that I made during a stay of two
years in Berlin immediately before the war. At the same time, I have
attempted to sketch the psychology of the principal German actors in
the tragedy of 1914. I can sincerely say that I have taken every care
to remain strictly impartial, to render to Cæsar the things that are
Cæsar’s, and to make due allowance for the policy imposed upon Germany
during the last fifteen years, and for external events that have had
their influence since the beginning of the century.
Moreover, these pages, which have been written during the melancholy
leisure forced upon me by the calamities of Belgium, have a further
object in view. I have desired to do a service to my beloved country,
the first victim—and an innocent victim—of a ruthless design. I have
desired to contribute something towards requiting her for those
monstrous charges with which her torturers have sought to belittle her
stainless loyalty and to tarnish her unparalleled heroism.
May my labours bring some small light to those who search for truth!
May they furnish a document of some service to future writers, to those
who, with an authority that the passage of time alone can give, will
describe a period of the world’s history which Christian civilization
will some day shudder to recall!
GERMANY BEFORE THE WAR.
CHAPTER I.
THE EMPEROR WILLIAM.
I.
No one who has not had the opportunity in recent years of approaching
the Emperor William and of conversing with him can realize the
favourable impression that he at first creates. To have a conversation
with him means to play the part of a listener, to allow him to unfold
his ideas in lively fashion, while from time to time one ventures upon
a remark on which his quick mind, flitting readily from one subject
to another, seizes with avidity. While he is talking, he looks one
squarely in the face, his left hand resting on his sword-hilt in an
attitude that has become a habit with him. His voice, very guttural
in tone, and almost hoarse, is disagreeable; but he has a mobile,
expressive face, with magnificent eyes that keep it always bright and
animated. At a first meeting, it is these eyes that impress one more
than his words: eyes of light blue, now merry and smiling, now hard
and stern, with sudden gleams that flash like steel. Yet when we come
away from an interview of this kind, we begin to feel doubts as to the
sincerity of this dangerous talker. We ask ourselves, with a touch of
anxiety, whether the man whom we have just seen is really convinced
of what he says, or whether he is the most striking actor that has
appeared on the political stage of our day.
In his mother-tongue, William II. has a natural eloquence, with a
pompous style, full of metaphors and similes. Hardly had he been
seated on the throne before his love of speaking had revealed itself
in oratorical displays of all kinds—after-dinner speeches, answers to
addresses, and soldierly harangues to military and naval recruits.
All these have been delivered during the continual journeys in which
he delights, whether rushing to and fro about his own empire, or
navigating all the seas of Europe in his yacht, or paying visits to
his fellow-monarchs. Some of his orations are models of the Imperial
style, but his self-assurance has led him more than once to utter, in
the heat of improvisation, some tactless or inopportune phrase which
has aroused a feeling of uneasiness or disgust in Germany no less than
in foreign countries: bold ideas, presented in an original form, but
the unripe products of an over-impulsive temperament, and entirely at
variance with public feeling. With advancing years, he has become
slightly more discreet in his language. Moreover, the text of his
speeches is nowadays revised and expurgated by his civil Cabinet before
being issued to the public. Together with this impulse to trumpet forth
his ideas, he has a decided propensity for striking a theatrical pose,
whenever he knows that he is the cynosure of every eye—that is to say,
whenever he appears in public; whereas, in the privacy of his home, he
is by no means lacking in geniality or even in simplicity.
Undoubtedly the Emperor is a man of many gifts, intelligent and
well-informed. For all that, one gets an impression, when talking to
him, that he has but a superficial acquaintance with certain subjects
on which he loves to dilate.
This is not surprising. In spite of his uncommon capacity for
assimilating knowledge, William II. is not a man of universal mind,
able to discourse with equal aptness upon politics, industry, commerce,
agriculture, music, painting, architecture—one may as well say, upon
every branch of human knowledge, for he does not even shrink from
venturing on the steep path of the exact sciences. Perhaps he would
have acted more wisely if, instead of spreading his mental activities
over so many different fields, he had centred them in the study of
foreign politics, and had endeavoured to find out for himself, at first
hand, the real state of public opinion in the countries surrounding
Germany. Had he adopted this course, those who conversed with him
would not have had to record the disquieting fact that he accepted, as
articles of faith, many prejudiced and utterly wrong-headed notions
that were current in the German Press and among the German public.
His confidence in himself has always made it impossible for him to
endure, in the governance of the Empire, the co-operation of a superior
mind or an independent will. When he had been on the throne two years,
he impatiently shook himself free from the leading-strings—irksome, no
doubt, but still necessary—held by the man to whom he owed his Imperial
crown. In order to enjoy a long spell of service, his ministers must
either adopt his ideas or possess the art of presenting theirs as if
he had inspired them. After the dismissal of Bismarck, his chancellors
were nothing but executors, more or less skilful, of his divine will,
and heads of an army of bureaucrats. For an Imperial chancellor, to
govern means not to foresee, but to obey a headstrong and unstable
master.
In other aspects of his character the Emperor is a very modern ruler.
He has always had a fondness for the society of noted scholars and
scientific men. Having some artistic pretensions himself, he likes to
surround himself with artists who follow his advice and carry out his
suggestions. In Prussia, building has always been a noble pastime for
princes, a pastime that Frederick the Great pursued, with admirable
results, in the intervals between his wars. William II. is a great
builder: in the course of twenty-five years his architects have erected
more monuments and palaces in Berlin than their fellow-craftsmen in
other capitals have produced throughout a whole century. Too often,
however, these constructions bear the imprint of his taste for the
massive, the colossal, and the overloaded. Under his inspiration,
German artists are making laborious efforts to create a style that
may deserve to be called the “William II. Style.” In spite of this,
the most pleasing monuments of the Imperial residence are still those
which were raised under the earlier kings, and to which Herr von Ihne,
an artist who is an ardent admirer of eighteenth-century French art,
has made some fine additions. One observes with some surprise, by the
way, that the old palace of the first King of Prussia is still large
enough to contain the first German Emperors. May we imagine that the
haughty son of the Great Elector, with the limitless ambition of the
Hohenzollerns, foresaw the remote future destiny of his house?
From the sculptors, William II., faithful to the same æsthetic
principles, has ordered statues, gigantic in size or cast into stiff,
formal attitudes, representing the heroes of his line and the great men
who served his ancestors. Surely they do not deserve such barbarous
treatment! His infatuation for official painting has prevented him
from appreciating artists of original talent, such leaders of schools
as Max Liebermann, whom he looks upon as revolutionaries. The same
remark applies to men of letters. The most noted living novelists and
playwrights of Germany, a Hauptmann or a Sudermann, are nowhere less
understood than at the Court of Berlin.
For a long time past the Emperor has delighted in the society of
agreeable dilettante, poets, and musicians—for he adores music and
poetry—the companions of the famous “Round Table.” The scandalous
Eulenburg case brought these intimacies to an abrupt close. Evil has
been whispered, quite without justification, of his friendship with
that attractive but unhappy figure, Prince Philip von Eulenburg.
It would be more to the point to note his weakness for rich men,
for the founders of vast fortunes. In this respect he has shown,
like some other crowned heads, that he has a sense for present-day
realities—that he appreciates the services rendered to modern society
by wealth. Americans visiting Berlin are assured of a warm welcome at
the Imperial Court, provided they bear names to conjure with in the
money-market of the United States. It is only fair to add that, in
paying these flattering attentions to opulent Yankees, William II. is
partly actuated by what has been called his “American policy”—that is
to say, his desire for a close understanding with the Great Republic.
His admiration for the power conferred by money has been similarly
displayed in his method of bestowing honours on his loyal nobility. In
creating an exalted aristocracy of princes and dukes, who before his
time were very few and far between in Prussia, he has sometimes shown
less regard for ancient lineage and services claiming the gratitude
of the State than for the territorial possessions of those concerned.
Nobles who have remained poor have not been much favoured, even when
they inherit the most honoured names in the military history of the
kingdom.
Brought up by a father whose “liberal” ideas have been overpraised
(such is the view of those who knew him best), the Emperor, at the
outset of his reign, felt an impatient eagerness to improve the lot
of the labouring classes and—as he announced at the opening of the
Reichstag in 1888—to continue, in accordance with the principles
of Christian morality, the legislative work of social protection
inaugurated by his grandfather. In 1890 an international conference
held by his orders in Berlin, for the purpose of studying industrial
legislation. On the other hand, he came to the throne with a youthful
hatred of Socialists and freethinkers—a hatred that grew in intensity
as the years went by, and as the advance of Social Democracy became
more menacing at each election to the Reichstag. Nothing has occupied
his mind more than the fear of Socialism, the struggle with this
elusive Proteus. In a speech delivered at Königsberg in 1894, he
denounced the enemy in no measured terms: “Let us arise, and fight for
religion, morality, and order, against the partisans of anarchy!” In
1907 he even entered the lists against the foe, to such good purpose
that on the balcony of his palace in Berlin he was hailed with cheers
from the _bien pensants_ after the electoral verdict which for the time
being thinned the ranks of the Social-Democratic delegates. As ruler
of a great empire containing some millions of Socialists, would he not
have acted more wisely by holding aloof from the feuds of classes and
of parties, and by dwelling serenely above the turmoil?
William II., without sharing all the reactionary ideas of the Prussian
Conservatives, has anything but a liberal turn of mind. He is a monarch
by divine right—one who considers himself, like his predecessors,
entrusted with the mission of governing his States and of moulding
the happiness of his subjects, even though it be against their own
immediate wishes, in accordance with the principles of religion and the
monarchical tradition; an unbending champion of the sacred privileges
of kingship, limited solely by the barriers of modern constitutionalism.
It is not within the scope of the present study to enter into a more
detailed analysis of so complex a character, one that has already
furnished material for numerous portraits, and, with all its twists
and turns, will severely test the powers of future biographers. I
will merely endeavour, at the end of this chapter, to summarize the
most striking features of the Imperial temperament, and to indicate
the aspect under which he must appear to us hereafter in the light of
an appalling war. After all, in the man who sways the destinies of
Germany, it is the statesman who claims our chief interest, because of
his attempt to give a new direction to the destinies of Europe. From
this standpoint, it is impossible to overlook the part that religion
plays in his life. He has always been an ardent Protestant. For him,
as for Treitschke, the historian of modern Prussia, Protestantism is
not only the true faith, but the corner-stone of German unity, the
strong rampart behind which the language and customs of the German race
have been kept intact from the shores of the Baltic to the borders
of Transylvania. William II.’s creed, however, though sincere, is
decidedly too garrulous and too nationalistic. It is paraded before
the world with an intolerable lack of reticence. It is revealed in
his speeches by startling invocations to the Deity, a Deity who is
exclusively German, who confines his love to the Germans and rejoices
in their exploits. At the threshold of the twentieth century, this
defender of the faith, modelling himself upon the Biblical heroes and
the champions of the Reformation had come to regard himself as the
right hand and sword of the Almighty, as the predestined being on
whom the Spirit from on high had descended. How can we be astonished
if, under the sway of such a creed, he has embarked upon a war that
recalls the merciless struggles of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, a sort of crusade against the enemies of God’s chosen
people, embodied to-day in the Germanic race? This theory and practice
of religion will explain why the head of the pious German nation, after
solemnly invoking upon his arms the blessing of the Christian God—a God
of peace and good will!—has ordered, without any qualms of conscience,
the bombardment of defenceless cities and the destruction of the
architectural triumphs of Catholic art, the old historic cathedrals.
II.
During the decade preceding the war, too much confidence was placed
abroad in the pacifism and sincerity of William II. It was forgotten
that, after all, he is a descendant of Frederick the Great, and that,
where politics are concerned, he must have studied the lessons taught
by his unscrupulous ancestor. He claims for himself, not altogether
without justice—for in his early years he might well have fallen
a victim to the glamour of military laurels—the merit of having
maintained the peace of Europe, in spite of unwearied efforts to
perfect the organization of the German army, or rather by virtue of
those accessions of strength which made an attack upon it almost
impossible. This claim was accepted in all good faith by a world which
failed to realize that the competition in armaments must inevitably
lead to war, just as every fever that becomes acute results in a
violent crisis. Apart from the peaceful intentions of the Emperor, it
was felt that the Triple Alliance, formed by Bismarck and renewed from
time to time after his day, might well calm the fears of the smaller
nationalities. The old Chancellor and his successors always represented
the Triplice as an insurance policy against the danger of a widespread
conflagration. Safely ensconced in this impregnable fortress, the
forces of the three allies could defy any coalition; hence other Powers
were careful not to challenge them, not to do anything that might
disturb the ordered state of Europe. But from the day that the Cabinet
of Berlin, in order to support the claims of the Cabinet of Vienna,
forced the Slav nations and the other Powers, taken off their guard,
to recognize the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Triple Alliance
wore a new aspect. The policeman of Europe, impelled by a restless
greed, was beginning to fail in his duties as guardian. The confidence
hitherto placed in the honesty of his intentions grew sensibly weaker.
It is true that for twenty-five years—_longum aevi spatium_—William
II. kept the promise he had made to the German people, at Bismarck’s
advice, in his first speech from the throne—the promise that he would
have a peaceful reign. Throughout that period his one idea was to
make Germany the first country in the world through the development of
her commerce and industry, to enrich every class in the community, to
dethrone Paris and London in favour of Berlin. “Our future lies on the
water!” he said to his subjects, with a clear view of the goal towards
which he was to direct their energies—the creation of a powerful navy,
which would ensure in all the markets of the world a predominant place
for the products of German labour. During this quarter of a century
Germany indeed made remarkable strides, and her progress filled
other nations with amazement. William II. consorted chiefly with the
great bankers, manufacturers, and armament-makers of the Empire, and
constantly took their advice. He was on intimate terms with Herr Krupp,
whose private life scarcely entitled him to this honour. He did all he
could to encourage Herr Ballin, the clever and enterprising director
of the Hamburg-Amerika line. He presided in person at the launching
of the transatlantic giants of this powerful company. In the speech
delivered by him when the last of these leviathans left the dock—a
vessel of fifty thousand tons, christened by him “Bismarck,” as a tardy
act of homage to the genius of the Iron Chancellor—he gave vent to an
extraordinary outburst of patriotic pride. It was a pæan of triumph in
honour of the German shipyards, which had built the largest liner in
the world, far surpassing anything that the maritime art of England
had so far attempted.
The long spell of peace imposed by this ruler of a military nation had
no doubt other causes than the desire to ensure the economic prosperity
of Germany. Although William II. from his early youth has taken a keen
interest in his army, he does not possess the martial spirit inherent
in several princes of his house. Like Frederick William I., he is fond
of the barracks, without having a taste for the battlefield. Since
the age of twenty-nine, when he became the supreme commander of the
army, the “War Lord,” he has performed with scrupulous care all the
military ritual prescribed for a King of Prussia; he has regularly
been seen taking part in his officers’ mess, appearing from daybreak
in the midst of his cavalry regiments on the drill-ground at Döberitz,
inspecting every army corps in turn, and presiding at the “Imperial”
autumn manœuvres, where his criticism of the operations raised a smile
among professional soldiers. All along the streets of Berlin the shop
windows are filled with photographs of the Emperor in every naval and
military uniform of his forces, in every character of his repertory;
his moustaches fiercely turned up, his glance firm and threatening, his
field-marshal’s baton in his hand. These portraits do their utmost to
give us an impression of an exceedingly warlike sovereign. But is he
really a soldier?
At the opening of hostilities, the German newspapers announced that
His Imperial Majesty, in visiting the theatres of war, would be
followed by a special train, carrying a collapsible wooden house,
including materials for a floor, in order that the Emperor should not
be exposed to the damp. We know, indeed, that this need of ease and
comfort is partly due to a fear of colds and throat maladies, for
William II. can take no liberties with his health. Still, precautions
of this kind are hardly what we expect from a true soldier.
The true royal soldier of this war is not to be found among the crowned
Germans who only follow it at a safe distance; he stands at the head
of the little Belgian army that is making a desperate struggle to
defend its homes. The true soldier is he who has faced danger in the
firing-line and the trenches, in order to inspire his youthful troops
with his own coolness and heroism, the heroism of a soul that no terror
can daunt. The true soldier is he who has shown his mettle on the
battlefields of Louvain, Antwerp, and the Yser as a great general and a
great king—His Majesty King Albert.
Perhaps, too, William II. remained pacific for so long because he
lacked confidence as to the result of a fresh struggle, although in his
speeches he extolled the prowess of his forbears, and often recommended
his soldiers to keep their powder dry. Perhaps he dreaded the uncertain
fortune of battle, remembering the words of Bismarck on the subject
of preventive wars, of wars inspired solely by the aim of crushing an
opponent before he is ready: “We cannot get a glimpse of the cards
that Providence holds.” Perhaps, again, he feared the unknown factors
that may wreck the best-laid political schemes, those _imponderabilia_
or incalculable elements which the same statesman regarded as so
important. That a young sovereign, such as the Emperor in the first
few years of his reign, should not wish to imperil the heritage of
glory and conquest bequeathed by his grandfather is perfectly natural
and intelligible. He liked to rattle his sabre, always at the wrong
moment, but not to draw it from its sheath, for he had no inborn love
of war. Yet these peaceful sentiments—or shall we rather say this
unwillingness to face the hazards of fortune?—disappeared in course of
time, and gave place in that restless mind to feelings of quite another
order. The transformation, however, was not a sudden one; it was a
gradual conversion, keeping pace with the changes that supervened in
Germany herself, with the increase in her population, her needs and her
appetites. The influence of Bismarck, a satisfied, sobered, and prudent
Bismarck, not to be confused with the bold gambler of the war period,
had long outlasted his retirement. For ten years more, ten years of
internal conflict, during which the German people seemed to be angry
with the Emperor for having broken its idol, the Bismarckian policy of
consolidation and defence had been kept up by the mediocre successors
of the irascible recluse of Varzin. After this, other ambitions came
into play, and the counsels of the ex-Chancellor were gradually
forgotten by the new generation of politicians, diplomats, professors,
writers, and soldiers who aspired to lead Germany towards loftier
goals. Their successful influence upon the mind of the Sovereign became
perfectly apparent at the moment when he reached the zenith of his
career.
This moment coincides with the end of the first twenty-five years of
his reign, which had dowered the German people with an unexampled
prosperity. The Imperial Jubilee of 1913 was an epoch-making date.
Germany, in fact, was not content with celebrating that year the
peaceful conquests achieved since the accession of her third Emperor;
she commemorated, at the same time, the centenary of the wars of
liberation, while the members of the Reichstag patriotically voted for
a military law more burdensome and more crushing than any previous
measure of the kind. Thus Germany associated the superb results of
her national energy for the past quarter of a century, which no real
menace of war had ever threatened to wreck, with the glowing memories
of her emancipation from the Napoleonic yoke, and with feverish
preparation for a fresh struggle, which the condition of Europe by no
means appeared to warrant. This triple coincidence aroused serious
misgivings in the minds of foreign observers. The patriotic memories
of 1813 seemed like low rumblings of thunder, the harbingers of an
approaching storm. As if the passions of his subjects were not heated
enough already, the Emperor in his public speeches did not cease from
fanning their flame. He must have said to himself then that the first
part of his task was over, and that the second was about to begin. He
had launched his people upon a career of prosperity and progress in
which it could no longer cry halt, and a new war, far from checking
this marvellous economic advance, would only act as a fresh stimulus.
Germany, having trebled her commerce and almost doubled her population,
with millions of workers who no longer left their country to seek a
living elsewhere, needed new fields for expansion, and thirsted for
an unquestioned supremacy in every sphere. It would be the glory of
William, while still in the full vigour of his years, to realize these
splendid ambitions.
With implicit faith in the historians of his house, he had already
come under the spell of dreams that took their rise in a remote past.
Although heir to a modern empire, entirely different from the Germanic
empire of Otto and Barbarossa, he had sedulously set himself to link up
the creation of Bismarck and Moltke with that of the Middle Ages, to
re-forge the chain of historic tradition, to proclaim himself the heir
of the old elected Cæsars. It is obviously with this intention that
the Siegesallee was laid out through the Thiergarten in Berlin, with
its double row of marble statues, symmetrical and funereal, more suited
to a royal family vault than to a public park. There, almost shoulder
to shoulder, stand Emperors of Germany, ancient and modern, Electors of
Brandenburg and Kings of Prussia—a significant Pantheon! At Vienna, the
princes of the Hapsburg house avenged the defeats of 1866 by treating
the Hohenzollerns as upstarts. At Berlin, however, the descendant
of these upstarts aimed at nothing less than reviving the monarchy
of Charlemagne. He set up in his capital a monument to the mythical
Roland, as a symbol of the bond between past and present, and dreamed
of re-establishing a Carlovingian hegemony over the Continent of Europe.
III.
I will deal later with those European events and those features of the
internal situation in Germany which reacted upon the mind of William
II. and helped to bring about his moral transformation. The point that
must be emphasized here is that he fancied at first that he would only
have to fight France, the old, implacable enemy. The coming war seemed
to him nothing but a mere duel between the Empire and the Republic.
For a long time he hoped to sow dissensions between his opponents,
and to secure the inaction of Russia. At the Court of Berlin the
Franco-Russian alliance was not regarded as a rock that nothing
could shatter. The Potsdam agreement, concluded by M. Kokovtzow, and
restricted in its scope (so far as we can tell) to Western Asia, seemed
to open up a promising vista. Repeated advances were made to Tsar
Nicholas; interviews took place, such as the one at Baltic Port, where
William II. exercised all the seductive wiles at his command to cajole
the Russian sovereign and win the confidence of his ministers. The
Emperor himself remarked to me, only a few months before the war, that
false ideas were current in France regarding the stability of the Dual
Alliance; he was well informed as to the true feeling of the Tsar’s
Court, for some exalted Russian personages, in passing through Berlin,
had not scrupled to indicate the side on which their sympathies lay.
One of the main axioms of Bismarck’s policy was that Germany must
always strive to maintain friendly relations with her great northern
neighbour. This sound advice, which the Chancellor himself had not
acted upon at the Congress of Berlin, was neglected by his successors.
In March 1909, William II., in full accord with the views of Prince
von Bülow, did not hesitate to inform St. Petersburg that he would
give unswerving support to Austria, if the diplomatic debate on the
annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina should culminate in a war. The
threatening front that Count de Portalès was ordered to show rankled
in the hearts of Russian patriots, who were compelled to retreat before
this menace. But at the Court of Berlin the memory of it soon faded,
for it is characteristic of the Emperor to forget any ill-feeling of
which he is the cause. He is always ready to pardon those whom he has
insulted.
Even the Balkan War did not entirely dispel his illusions, although
it showed clearly that France and Russia were firmly united, and
determined to face the same risks hand in hand. The expert fingers of
M. Delcassé, who was sent as ambassador to St. Petersburg during the
events of 1912, tied the knot of the alliance more tightly than ever.
After this, it is true, the Emperor paid great attention to Russian
military activity on his eastern frontier; but it must have cost him
much to abandon his dream of a neutral or inactive Russia in the event
of a war with France. On March 2, 1914, the semi-official _Kölnische
Zeitung_,[1] under the guise of a letter from its St. Petersburg
correspondent, issued a final warning to the Tsar! This document
denounced the increase of armaments and the ingratitude with which
Russia was repaying the services that Germany had rendered to her at
the time of the Macedonian war. The Russian newspapers replied in
an acrimonious tone, hinting that the commercial treaty with Germany
would not be renewed. Herr von Jagow, in a statement on foreign affairs
read to the Reichstag some weeks later, confined himself to a general
censure of these Press campaigns, the responsibility for which he
assigned to the Pan-Slavic journals.
IV.
In William II.’s eyes France has always been the chief enemy. In
spite of this, the idea of a reconciliation with her has repeatedly
flitted across his romantic brain. Not for one moment, however, has he
thought of restoring Alsace-Lorraine to her or of making it neutral
territory. He regarded these questions as settled for good and all by
the victories of 1870 and the Treaty of Frankfort, and would not even
humour France to the extent of granting a more liberal constitution to
the conquered provinces. Some Frenchmen, anxious to promote a better
understanding between France and Germany, wished to see Alsace-Lorraine
enjoy a complete autonomy, after the pattern of a federal State
like Bavaria or Saxony. This suggestion, impressed Berlin as an
unwarrantable interference in the internal affairs of the Empire.
Nevertheless, the Emperor has often believed in all sincerity that
he might improve the relations between the two countries, ease
the tension between Paris and Berlin, and even pave the way for an
eventual friendship, by paying flattering attentions to Frenchmen and
Frenchwomen, celebrities in politics, art, and society, who visited
Germany. He considered that in paying these attentions to individuals
and in supplementing them by smiles and compliments addressed to the
Republican Government and to prominent people he was making real
advances. His conversations with Coquelin and Mlle. Granier amused
the Parisians, who thanked him with neatly turned paragraphs in the
newspapers, and held themselves free of all further obligations. Those
who thought that these displays of Imperial graciousness might be
followed by a more favourable trend in Germany’s policy towards France
were doomed to disappointment. Offers of association in commercial
enterprises between subjects of the two countries in Morocco were made
(without any success, by the way) after the agreement of 1909, but
they must not be taken as instances of William II.’s good will towards
a neighbour whom in reality he detested. He fancied that he could
conquer the French by his winning ways, and in this his vanity deceived
him, although at certain times, partly owing to his reputation as a
pacifist, he was a not unpopular figure in Paris.
For some time previous to the war he had been cured of these fits of
benevolence, after discovering that they were practically useless. In
fact, during the last few months before the cataclysm he went to the
other extreme, and when any French visitor was presented to him, his
manner was unusually brusque and haughty. At a Court ball one evening
in February 1914, while conversing with my friend and fellow-countryman
Baron Lambert, he gave vent in my presence to the following epigram,
more picturesque than true (it was one that he loved to repeat, for
he had already uttered it to other diplomats): “I have often held out
my hand to France; she has only answered me with kicks!” He followed
this up with a diatribe against the Parisian Press, which, he said,
attacked Germany day after day with unreasoning violence. He ended in
a grave tone, exclaiming with those expressive gestures that added
so much weight to his words: “They had better take care in Paris—_I_
shall not live for ever!” While he was holding forth in this style, his
mind, as will be seen later on, was already made up for war. Was he
playing a part? Or should we rather see in all this a desire to heap up
grievances, in order to justify his later acts?
Since he procured a regular supply of cuttings from the French
nationalist organs, in which his Government was pilloried, why did he
not read their German counterpart—the daily attacks of the Pan-Germanic
Press upon France in general and President Poincaré in particular?
Undoubtedly this warfare of pens was not merely regrettable, but
dangerous in the interests of peace; still, it was carried on by each
side in the tone and style characteristic of the two races. In order
to form a conception of the haughtiness, insolence, and bad faith of
certain German publicists, it would be enough to wade through some
of the articles with which Dr. Schiemann, who had his little hour of
favour and popularity at the Court of Berlin, regaled the Gallophobe
and Russophobe readers of the _Kreuzzeitung_ in his political notes of
the week every Wednesday morning.
After Agadir, William II. came to regard a war with France as
inexorably decreed by Fate. On the 5th and 6th of November 1913, the
King of the Belgians was his guest at Potsdam, after returning from
Lüneburg, where he had paid his usual courtesy visit to the regiment of
dragoons of which he was honorary colonel. On this occasion the Emperor
told King Albert that he looked upon war with France as “inevitable and
close at hand.” What reason did he give for this pessimistic statement,
which impressed his royal visitor all the more strongly since the
belief in the peaceful sentiments of the Emperor had not yet been
shaken in Belgium? He pointed out that France herself wanted war, and
that she was arming rapidly with that end in view, as was proved by the
vote on the law enacting a three years’ term of military service. At
the same time he declared that he felt certain of victory. The Belgian
monarch, who was better informed as to the real inclinations of the
French Government and people, tried in vain to enlighten him, and to
dispel from his mind the false picture that he drew from the language
of a handful of fanatical patriots, the picture of a France thirsting
for war.
On the 6th of November General von Moltke, Chief of the General Staff,
after a dinner to which the Emperor, in honour of his guest, had
invited the leading officials present in Berlin, had a conversation
with King Albert. He expressed himself in the same terms as his
Sovereign on the subject of war with France, asserted that it was bound
to come soon, and insisted still more emphatically on the certain
prospect of success, in view of the enthusiasm with which the whole
German nation would gird up its loins to beat back the traditional
foe. General von Moltke used the same blustering language that evening
to the Belgian military attaché, who sat next to him at table. I have
been told that later in the evening he showed a similar lack of reserve
towards other military attachés in whom he was pleased to confide, or
whom he wished to impress.
The real object of these confidential outbursts is not hard to
discover. They were an invitation to our country, face to face with the
danger that threatened Western Europe, to throw herself into the arms
of the stronger, arms ready to open, to clasp Belgium—yes, and to crush
her. When we think of the ultimatum issued to Belgium on the following
2nd of August, we realize to what an act of servility and cowardice
William II., through this Potsdam interview, would fain have driven
King Albert.
The conversation between the two sovereigns was reported to the French
ambassador, as is shown by a dispatch from M. Cambon, inserted in the
French Yellow Book of 1914. This was done solely from a hope that
the disaster of a Franco-German war might still be averted. In the
higher interests of humanity, it was essential for France to learn
that the Emperor had ceased to be an advocate of peace, and was calmly
facing the prospect of a new war as something inevitable. The French
Government, who, whatever William II. might think, were still anxious
for peace, had now to guard carefully against the occurrence of
incidents that might prove difficult to smooth over, because they would
be regarded as provocations at Berlin.
May we suppose that the mental condition of the Emperor, who had
become very nervous and irritable, had made him blind to evidence and
deaf to persuasion? William II. would not admit the truth that is as
clear as daylight to all impartial observers: that France, with a
neighbour whose overwhelming military strength was a perpetual menace
to her security, had armed with the main purpose of not being left at
the mercy of unexpected events or ruthless designs. He had no doubt
whatever that the desire for a war of revenge haunted the brain of
every Frenchman. The recovery of Alsace-Lorraine, an achievement which
most sons of France had banished to the limbo of their patriotic
dreams, and only saw now and then as a distant mirage, seemed to him,
in his obstinate self-deception, the secret aim towards which most
French statesmen were striving. The sanguine and gullible pacifism of
the French Radicals and Socialists, which had come so plainly to the
fore in their opposition to the three years’ term of military service,
was entirely left out of his calculations.
When a man persists in a view that is so palpably opposed to the truth,
one is inclined to doubt his sincerity. Was the Kaiser misinformed
as to the real intentions of France, or, in crediting her with these
hostile schemes, was he only looking for a pretext that might seem to
justify an attack on his part? This is a question that we have a right
to ask to-day.
V.
Up to the last moment the Emperor counted on the neutrality of England,
whatever might be the cause of the struggle between the Triple and the
Dual Alliance. He had too readily forgotten all the grievances that the
United Kingdom had against him, although they had not vanished from the
memories or the hearts of Britons: the famous telegram to President
Kruger in 1896, in connection with the Jameson Raid, an ill-timed
manifesto, which completely deceived the old patriot of Johannesburg as
to the likelihood of support from the Kaiser; the campaign of slander
against England carried on in Germany from the outset of the Boer War,
three years later; and, last but not least, the tremendous expansion of
the German navy, heralded by Prince von Bülow and Admiral von Tirpitz
immediately after the first British reverses at the hands of the Boers.
Had William II. also forgotten the resolutely hostile front shown
by the British Cabinet during the Algeciras Conference, and, more
recently, during the Franco-German negotiations after the Agadir
affair? No doubt he fancied, like many Germans, that the support given
by England to France would not go beyond certain moral and geographical
limits. He felt that it would be enough to pave the way for a solution
of the Moroccan problem (since it had been decided in London to help
in setting up a French protectorate in Morocco), and of certain
Mediterranean questions in which the two countries held similar views.
It was generally believed in Germany that the Cabinet of St. James’s,
realizing the frankly pacific outlook of its Liberal majority in
Parliament, would remain a patient spectator in a Continental war that
did not involve any vital British interests. How often did the Berlin
Press dwell on this theme, and, during the brief Austro-Serbian crisis
preceding the war, embroider it with fulsome flatteries of Great
Britain! There was high financial authority to support this conviction
among the German public. These potentates of the purse carried on
their intrigues in London up to the very end, not only in the business
world but even in political circles. In the parliamentary lobbies at
Westminster, financiers of German origin took steps with a view to
preventing any participation by England in a Continental struggle.
Shortly before the outbreak of hostilities, Herr Ballin, the Kaiser’s
confidential servant, came to London with orders from his master to
make all his arrangements for war and to hoodwink his English friends
into the belief that Germany’s intentions were peaceful, when in point
of fact all was ready for hurling the thunderbolt.
William II.’s political blunders have often proceeded from his trusting
too much to his own adroitness and powers of judgment. After 1911, he
was exceedingly anxious to promote a better understanding between the
Anglo-Saxon and the Germanic nations, linked together as they were
by ties of blood and by common historical memories. In the following
year the tension was somewhat relaxed, but William II. overrated this
increase of warmth in the relations between the two Governments and
peoples. Confident that he held the winning cards, he showed his hand
too soon, with the result that the British Cabinet decided to abandon
the game.
At a meeting held in Cardiff on the 2nd of October 1914, the Prime
Minister made a most interesting disclosure regarding the 1912 attempt
to arrive at an understanding.[2] “We said, and we communicated this
to the Berlin Government: ‘Britain declares that she will neither make
nor join in any unprovoked attack upon Germany. Aggression upon Germany
is not the subject and forms no part of any treaty, understanding or
combination to which Britain is now a party, nor will she become a
party to anything that has such an object.’” But that, Mr. Asquith went
on to say, was not enough for German statesmanship. “They wanted us to
go further. They asked us to pledge ourselves absolutely to neutrality
in the event of Germany’s being engaged in war, and this, mind you, at
a time when Germany was enormously increasing both her aggressive and
defensive resources, and especially upon the sea. They asked us, to put
it quite plainly, for a free hand, so far as we were concerned, when
they selected the opportunity to overbear and dominate the European
world. To such a demand but one answer was possible, and we gave that
answer.”
Thus the arrogant demands of William II.’s diplomacy lost him an
excellent opportunity of banishing the suspicions of the British
Cabinet, and of re-establishing cordial relations with the Island
Kingdom. In spite of this set-back, he did not abandon hope, and when
the situation arising out of the Balkan War brought the two nations
together, he again imagined that he could rely implicitly upon British
neutrality.
Once more appearances deceived him. He ascribed too much value to the
dexterity of his new ambassador. Prince Lichnowsky, who was a _persona
grata_ in London society, and to the influence of the friends whom
Germany had even in the Asquith Cabinet, men like Haldane, Burns,
and Harcourt. The language of the Germanophile organs of the English
Press also did something to mislead him as to the true feelings of the
English people towards its chief maritime and commercial rival; but
these journals were not, as the Emperor thought, the real voice of
England.
In his conversations with foreigners he was fond of ridiculing the
French for their belief in the reality of the Triple Entente, and for
their fruitless efforts to turn it into an effective alliance. The
visit of King George and Queen Mary to Paris can have caused him no
anxiety on this score. But his most serious blunder, it would seem, was
to imagine, on the strength of reports which can only have come from
his Ambassador, that in the early summer of 1914 England was hopelessly
distracted by the Irish quarrel, trembling on the verge of civil war,
and therefore totally incapable of armed intervention on the Continent.
It appeared to him the moment for the great throw of the dice. Had the
Emperor not felt so certain on this point, would he have exposed the
thriving trade of Germany and her unfinished fleet, the very apple of
his eye, to the terrible ordeal of a naval war with England? Would he
have been ready to endanger the economic prosperity of his Empire, a
prosperity in which the mercantile marine was an indispensable factor?
Cruel was his awakening, and savagely did he resent the blow. We have
a proof of this in the message conveyed by one of his aides-de-camp to
Sir Edward Goschen, after the scandalous demonstration of the Berlin
mob against the British Embassy, on the arrival of the news that
England had declared war.[3]
“The Emperor,” said the aide-de-camp, “has charged me to express to
your Excellency his regret for the occurrences of last night, but to
tell you at the same time that you will gather from these occurrences
an idea of the feelings of his people respecting the action of Great
Britain in joining with other nations against her old allies of
Waterloo.”
William II. added that he was divesting himself of his titles of
British Field-Marshal and British Admiral, of which he had formerly
been so proud. To any one who knows the value and importance attached
in Germany to these honorary distinctions—which we should be inclined
to regard as mere trivialities—this act of the Emperor’s will convey
more than any words of anger and indignation.
VI.
Astonishment has been expressed at his having gone so far astray in
his judgment of public opinion and of the real intentions of the
Governments of the countries of the Triple Entente. He was no better
acquainted with the outlook of Italian statesmen, for the Quirinal’s
decision to hold aloof from the conflict, instead of taking part as
a member of the Triplice, undoubtedly caused him no little surprise
and irritation. This ignorance proceeds from his bad selection of men
to represent him abroad, and from his claim to be his own Foreign
Minister, just as he is his own Chancellor. The ambassadors are
appointed by the Emperor himself, often on the strength of a mere
fancy that he has taken to some particular person. Positions of the
highest importance have accordingly been given to men of very little
experience. His ambassadors, since their tenure depends on his will
and pleasure, make it their chief object to find favour in his sight,
to chime in with all his theories, and to send him reports that are
in harmony with his own opinions. With such scanty information from
diplomatic sources, the Imperial Government could not form a precise
idea as to what Russia, France, England, Japan, and Italy would do in
the event of a war between Austria and Servia, a war which was fated
not to remain localized. The same uncertainty, the same illusions
prevailed as regards the loyalty of the British dominions, the devotion
of the Indian princes, the acquiescence of Egypt, and the fidelity
of the Moslems in the French colonies. We cannot suppose, moreover,
that the German military attachés, official spies accredited at the
headquarters of foreign Governments, were any more clear-sighted
than their chiefs. The inferiority of the German diplomatic staff
was nowhere more glaringly shown up than by their own countrymen in
Berlin, whether in the debates on the Foreign Office estimates, or in
the columns of the Liberal Press, to say nothing of Socialist organs.
Liberal journalists were fond of contrasting the failures of German
diplomats with the successes of their French and English colleagues;
but these writers were wrong in ascribing the shortcomings of their
compatriots to their status as nobles of ancient lineage or men of the
middle classes who had recently been ennobled. The fault lay in the
Emperor’s capricious methods of selection.
William II. directed the foreign policy of Germany in person. From the
first, he liked to chat with ambassadors and Foreign Secretaries, and
to utter his thoughts freely upon the most delicate questions, knowing
well that none of his words would be wasted. His formidable jokes,
like his unexpected fits of frankness—whether they have been thought
out beforehand, or come as sudden flashes of his impatient temper—have
more than once disconcerted his hearers. Nor did he rest content with
talking; he took up the pen as well, to express his ideas to foreign
correspondents, such as Lord Tweedmouth—inspirations that were nearly
always unlucky! A notorious affair was that of the interview with the
Emperor published by the _Daily Telegraph_ in November 1908, after
being submitted to Prince von Bülow, who did not take the trouble to
inspect it personally. It brought about a crisis that must have had the
salutary effect of teaching the Sovereign to tread more warily and with
less self-confidence upon the shifting sands of foreign politics. The
German public simmered with indignation, and the Reichstag refused to
keep quiet. In the end the Chancellor had to intervene, and a promise
was exacted from the Emperor that he would be more discreet in future.
“The profound sensation and the painful impression created by these
disclosures,” said the Chancellor in the Reichstag, “will lead His
Majesty to maintain henceforth, in his private conversations, that
reserve which is no less essential for a continuous policy than for the
authority of the Crown.”
William II. accordingly promised to be more reticent, and for several
years he kept his word, but he never forgave Prince von Bülow for
not having defended him at the bar of the Reichstag and of public
opinion. Until the death of Herr von Kiderlen-Wächter, at the end of
1912, he refrained from any open interference in foreign affairs. No
more sensational speeches were made, no more long conversations on
questions of the day were held with ambassadors. It is true that Herr
von Kiderlen-Wächter, the strongest personality that has appeared
at the Wilhelmstrasse since the departure of Prince von Bülow—less
clever than the latter in the art of concealing his thoughts, but
more inclined to stand on his dignity, so much so that he could not
tolerate any interference by the Emperor in his domain—would rather
have resigned his post than be led about on a leash by his master, like
some submissive bulldog. Rightly or wrongly he was regarded as the
only man who could put into practice the treaty that he had concluded
with France. That treaty had been made with pacific intentions; for,
brutal as he was, this statesman was no lover of war. Had he lived, his
peculiar knowledge of the Near East would probably have ensured his
being kept in office throughout the period of the Balkan conflict, if
not longer. When Kiderlen-Wächter vanished from the scene, the Emperor
began once more to direct foreign policy, and resumed his freedom of
language with the diplomats of other countries. The Turkish ambassador,
Osman Nizami Pasha, who had previously been in high favour, was marked
out as a special victim; he was told some cruel home-truths by the
great friend of Turkey, after the first disasters of the Thracian
campaign.
VII.
It often happens that a monarch or a statesman is made up of several
distinct personalities, which come to the fore in turn at the various
stages of his career. Few are those who remain unchanged from early
youth to the grave, as if hewn from a block of granite. In rulers
who are conscious of their responsibilities, the years as they roll
by assuage or curb the passions of their springtime. Maturity and
experience lead them to take a less confident view of enterprises to
which they would like to apply their energies and their resources. In
William II., a contrary process has taken place. Such relative wisdom
as he can boast has been shown in his middle age, not in his youth.
I have heard it suggested that the state of his health may have had
something to do with his moral deterioration. In spite of his taking
constant exercise in the open air, or perhaps because of his excessive
travelling and of the exhaustion that it involved, his overstrained
nerves became considerably weaker as time went on. In the end, the
daily rest that he forced himself to take, lying down on his bed for
at least an hour every afternoon, was not enough to restore his
physical balance. His drawn face and ashen complexion were tell-tale
signs of wear and tear. His subjects, who did not often get a chance
of seeing him, were shocked to discover how their Sovereign was
growing old before his time. Who knows, it has been asked, whether the
decline in his powers of resistance has not reacted upon his mental
condition? Physiologists and doctors, accustomed to trace connections
between physical and moral states, would be inclined to confirm this
theory. Personally, I do not believe that fatigue and exhaustion have
played their part in determining William II.’s actions. That his
nervousness has increased of late, that his growing irritability has
made him more trying to his personal attendants, more liable to insist
upon unquestioning obedience—these facts are supported by so many
independent witnesses, that we cannot question their truth. But his
schemes have been drawn up with perfect mental calm, and not in that
state of morbid over-excitement which the world has been too ready to
regard as his normal mood.
What manner of a man, then, is William II.? An ambitious ruler of
the stamp of Charles V., Louis XIV., or Napoleon—that Napoleon who
is popular to-day in Berlin, where his portrait is exhibited in the
shop windows more often than those of the Prussian kings, with the
exception of “Old Fritz”? A great prince who has studied the lessons
of his professors in history, and has striven to realize the ancient
aspirations of his people? “The Hohenzollerns,” his teachers tell him,
“after centuries of waiting, are destined to build up that great Empire
of the West for which the heirs of Otto laid out the plans and the
Hohenstaufen reared the scaffolding. Germany, united at last under the
Hohenzollern sway, in vigour, in population, in intelligence, in power
of production and expansion, superior to the decadent nations that
surround her, must go forth resolutely to conquer Europe, and after
that to dominate the world.” Such, I think, will be the flattering
verdict that future German historians will pass on William II. In the
world outside Germany, the Belgians, at any rate, will hold a different
view. They will not subscribe to the accuracy of this idealized
portrait, which omits those hitherto unsuspected features that the war
has brought to their notice. In one who had motives for watching him
during the last years before the catastrophe, the Emperor aroused a
sense of perplexity and fear, like some momentous riddle that no man
may read. To-day we cannot study his character without reference to
the actions that have displayed it in a ghastly light. His dramatic
figure is lit up for his victims by the flames of Louvain and other
ill-starred cities, and in that same lurid glare they behold their
country writhing beneath the blows that his insensate rage has dealt it.
We must picture to ourselves, the Belgians will say, a monarch mighty
in rank and power, effusively cordial to strangers whom he wished to
charm and dazzle, but liable to disappoint those who were rash enough
to trust in his kindness of heart; always able to give the impression
of complete frankness, and using this as a means of seduction; really
admiring nothing but strength, and ready to abuse his own; looking
with utter contempt on small States and petty princes, yet never loath
to flatter them when occasion demanded; a wooer of public opinion,
especially that of other countries, but resolved to defy it in order
to attain his ambitions; a ruler who enjoyed a false reputation
for chivalry, while he has shown himself relentless in his malice;
of a faith that was sincere, if superficial, yet did not prevent
him from setting his interests above his most solemn engagements,
and ruthlessly tearing up any treaty that had become inconvenient;
always careful to play his part, and clever in staging his effects;
accustomed, unfortunately, to seeing everything bow to his will; such a
spoilt child of fortune that he came to the point of thinking himself
infallible; one whom Nietzsche might have called a superman, and the
Romans a demigod.
It has been asserted that this “demigod” was merely an exalted type
of the ill-balanced or decadent man. What a mistake! He was in full
possession of all his faculties when he ordered that hasty mobilization
which made the cataclysm inevitable. Some have maintained that he
was, beyond all question, the tool of a caste and a party for whom
war was the sole means of consolidating their power. He did indeed
listen to their advice, but only because their views were in harmony
with his own. Without any hesitation, the verdict of history will
make him answerable for the disasters that have overwhelmed Europe.
If we carefully read and compare the documents relating to the brief
negotiations carried on during the Austro-Serbian crisis, we find ample
proof that it was within William II.’s power, up to the last moment,
to say the word that would have prevented war. So far from doing this,
he sent his ultimatum to Russia, and thus let loose the deluge at the
moment which he had chosen.
One would like to believe that he hesitated a long time before
venturing upon a path beset with so many terrors. One would fain
imagine that his conscience revolted at the thought of the streams
of blood and the heartrending misery which the coming struggle would
involve, but that he was swept along, in spite of himself, by an
irresistible fate. Idle speculations! The blow had been planned
several months in advance, the scheme had been prepared down to its
minutest details, and the Emperor deliberately hastened on the signal
for attack, cutting short in his impatience the discussions which the
Entente Powers were desperately anxious to continue. The projects that
he was carrying out had matured at leisure. Posterity will regard
this point as settled, and will brush aside the charge of provocation
trumped up against his opponents by himself, by his Chancellor, and by
his Press, in order to gain the suffrages of public opinion at home and
abroad.
When all is said and done, history will not forgive William of
Hohenzollern for having initiated an appalling war, carried on in his
name. Why these frightful devastations, this systematic destruction of
towns, villages, and country-houses, this methodical vandalism directed
against secular and religious monuments, these wholesale executions
of innocent civilians, these unpardonable murders of priests, women,
and children, this raping and looting, all this useless cruelty that
recalls the native barbarism of the primitive Germanic tribes? For such
methods of warfare posterity, like the present generation, will find
no excuse. It will say that the campaign of 1914 in Belgium and in
Northern France, where these harrowing scenes occurred over and over
again, brought dishonour both to the German army and to its Emperor.