"_How I Met the Kaiser, Crown Prince and Archduke_"
_Told by Hall Caine, Famous British Novelist, Who Offered All to His
Country_
This celebrated novelist, since the outbreak of the War, has fought
a noble battle for the Anglo-Saxon race with the "pen that is
mightier than the sword." His appeals to America have been the voice
of a world patriot calling in the name of humanity. He presents the
great actors in vivid pen pictures, the Kaiser, the Crown Prince,
the Archduke. The following pen sketches are from "The Drama of 365
Days," by permission of the publishers _J. B. Lippincott Company_:
Copyright, 1915.
[1] I--PEN PORTRAITS OF THE KAISER
Other whisperings there were of the storm that was so soon to burst
on the world. In the ominous silence there were rumours of a certain
change that was coming over the spirit of the Kaiser. For long years he
had been credited with a sincere love of peace, and a ceaseless desire
to restrain the forces about him that were making for war. Although
constantly occupied with the making of a big army, and inspiring
it with great ideals, he was thought to have as little desire for
actual warfare as his ancestor, Frederick William, had shown, while
gathering up his giant guardsmen and refusing to allow them to fight.
Particularly it was believed in Berlin (not altogether graciously) that
his affection for, and even fear of his grandmother, Queen Victoria,
would compel him to exhaust all efforts to preserve peace in the
event of trouble with Great Britain. But Victoria was dead, and King
Edward might perhaps be smiled at--behind his back--and then a younger
generation was knocking at the Kaiser's door in the person of his
eldest son, who represented forces which he might not long be able to
hold in check. How would he act now?
Thousands of persons in this country had countless opportunities
before the war of forming an estimate of the Kaiser's character. I had
only one, and it was not of the best. For years the English traveller
abroad felt as if he were always following in the track of a grandiose
personality who was playing on the scene of the world as on a stage,
fond as an actor of dressing up in fine uniforms, of making pictures,
scenes, and impressions, and leaving his visible mark behind him--as in
the case of the huge gap in the thick walls of Jerusalem, torn down (it
was said with his consent) to let his equipage pass through.
In Rome I saw a man who was a true son of his ancestors. Never had
the laws of heredity better justified themselves. Frederick William,
Frederick the Great, William the First--the Hohenzollerns were all
there. The glittering eyes, the withered arm, the features that gave
signs of frightful periodical pain, the immense energy, the gigantic
egotism, the ravenous vanity, the fanaticism amounting to frenzy, the
dominating power, the dictatorial temper, the indifference to suffering
(whether his own or other people's), the overbearing suppression of
opposing opinions, the determination to control everybody's interest,
everybody's work--I thought all this was written in the Kaiser's
masterful face.
Then came stories. One of my friends in Rome was an American doctor who
had been called to attend a lady of the Emperor's household. "Well,
doctor, what's she suffering from?" said the Kaiser. The doctor told
him. "Nothing of the kind--you're entirely wrong. She's suffering from
so and so," said the Majesty of Germany, stamping up and down the room.
At length the American doctor lost control. "Sir," he said, "in my
country we have a saying that one bad practitioner is worth twenty good
amateurs--you're the amateur." The doctor lived through it. Frederick
William would have dragged him to the window and tried to fling him out
of it. William II put his arm round the doctor's shoulder and said, "I
didn't mean to hurt you, old fellow. Let us sit down and talk."
A soldier came with another story. After a sham fight conducted by the
Kaiser the generals of the German army had been summoned to say what
they thought of the Royal manoeuvers. All had formed an unfavourable
opinion, yet one after another, with some insincere compliment, had
wriggled out of the difficulty of candid criticism. But at length came
an officer, who said:
"Sir, if it had been real warfare to-day there wouldn't be enough wood
in Germany to make coffins for the men who would be dead."
The general lived through it, too--at first in a certain disfavour, but
afterwards in recovered honour.
Such was the Kaiser, who a year ago had to meet the mighty wind of
War. He was in Norway for his usual summer holiday in July, 1914, when
affairs were reaching their crisis. Rumour has it that he was not
satisfied with the measure of the information that was reaching him,
therefore he returned to Berlin, somewhat to the discomfiture of his
ministers, intending, it is said, for various reasons (not necessarily
humanitarian) to stop or at least postpone the war. If so, he arrived
too late. He was told that matters had gone too far. They must go on
now. "Very well, if they must, they must," he is reported to have said.
And there is the familiar story that after he had signed his name
on the first of August to the document that plunged Europe into the
conflict that has since shaken it to its foundations, he flung down his
pen and cried, "You'll live to regret this, gentlemen."