[Illustration: _From a photograph by Brown and Dawson_
WILLIAM II
GERMAN EMPEROR
From a photograph taken since the beginning of the war of 1914]
THE GERMAN EMPEROR
AS SHOWN
IN HIS PUBLIC UTTERANCES
BY
CHRISTIAN GAUSS
PROFESSOR Of MODERN LANGUAGES, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1915
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published February, 1915
PREFACE
Unlike his grandfather, who shielded himself behind his Chancellor,
the present Emperor has always insisted upon making himself the
storm-centre of the debates in his Reichstag and among his people.
He has played with many, if not all, of his cards upon the table. In
accordance with this policy he has gone through his country from end
to end and into foreign lands, everywhere announcing his policies and
his views on every possible subject of interest or controversy. Up to
1905 he had made upward of five hundred and seventy speeches, and since
that time has made almost as many more. It was manifestly impossible
to give all of these speeches, and it was also thought unfair to give
merely extracts which might fail to represent the spirit of the entire
pronouncement. They are all printed, therefore, in the completest
form available. Particular speeches have often been reported to the
press in widely differing versions. In all cases only those speeches
are here presented which have received official or semiofficial
sanction. The text followed for pronouncements made before 1913,
with the one exception of the _Daily Telegraph_ interview, October
29, 1908, has always been that of the recognized and standard edition
in four volumes, edited by J. Penzler and published in the Reclam
_Universal-Bibliothek_. Now and then only portions of certain addresses
appear to have been reported, and on a few occasions parts of speeches
are given directly and other parts are merely summarized. In all such
cases the speech is translated from the form sanctioned in the official
version. In no case has any change been made. Where significant
differences exist in the versions of addresses as given officially and
unofficially, the official version is in every instance printed first.
It has been the aim to present faithfully the language and spirit of
the speaker, and his phraseology and emphasis have been reproduced as
closely as was at all consistent with fair English usage. The speeches
have been chosen to represent in due proportion his many interests,
and range therefore from agriculture and art to Biblical criticism,
national and international politics.
The Emperor has, of course, not given titles to his speeches, and
the headings have been assigned by the compiler. It has been his
aim to explain the circumstances under which each address was
delivered and to make plain the references to events embodied therein.
Questions which have had a continuous interest, or which have had
some lasting effect on Germany's policy, such as the attitude toward
Alsace-Lorraine, the Social Democratic party, the retirement of
Bismarck, the development of the navy, the Morocco question, have
been treated at greater length on the first fitting occasion. For
the introductions, therefore, the compiler assumes responsibility.
In preparing them he has had recourse to many incidental sources
of information, and in many cases the true inwardness of certain
situations is still as much a matter of controversy as the causes
of the present war. For his facts generally, he has followed where
possible, besides such incidental and contemporary sources, Bruno
Gebhardt's "Handbuch der Deutschen Geschichte" (1913), the "Cambridge
Modern History--The Latest Age," volume XII (1910), and the volumes of
the "Statesman's Yearbook." In addition, for information concerning
the internal development of Germany he has consulted and drawn
upon the literature of this subject which has appeared in the last
decade, but is more particularly indebted to Doctor Paul Liman's
"Der Kaiser," Dawson's "The Evolution of Modern Germany," Barker's
"Modern Germany," Price Collier's "Germany and the Germans," Forbes's
"William of Germany," Gibbons's "The New Map of Europe," and the
"_Reichsgesetzblatt_."
As the Emperor has spoken upon almost every phase of German political
life, with the editorial introductions which aim to set forth briefly
the occasion and causes of each address, it is hoped that altogether
the volume will offer a fairly accurate picture of the trend of German
affairs for the last twenty-five years.
For help in the preparation of this volume, the writer is much indebted
to his wife, whose assistance has amounted to collaboration.
PRINCETON, N. J.
_December 20, 1914_.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE v
I
THE HOHENZOLLERN TRADITION 1
II
PRELIMINARIES 25
June 15, 1888--October 30, 1889.
The First Official Act of the Emperor 25
Schloss Friedrichskron, June 15, 1888.
To My People 28
Potsdam, June 18, 1888.
First Declaration of Policy 31
Berlin, June 25, 1888.
Opening of the Reichstag 39
November 22, 1888.
The Emperor and the Striking Miners 45
May 14, 1889.
Visit of the King of Italy 47
Berlin, May 22, 1889.
The English Fleet and the German Army 48
Sandown Bay, August 5, 1889.
The English Army 49
Aldershot, August 7, 1889.
The Czar at Berlin 50
Berlin, October 11, 1889.
On Board an English Flag-Ship 51
The Piræus, October 30, 1889.
III
AFTER BISMARCK 53
May 6, 1890--June 21, 1895.
Opening of the Reichstag 53
Berlin, May 6, 1890.
Review of the Ninth Army Corps 60
Flensburg, September 4, 1890.
Accidents with Agricultural Machinery 62
Berlin, November 11, 1890.
Alsace-Lorraine 66
Berlin, March 14, 1891.
Swearing in the Recruits 72
Potsdam, November 23, 1891.
The Emperor's First Army Bill 75
Berlin, July 4, 1893.
Arrival in Metz 80
Metz, September 3, 1893.
Dedication of Flags 81
Berlin, October 18, 1894.
Navy Recruits 84
Kiel, December 3, 1894.
Christening of a Cruiser 86
Kiel, March 26, 1895.
Visit to Bismarck 87
Friedrichsruh, March 26, 1895.
Opening of the Emperor William Canal 91
Kiel, June 21, 1895.
IV
THE BEGINNING OF WORLD POLITICS 95
June 16, 1896--March 22, 1905.
The Beginning of World Politics 95
Berlin, June 16, 1896.
To the Recruits for the Navy 103
Wilhelmshaven, February 21, 1896.
A Toast to the Russian Emperor and Empress 104
St. Petersburg, August 8, 1897.
The Army Tradition 106
Coblentz, August 30, 1897.
Toast to the Italian King and Queen 109
Homburg, September 4, 1897.
Address at a Dedication of Flags 111
Berlin, October 18, 1897.
On Administering the Oath to the Recruits 113
Berlin, November 18, 1897.
The Chinese Situation and the Mailed Fist 116
December 15, 1897.
Address to the Regiments of the Body-Guard 121
Potsdam, June 16, 1898.
On the Death of Prince Bismarck 123
Friedrichsruh, August 2, 1898.
"Our Future Lies Upon the Water" 126
Stettin, September 23, 1898.
The Journey to the Holy Land 127
Bethlehem, October 30, 1898.
Dedication of the Church of Our Redeemer 132
Jerusalem, October 31, 1898.
By Divine Right 135
Brandenburg, February 3, 1899.
The Hague Conference 141
Wiesbaden, May 18, 1899.
The Housing of Laborers 143
Early June, 1899.
French Heroism at St. Privat 143
The Battle-field of St. Privat, August 18, 1899.
V
THE GREATER NAVY 147
"Bitterly We Need a Powerful German Fleet" 150
Hamburg, October 18, 1899.
On the Threshold of the New Century 154
Berlin, January 1, 1900.
New Boundary Posts 157
Berlin, February 13, 1900.
Seaports and Cannon 159
Lübeck, June 16, 1900.
The Ocean Knocks at Our Door 160
Kiel, July 3, 1900.
Open the Way for Culture 163
Bremen, July 27, 1900.
Civis Romanus Sum 167
Imperial Limes Museum, Saalburg, October 11, 1900.
Cabinet Order to the Prussian Army 169
January, 1901.
Dedication of the Barracks of the Alexander Regiment 171
March 28, 1901.
To the Students at Bonn 174
April 24, 1901.
A Place in the Sun 180
Hamburg, June 18, 1901.
The Great Elector 184
Kiel, June 20, 1901.
Entrance of Prince Eitel Friedrich into the Army 189
July 7, 1901.
True Art 191
Berlin, December 18, 1901.
Monument to General von Rosenberg 201
April 20, 1902.
The Old Order Changeth 203
Aix, June 19, 1902.
Alfred Krupp and the Socialists 209
November 26, 1902.
The Working Man Once More 213
Breslau, December 5, 1902.
Scholarship and Religion 216
Berlin, February 15, 1903.
Frederick the Great and His Army 225
Döberitz, May 29, 1903.
The Future of Germany 227
Hamburg, June 20, 1903.
The Reasons for Japan's Victory 232
March 9, 1905.
The Salt of the Earth 233
Bremen, March 22, 1905.
VI
ON THE EVE OF MOROCCO 240
March 31, 1905--November 12, 1906.
The Morocco Question 240
Tangier, March 31, 1905.
The Great Ally 242
September 8, 1906.
Optimism and Literature 247
Münich, November 12, 1906.
Twenty-Five Years of Labor Legislation 253
November 17, 1896.
VII
THE CRISIS OF 1907 256
February 5, 1907--October 18, 1911.
Imperialism versus Social Democracy 256
Berlin, February 5, 1907.
The Necessity of Faith 259
Münster, August 31, 1907.
English Journalists 264
London, November 16, 1907.
Alsace-Lorraine 265
Strasburg, August 30, 1908.
The _Daily Telegraph_ Interview 267
October 28, 1908.
The Emperor and Count Zeppelin 273
Manzell, November 10, 1908.
Regatta at Hamburg 274
Hamburg, June 22, 1909.
Review of the Fourteenth Army Corps 278
Karlsruhe, September 11, 1909.
Emperor by Divine Right 279
Königsberg, August 25, 1910.
The Hundredth Anniversary of the Founding of the
University of Berlin 285
Berlin, October 11, 1910.
The Emperor in Brussels 290
October 27, 1910.
Alcohol and the Schools 292
Cassel, August 19, 1911.
International Competition 295
Hamburg, August 27, 1911.
Imperial Glories 299
Aix, October 18, 1911.
VIII
LAST MONTHS OF PEACE 303
February 7, 1912--June 23, 1914.
Opening of the Reichstag 303
Berlin, February 7, 1912.
Brandenburg Once Again 307
May 30, 1912.
Hauling Down the Flag 313
Hamburg, June 18, 1912.
Accident to a Zeppelin 316
Bonn, October 17, 1913.
We Germans Fear God, Nothing Else 318
Hamburg, June 23, 1914.
IX
AT THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR 323
Forcing the Sword into His Hand 323
Berlin, July 31, 1914.
An End of Parties 324
Berlin, August 1, 1914.
Opening of the Reichstag 324
Berlin, August 4, 1914.
To the Army and Navy 327
Berlin, August 6, 1914.
Proclamation to the German People 328
Berlin, August 6, 1914.
ILLUSTRATIONS
William II, German Emperor _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
The Emperor in the Year of His Coronation, 1888
(Age 29) 26
"Our Future Lies upon the Water." The Emperor
on Shipboard in the Autumn of 1898 126
The Emperor in 1900 168
I
THE HOHENZOLLERN TRADITION
Ernest Renan, the author of that once heretical "Life of Jesus," was
by temperament unenthusiastic and had further schooled himself to look
upon all human events with high unconcern. The great sceptic had been
born in 1823; he was therefore sixty-five at the time of the accession
of William II, and his declining health, in Horatian phrase, refused
to allow him to enter upon any long hope. In looking forward to his
inevitable end one thing, he said, afflicted him. He regretted only
that he was not to see, in its later and more decisive phases, the
unfolding of the multiform personality of the new German Emperor. To
him it was an intellectual puzzle, more intricate and more interesting
than any he had encountered in the many cycles of the history of the
Hebrews or in the complicated schisms of the church. In the early years
of his reign the youthful Emperor was regarded with much interest and
some concern by his contemporaries generally. He was the chameleon
among the royal figures of Europe. One day he receives the Czar at
Berlin and proclaims peace to the world. A few weeks later he visits
the Sultan at Constantinople, and shortly thereafter he announces to
his loyal Brandenburgers that he will lead them on to greater things.
What did he mean? Now he is a soldier, jesting with his officers; and,
with the rising of another sun, in workman's garb, with the axe upon
his shoulder, he goes forth as woodman or laborer on his own estates.
At home he was regarded as Benjamin Constant regarded Madame de Staël.
He was the "_bel orage_," the beautiful storm which had come upon
Europe in the dull and piping times of peace of the last decades of
the nineteenth century. He cleared the air of Continental politics
in the years of late Victorianism. He was a dilettante of dangerous
activities, as Renan had been of antiquated heresies and harmless,
outworn systems, and to him Fate seemed to have given the future as a
toy. Such, at least, was the view of the famous Portuguese poet Eça de
Queiroz, who cast his horoscope in 1891.
A quarter century of peace had removed much apprehension. After the
dismissal of Bismarck he had shaped his own policy and gone his own
way. To his great advisers he had seemed to say: "_Ôte-toi que je
m'y mette._" Yet his career had ceased to disquiet, and the youthful
exuberance had given way to mature and conscientious labor. With
unshakable confidence in himself and with a determined application he
was making Germany the greatest state in Europe. To those who, unlike
Renan, did not have the misfortune to have been born too soon to be his
later contemporaries, the riddle _seemed_ to be solving itself to the
greater good of humanity. The Emperor's army, so he tells us himself,
is invincible. Never has Germany been defeated so long as she was
united, and God, who has taken such infinite pains with us, will never
leave us "in the lurch." By means of this powerful, unconquerable army,
at whose side he had now set one of the greatest fleets on the seas, he
had, so he told us, laid firm and sure the foundations of peace.
Then suddenly "the abyss is opened, ... the sword is thrust into his
hand," and reluctantly and with a heavy heart he goes forth to do
battle. Like a shuttle he flits from frontier to frontier, now planning
an invasion of England, now supervising the readministration of Belgian
industries, and now directing a battle in Poland. Surely such a
destiny, so immense a power, has been granted to no man. It may be he
is the great predestined victim; it may be that Time is preparing for
him a final and well-earned European triumph.
What shall be the end, and where lies the responsibility? No ethical
or political problem of our time forces itself upon us with greater
insistence. His utterances may help to make the question if not the
answer clear. Looking forward dispassionately twenty-three years ago
that Portuguese student prophesied that this could not last, that there
would be war; and in the light of later events that prophecy about "the
allied armies" has been recently recalled. It was in these words that
he closed his brilliant study of the youthful Emperor and King:
"William II runs the awful danger of being cast down Gemoniæ. He boldly
takes upon himself responsibilities which in all nations are divided
among various bodies of the state--he alone judges, he alone executes,
because to him alone it is (not to his ministers, to his council, or
to his parliament) that God, the God of the Hohenzollerns, imparts
his transcendental inspiration. He must therefore be infallible and
invincible. At the first disaster--whether it be inflicted by his
burghers or by his people in the streets of Berlin, or by allied armies
on the plains of Europe--Germany will at once conclude that his
much-vaunted alliance with God was the trick of a wily despot.
"Then will there not be stones enough from Lorraine to Pomerania to
stone this counterfeit Moses. William II is in very truth casting
against fate those terrible 'iron dice' to which the now-forgotten
Bismarck once alluded. If he win he may have within and without the
frontiers altars such as were raised to Augustus; should he lose,
exile, the traditional exile, in England awaits him--a degraded exile,
the exile with which he so sternly threatens those who deny his
infallibility.
"M. Renan is therefore quite right: there is nothing more attractive
at this period of the century than to witness the final development
of William II. In the course of years (may God make them slow and
lengthy!) this youth, ardent, pleasing, fertile in imagination, of
sincere, perhaps heroic, soul, may be sitting in calm majesty in his
Berlin Schloss presiding over the destinies of Europe--or he may be in
the Hôtel Métropole in London sadly unpacking from his exile's handbag
the battered double crown of Prussia and Germany."
* * * * *
This drama of a life is twenty-three years nearer its climax than it
was when Renan bade the world good night. With a certain finality of
pathos a Greek poet whom Renan loved, thinking doubtless of his unhappy
countrymen who had fallen in the long wars between Athens and Sparta,
had said: "They that have died are not sick, nor do they possess
any evil things." If this be true, quite possibly, then, the world
was kinder to this aged Frenchman than he shall ever know. For the
disasters which were to follow the rising star of the Emperor, which he
regarded so curiously, were to be far greater than he had ever dreamed.
It may be, therefore, that it is he and not some of his younger
countrymen who are to be congratulated on the bournes which marked the
time of his coming and his passing.
The question of the responsibility of the Emperor and the limits of his
power is one which perhaps only time can decide. Undeniably Germany
has a written Constitution. But that Constitution is of comparatively
recent date (April 16, 1871). It is not looked upon, as is the American
Constitution, as the source of Germany's political life. It is the
empire and not the Constitution that is holy. Struggles for personal
liberty find little place in the history of Prussia. They have no
Cromwell, no Washington, no Robespierre, and, significantly too, they
have had in times past no Ravaillac and no Guiteau. There, still,
a certain majesty doth hedge about a king. The old idea of fealty,
of _deutsche Treue_, which led the retainers of Teutonic chiefs or
rulers to submit uncomplainingly to every abuse and all oppression and
to follow their lords into misfortune and into exile, though it has
doubtless waned, nevertheless retains some vestiges of its traditional
force even to-day.
When, therefore, in 1878, by a curious coincidence, two attempts were
made upon the life of Emperor William I (one by Hödel, an irresponsible
person of diseased mind and body, who had been dismissed from the
Social Democratic party; and another by Nobiling, who was not a Social
Democrat), Bismarck immediately and easily seized this occasion to
crush Social Democracy and increase the imperial power. He dissolved
the Reichstag, and in one month the law-courts inflicted no less
than five hundred years of imprisonment for _lèse-majesté_. Within
eight months the authorities dissolved two hundred and twenty-two
workingmen's unions, suppressed one hundred and twenty-seven periodical
and two hundred and seventy-eight other publications, and innumerable
_bona-fide_ co-operative societies were compelled by the police to
close their doors without trial and with no possibility of appeal. With
equal despatch numerous Social Democrats were expelled from Germany
on a few days' notice. This traditional attitude toward the Social
Democrat, who from our standpoint is the German radical and liberal,
appears again in the present Emperor when he declares (May 14, 1889)
that every Social Democrat is synonymous with enemy of the country. How
Social Democracy has grown in spite of the Emperor's attempt to check
it will be evident from a consideration of the following figures, in
which the forty political parties are grouped into their four larger
divisions:
+----------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| | 1871 | 1881 | 1893 | 1907 | 1912 |
+----------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| Right, or | | | | | |
| Conservative | 895,000|1,210,000|1,806,000|2,151,000|1,149,916|
| Liberal |1,884,000|1,948,000|2,102,000|3,078,000|3,227,846|
| Clerical | 973,000|1,618,000|1,920,000|2,779,000|2,012,990|
| Social | | | | | |
| Democrats | 124,000| 312,000|1,787,000|3,259,000|4,238,919|
+----------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
In spite of this representation in the Reichstag, the power of the
German political parties is slight. The power lies far more with the
Emperor and the Bundesrat. According to Article II of the Constitution,
the Emperor represents the empire internationally and can declare
war if defensive (in German eyes the present is a defensive war),
can make peace as well as enter into treaties with other nations,
and appoint and receive ambassadors. When treaties are related
to matters regulated by imperial legislation, and when war is not
merely defensive, the Emperor must have the consent of the Bundesrat,
in which, together with the Reichstag, are vested the legislative
functions of the empire. But _de facto_, and through her power of veto,
Prussia controls the Bundesrat, and as King of Prussia the Emperor
controls Prussia.
That, even so, the Constitution is not the real and final source of
political power, but a convenient political instrument, which in the
mind of so great an authority as Bismarck might still easily be changed
without consulting the people, we may gather from the fact that the
Great Chancellor frequently debated the question of limiting the
suffrage. "The blind Hödhur[1] [the German elector] does not know how
to manipulate in his coarse hands the Nuremberg toy [the Reichstag]
which I gave him, and through his voting he is ruining the Fatherland."
According to Hohenlohe, Bismarck considered setting aside the Reichstag
and returning to the old Bundestag.
[1] In Norse mythology Hödhur was the powerful blind god who slew
Balder.
The late Price Collier, an enthusiastic admirer of Germany, is
therefore quite justified in saying: "This Reichstag is really only
nominally a portion of the governing body. It has the right to
refuse a bill presented by the government, but if it does so it may
be summarily dismissed, as has happened several times, and another
election usually provides a more amenable body." And if the following
judgment seems somewhat downright, it is none the less substantially
true:
"The fact that the members of the Reichstag are not in the saddle but
are used unwillingly and often contemptuously as a necessary and often
stubborn and unruly pack-animal by the Kaiser-appointed ministers, the
fact that they are pricked forward or induced to move by a tempting
feed held just beyond the nose has something to do, no doubt, with the
lack of unanimity which exists. The diverse elements debate with one
another and waste their energy in rebukes and recriminations which
lead nowhere and result in nothing. I have listened to many debates in
the Reichstag where the one aim of the speeches seemed to be merely
to unburden the soul of the speaker. He had no plan, no proposal,
no solution, merely a confession to make. After forty-odd years the
Germans, in many ways the most cultivated nation in the world, are
still without real representative government."
History, to be sure, may be read in many ways, but from one standpoint
it is perfectly possible to regard the framing of the present
Constitution and the building up of the present German Empire not as
the last stage in the attempt to give freedom and self-government to
the German people, but to guarantee and maintain the supremacy of
Prussia. Whether or not this is a possible view, it is, in any case,
one occasionally to be found implied in the speeches of the Emperor,
and it came to open expression in the statement of William I that
the empire was merely a "greater Prussia." So, too, when a few years
ago Alsace-Lorraine proved itself recalcitrant to the wishes of its
imperial master, he threatened that he would make of it a "Prussian
province."[2]
[2] On this occasion a Socialist orator declared in the Reichstag: "We
salute the imperial words as the confession, full of weight and
coming from a competent source, that annexation to Prussia is the
heaviest punishment that one can threaten to impose upon a people
for its resistance against Germany. It is a punishment like hard
labor in the penitentiary, with loss of civil rights."
It need, therefore, not appear as startling as would otherwise be the
case if on occasions which to us would seem peculiarly appropriate
(as, for instance, the famous Königsberg speech, August 25, 1910) the
Emperor makes no mention whatever of the Constitution. The sources
of his power and the sanction for his authority he finds not in this
instrument but in the history of his ancestors.
To understand the personality and the speeches of the Emperor it is,
therefore, necessary to recall that he is also King of Prussia and
that the foundation of his ancestors' rule was laid in the province of
Brandenburg, of which they became some centuries ago the margraves and
electors. In 1300 Prussia was a wilderness inhabited by savages who
were ruthlessly massacred by the Teutonic knights. It was looked upon
as lying outside the German Empire. Through the knights the country
was converted to Christianity, and the reduced native population was
largely augmented by immigration from other German states.
Although the Emperor is not slow to accept traditions with regard to
his house, he never mentions the old shoot in the genealogical tree of
an elector which carries us back to one of the fugitives who fled from
Troy with Æneas. For our purposes, it was not until 1273 that a count
of Hohenzollern first came into prominence, when, after a fortunate
marriage, he became burgrave of Nuremberg and prince of the Holy Roman
Empire. With the exception of Frederick William II, they have been
a thrifty race. A little more than a century later there appears in
history that one of the Emperor's ancestors to whom he frequently
refers as the founder of his house and that one who began to acquire
for it divine right.
Frederick VI of Hohenzollern had already come into prominence through
the fact that he had cast in his lot with King Sigismund of Hungary.
The services which he rendered the King, however valuable, were not
altogether disinterested, and it is said that he largely increased his
fortune thereby. He seems not to have been content with mere promises,
and it is a matter of record that Sigismund pledged to him certain
districts in Hungary as security for 40,000 gulden. As Frederick was to
lay the foundation for the greatness of the house of Hohenzollern and
as Emperor William is fond of repeating that he came to Brandenburg in
obedience to a summons from on high, this chapter in the history of the
Emperor's house is particularly significant and interesting.
For some time previously Brandenburg had been unfortunate in its rulers
and had frequently changed hands. In 1373 it had been sold for 500,000
gulden to Emperor Charles IV, who turned it over to his son Wenceslaus.
In 1378 it passed to Wenceslaus' half brother, the Sigismund mentioned
above. Sigismund was in financial difficulty. A few years later,
therefore, he pledged the mark of Brandenburg to his cousins Jobst and
Procop of Moravia as security for a loan of 500,000 gulden. Sigismund
defaulted payment in 1393, so that the margraviate passed to them. In
1410 Sigismund eagerly desired to be elected Emperor of Germany. He
entrusted the management of what might quite properly be called his
"campaign" to Frederick of Hohenzollern. Jobst of Moravia, who, as
we have seen, now had claims to Brandenburg was a rival candidate.
Sigismund, without deigning to make repayment, coolly declared that
the transaction with Jobst concerning Brandenburg was null and void
and instructed Frederick to cast the vote for the mark. To this vote
Frederick clearly (if anything in these complicated proceedings is
clear) had no right. He none the less managed the campaign and in a
"snap" election cast the vote of Brandenburg with assurance. This at
least was the view of other electors, and this high-handed performance
did not meet with their approval. They called a rival council and
elected Jobst to the imperial dignity. For both Sigismund and Frederick
it was "fortunate" (we take the word from the Prussian historian
Eberty) that Jobst died shortly after. It is perhaps unfortunate that
it should have been suspected ever since that he died of poison.
Sigismund himself seems to have been somewhat doubtful about the
validity of that election which Frederick had compassed and after the
death of Jobst had himself re-elected and was finally acknowledged as
Emperor. If the times were bad, Sigismund and Jobst were no better
than their times. It was this same Sigismund who, after having granted
a safe conduct to the great reformer John Huss, allowed him to be
judicially murdered, a proceeding which made even Charles V blush for
the empire.
For the purpose of electing Sigismund, Frederick had incurred
considerable expense, amounting to some hundred thousand gulden. It
is perhaps again fortunate for all concerned and for the honor of
the venal empire that no bill of particulars specifying the uses of
this fund is now available, if any was ever rendered. That Frederick,
however, had not served Sigismund "_pour l'amour de Dieu_" is plain
from the fact that he again took security for his advances. This time
he was given the unhappy mark of Brandenburg which, as we have seen,
had belonged to Jobst by virtue of a mortgage which Sigismund had never
taken the trouble to discharge.
If, then, the law of God is at all similar to the law recognized by
men, Sigismund had no right to give and the ancestor of William II no
legal right to accept that province. The right by which Frederick came
into possession of this first state of the later German Empire was,
consequently, a right quite different from rights generally recognized.
This, therefore, must be that "divine right" which William II is so
fond of proclaiming. At its best, the document of June 7, 1411, which
gave the Hohenzollerns their first claim to their first province was
in reality a mortgage to a piece of property of doubtful title, and
if the rather florid style of that document seems to bring in the
business transaction as something quite incidental, it is altogether
similar to the forms in which other mortgages were couched in those
days. That this was so is further evidenced by the fact that the
Brandenburg cities looked upon Frederick as the holder of a mortgage
and did homage to him "_zu seinem Gelde_"--"for his money"; that is,
they recognized that they were bound to him only until he should be
paid. The nobles did not do homage to him at all. After "the rain of
margraves" of the previous decades, it is not strange that they should
have been slow to recognize their latest overlord. Emperor William II
is, therefore, quite right when he describes the mark of May, 1412, as
devastated, unruly, and altogether unpromising. It could hardly have
been otherwise. Before Frederick was invested with Brandenburg (and he
was formally invested only after a further payment of 400,000 gulden),
in 1417, his princely possessions included merely partial claims to
smaller districts like Ansbach and Bayreuth, which he shared with his
brother John. In spite of Frederick of Hohenzollern's devotion to the
cause of religion, the Shakespearean motto, "Thrift, thrift, Horatio,"
may be taken to explain satisfactorily his conduct in this regard. That
the nobles would be unruly he must have expected. His own activities
and his acceptance of the mark had helped to make them so. Frederick's
later service consisted in dispelling a confusion which he had helped
to create.
In these larger transactions the first great Hohenzollern does not seem
to have been given to listening to the still small voice. Incidentally,
he was later to turn against Sigismund. The assumption, therefore,
that he left his southern home for the mark out of heed for a divine
call, as Emperor William in his speech of February 3, 1899, tells us
that he did, is historically, like Laplace's God, a useless hypothesis.
Self-interest, for which he seems to have had a fairly keen sense,
would have impelled him to do no less. Yet it is upon the _faits et
gestes_ of Frederick of Hohenzollern that Emperor William II bases his
claims to rule Germany by divine right.
As we have seen, the mortgage was not discharged, and Frederick had
been formally invested with the margraviate and electorship in 1417.
He lifted the mark out of the deplorable condition in which he found
it, compelled obedience, and during the period of his rule--he died
in 1440--its lot was much improved and the power of the house of
Hohenzollern much strengthened. History must give him credit for his
ability and his difficult achievement if not for his motives.
In the process of establishing himself, his rule, like that of his
successors was the rule of the sword and his policy the _Machtpolitik_,
or policy of force. In spite of her comparative poverty, therefore,
Prussia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries maintained an army
larger than that of Austria or France. The connection between the ruler
and the army in a state which was founded and maintained by force of
arms was, therefore, and remains in modern Prussia so close that the
Emperor is from the standpoint of tradition justified in repeating
that "the only pillar on which the empire rests is the army." It was
literally _ein Volk in Waffen_, a people in arms. The first really
outstanding ruler of the province was the Great Elector (1620-88), who
has always been cited by William II as his model and of whom he speaks
with a respect that amounts to veneration.
He was born in Berlin and, after passing part of his youth in the
Netherlands, became ruler of Brandenburg and Prussia in 1640, before
the close of the Thirty Years' War. He restored the prestige of the
army and centralized the government and, we are informed by recognized
authorities, by a clever but unscrupulous use of his intermediate
position between Sweden and Poland, procured his recognition as an
independent Duke of Prussia by both powers and eventually succeeded in
crushing the stubborn and protracted opposition which was offered to
his authority by the estates of the duchy. His success in organizing
the army was proved by his great victory over the Swedes at Fehrbellin,
1675.
From childhood the Emperor has worshipped the Great Elector as his
favorite hero. In their policies there is a striking similarity, for
the elector was the first to recognize the importance of sea power and
is praised by William II for having founded the Prussian navy and for
having encouraged commerce. He built the first great German canal,
from the Oder to the Spree (another lead which the present Emperor
was to follow), and he inaugurated the colonial policy by founding
a settlement on the west African coast. This, likewise, was to be
revived by the present Emperor, for it was allowed to lapse even under
Frederick the Great, who considered a "village on the frontier" a much
greater asset than a state oversea. The aim of the Great Elector was
to make himself an absolute ruler, as he regarded this best for the
internal and external welfare of the state. But he raised Brandenburg
and Prussia to a high place and laid the basis of their later power.
Under these lords and their followers the progress of Prussia was
amazingly rapid. In 1650, when London and Paris were cities of a
little more or less than half a million inhabitants and Amsterdam
counted 300,000, Berlin was a village of 10,000. The population of
Prussia itself, which, to be sure, had been more than doubled in size,
increased from 1,500,000 in 1688 to 19,000,000 in 1865. It was in the
time of Frederick the Great, however, that her power as a state was
first firmly established. His military genius (he is usually said
to have originated "the oblique order" of battle) and his policy of
dissimulation here stood him in good stead. He sowed discord among
his neighbors and awaited the favorable opportunity to attack even on
very slight pretexts and in the case of Silesia without the formality
of a declaration of war. Like William II, he was a patron of the arts
and sciences and invited noted littérateurs and scientists, especially
Frenchmen, to his court. The scientist Maupertuis and Voltaire were
his protégés, and the exiled Rousseau for a time found refuge in his
domains. He himself wrote in French. It is probably because of his
French sympathies and the fact that he was, in this regard, not a
_kerndeutscher Mann_ that William II rarely speaks of him personally
and mentions usually only his services to his country.
Frederick died in 1786. He had raised Prussia to the position of a
first-rate power and, in Disraeli's phrase, left it "regarded if not
respected." His successor, Frederick William II, is remembered mostly
because of the scandalous character of his life, and he showed none
of the characteristics of the energetic Hohenzollerns. A contemporary
says of him: "He bears the greatest resemblance to an Asiatic prince,
who, living within his harem with his slaves of both sexes, leaves
the business of the state to his viziers. The wall, twelve feet in
height, by which the new garden at Potsdam is enclosed, reminds one of
the enclosure of a seraglio." He was succeeded by his son, Frederick
William III, in 1797. This conscientious but ill-starred ruler was to
be rendered famous through his misfortunes in the time of Napoleon and
has been overshadowed somewhat in history by his beautiful, devoted,
and heroic wife Louise. They stand closer to modern history than is
generally realized. The present Emperor often mentions them for their
heroism and the brave part they played in the War of Liberation and
in freeing their country from the incubus of the Napoleonic Empire.
They were the parents of Emperor William I, the illustrious grandfather
of the present sovereign. If, then, Emperor William II frequently
takes occasion to recall the memory of 1813 it should be remembered
that in his own family these events were very near to him, since his
grandfather had spent his childhood in those years of humiliation and
had served in the allied armies in the time of Napoleon. The man who
was to become Emperor William I had been born as the second son of
Frederick William III in 1797. He was to be preceded on the throne by
his elder brother, Frederick William IV, who, like the present Emperor
and like Frederick the Great, was an accomplished lover of the arts,
but who lacked the strength to guide his country with a sure hand
through the troubled years of the forties. He became afflicted in his
last years with hopeless mental disease, and his brother, after having
served as regent, became King of Prussia as William I in 1861.
The idea of uniting Germany into a single empire had already been
seriously agitated in the time of Frederick William IV, but it
was under his brother, largely through the tireless activity and
wonderfully successful diplomacy of Bismarck, that this great aim was
to be achieved in the lifetime of the present Emperor. It was in
the chapel at Königsberg that William I arranged for and held his
coronation. He cannot be said to have been crowned; for although his
brother had granted Prussia a constitution William himself raised the
crown from the altar, set it on his own head, and announced in a loud
voice: "I receive this crown from God's hand and from none other."
It was such a legacy that the present Emperor inherited when, after
the few months' reign of his father, he succeeded to the imperial
office; and it is this legacy and this tradition which, in fairness
to the Emperor, we must remember in reading such seemingly strange
pronouncements as his own address at Königsberg in 1910.
The later events in German history and the subsequent policies of the
empire are touched upon in such detail that further preamble is hardly
necessary. That the Emperor has everywhere energetically taken the lead
is undoubted. That he should be held responsible in general for German
diplomacy is implied in his position. That he has urged and directed
the movement in nearly every field of endeavor is plain from the varied
character of his addresses. No one can doubt after reading him that
he desired peace, in the sense that he preferred peace to war. The
question that will undoubtedly interest the reader most is the problem
of the consistency of his various policies; whether, for instance, the
exaggerated worship of the army, the devout desire for peace, and the
insistent imperialism of his later years can be brought into harmony;
whether they can be reduced to any common denominator. However that may
be, that he has been one of the most devoted and conscientious servants
of the German cause as he sees it cannot possibly be denied.
II
PRELIMINARIES
JUNE 15, 1888--OCTOBER 30, 1889
THE FIRST OFFICIAL ACT OF THE EMPEROR
SCHLOSS FRIEDRICHSKRON, JUNE 15, 1888
The aged Emperor William I, grandfather of William II, departed
this life March 9, 1888. He was succeeded by his son, Frederick
III, who, after a reign of only a few months, died on June 15 of
the same year. The present Emperor, who was born on January 27,
1859, was, therefore, twenty-nine at the time of his accession to
the throne. It is characteristic that his first official act should
have been an order to the army.
The close connection between the army and the Prussian Kings is a
tradition which William II sedulously maintained. In later speeches
he will frequently give evidence of this desire on his part and
will quote characteristic sayings of his ancestors to the effect
that the army is the "_rocher de bronze_," that it is "the only
pillar on which the empire rests." He will repeat to the army
officers that phrase of his grandfather: "These are the gentlemen
upon whom I can rely."
If the extraordinary versatility of William II is one of his most
striking qualities, a reading of his speeches will convince us
that it is none the less true that he is first and foremost a
soldier. By far the great majority of his speeches are on military
occasions, and it is the martial triumphs of his ancestors that he
is most fond of commemorating. He seems to be most at home with
his officers, and although at one time or another differences have
arisen between him and every party or caste in the empire, even
including the Prussian nobility, this close relationship with the
army has never been clouded by even a momentary estrangement.
More than any other one subject, army reviews have provided the
occasion for his speeches. If but a few of these are given here
it is because his sentiments in this regard have suffered no
change and these addresses are largely repetitions of his sense
of satisfaction and the expression of his good-will. That he
intended to be the virtual leader of his own host is perhaps best
indicated by the fact that Von Moltke (who was, to be sure, an old
man) resigned six weeks after his accession to the throne. The
present war has proved his capacity in this regard, and the army
has certainly lost nothing in efficiency and has probably gained
somewhat in confidence since he took over the direction from his
ancestors and their advisers. The present order was issued on
the very day of his father's death. On that same date a somewhat
similar proclamation was addressed to the navy.
[Illustration: THE EMPEROR IN THE YEAR OF HIS CORONATION, 1888
[Age 29]]
Even ere you, my troops, had put aside the external signs of mourning
for your Emperor and King, William I, who lives ever in your hearts,
you are called upon to suffer another heavy blow through the death this
morning, at five minutes past eleven, of my dear and deeply beloved
father, his Majesty, the Emperor and King, Frederick III.
It is in these serious days of mourning that God's will places me at
the head of the army, and it is from a heart stirred deeply, indeed,
that I address my first words to my troops.
I enter with implicit confidence, however, upon this duty to which God
has called me; for I know what a sense for honor and duty has been
implanted in the army by my glorious ancestors, and I know to what
degree this sense has ever and at all times displayed itself.
The absolutely inviolable dependence upon the war lord [_Kriegsherr_]
is, in the army, the inheritance which descends from father to
son, from generation to generation. I would direct your gaze to my
grandfather, who stands before the eyes of all of you, the glorious war
lord, worthy of all honor--a spectacle more beautiful than any other
and one which speaks most tellingly to our hearts; I would direct your
gaze to my dear father, who even as Crown Prince won for himself a
distinguished place in the annals of the army, and to a long succession
of famous ancestors whose names are resplendent in history and whose
hearts beat warmly for the army.
So are we bound together--I and the army--so are we born for one
another, and so shall we hold together indissolubly, whether, as God
wills, we are to have peace or storm.
You are now about to swear to me the oath of fidelity and obedience,
and I vow that I shall ever be mindful of the fact that the eyes of my
forefathers look down upon me from that other world and that I one day
shall have to render up to them an account of the fame and the honor of
the army.
WILLIAM.
CASTLE FRIEDRICHSKRON, June 15, 1888.
TO MY PEOPLE
POTSDAM, JUNE 18, 1888
Three days after his pronouncements to the army and navy Emperor
William II issued the following proclamation to his people. In
temperament the son was quite unlike his father. The wife of
Frederick I and the mother of the present Emperor was an English
princess, Victoria (daughter of Queen Victoria), and through her
Frederick is generally said to have been influenced by the more
liberal English tradition. Critics of William II have occasionally
annoyed him by repeating, justly or unjustly, that his father
regarded certain elements in his character with disapproval.
However that may be, it is true that the people regarded Frederick
in a different light from that in which they have come to regard
his son. In reading the speeches of William II one is conscious
of the fact that he is speaking from a certain eminence, that the
Emperor never forgets that he enjoys the advantage of position.
He has, therefore, put between himself and his people a certain
distance which did not exist in the case of his father. The father
treated his subjects as if he were one of them, and it is this fact
that led them fondly to call him "_Unser Fritz_." However great the
respect which they feel for the son, none of his subjects would
think of bestowing any such title on William II, and, even if they
did, it is doubtful whether he would feel in any way complimented
thereby. He is in this respect more like his ancestor Frederick the
Great than like his father or grandfather, and it is a striking
fact that in all his speeches he never once mentions this somewhat
familiar title, of which his father was proud.
God has again hung about us the pall of deepest mourning. Hardly had
the grave closed upon my ever-memorable grandfather, than his Majesty,
my dearly beloved father, was called from this earthly sojourn to
everlasting peace. The heroic energy, born of Christian humility, with
which, unmindful of his sufferings, he accomplished his royal duties
seemed to leave room for the hope that he would be spared still longer
to the Fatherland. God has willed it otherwise. To the royal sufferer
whose heart was moved by all that was great and beautiful, only a few
months were allotted in which he might display upon the throne the
noble qualities of heart and soul which have won for him the love of
his people. The virtues which adorned him and the victories which he
gained on fields of battle will be gratefully remembered as long as
German hearts beat, and undying fame will illumine his knightly figure
in the history of the Fatherland.