William of Germany Part 3

Thereafter he was silent, and Bismarck left the sick-room.

The Prince's parents, Crown Prince Frederick and his English consort, had also their Court at the Marmor Palais in Potsdam, and their palace in Berlin, but the life they led was comparatively simple. The Crown Prince and Princess were great travellers and consequently often absent from Germany; and when at home, while the Crown Prince, in his serious-minded fas.h.i.+on, was absorbed in study, the Crown Princess divided her time between the practice of the arts and correspondence with her now grown-up sons and daughters.

Still, it is clear from the signs of the time that there was a good deal of intrigue going on throughout this pre-accession period, or, if intrigue is too strong a term for it, a good deal of friction, social and political, in high circles. It was chiefly caused, if the old Chancellor's statements to his sycophantic adorer, Busch, are to be credited, by the interference of the Empress Augusta and her daughter-in-law, the Crown Princess, in the sphere of politics, the Empress seeking to influence her husband in favour of the Catholics, whom she had taken under her protection, and the Crown Princess trying, as we have seen, to influence German policy in favour of England.

Exactly what part Prince William took in it all is not very clear. One thing we know, that he greatly displeased Bismarck by his constant attendance at the Waldersee _salon_, then a social centre in Berlin.

Countess Waldersee, who is still living in Hannover, was the daughter of an American banker named Lee. She married Frederick, Prince of Schleswig, but he died six months after the wedding. His widow afterwards married Count Waldersee, who was subsequently to command the international forces during the Boxer troubles in China. Bismarck detested Waldersee, perhaps because many people spoke of him as his probable successor, and consequently looked with anything but favour on his imperial pupil's visit to the Waldersees.

The great figure of the time, however, was neither the Emperor nor the Crown Prince nor Prince William, but Prince Bismarck, who, as Chancellor for now more than a quarter of a century, had throughout that period guided the destinies of Prussia and the German Empire.

Emperor William and Crown Prince Frederick and Prince William were playing, doubtless, more or less prominent parts on the public stage, but all things of moment gravitated towards Bismarck, whose days were spent, now persuading or convincing the Emperor, now warring with a Parliament growing impatient of his dictatorial att.i.tude, now countermining the intrigues and opposition of his adversaries at Court and in the Ministries. He hardly ever went into society, but though he spent his days growling in his den at the Foreign Office when he was not immersed in work, he was the great popular figure of Berlin; indeed, it might be said, of all Germany.

As second lieutenant, Prince William had naturally a good deal to learn, though, entering life, as we have seen, as a "fine young recruit," having had a "military governor" appointed to his service when he was four, being made an officer at the age of ten, and having pa.s.sed most of his life hitherto in a military society and atmosphere, he had less perhaps to learn than the ordinary young German officer.

He went through the usual drills, and doubtless felt, as keenly as does the young officer everywhere, their monotonous and seemingly unnecessary repet.i.tions, but they fulfilled the object in view and gave him the well-set-up bearing and martial tread which still distinguish him. Living in the old Town Castle of Potsdam, in rooms that had once been occupied by Frederick the Great, he entered with zest into the task of learning the mechanism of his regiment and at the same time of the army generally, though it cannot have been as interesting a task then as now, when science has added so many new branches to military organization. Both he and his young wife were as hospitable as their not too generous means and occasional cheques from the Emperor William would allow, particularly to any Borussian of the Prince's Bonn university days who might be pa.s.sing through Berlin or Potsdam. The young Prince and Princess took part, as was to be expected of them, in the festivities and ceremonies of the Emperor's and Crown Prince's Court, and, when they had nothing more interesting to do, might be seen strolling arm in arm about the streets in Potsdam looking into the shops as young married people do in every town, and being apparently, as the story-books say, as happy as the day is long.

On the whole, however, during these pre-accession years, only glimpses of Prince William's character and doings are obtainable, but, though meagre, they are sufficient to suggest that in his case, too, if we extend the saying to cover the entire period of youth, the child was father to the man. The chief, almost the only, reliable authorities for the inner history of the time are the memoirs and notes left by the two Chancellors, Prince Bismarck and Prince Hohenlohe--_en pa.s.sant_ let the hope be expressed here that in the interests of Germany herself another Chancellor, Prince Bernhard Ernst von Bulow, now living in retirement at Rome, will enlighten the world as to that of the last ten or twelve stirring years, _quorum pars magna fuit_.

Both Bismarck and Hohenlohe were excellent judges of character, and have, described, though with regrettable brevity, the character of Prince William about this time. Talking to his confidant, Dr. Busch, in June, 1882, Bismarck says of the Prince:

"He is quite different from the Emperor William, and wishes to take the government into his own hands; he is energetic and determined, not at all disposed to put up with parliamentary co-regents, a regular guardsman; Philopater and Antipater at Potsdam! He is not at all pleased at his father (Crown Prince Frederick) taking up with professors, with Mommsen, Virchow, Forckenbeck. Perhaps he may one day develop into the _rocher de bronze_ of which we stand in need."

This _rocher de bronze_ is an expression constantly employed by devoted royalists and imperialists in Germany. It was first used by Frederick William IV, who, in the jargon which in his time pa.s.sed for the German language, exclaimed: "_Ich werde meine Souvereinetat stabilizieren wie ein rocher de bronze_."

Again, about this time Bismarck says:

"Up to that time (when Prince William was studying at the Ministries) he knew little, and indeed did not trouble himself much about it, but preferred to enjoy himself in the society of young officers and such-like,"

and he goes on to tell how the Prince took--or did not take--to this Ministerial education. It was proposed that the Under Secretary of State, Herrfurth, who was reputed to be well informed, particularly in statistics, should instruct him about internal questions. The Prince agreed and invited Herrfurth to lunch, but afterwards told Bismarck he could not stand him, "with his bristly beard, his dryness and tediousness." Could Bismarck suggest some one else? The Chancellor mentioned Privy Councillor von Brandenstein. The Prince did not object, had the Baron several times to meals, but paid so little attention to his explanations that Brandenstein lost patience and begged for some other employment. Concerning a rendezvous, Bismarck writes:

"He (Prince William) has more understanding, more courage and greater independence (than his grandfather), but in his leaning for me he goes too far. He was 'surprised' that I had waited for him, a thing his grandfather was incapable of saying;"

and the Chancellor adds:

"It is only in trifles and matters of secondary importance that one occasionally has reason to find fault with him, as, for instance, in the form of his State declarations--but that is youthful vivacity which time will correct. Better too much than too little fire."

Busch relates, under date of April 6, 1888, Bismarck's birthday, how Prince William came to offer his congratulations, and, having done so, invited himself to dinner. The meal over, he made a speech toasting Bismarck, in which he said:

"The Empire is like an army corps that has lost its commander-in-chief in the field, while the officer who is next to him in rank lies severely wounded. At this critical moment forty-six million loyal German hearts turn with solicitude and hope to the standard, and the standard-bearer in whom all their expectations are centred. The standard-bearer is our ill.u.s.trious Prince, our great Chancellor. Let him lead us. We will follow him. Long may he live!"

Prince Hohenlohe's references to Prince William as Emperor are frequent and full, but he has little to say about his character as Prince William beyond noting, when there was some talk of the Prince directly succeeding Emperor William, that he was "too young." On an occasion subsequently Prince Hohenlohe amusingly notes that the Emperor shook hands with him until his fingers "nearly cracked." This is still a genial gesture of the Emperor's.

One doc.u.ment, however, is available to show the spirit of religious tolerance which then animated our young Lutheran Prince, as it has animated him, it may be added, ever since. Pius IX had been succeeded in the Papacy by the more liberal Leo XIII, and the Kulturkampf had come to an end. Prince William, writing to an uncle, Cardinal Hohenlohe, says:--

"That this unholy Kulturkampf is at an end is a thing which rejoices me beyond expression. Of late many eminent Catholics, among them Kopp (afterwards Cardinal) have frequently visited me and honoured me with a confidence at once complete and gratifying. I was often so happy as to be able to be the interpreter of their wishes (to the Emperor and Bismarck, presumably) and do them some service. So it has been granted to my youth to co-operate in this work of peace. This has given me great pleasure and happiness.

"Give my regards to Galimberti and lay my respects at the feet of the Pope.

"Thy devoted nephew,

"WILLIAM OF PRUSSIA."

With his future subjects Prince William was brought into close relations only in a very limited way. No one, save perhaps Bismarck, seems to have known or suspected his true character and aims. This was natural enough, since it is not until a man comes to occupy some influential or prominent position that the public begins to take an interest in him. His father would be Emperor before him, and fate might have it that he himself would not live to come to the throne.

Royal highnesses are not uncommon in a country with such a feudal history and so many courts as Germany. The young Prince, moreover, was never, to use a phrase of to-day, in the limelight. He was never involved in a notorious scandal. He had not, as his eldest son, the present Crown Prince, has, published a book. He was more or less absorbed in the army, the early grave of so many dawning talents. And there was no newspaper press devoted to chronicling the doings and sayings of the fas.h.i.+onable world of his time. His natural abilities would doubtless have secured him reputation and success in any sphere of life, but, as he himself would probably be the first to admit, much of his fame, and even much of his merit, is due to the splendid opportunities afforded him by his birth and position.

At the same time it is obvious that if his people at this period had not much opportunity of studying the young Prince, he had been studying them and their requirements as these latter appeared to him.

He had evidently thought much on Germany's conditions and prospects before he came to the throne, and was Empire-building in imagination long before he became Emperor. It is not hard to guess the drift of his meditations. The success of the Empire depended on the success of Prussia, and the success of Prussia, ringed in by possibly hostile Powers, on union under a Prussian King whom Germans should swear fealty to and regard as a Heaven-granted leader. From the history of Prussia he drew the conclusion that force, physical force, well organized and equipped, must be the basis of Germany's security.

Physical force had made Brandenburg into Prussia, and Prussia into the still nascent modern German Empire. He knew that France was only waiting for the day to come when she would be powerful enough to recover her lost provinces. Russia was friendly, but there was no certainty she would always be so. Austria was an ally, but many people in Austria had not forgotten Sadowa, and in any case her military and naval forces were far from being efficient. An irresistible army, and a national spirit that would keep it so, were consequently Germany's first essentials.

Simultaneously a new fact of vital importance for Germany's prosperity presented itself for consideration--the growth of world-policy in trade, the expansion of commerce through the development caused by new conditions of transport and intercommunication in which other nations were already engaged. The Prince saw his country's merchants beginning to spread over the earth, and believing in the doctrine that trade follows the flag, he felt that the flag, with the power and protection it affords, must be supplied. For this it appeared to him that a navy was as indispensable as was an efficient army for Germany's internal security. All other great countries had fine navies, while to Germany this complement of Empire was practically wanting. Accordingly he now took up the study of naval science and naval construction.

There was an occasion, however, at this time when the young Prince attracted general attention, if only for a few days. It was when as colonel of the Body Guard Hussars, he ordered his officers to withdraw from a Berlin club in which hazard and high play had ruined some of the younger and less wealthy members. The committee of the club used their influence to cause Emperor William to make the new commander cancel his order. The Emperor sent for his grandson and requested its withdrawal.

"Majesty," said the young commander, "permit me a question--am I still commander of the regiment?"

"Of course--"

"Well, then, will your Majesty allow me to maintain the order--or else accept my resignation?"

"Oh," said the Emperor, who was in reality pleased with the young disciplinarian, "there can be no talk of such a thing. I could not find so good a commanding officer again in a hurry."

When the club committee's amba.s.sadors came to the Emperor to learn the result of his intervention, his answer was, "Very sorry, gentlemen; I did my best, but the colonel refuses."

The political situation as regards France was just now highly precarious. General Boulanger, whom Gambetta once described as "one of the four best officers in France," had become Minister of War in the de Freycinet Cabinet of 1886. Relying on a supposed superiority of the French army, he prepared for a war of revenge against Germany and aimed, with the help of Deroulede and Rochfort, at suppressing the parliamentary _regime_ and establis.h.i.+ng himself as dictator. His plans were answered in Germany by the acceptance of Bismarck's Septennat proposals for increasing the army and fixing its budget for seven years in advance. The war feeling in France diminished, and though it revived for a time owing to the arrest of the French frontier police commissary Schnaebele, it finally died out on that officer's release at the particular request of the Czar to Emperor William. Boulanger's subsequent history only concerns France. He was sent to a provincial command, but returned to Paris, where he was joyously received and elected to Parliament by a large majority. He might, it is believed, a year or two later, on being elected by the department of the Seine, with Paris at his back, have made a successful _coup d'etat_ on the night of his triumphant election, but his courage at the last moment failed, and on learning that he was about to be arrested he fled to Brussels, where he committed suicide on the grave of his mistress.

The time, however, was approaching, the most interesting, and as the succession of events have shown, the most momentous for the Empire since 1870, when Prince William's accession was obviously at hand.

During the year 1887 and the early part of 1888 the attention of the world was fixed, first curiously, then anxiously, then sympathetically on the situation in Berlin. Emperor William was an old man just turned ninety; he was fast breaking up and any week his death might be announced. Hereditarily the Crown Prince Frederick, now fifty-six, should succeed, and a new reign would open which might introduce political changes of moment to other countries as well as Germany. The new reign was indeed to open, but only to prove one of the shortest in history.

In January, 1887, a Shadow fell on the House of Hohenzollern, the Shadow that must one day fall on every living creature. It was noticed that the Crown Prince was hoa.r.s.e, had caught a cold, or something of the kind. A stay at Ems did him no good, Doctors Tobold and von Bergmann, the leading specialists of the day, were consulted, a laryngoscopic examination followed, the presence of cancer was strongly suspected, and an operation was advised. At this juncture, at the suggestion, it is said, of Queen Victoria, it was decided to summon the specialist of highest reputation in England, Sir Morell Mackenzie, who, having examined the patient, and basing his opinion on a report of Professor Virchow's, declared that the growth was not malignant. It was now May, and on Mackenzie's advice the patient visited England, where, accompanied by Prince William, he was present at the celebration of Queen Victoria's Jubilee. Some months after his return to the Continent were spent with his family in Tirol and Italy, until November found him in San Remo, where a meeting of famous surgeons from Vienna, Berlin, and Frankfort-on-Main finally diagnosed the existence of cancer, and Mackenzie coincided with the judgment.

The old Emperor died on March 9th. He had taken cold on March 3rd, and on the 7th a chronic ailment of the kidneys from which he suffered became worse, he could not sleep, his strength began to ebb, and it was clear the end was near. On the 6th, however, he was able to speak for a few minutes with Prince William, with Bismarck, and with his only daughter, the Grand d.u.c.h.ess of Baden, who had arrived post-haste the night before to be present at the death-bed. The Grand d.u.c.h.ess, as the Emperor spoke, besought him not to tire himself by talking. "I have no time to be tired," he murmured, in a flicker of the sense of duty which had been a lifelong feature of his character, and a few hours later he pa.s.sed quietly away. The funeral, headed by Prince William and the Knights of the Black Eagle, took place on the 20th.

The new Emperor Frederick, who had hurried from San Remo on receiving news of the Emperor's condition, was too ill to join it, but stood behind a closed window of his palace and saluted as the coffin went by.

The incidents of the Emperor Frederick's ascent of the throne, the amnesty and liberal-minded proclamations to his people, and in particular the heroic resignation with which he bore his fate, are events of common knowledge. One of them was the so-called Battenberg affair. Queen Victoria desired a marriage between Princess Victoria, the present Emperor's sister, then aged twenty-two, and Prince Alexander of Battenberg, at that time Prince of Bulgaria, so as to secure him against Russia by an alliance with the imperial house of Germany. Prince Bismarck objected on the ground that the marriage would show Germany in an unfriendly light at St. Petersburg, and might subject a Prussian princess to the risk of expulsion from Sofia.

Another account is that the Chancellor feared an increase of English influence at the German Court with the Prince of Bulgaria as its channel. In any case, the result of the Chancellor's opposition was to place the sick Emperor in a delicate and painful situation. It was ended by his yielding to the Chancellor's representations, and the marriage did not come off.

Meanwhile, the Emperor's malady was making fatal progress. The Shadow was growing darker and more formidable. A season of patiently-borne suffering followed, until Death in his terrific majesty appeared and another Emperor occupied the throne.

IV.

"VON GOTTES GNADEN"

Prince William is now German Emperor and King of Prussia. Before observing him as trustee and manager of his magnificent inheritance a pause may be made to investigate the true meaning of a much-discussed phrase which, while suggesting nothing to the Englishman though he will find it stamped in the words "Dei gratia" on every s.h.i.+lling piece that pa.s.ses through his hands, is the bed-rock and foundation of the Emperor's system of rule and the key to his nature and conduct.

Government in Germany is dynastic, not, as in England and America, parliamentary or democratic. The King of Prussia possesses his crown--such is the theory of the people as well as of the dynasty--by the grace of G.o.d, not by the consent of the people. The same may be said of the German Emperor, who fills his office as King of Prussia.

To the Anglo-Saxon foreigner the dynasty in Germany, and particularly in Prussia, appears a sort of fetish, the wors.h.i.+p of which begins in the public schools with lessons on the heroic deeds of the Hohenzollerns, and with the Emperor, as high priest, constantly calling on his people to wors.h.i.+p with him. This view of the kingly succession may seem Oriental, but it is not surprising when one reflects that the Hohenzollern dynasty is over a thousand years old and during that time has ruled successively in part of Southern Germany, in Brandenburg, in Prussia, until at last, imperially, in all Germany. Moreover, it has ruled wisely on the whole; in the course of centuries it has brought a poor and disunited people, living on a soil to a great extent barren and sandy, to a pitch of power and prosperity which is exciting the envy and apprehension of other nations.