The Schemes of the Kaiser - Juliette Adam (best ebook reader ubuntu txt) 📗

benevolently, he aspires to be first a sort of pope, imposing upon his people a social state composed of servility and compulsory comfort, and again a leader of crusades, drawing his people after him to the conquest of the world.

Spiritual and material interests, military organisation, he mixes and confuses them like everything else which occurs to his mind, and every day he does something to destroy the results of that marvellous continuity, which did more to establish the power of William I than the victories of Sadowa and Sedan. Ever more and more infatuated with the idea of military supremacy, he now pretends to be greatly concerned with the idea of disarmament. And he, the avowed protector of socialists, looks as if he were about to accept from Mr. Dryander, the protestant presidency of that association of workmen, which is being organised for the purpose of fighting socialism.

Wherever we look, it is always the same, false pretences, trickery, lying, love of mischief-making and of persecution, innumerable and unceasing proofs given by William that his sovereign soul, irretrievably committed to restless agitation, will never know the higher and divine joys of peace.


March 1, 1891. [3]

For some months past, my dear readers, I have predicted that William II will not be satisfied without paying a visit to France. The visit of the Empress Frederick should have prepared us for this amiable surprise. But because the august mother of the German Emperor was received by us with nothing more than cold politeness, the _Cologne Gazette_ gives us a sound drubbing, as witness the following--

"The French have no right to be offensive towards the august head of the German Empire and his noble mother, by insulting them after the manner of blackguards (polissons). Every German who has the very least regard for the dignity of the nation must feel mortally insulted in the person of the Emperor."

"The German people have the right to expect that the French Government and the French nation will give them ample satisfaction, and will wipe out this stain on the honour of France, by sternly calling to order the wretches in question, creatures whom we Germans consider to be the refuse of human society."

And we who belong to this "refuse," who flatter ourselves that we have made extraordinary efforts of self-control when we refrained from saying to the Empress Frederick: "Madame, spare us; let it not be said that you went one day to Saint-Cloud, and on the next to Versailles, lest our resolution to be calm should forsake us"--we, I say, now perceive, that all our prudence has been wasted, and that we are still "refuse," the refuse of human society.

The character of William II continues to develop its series of eccentricities. With him, one may be sure of incurring displeasure, but his favours are shortlived. His mania for change is manifested to a degree unexampled since the days of the decay of the Roman Empire. His freakishness, the suddenness of his impulses, are becoming enough to create dismay amongst all those who approach him. One day he will suddenly start off to take by surprise the garrisons of Potsdam and of Rinfueld; he gives the order for boots and saddles, which naturally leads to innumerable accidents. Next day you will find him issuing a decree that, a play written by one of his _proteges_, entitled _The New Saviour_, is a masterpiece, which he would compel the public to applaud. The best he can do with it is to prevent its being hissed off the stage. Another day he has a room prepared for himself at the Headquarters of the General Staff, where he interferes in the preparation of strategic plans, without paying the least attention to the new chief who has replaced Count Waldersee. Then, again, he connects his private office with the entire Press organisation, so as to be able to manipulate the reptile fund himself, and to dictate in person the notices he requires, concerning all his proceedings, in the newspapers which he pays in Germany and in those which he buys abroad.

All of a sudden it occurs to him that six more war-ships would round off the German Fleet; and so he demands that they be built on the spot. His Minister resists, pointing out that the approval of the Reichstag is required, William II flies into a passion, and the wretched Minister obeys. Suddenly it occurs to him also to remember the existence of a certain Count Vedel, greatly favoured by the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar. He summons him by telegraph, and makes him his favourite of an hour. When it pleases him to remove a superior officer, or to put one on the shelf, nothing stops him, neither the worth of the man, nor the value of the services he may have rendered. One can readily conceive that German generals live in a state of perpetual fright. Add to all this that William is becoming impecunious. He has taken to borrowing, and is reduced to making money out of everything. What will the Sultan Abdul Hamid say when he learns that the Grand Marshal of the German Court has put up for sale the presents which he offered to the Emperor, his guest, and which are valued at four millions!

These things bring to mind the threat which William II uttered a few days before the fall of Bismarck: "Those who resist me I will break into a thousand pieces."


March 12, 1891. [4]

The many and varied causes which led to the journey of the Empress Frederick to Paris, and the equally numerous results that the Emperor, her son, expected from that visit, are beginning to stand out in such a manner that we can appreciate their significance more and more clearly. This proceeding on the part of William II, like all his actions, was invested with a certain quality of suddenness, but at the same time, it reveals itself as the result of a complicated series of deliberate plans. The object of these last was, as usual, the young monarch's unhealthy craving for making dupes. To this I shall return later on. Let us first examine the causes of William's sudden impulses.

He has acquired, and is teaching his people to acquire, the taste and habit of sudden and unexpected happenings. It having been the habit of Bismarck to speculate on things foreseen, it was inevitable that his jealous adversary should speculate on things unforeseen. Moreover, the King-Emperor is dominated by that law of compensation, from which neither men nor things can escape, and from which it follows logically that Germany, after having profited by methods of continuity, is now condemned to suffer, in the same proportion, her trials of instability.

In determining upon the journey of his august mother to Paris, the Emperor took no risks other than those which pleased him, and which served the purposes of his grudges and his policy. In the first place, this journey would serve for a moment to divert attention in Germany from a policy which the great industrials and the workmen, the party of progress and the conservatives, all unite in condemning. In the next place, Berlin, having for a long time made ready to be amiable to Paris, was bound to resent all the more acutely any failure to reciprocate her kind advances. These results could not fail to be favourable to the vote of credits for military purposes, which are always the last credits asked for by the Government (whether under Bismarck or under Caprivi) and which are always voted under stress of an appeal to the eternal but utterly non-existent dangers, that are supposed to threaten Germany from France.

If our capital, then, should extend a cold welcome to the august mother of the German Sovereign, the result could not fail to be of immediate advantage to the vote of military credits. I ask my readers to notice, by the way, the deliberate coincidence of the journey of the Empress with the demand for these credits, and also with the anniversary of the Treaty of Versailles. Finally, it was to be expected that if she were badly received, the mistake thus committed by the Empress Frederick would make "the Englishwoman" more unpopular in Germany; and, so far as one knows, her Imperial son has never been passionately devoted to her. Moreover, she afforded Bismarck an opportunity of getting rid of a little of his venom, as witness the following words of his--

"Only an Englishwoman," the ex-Chancellor declared during a visit to Mr. Burckardt, "could possibly have inspired the Emperor with the idea of sending her to Paris as a challenge to the French. A German woman would have had too much respect for her own dignity to go and visit Versailles and Saint-Cloud. The nobility of her feelings would have forbidden her to make a triumphal appearance amidst the ruins of the houses and castles destroyed by our troops, and her pride would have prevented her from seeking the homage and the favours of the vanquished. The Empress is English, and English she will remain."

But if France were to welcome with enthusiasm--or even with favour--the Empress Frederick, William II might justifiably conclude (without making allowance for the sympathy which the widow of the Emperor-Martyr inspires in Frenchwomen) that France had accepted the accomplished fact, abandoned her claims to Alsace-Lorraine, and the defence of her future interests in common with Russia. In that case, he would have treated France as he treats those who show him the greatest devotion. In order to get a clear idea of the object pursued by William II, it is sufficient to read two short extracts from the _Etoile Belge_, a blind admirer of the Emperor of Germany, and to read them separately from the enthusiastic articles which this paper published at the commencement of the journey of the Empress Frederick.

The correspondent of the _Etoile Belge_ wrote as follows--

"In confiding his mother and his sister to the hospitality of Paris, William II committed an act as clever as it was courageous. Let him continue in this policy of pacific advances, and the idea of a reconciliation with Germany will soon become more popular than the Russian Alliance."

The Berlin correspondent of the same _Etoile_ wrote--

"Germany has at least as much as England to gain in bringing it about that Russia should not feel too sure of French support."

Is not this clear enough? There you have it: the real object which underlay the visit incognito of the Empress Frederick for the furtherance of the interests of Germany, It meant a reconciliation with Germany, which would have separated us from Russia, from which England had everything to gain, which would once more have surrendered our credit to Italy unconditionally, and would have compelled us to renounce Alsace-Lorraine for good and all.

What then would have been the results had she paid us an official visit? We have already seen that none of the alternative schemes for this journey could work to Germany's detriment; we need, therefore, not be astonished at the publicity given by the Count von Muenster to all the comings and goings of the Empress, and at the determination shown by Her Majesty to investigate the quality of our patriotism in all its various aspects. The memories which the Empress went to recall at Saint-Cloud and at Versailles were the same as those which she compelled us to call from the past: memories glorious for her but unforgettably sad for