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 THE REAL KAISER
 
 THE REAL KAISER 
 
 An Illuminating' Study 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
 
 1914
 
 COPTRIGHT, 19U 
 
 By ANDREW MELROSE 
 
 VAIL-BALLOU COMPANV 
 BINGHAMION AND MEW YORK
 
 PUBLISHERS' NOTE 
 
 The personality of the Kaiser is so many-sided that 
 his true psychology is very difficult to discover by the 
 ordinary newspaper reader, who, for twenty years, 
 has taken at face value every one of his numerous 
 speeches without remembering the one that preceded 
 it. Since the war broke out, extracts from these 
 speeches have been presented to the public, with the 
 effect of entirely bewildering the large class who have 
 intelligence, but have no specialised knowledge of 
 Germany and her ruler. To them, modem Germany, 
 with her dreams of world-domination, as it is now 
 made known, is an entire contradiction of all their 
 preconceived views of the peaceful domestic nature of 
 the German people, and the Kaiser is a dozen different 
 men in one body. Yet the careful student of things 
 and persons German for the past quarter of a century 
 finds himself in no amazement about the war and its 
 conduct by Germany, and to him the Kaiser as the 
 Peaee-bringer, the "shorter catechist," and the war 
 lord, not to speak of the painter and the musician, 
 show one strong personality and purpose underlying 
 each exaggerated manifestation. 
 
 The author of the following pages has had excep- 
 tional opportunities to study his subject at close quar- 
 ters, and he presents here an attempt at an all-round
 
 Publishers^ Note 
 
 view of the Kaiser which shall enable an ordinary- 
 reader at least to understand the man who could have 
 declared for peace and ensured it, and who in a fate- 
 ful hour decreed war and is now struggling through 
 seas of blood towards a goal that, day by day, is re- 
 ceding from him. 
 
 After some hesitation, the author has decided to 
 remain anonymous. This is not because he has any 
 reason to be ashamed of his name, or wants to give 
 the impression that he is somebody of very great im- 
 portance. His reason is simply that his intimate 
 relations with people in Germany would make it in- 
 convenient for them and for him were he to be known 
 as the author of this pen-portrait of the Real Kaiser.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I Who 18 THE Kaiser? 1 
 
 II The Kaiser's Inheritance 12 
 
 III The Kaiser as Figurehead 24 
 
 IV The Kaiser as Orator 35 
 
 V The Kaiser as Business Man 45 
 
 VI The Kaiser at Home 59 
 
 VII The Kaiser's Lighter Moments 71 
 
 VIII The Vain Kaiser 82 
 
 IX The Kultue-Kaiseb 93 
 
 X What Germans think of the Kaiser . . . 103 
 
 XI What the Kaiser thinks of the Germans . .111 
 
 ' XII What is Germany? 121 
 
 XIII The Kaiser and Woiild-Poutics 133 
 
 XIV The Kaiser as Diplomat 143 
 
 XV The Kaiser and Peace 156 
 
 XVI The Kaiser and his Heir 168 
 
 XVII The Kaiser and Religion 180 
 
 XVIII The Kaiseb and his Creatures 188 
 
 XIX The Kaiser as Sea Lord 199 
 
 XX The Kaiser as War Lord 209 
 
 XXI The Real Kaiser 223
 
 THE REAL KAISER
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 WHO IS THE KAISER! 
 
 '*Who is this Kaiser? I can find no name for him, 
 unless it be Legion." — Prince Czartoriski to the Galician 
 Diet in 1901. 
 
 "Who is this Kaiser?" 
 
 I heard the question asked, in tones of sur- 
 prise, by a pretty, well-dressed woman in an 
 omnibus. She had been reading in an evening 
 paper the Kaiser's order to his army to an- 
 nihilate "the contemptible British," and her 
 amazement forced the question from her. 
 
 From her male companion the answer came 
 pat, "Oh, he is just the Emperor of Germany." 
 
 Quite wrong, of course, but quite typical of 
 the current British conception of the most no- 
 torious of living human beings. 
 
 He is not the Emperor of Germany, though 
 ninety-nine out of every hundred Britons say 
 quite loosely that he is. 
 
 From time to time he has been obtruded upon 
 their notice, each time in a different capacity. 
 They have altered their conception of him a hun- 
 dred times. Only one facet of his many-sided 
 
 1
 
 2 The Real Kaiser 
 
 character has been exposed to them at one time. 
 They have failed to understand his complexity 
 of character, just as they have chosen to ignore 
 the complex problems of the young Empire 
 which has grown into so amazing a power under 
 his guidance. 
 
 He amused them when he came to the throne. 
 They sensed him as a loquacious young man 
 with an untiring energy. Then he was pre- 
 sented to them as the young fool who summa- 
 rily dismissed his greatest statesman, the iron 
 Chancellor, Bismarck, who had made the Ger- 
 man Empire. 
 
 Sir John TenniePs cartoon in Punch, *' Drop- 
 ping the Pilot," hit the British imagination. 
 They saw the Kaiser as a rash youth, who would 
 presently repent his folly most bitterly. They 
 got quite sorry for the Kaiser. 
 
 That was followed by the sort of patronising 
 liking that good Britons conceive for interesting 
 foreigners. He was always doing and saying 
 things that amused them. He called Queen Vic- 
 toria ''Grandmamma," in a public speech, and 
 they rather liked that. They recalled the fact 
 that he was the son of a popular British prin- 
 cess, and half an Englishman. 
 
 They saw him and admired his appearance.
 
 Who is the Kaiser? 8 
 
 Every inch a king was this young German 
 Kaiser. The atmosphere of sausage and saur- 
 kraut was dissipated, and he ceased to be a 
 comic figure. 
 
 Great Britain was then ruled by a Queen who 
 was an aged and venerable personality. The 
 Victorian age had passed, with its rather stuify 
 ideals and cramped atmosphere of suppression, 
 but Queen Victoria still survived. A large sec- 
 tion of the people of this country rather envied 
 Germany its dashing young monarch. He was 
 a **goer," to use a current phrase. 
 
 At this epoch, the Kaiser developed the hal^it 
 of sending telegrams, and the great British 
 nation discovered with surprise that the young 
 man was not friendly. The culminating tele- 
 gram to President Kruger revealed him in the 
 light of an impudent busybody. Far too much 
 of the Kaiser, was the verdict of our enlight- 
 ened race. 
 
 King Edward came to the throne, and we be- 
 gan to think much better of France. Our old 
 traditional enemies had become in some myste- 
 rious way our best friends. We no longer en- 
 vied Germany the Kaiser; we had a go-ahead 
 monarch of our own. 
 
 But the Kaiser continued to mix himself in our
 
 4 The Real Kaiser 
 
 affairs in a most aggravating way. AVe dis- 
 covered that, while we were not looking, he had 
 actually been picking up colonies. An island 
 here, a tract of useless country there, a naval 
 station somewhere else. Germany a colonising 
 race ! How absurd. Of course, every one knew 
 that no country but our own really knew any- 
 thing about colonising. It was all that meddle- 
 some Kaiser. 
 
 Another surprise came when Mr. Chamberlain 
 announced that Germany had become quite a 
 formidable trade rival. ''Made in Germany" 
 had been a term of contempt. It meant bad 
 imitations of Sheffield cutlery and Birmingham 
 guns. Knives that would not cut, and weapons 
 with gaspipe barrels. If the Tariff Reform 
 campaign served no other end, it awakened the 
 great British people to the knowledge of the 
 fact that in many respects the German manu- 
 facturer could turn out goods that competed 
 with British wares in the open market, and beat 
 them. In this the hand of the Kaiser was also 
 apparent, ^he Kaiser was becoming a nui- 
 sance. 
 
 The Kaiser began to build a big fleet. He 
 said openly that Germany intended "to grasp 
 the Trident." Britain's undisputed title of
 
 Who is the Kaiser? 5 
 
 Mistress of the Seas was to be assailed. What 
 impudence! The Kaiser could never do it. 
 ''Master of the Seize" was about his mark. 
 Everybody knew that Germans were not good 
 sailors, and Britons were. 
 
 But the question became an urgent one. The 
 half-penny papers took it up, and people began 
 to talk about Dreadnoughts and the ''Two- 
 power standard." They attended public meet- 
 ings and shouted "We want eight, and we won't 
 wait." They thought they began to under- 
 stand the Kaiser now ; but he should not have it 
 all his own way. 
 
 Somebody recalled the fact that Germany had 
 been for fifty years the first military power in 
 the world. She could put into the field an army 
 ten times as strong as the British army. The 
 German soldier was better equipped and better 
 trained than the British. We began to talk of 
 the German peril. 
 
 The Kaiser loomed on the British mind as a 
 sinister figure, the monarch of the mailed fist. 
 Something had to be done; it might even be 
 necessary to do something soon. Lord Roberts 
 had decided views, and advocated conscription 
 in a series of speeches and letters which invari- 
 ably appeared in prominent places in the half-
 
 6 The Real Kaiser 
 
 penny papers under the heading : ' * Lord Kob- 
 erts' Grave Warning." At first they rather 
 spoiled the Briton's matutinal rasher. But 
 Lord Milner was issuing ''grave warnings" at 
 the time about South Africa, and Lord Cromer 
 was also issuing ''grave warnings" about 
 Egypt. The headline became a convenient mark 
 to a column of unpleasant reading matter that 
 could be judiciously skipped. 
 
 But something had to be done. Lord Hal- 
 dane invented the Territorials, and Baden 
 Powell contrived the Boy Scouts. Mr. Winston 
 Churchill took charge of the Admiralty, and we 
 devised the Super-Dreadnought. The Britain 
 paid his income tax with the comfortable feel- 
 ing that we were now ready for the Kaiser, 
 whatever he might choose to say or do next. 
 
 Finally, on a beautiful Bank Holiday, when 
 the nation had just prepared to knock off serious 
 work for a month or two, the amazing thing 
 happened. The Kaiser threw down the gauntlet 
 to the whole of Europe. It was not a gigantic 
 bluff after all. Incredible ! 
 
 One good thing about it, though; we knew 
 where we were with the Kaiser at last. He was 
 mad, and worse than mad. He was an inhuman 
 monster, who urged on his troops to unheard
 
 WJw is the Kaiser? 7 
 
 brutalities. A greasy, blasphemous hypocrite, 
 who called on God to assist him in his designs, 
 and impiously attributed to the Almighty the 
 initial success that crowned his arms. 
 
 The Mad-dog Kaiser ! 
 
 But, from the time that he came to the throne 
 to the present moment, the British people has 
 never had more than an inkling of the ideals, the 
 personality, the character, and the potentialities 
 of the real Kaiser. Their conception is still as 
 inaccurate as the description of his position 
 given by the man in the 'bus, ''The Emperor of 
 Germany. ' ' 
 
 Who, then, is this Kaiser? 
 
 He is the hereditaiy King of Prussia, and 
 German Emperor. 
 
 In the latter capacity his powers are defined 
 by a constitution promulgated as recently as the 
 year 1871, years after he was born. He is the 
 third German Emperor, having been preceded 
 by his grandfather, Wilhelm I, and by his 
 father, Frederick, who died of a painful throat 
 disease after a reign of only three months. 
 
 As German Emperor, he has wide powers 
 over a nation created by the union of a number 
 of Kingdoms, Grand Duchies, Duchies, and 
 Principalities. He can declare a defensive war
 
 8 The Real Kaiser 
 
 in the name of this Empire, and he can make 
 peace. He personally appoints his own ambas- 
 sadors. He also appoints the ministers of the 
 Empire. 
 
 Legislation for the German Empire is nomi- 
 nally assigned to a Parliament of two Houses of 
 Legislature. The Upper House, which corre- 
 sponds in many of its features to our own House 
 of Lords, is called the Bundesrat. It consists 
 of only sixty-one members, who are nominated 
 for a term of five years by the different con- 
 stituent Kingdoms, Duchies, and Principalities 
 of the Empire, the number assigned to each di- 
 vision being in proportion to its size and impor- 
 tance in the Empire. 
 
 The Lower House, or Reichstag, bears some 
 similarity to our own House of Commons. It 
 consists of 397 members, assigned to the constit- 
 uent units of the Empire in due proportion, and 
 elected by popular franchise for a term of five 
 years. 
 
 The Kaiser appoints his own ministers. 
 They do not form a cabinet, as in Great Britain, 
 working hand-in-hand and jointly responsible 
 to a Parliament elected by the people. They 
 administer their departments independently of
 
 Who is the Kaiser? 9 
 
 one another, though there is a sort of control 
 exercised over all by the Chancellor of the Em- 
 pire: he is the Kaiser's right-hand man. He 
 alone is responsible to the Parliament, and the 
 exact degree of his responsibility is undeter- 
 mined. The tendency of recent chancellors has 
 been to dispute anything but a theoretical re- 
 sponsibility. The Chancellor presides over the 
 sitting of the Bundesrat, or Upper House of 
 Parliament. 
 
 To become law, a measure must be passed by 
 an absolute majority of both Houses. It must 
 then be promulgated by the Kaiser. The Min- 
 istry has the power to initiate legislation, which 
 Parliament may amend or even reject. In 
 Great Britain, if Parliament rejected a minis- 
 terial measure there would be a change of gov- 
 ernment, and possibly an election. In Germany 
 nothing happens, unless the Kaiser should 
 choose to prorogue Parliament, which must 
 again be assembled within thirty days. Or he 
 may even dissolve it, when a new election must 
 be held within sixty days, and a fresh session 
 within ninety days. 
 
 Any party or any private member may also 
 initiate legislature. It may pass both Houses,
 
 10 The Real Kaiser 
 
 but in that case it cannot become law unless the 
 Kaiser chooses to promulgate it. In the case of 
 the Kaiser's refusal, nothing happens. 
 
 In theory, the Kaiser and the people's repre- 
 sentatives have equal powers in initiating and 
 blocking legislature. In practice it does not 
 work out equally at all. If the Reichstag 
 checks the Kaiser's laws, it is probably dis- 
 solved, and there is a fresh Parliament. If the 
 Kaiser blocks a party measure, nothing can be 
 done about it. The end of it is that the Kaiser, 
 through his ministers, proposes the laws of 
 Germany, which Parliament at most can criti- 
 cise and amend. 
 
 When the King 'of England is going to make a 
 speech, the fact is known to his ministers, who 
 are responsible to the people of the country. 
 The speech is prepared for him, and counter- 
 signed by a responsible minister, usually the 
 Prime Minister himself. Nobody knows when 
 the Kaiser is going to make a speech ; not even 
 the Kaiser himself sometimes. Yet, when he 
 speaks, he speaks in the name of the German 
 Empire. 
 
 When Great Britain makes war, as we have 
 recently seen, there is a meeting of Parliament, 
 and the Foreign Minister explains the necessity
 
 Who is the Kaiser'? 11 
 
 of so gTave a step. He describes in detail the 
 negotiations which led to such a jDosition, so 
 that every citizen of the British Empire may be 
 as fully in possession of the facts as himself and 
 his colleagues. It is possible that, in the fu- 
 ture, even the secret negotiations which precede 
 a declaration of war will be made public as they 
 proceed, so that Britons may be fully informed 
 of the causes of dispute as it proceeds. 
 
 The Kaiser simply declares war, and the Ger- 
 man people have to take his word for it that it is 
 a defensive war. 
 
 'It will be plain, from this brief outline of the 
 powers possessed by the Kaiser, that he wields 
 an enoi-mous power, compared with which the 
 powers possessed by an English constitutional 
 monarch are as nothing. The looseness of the 
 German Imperial constitution makes it possible 
 for these powers to be pushed to the verge of 
 absolute autocracy. 
 
 The power wielded by Wilhelm I was as noth- 
 ing to the power in the hands of the Kaiser to- 
 day. Then Germany was a poor but warlike 
 nation, struggling through battle and aggression 
 into a national existence.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE KAISER'S INHERITANCE 
 "I take all life for my province." — The Kaiser's Motto, 
 
 The first picture we have of William II is that 
 of a pale-faced flaxen-haired youngster of five, 
 who distinguished himself at the wedding of his 
 uncle, afterwards King Edward VII. His ca- 
 pacity for mischief was already very consider- 
 able, and Bishop Wilberf orce relates that he was 
 handed over to the Dukes of Connaught and 
 Edinburgh, who were asked to keep him in or- 
 der. After a little trouble he relapsed into a 
 suspicious quiet, which was followed by smoth- 
 ered exclamations of pain. He had crept under 
 a chair and bitten both his uncles severely in the 
 calves of their legs. 
 
 The Duko of Argyll, who saw him on the same 
 occasion, formed a high opinion of his spirit 
 and ability. "William will be the cleverest 
 King of Prussia since Frederick the Great," he 
 wrote. But the Duke had not been bitten in the 
 calf of the leg. 
 
 He was the first of the Hohenzollerns to be 
 
 12
 
 The Kaiser s Inheritance 13 
 
 educated at the ordinary German public school, 
 being sent to the "gymnasium" at Cassel, at the 
 express wish of his grandfather, the great 
 Kaiser. This step caused much criticism on the 
 part of the old Prussian nobility, who disap- 
 proved of it entirely. They blamed his Eng- 
 lish mother, who was the eldest daughter of 
 Queen Victoria, for this, as for everything about 
 the Court of which they did not approve. As a 
 matter of fact, she had no more to do with it 
 than any one else, the idea being entirely that 
 of the Emperor. 
 
 At school William fared as the other boys, 
 doing his tasks and having to submit to the same 
 discipline as the rest. His clothing was pur- 
 posely of the very plainest, so that there should 
 be no undue distinction between him and the 
 rest of the boys, many of whom belonged to the 
 burgher class. There are many stout German 
 citizens to-day who can tell you they went to 
 school with the Kaiser; so many, in fact, that 
 one is forced to the conclusion that it was a 
 very large as well as a very famous gymnasium 
 at Cassel. 
 
 From the university he went to the army, 
 where two circumstances militated against him. 
 The first was a physical deformity, which has af-
 
 14 The Real Kaiser 
 
 flicted him from birth; his left arm is shorter 
 than his right, and his left hand is withered. 
 This misfortune was always a topic of conversa- 
 tion in Junkerdom, and was blamed, like many- 
 other things, upon the ' ' Englishwoman. ' ' Con- 
 stant treatment by massage, and the best medi- 
 cal science, could avail nothing to restore the 
 use of the left hand, and the disadvantage to a 
 young man in a cavalry regiment may well be 
 imagined. 
 
 That initial disadvantage he overcame by 
 sheer pluck and hard work, by dint of enthusi- 
 asm and grit. He made a splendid soldier, as his 
 tutor, Dr. Hinzpeter, records. He learned to 
 ride wonderfully well for a man deprived of the 
 use of one hand, and in all other branches of the 
 profession of arms strove to excel by virtue of 
 application and genuine liking. The young 
 William was no feather-bed soldier, and ex- 
 torted the unwilling admiration of his brothers 
 in arms by tjie readiness with which he tackled 
 the least pleasant of his military duties. 
 
 It was unwilling admiration, because the leg- 
 end of the Englishwoman had followed him to 
 the army. He was suspected of being more 
 English than German, just as his father was al- 
 ways suspected by the military caste of being
 
 The Kaiser* 8 Inheritance 15 
 
 completely under the thumb of his English wife. 
 William never missed an opportunity for break- 
 ing down this idea about himself. 
 
 On his return to his regiment after a visit to 
 England he announced himself a pronounced 
 Anglophobe, and continually inveighed, in sea- 
 son and out, against England, Englishmen, and 
 English ways. One day, on return to barracks 
 after duty, his nose began to bleed, 
 
 "What's the matter?" asked a comrade. 
 
 ''That, thank God," said William, "is the last 
 drop of English blood draining out of my sys- 
 tem. ' ' 
 
 The same consistent policy of Anglophobia ob- 
 tained for him a wide popularity while yet his 
 father stood between him and the inheritance of 
 the throne. To him the aristocracy looked to 
 thwart the hated Englishwoman, and the Press 
 and people of Germany learned to acclaim his 
 attitude easily enough. The hopes of Germany 
 were fixed, not on the Crown Prince, but on the 
 son of the Crown Prince. 
 
 It is doubtful if the unpopularity of the lady 
 who was afterwards the Empress Frederick has 
 ever been measured in this country. Her name 
 is still received with a growl by any old German 
 who hears it mentioned. She was hated the
 
 16 The Real Kaiser 
 
 more because she was so often right. "A har- 
 binger of culture in a race of savages/' Maxi- 
 milian Harden has called her. 
 
 But she ran counter to all the pre-conceived 
 German ideas of the place of a woman in the 
 realm. *'I was sorry for the poor woman," 
 said Bismarck, when reproached for his share in 
 the sorry treatment accorded to her, ''but a gen- 
 tlewoman who dabbles in politics herself for- 
 goes her rights as a gentlewoman." For his 
 share in the persecution of the Empress, retri- 
 bution was to overtake the Iron Chancellor, just 
 as retribution has overtaken William for his 
 treatment of his parents. Bismarck even ap- 
 pealed to his victim to mediate between him and 
 her son, but was sorrowfully told that would be 
 vain. 
 
 The crowning offence of the Empress Fred- 
 erick was the summoning of a British doctor to 
 attend her husband in his fatal illness. The dis- 
 satisfaction, of the German people is easily un- 
 derstood. German physicians, then as now, 
 stood at the very summit of their profession. 
 Medical teaching and medical practice in Ger- 
 many were held to be in advance of the rest of 
 the world. The Germans resented the British
 
 The Kaiser's Inheritance 17 
 
 doctor being called in, and one must admit, the 
 resentment was just. 
 
 If the Queen of England were a German 
 woman, German in sympathy, German in ideas, 
 a zealous propagandist of German customs, and 
 surrounded herself with Germans, she would 
 not be a popular queen. If her husband were 
 mortally iU, and she summoned a German phy- 
 sician to his bedside, refusing all British doctors 
 access to him, she would incur the detestation 
 of this people. She would be saddled with part 
 af the blame for his death, as the Empress 
 Frederick was saddled. The parallel is so far 
 from being an extravagant one that it falls short 
 of the actual facts. 
 
 The circumstance of the Empress's wide un- 
 popularity saved William from the reprobation 
 he deserved for his conduct after the death of 
 his father. Time has dulled the sense of shock 
 which followed the announcement of it in this 
 country, but recent events have recalled the cal- 
 lous and unfilial behaviour of the young Em- 
 peror. While his dead father's body was yet 
 lying in the Palace at Friedrichskron, he sur- 
 rounded the building with a strong body of 
 soldiers, headed by a German officer, whose
 
 18 The Real Kaiser 
 
 reputation for brutality and recklessness was a 
 bye-word even in Germany, and started to ran- 
 sack the building. 
 
 The alleged object of this outrage on the dead 
 was the search for the memoirs of his father, 
 which were said to cover a period of thirty 
 years. It was given out that it was the inten- 
 tion of the Empress Frederick to publish these 
 memoirs, to the prejudice of Germany and its 
 new Kaiser. With this explanation the people 
 of Germany were readily content. 
 
 It is possible only to hint at the insults he 
 heaped upon his mother and the memory of his 
 father. The name of the Potsdam palace was 
 changed from Friedrichskron to Neues Palais, 
 its original title. The Dowager Empress was 
 turned out with a celerity that evoked protest, 
 even in Germany. A gross and brutal open- 
 ness characterised the Kaiser's conduct to his 
 mother. He wished the meanest of his subjects 
 to understand that he, at least, was not under 
 the thumb of the meddlesome Englishwoman. 
 His conduct was as calculated as it was cruel, 
 and with a more susceptible race would have 
 earned him an initial distrust. 
 
 Not so in Germany. The people responded
 
 The Kaiser's Inheritance 19 
 
 promptly to the appeal he made in his proclama- 
 tions. 
 
 He spoke directly to the masses, then as now 
 groaning under the heavy burden that is laid 
 upon the working class in Germany. 
 
 "I will continue my endeavours to make Im- 
 perial legislation render in the future to the 
 working classes that protection which, in ac- 
 cordance with the principles of Christian mor- 
 ality, it is able to extend to the weak and op- 
 pressed in their struggle for existence. I hope 
 that in this way it will be possible to effect an 
 adjustment of unhealthy social contrasts." 
 
 To the Amiy he addressed himself even more 
 persuasively : — 
 
 ''We belong to each other, I and the Army; 
 thus we were born for one another: and firmly 
 and inseparably we will hold together, whether 
 it be God's Will to give us peace or storm. I 
 solemnly vow always to be mindful of the fact 
 that the eyes of my ancestors are looking down 
 upon me from the other world, and that one day 
 I shall have to render to them an account of 
 both the glory and the honour of the Army. ' ' 
 
 To the world at large he promised the bless- 
 ing of peace, if possible.
 
 20 The Real Kaiser 
 
 **I am determined to keep peace with every 
 one, so far as it lies in my power. My love for 
 the German Army, and the position I occupy in 
 regard to it, will never lead me into the tempta- 
 tion to endanger the benefits which the country 
 derives from peace, provided, of course, that 
 war does not become a necessity, forced upon 
 us by an attack upon the Empire, or its Allies." 
 
 The first two promises were accepted unhesi- 
 tatingly by those to whom they were addressed. 
 The third was taken in the way it was intended^ 
 both by the Germans and by other nations. It 
 was read, as every succeeding utterance of the 
 Kaiser was read, as the mark of a new and 
 heavy-handed regime. For many a year to 
 come the young Kaiser gave the diplomats an 
 anxious time. He was continually praising 
 peace, and hinting at war. It was a way of 
 speaking which gave satisfaction to all classes 
 in Germany, for it could be read in any way that 
 suited. 
 
 It was as the young Kaiser that the new Em- 
 peror came before his people. William the 
 Great was ninety when he died. He had been 
 surrounded by old men, hard heads like Bis- 
 marck, and grizzled warriors of the von Moltke 
 type. There was nothing at the end of his
 
 The Kaiser's Inheritance 21 
 
 reign to appeal to the sentiment and hope of the 
 German people. He stood for hard fighting, 
 and hard, distasteful work. An emblem of 
 glory, bnt glory won hardly and painfully. 
 
 Friedrich had been a popular figure once — 
 **Unser Fritz," the generous prince who loved 
 peace, but fought as boldly as a lion. But he 
 came to the throne a dying man, and under the 
 thumb of the hated Englishwoman. 
 
 Now there came upon the scene a young 
 Kaiser, a fine personable man, and a German to 
 his finger tips. His English taint was forgot- 
 ten, for he had disowned his British blood by the 
 most dramatic and public conduct of which an 
 Emperor could be capable. His physical de- 
 formity was overlooked, for he had learned to 
 hide it by an application that was Spartan in its 
 thoroughness. He had a typical German Con- 
 sort, known throughout the Empire for her ad- 
 herence to the old German ways. He made a 
 big bid for popularity, and he won it easily. 
 
 He came with fine promises in his mouth. He 
 was the ''Arbeiter Kaiser," the Emperor who 
 would deliver the downtrodden workers of Ger- 
 many. He was the new Warlord, one in senti- 
 ment and soul with that great institution the 
 Germany army. He was the Kaiser who would
 
 22 The Real Kaiser 
 
 ensure surcease from war to liis tired people by 
 the methods a German best understands — 
 threats and a great show of force. 
 
 Moreover, he showed himself generous, as be- 
 came a young man. It was soon evident that he 
 had a strong vein of sentiment. His old 
 friends, the members of his student corps and 
 the fellow oflScers in his regiment quickly began 
 to know it. To have studied or served with the 
 Kaiser was a passport to his notice, and a sure 
 way to rapid promotion. These things were 
 noised abroad, and he was liked for them. It 
 is pleasant to be able to record them now. 
 
 He acted on impulse, as he does to-day, and 
 his impulses wfere generous ones. Gossip 
 busied itself with a hundred little acts, com- 
 mitted on the spur of the moment, impetuous 
 deeds that interested the Germans as they in- 
 terested the outside world. His interests were 
 wide, and impinged on those of every class of 
 the community. And he had the domestic vir- 
 tues. Finally he made a big stir in the outside 
 world, and that flattered the Germans. They 
 had somebody at last to proclaim their virtues 
 and accomplishments to Christendom. No 
 cock in the farm-yard of the world crowed so
 
 The Kaiser's Inheritance 23 
 
 loudly, or with so shrill a note of defiance, as 
 theirs. 
 
 It is not to be wondered at that the new Kaiser 
 succeeded to his inheritance in a blaze of popu- 
 larity.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE KAISER AS FIGUREHEAD 
 
 "I regard my whole position as given to me direct from 
 Heaven, and that I have been called by the Highest to do 
 His work, by One to whom I must one day render an ac- 
 count." — The Kaiser. 
 
 WiioLiAM ascended the throne with the fullest 
 sense of the great part he was to play in the 
 history of the world. If anything, he exagger- 
 ated his powers and responsibilities, as well as 
 his personal ability to fulfil those responsibili- 
 ties. He openly proclaimed his belief in the di- 
 vine right of Kings, and his intention to act up 
 to that belief. 
 
 Some description of the man and his King- 
 ship is due. 
 
 Not over-tall — it is claimed that he is five feet 
 eight inches in height — his fine military'' car- 
 riage gives him the appearance of being a big 
 man. The uniforms he customarily wears, with 
 their spiked helmets, add to this effect of great 
 stature. The illusion is heightened by an air 
 of conscious dignity and might that is rare, even 
 among the great ones of the earth. 
 
 24
 
 The Kaiser as Figurehead 25 
 
 The most noticeable of liis features are his 
 eyes — grey, shot with a peculiar yellow glint. 
 They are slightly prominent, and their custom- 
 ary expression is a stare, which has something 
 of curiosity in its haughty pride. Those unac- 
 customed to that stare become readily embar- 
 rassed by it. When the Kaiser is displeased, the 
 pupils roll sideways, displaying the whites of 
 the eye, after the fashion of some ferocious ani- 
 mal. 
 
 The Kaiser's complexion is slightly pallid, 
 but clear, and indicative of clean living and ac- 
 tive habits. His hair is plentiful, his mouth firm 
 but gross, and his forehead high. The touch 
 of art is supplied to his countenance by the ag- 
 gressive military twist to the moustache, famil- 
 iar to every one who ever heard of the Kaiser. 
 Afoot, the Kaiser carries himself like a soldier 
 and a gentleman ; on horseback, like a conquer- 
 ing King. 
 
 His manner is usually stern, but can, on occa- 
 sions, be gracious, friendly, and even jovial. 
 This is particularly the case when he is talking 
 to foreign men of note, or to pretty women. 
 The repose of his manner is broken by the ex- 
 cessive use of his right hand, with which he con- 
 stantly gesticulates. Those who know him
 
 26 The Real Kaiser 
 
 well are able to judge his humour by the move- 
 ments of that hand; when annoyed, he tugs at 
 his ear; when interested, his finger is pressed 
 on the tip of his nose. He walks about rest- 
 lessly, or shifts the weight of his body from one 
 foot to the other as he talks. 
 
 His conduct to those surrounding him is cus- 
 tomarily overbearing and imperious. He pours 
 forth a torrent of questions, and does not ap- 
 pear to listen to the answers; but it is after- 
 wards found that he has heard all he wants to 
 hear. He is impatient of the opinions of men 
 of independent minds, and takes no advice. 
 This renders him accessible to the influence of 
 skilful flatterers, a class with whom all mon- 
 archs are more or less surrounded. 
 
 He has survived middle age regally. His 
 figure has filled out, but shows no trace of the 
 fatness which aflQicts the elderly people of the 
 German race. His hair has gone grey, and is 
 less abundant. His moustache has lost some of 
 its aggressive upward curve, and the face is the 
 better for the modification. The smiles that 
 sometimes lightened it have disappeared in a 
 monotonous sternness, and his geniality appears 
 to have degenerated into a sort of ferocious jo- 
 
 i
 
 The Kaiser as Figurehead 27 
 
 viality. Even this lias been very rare with him 
 recently. 
 
 The qualities of his mind, more than his fine 
 person, give him the magnetism that is the at- 
 tribute of a truly remarkable man. No crowd 
 is more critical of foreign Kings than a London 
 crowd, for London has for centuries been the 
 Mecca of Emperors and Princes. His hold on 
 the London crowd has always been pronounced, 
 never more so than on the occasion of his last 
 visit to England, the thirteenth he has paid. 
 ' During that visit, the writer was watching 
 the mournful funeral procession of King Ed- 
 ward, with an Australian friend, who caught his 
 first glimpse of the Kaiser as he rode by with 
 King George, at the head of a band of royal 
 mourners. The dominating personality of the 
 Kaiser gripped the Australian in a second, and 
 he expressed his feeling brutally but forcibly. 
 ''He makes that foreign lot look as though they 
 ought to be walking in chains behind- the bier. ' ' 
 And we were both rather proud of the Kaiser's 
 strain of English blood. 
 
 I have seen him often in his own country, and 
 his appearance always caused something of a 
 thrill. Driving through the streets of Berlin,
 
 28 The Real Kaiser 
 
 "the accursed city," as lie called it, early in 
 1909, and returning the glance of derision of his 
 incensed subjects with interest. Dashing up to 
 a provincial town to unveil some "Denkynal," 
 all smiles and graciousness, and motoring off 
 after the brief ceremony. At a review, sur- 
 rounded by all the pomp and circumstance of 
 German militarism. At Hamburg, receiving 
 the greetings of a city where civic life is exalted 
 to a degree that will even compare with that of 
 London. Always he looked and acted as one 
 of the great Emperors of all time. 
 
 The Kaiser brought to Germany a new sense 
 of greatness. His era substituted prosperity 
 for poverty, industrialism for agriculture, ma- 
 terialism for idealism, and expansion for mere 
 self-sufficiency. The Germany he found, placed 
 a ring of steel around its furthest borders, and 
 defied the world to cross it. He created a Ger- 
 many that went forth into the world, and dis- 
 played its impenetrable armour in every remote 
 corner of it. At least, he strove to do so. 
 
 He recognised the immensity of the task be- 
 fore him, but never cherished one fleeting doubt 
 of his capacity to perform it. But he would do 
 it himself. Behind his grandfather had stood 
 wise old Bismarck, pulling every string of the 
 
 I
 
 The Kaiser as Figurehead 29 
 
 state machine. He held Bismarck his "Hett- 
 mann," the man to do "the donkey-work." 
 The Kaiser never intended to be a mere figure- 
 head. 
 
 But as a figurehead he scored his greatest suc- 
 cesses. From one land to another he sped, the 
 personification of the new Imperial Germany. 
 Everywhere he created the just and calculated 
 effect, while the German people, not understand- 
 ing, dubbed him "William the Wanderer." 
 He himself could not go as far afield as America, 
 but he sent his brother to represent him, and 
 created new ties between Germany and America, 
 the value of which can be estimated to-day. He 
 landed in Morocco, and delayed a settlement of 
 the Moroccan question by many years. He 
 journeyed to Palestine, and left behind him his 
 handiwork on the lasting fabric of Moham- 
 medanism. Everywhere he went it was the 
 same. He touched nothing that he did not in 
 some way alter. 
 
 Two sentiments alone he could not affect: 
 they were the just hatred of France, and the im- 
 permeable suspicion of Great Britain. 
 
 Within Germany his influence was precisely 
 the same. He made no secret of the fact that 
 he did not like things as he found them, and he
 
 30 The Real Kaiser 
 
 set out on the task of moulding tliem to his de- 
 sires with a high resolve. No man ever lived a 
 more purposeful life, or affected so much. 
 Change was the essence of what the Germans 
 call ^'Kaisertum.'^ 
 
 He came to a town that had not been touched 
 for centuries, and frowned. He looked round 
 him, then waved his arm with a huge sweeping 
 gesture. The visitor returning to that town 
 after a year or two would see new grey stone 
 buildings everywhere ; a factory here, and a big 
 school there. The Kaiser made quiet places 
 hum with life. 
 
 He chose his servants to create a German 
 navy, and they made a wonderful navy in a short 
 time ; though it was only a new one. His influ- 
 ence spread through the worlds of commerce, 
 finance, shipping; and everywhere there were 
 new and flourishing growths. Of course there 
 were failures, and where Germany fails, it fails 
 monumentally. 
 
 He turned his gaze upon the habits of the 
 German people, and found much there of which 
 he did not approve. He set out imperiously to 
 change it. He issued orders telling the people 
 how to behave at table; what clothes to wear 
 and when, how to behave at dances, at theatres,
 
 The Kaiser as Figurehead 81 
 
 at cliurcli, in the street. They were all excel- 
 lent rules, but Germany cannot afford to pay 
 enough policemen to see that they are carried 
 out. 
 
 He took the women in hand, and issued sharp 
 rules for their conduct. 
 
 No lady must ride astride. No German lady 
 who respects herself will fly to the rouge or 
 powder pot. All German girls must learn to 
 play tennis. And a hundred other orders, 
 which the women did their best to carry out. 
 
 He turned his attention to education, art, 
 science, drama, and a hundred other things. 
 His speeches on such subjects created a good 
 deal of amusement ; but he lived down laughter 
 and effected change. It will be interesting to 
 examine whether these changes were all for the 
 better. 
 
 But in Germany, as in the outside world, he 
 encountered two factors that were not in any 
 way susceptible to his great influence. They 
 were the German Army and the German Aris- 
 tocracy. 
 
 The topmost rank of Germany's nobility, out- 
 side the actual reigning houses of the German 
 states, are the descendants of deposed princes. 
 There were once 300 little states in Germany,
 
 32 The Real Kaiser 
 
 and the old ruling families in these states have 
 mostly survived the extinction of their princi- 
 palities. Some fifty families retain their 
 princely titles, and there are still more families 
 which retain the tradition. All these families 
 form a top grade of Gemian aristocracy. Few 
 of them deign to mix themselves in the new 
 German commercialism, though some have done 
 so with a very startling effect. The majority 
 are landowners; poor, discontented, and pos- 
 sessed with a martial tradition. Their influ- 
 ence at Court, in the Army, and as a class, is all 
 exercised in one direction ; it is not in the direc- 
 tion of Germany's peaceful expansion. 
 
 But they constitute the power behind the 
 throne; they compose the political party on 
 which the ministries of the Kaiser have always 
 depended in the last instance for support. The 
 problem of retaining this conservative support, 
 and effecting at the same time his policy of 
 change, supplied the struggle of William's life. 
 On the new German commercial element he has 
 always been able personally to rely, though they 
 continually complained of his ''dallying with 
 Junkerdom," His attempt to obtain the sup- 
 port of the masses he frankly abandoned in the 
 very early days of his reign.
 
 The Kaiser as Figurehead 33 
 
 The meaning of the cruel set to his coarse 
 mouth comes out in the bitterness with which he 
 threw off his early affection for the proletariat, 
 when he recognised that his attempt to conciliate 
 it could not be maintained. "To me," he de- 
 clared, ''the word Social Democrat is synony- 
 mous with enemy of the Empire and the Father- 
 land." 
 
 In outside affairs it was the same. There was 
 nothing he coveted more than the personal 
 friendship of King Edward, which was tact- 
 fully withheld. It was reported to him that 
 King Edward had remarked, after one of the 
 Kaiser's characteristic outbursts on Germany's 
 future naval supremacy, ' ' Oh ! let him play with 
 his ships." The report was probably a false 
 one, but the Kaiser credited it. 
 
 His chagrin peeped out in the famous letter he 
 wrote to Lord Tweedmouth ; a private letter, as 
 it was explained at the time, and written to an 
 intimate, after dinner. But it has been impos- 
 sible to suppress his reference to Lord Esher, 
 whom he estimated as a valued servant and per- 
 sonal friend of the late King. "Let Lord 
 Esher attend to the drains at Windsor Castle," 
 is the bowdlerised version of the intended re- 
 tort, directed not to the servant, but to the royal
 
 34 The Real Kaiser 
 
 master. That outburst, due to a rejection of 
 proffered advances, is very enlightening in view 
 of what has occurred since. It is a startling 
 revelation of what lay beneath that imperial 
 dignity, and appearance of royal good humour. 
 It serves as a useful index to the grossness, not 
 only of the German Emperor, but of the whole 
 German nation.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE KAISER AS ORATOR 
 
 "That such great oratory should be the gift of a person 
 who happens to be the German Emperor is a fact of far- 
 reaching importance." — Eiuil Reich. 
 
 There has recently been published a little book 
 which contains an excellent collection of the 
 more important utterances of the Kaiser, trans- 
 lated into spirited English. The compiler has 
 chosen to introduce them with a preface, from 
 which is taken the following passage. '* Never 
 has he coined one illuminating thought, fash- 
 ioned one lasting phrase. Napoleon said a thou- 
 sand things worth repeating, the Kaiser not a 
 single one. Yet few monarchs have chattered 
 more, or ranged over so impudently wide a 
 field." 
 
 It is conceivable that if a book of extracts 
 from the speeches of Mr. Lloyd George were 
 now being published in Leipsic — as may well be 
 the case — the German compiler would couch his 
 introduction in similar language. It would be 
 admirably suited to the present temper of the 
 
 35
 
 36 The Real Kaiser 
 
 German people, and the light in which they wish 
 to. regard Englishmen. The fact that the con- 
 tents of the book would contradict the verdict of 
 the compiler might escape notice, for German 
 logic is no more proof against hatred and prej- 
 udice than is British. 
 
 If it were the purpose of this book to trade on 
 the very just obloquy in which its subject is now 
 held in this country, it would be easy to show 
 that the Kaiser is a contemptible chatterer, 
 whose words are only sped by the might of the 
 position he inherited. But not in this way can 
 the significance of the real Kaiser be reached. 
 
 The plain fact is that the Kaiser is one of the 
 first orators of his age. He stands out as an 
 eloquent exponent of ideas that have often 
 shocked by their very extravagance a speaker 
 who, whether he were king or workman, would, 
 by sheer force of conviction, rhetoric, and per- 
 sonality, have compelled the ears of any assem- 
 blage he might address. His phrases are in 
 everybody's mouth to-day;' they will ring 
 through the centuries because they express so 
 exactly and forcibly the idea he strove to im- 
 press. 
 
 We repeat 'Hhe mailed fist," ''grasping the 
 trident," and "a place in the sun," not because
 
 The Kaiser as Orator 37 
 
 they were coined by an Emperor, but because 
 they crystallise in a few words great basic ideas. 
 Who can doubt that, like "Delenda est Carth- 
 ago," or ''Civis Eomanus sum," they will live 
 for ever as vivid expressions of gigantic na- 
 tional ambitions? 
 
 The Kaiser's pre-eminence as an orator is the 
 more marked because the Germans, as a race, 
 are not remarkable for the quality of their im- 
 promptu utterances. The language is a reson- 
 ant and sonorous one, but by reason of its in- 
 volved construction, is more adapted to the 
 accurate and lucid expression of the written 
 word than to the use of the speaker who wishes 
 to sway the impulses of his hearers on a high 
 plane of thought. 
 
 The real value of the Kaiser's gift of speech 
 has been well summed up by the late Emil 
 Reich, a pronounced German-hater, in Ger- 
 many's Madness, a book which at the time 
 of its publication did not attract one fraction 
 of the attention it deserved. He writes : — 
 
 **The Kaiser is a born orator. He speaks 
 naturally very well, and even the style of his 
 addresses, delivered on the spur of the moment, 
 is quite remarkable. Whether he delivers a ser- 
 mon on board ship, as he has frequently done, or
 
 38 The Real Kaiser 
 
 whether he addresses students at Bonn Uni- 
 versity, a regiment, labourers, scientific con- 
 gresses, or diplomatists, he invariably succeeds 
 in giving point and life and fine shape to his 
 ideas. On the Continent this is a serious power. 
 To underrate it, to judge it from the British 
 standpoint, is not only absurd, but also quite be- 
 yond the point. 
 
 "A man who can talk as well as the Kaiser 
 would be a prominent man in Germany under all 
 conditions; but that such great oratory should 
 be the gift of a person who happens to be the 
 German Emperor, that is a fact of far-reaching 
 importance with a nation with whom authority 
 and high-class oratory have an enormous influ- 
 ence." 
 
 There was an American magnate once who 
 when his word was doubted, was rightly indig- 
 nant at an unjust accusation. * ' Great Scott ! ' ' 
 he cried, ' * do you think I can 't afford to pay peo- 
 ple to do my lying?" 
 
 We know that the Kaiser pays a host of peo- 
 ple to do his lying, but we have curiously re- 
 fused to accept any of the Kaiser's speeches at 
 their face value. Perhaps a lot of trouble might 
 have been saved if we had done so. Many of 
 them are brutally frank in their explicit declara-
 
 The Kaiser as Orator 39 
 
 tion of the ambitions and aims of the German 
 Emperor. Most of them could have been 
 printed, as we printed the speeches of our own 
 gTeat men, under the heading ' ' Grave warning. ' ' 
 We insisted on laughing at them, and in prov- 
 ing that they meant something the Kaiser did 
 not say, or that they meant nothing at all. Yet 
 there is little the Kaiser has said that will con- 
 vict him of wilfully lying, or of expressing any- 
 thing but his conviction of the moment. 
 
 This has surprised the Kaiser himself. 
 
 ''You English are mad," he began, in the fa- 
 mous Daily Telegraph interview; "mad as 
 March hares. What has come over you that 
 you are so completely given over to suspicion 
 quite unworthy of a great nation? Falsehood 
 and prevarication are alien to my nature. ' ' 
 
 In analysing his speeches to see whether they 
 truthfully reflect his actions, it may be as well 
 to begin with an oft-repeated sentiment, the 
 spirit and letter of which he has broken. ' ' I am 
 opposed to war; but war can only be avoided by 
 exerting to the utmost the defensive forces of 
 the State." 
 
 For twenty-five years he continued to enforce 
 this doctrine, that the peace of Europe was in 
 his hands, and that he intended to maintain it
 
 40 The Real Kaiser 
 
 by an overwhelming show of force. For a quar- 
 ter of a century he adhered to that promise; 
 then he broke it, deliberately and by a prear- 
 ranged plan. The circumstances of this breach 
 it will be convenient to examine elsewhere. 
 The reader must then form an individual opin- 
 ion whether he was throughout only a peaceful 
 bully, or a lying bully who was biding his time 
 for a display of violence. 
 
 Otherwise, his speeches have afforded a re- 
 liable key to his actions. He said he would 
 make the upkeep of the Army his first care ; he 
 has done so. He said he would make Germany 
 first at sea as on -land ; if certain people in this 
 country had had their own way, he would have 
 done that by this time. He announced his in- 
 tention of occupying the position to which he 
 had been called as head of the German nation; 
 he Has deprived Germany of every shred of con- 
 stitutional government. He announced his con- 
 viction that Germany was entitled not only to 
 an equal place with other great nations, but to 
 the first place in the world. He based the claim 
 on Germany's own merit, and on the direct in- 
 terposition of an all-powerful God. He has 
 never said or done anything to show that he was 
 not sincere in that conviction.
 
 The Kaiser as Orator 41 
 
 His sincerity, as well as the skill with which 
 he marshalls words and phrases, has at least 
 carried conviction to the hearts of his own peo- 
 ple. They were able to distinguish between his 
 gefluegelte — random remarks about trifles, and 
 the great principles he enunciated with so much 
 fire and eloquence. To have stirred in the 
 minds of such a race the faith in his own belief 
 that Germany could be made a great naval 
 power is no small achievement. To have helped 
 by his speeches to call into being a Navy 
 League with 1,000,000 earnest members is only 
 one part of the Kaiser's work as an orator. He 
 did more; by his speeches he implanted in the 
 German mind the notion of world power as none 
 of the many writers and speakers on the topic 
 were able to do. 
 
 British people only saw the incongruity of this 
 spectacle of an Emperor continually ''on the 
 stump ' ' ; they overlooked the very potent effect 
 of this endless stream of Imperial oratory. 
 
 And the Kaiser had the art of imparting sig- 
 nificance and grandeur to the most commonplace 
 occasion. Any one who has been present at the 
 christening of a ship will know that the cere- 
 mony itself is a mere piece of bathos. The 
 breaking of a bottle of wine and the utterance of
 
 42 The Real Kaiser 
 
 a few words seem paltry when one sees what 
 comes after; the rush of the new keel down the 
 slips into its element. That sight always 
 dwarfs the trifling ceremony that precedes it. 
 
 But the Kaiser knew how to christen a ship 
 Imperially. Hear him speak : — 
 
 '^ Springing from the old German sagas are 
 the names of ships of thy class. Therefore 
 shalt thou likewise recall to us the grey past of 
 our ancestors and the puissant deity whom our 
 German forefathers in their ignorance suppli- 
 cated and worshipped, when the battles of the 
 North were fought on the Polar Seas, and death 
 and ruin were* carried into the land of the 
 enemy. The potent name of this great deity 
 shalt thou bear. I christen thee with the name 
 of Aegir." 
 
 Or he lifts his voice in praise of the dignity of 
 motherhood : — 
 
 "I am thinking now of German women and 
 maids. When I was on the battlefield at Vion- 
 ville, I thought of how nobly they gave their 
 sons, their husbands and their lovers to assist in 
 the work of regaining for us the Empire. It is 
 incumbent on them to bring up a new generation 
 of vigorous men. In the mother, our good Ger-
 
 The Kaiser as Orator 43 
 
 man woman, lies a vast reserve of Power that 
 none can overcome. ' ' 
 
 Or in the Ehineland : — 
 
 "On these banks of the Ehine, that river of 
 romance so familiar in our history, where every 
 mountain has its story and every House of God 
 speaks its sublime message, every note of wel- 
 come and every cordial word must exercise a 
 magic spell on the human heart. ' ' 
 
 It would be easy to multiply by a hundred the 
 instances of the eloquence of this Emperor, who 
 stood before his people and entered into the 
 heart of things, catching the spell of the mo- 
 ment and of the place to glorify some aspect of 
 German life. To soldiers he could speak as a 
 soldier; to students as a student; and even to 
 artists he could talk with a wisdom and shrewd- 
 ness that is surprising, in view of his pitiful 
 performance when he sought to give practical 
 expression to his own art notions. 
 
 Mr. G. K. Chesterton has recently recorded 
 his glee at the discovery made by him on con- 
 sulting his encyclopaedia, that the Slavs were 
 originally distinguished by name from the Ger- 
 mans because of an essential difference. Orig- 
 inally Slav meant "the people who could talk"
 
 44 The Real Kaiser 
 
 as distinct from the ''Niemets," or Germans, to 
 whom self-expression in speech was impossible. 
 Possibly the Kaiser inherited his gift of elo- 
 quence from the English side of his family ; but 
 it seems more than useless to contest the fact 
 that he has the gift.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE KAISER AS BUSINESS MAN 
 
 "The world at the end of the nineteenth century marches 
 under the banner of commerce." — The Kaiser's telegram to 
 Dr. Stephen, Imperial Postal Secretary, on his 60th Birth- 
 day. 
 
 "I wish Your Majesty were an Englishman, for I could 
 then make you my business manager." — Cecil Rhodes. 
 
 "He is of the stuff that would have made a first-class 
 American." — Some modest Yankee scribe. 
 
 The German Emperor transacts liis business in 
 a great bare room at Potsdam. The apartment 
 is familiar to many German men of business; 
 indeed, the Kaiser's accessibility for burghers 
 was at one time a bitter grievance to the 
 -Junkers, who never ceased to sneer at his fond- 
 ness for **Westphalian nobodies." More re- 
 cently, however, they have made a grim jest of 
 it, and the apartment goes by the name of the 
 ''Spider's Web." 
 
 On the walls are hung Spriiche — mottoes in 
 large character adorned with gilt frames. The 
 Kaiser's favourite Spruch writer is Ludwig 
 Ganghofer, a sort of Bavarian Samuel Smiles. 
 
 45
 
 46 The Real Kaiser 
 
 He bas provided Germany with the breakfast 
 cereals of its literature, the hard, gritty nibs of 
 wisdom which have become popular, largely 
 through the admiration of the Kaiser. To- 
 day, ''Be strong in Pain" and "Be satisfied 
 with the day as it comes," stare from many a 
 German wall, and are pointed out as two of the 
 Kaiser's favourite mottoes. 
 
 At one time the Kaiser regarded his collec- 
 tion of these Spriiche with impartial benevo- 
 lence. It is significant that during recent years 
 the place of honour opposite the Imperial desk 
 is assigned to a Spruch which reads, "If some- 
 thing hurts us or damages us, it is perhaps 
 necessary to the welfare of creation." 
 
 In this room the Kaiser takes his place everj^ 
 morning at seven, and for an hour is immersed 
 in his daily batch of Press cuttings. These 
 excerpts from the current dailies, weeklies and 
 monthlies of the w^orld take a wide range, and 
 are provided by a staff of specialists working 
 on an elaborate system. They cover the seven 
 languages the Kaiser has mastered, and include 
 translations from the speech of other countries 
 as well. 
 
 Each cutting is pasted on a large piece of 
 paper, allowing a wide margin for the notes and
 
 The Kaiser as Business Man 47 
 
 instructions which are scribbled on those cut- 
 tings thought worthy of attention. I have seen 
 some of the comparatively unimportant slips 
 after they have been through the Kaiser's 
 hands. His Majesty's notes remind me of noth- 
 ing so much as daily newspaper copy; full of 
 abbreviations, and scribbled indifferently in 
 German and in Roman script, both sometimes 
 occurring in the same sentence. 
 
 The daily budget of cuttings cover a wide 
 range of subjects, and the supervision of its 
 preparation is a matter of extreme delicacy. 
 The Kaiser, like all human beings, is subject to 
 the weakness of not wishing to deal with un- 
 pleasant things at the moment when they are 
 brought under his notice. Yet, when he dis- 
 covers that things calculated to annoy him have 
 been kept back, his brow becomes very black, 
 and his bulging eyes disf)lay an undue propor- 
 tion of w^hite. 
 
 Many high officials have failed to please the 
 Emperor in the performance of the task of 
 supervision of this press-cutting bureau. In- 
 cluded in the list was one of his Chancellors. 
 The right man was found at last in Doctor 
 Hamann, who for some years now has been di- 
 rector of the Press Bureau in Wilhelmstrasse.
 
 48 The Real Kaiser 
 
 To Hamann is assigned the important task of 
 preparing matter for Press consumption, as well 
 as the making ready of the daily Imperial 
 dossier. With his function of news distributor 
 it will be convenient to deal elsewhere. I men- 
 tion it here to point out that it has served him 
 as a weapon in his struggle with the entourage 
 of the Kaiser ; and enabled him, not only to keep 
 his post, but to increase his own influence and 
 importance. 
 
 Whatever of press matter Hamann may think 
 it necessary to smother, in the interests of his 
 Imperial master, it is very certain that nothing 
 is kept back that is of business importance. 
 With the Kaiser, business is divided under two 
 heads ; the business affairs of the German Em- 
 pire, and the matters appertaining to his per- 
 sonal business affairs. 
 
 In the supervision of his national affairs, as 
 well as in the management of his personal af- 
 airs, the Kaiser has long been proved a business 
 man of the highest order. One hears of busi- 
 ness men who always keep themselves ac- 
 quainted with the minutest details of gigantic 
 enterprises. This, of course, is sheer theatrical 
 nonsense, but the modern business man has his 
 affairs arranged so that he can always surprise
 
 The Kaiser as Business 31 an 49 
 
 every department by a quick investigation of its 
 affairs. In this art the German Emperor is 
 unsurpassed. Nowhere has he more genuinely 
 earned his title of William the Sudden than in 
 his business office. 
 
 The matter for the Imperial news dossier is 
 supplied not only by the whole continental 
 Press, but also by the whole of the extremely ef- 
 ficient German consular service abroad. Fi- 
 nance, trade, invention, shipping, and all kindred 
 topics are fully covered, and at the service of 
 the bureau there is always a staff of experts 
 who can supply a very full and comprehensive 
 report to the Emperor on any new invention or 
 trade development which may have attracted his 
 attention. 
 
 To the Kaiser is largely due the excellence of 
 the German consular service, and the German 
 Consuls abroad are unapproached, surpassing 
 even the capable representatives of America. 
 The German consul is for ever at the service of 
 his country, and the meanest of its subjects in 
 foreign lands. He is a highly trained com- 
 mercial spy, and, as recent events have proved, 
 does not always confine his activities to com- 
 mercial matters. His reports are models of ac- 
 curacy and thoroughness. The consular serv-
 
 50 The Real Kaiser 
 
 ice has for twenty years been maintained at this 
 pitch of perfection by the personal supervision 
 of the Emperor himself. 
 
 Here lies the secret of the adroit manipula- 
 tion of German capital abroad. Shipping sub- 
 sidies are granted at the just moment, and full 
 advantage is taken of the consequent spurt in 
 trade. German money is invested or with- 
 drawn, always with a calculated effect. To this 
 end the German financial system is admirably 
 adapted. 
 
 The German capitalistic Syndicates and 
 Cartells are not more than fifty in number, and 
 control practically the whole capital of the Em- 
 pire. The interests of all are allied, and the 
 Kaiser is in the closest touch with the men who 
 pull the strings. Thus banking, shipping and 
 manufacturing interests are closely interwoven 
 with the great fabric of Empire, and the Kaiser 
 tightens every thread by means of his influence 
 with great manipulators of the type of Herr 
 Ballin. 
 
 This close acquaintance with the financiers 
 of the Empire is still bitterly resented by the 
 starving aristocrats who swam around the 
 Court. But it has enabled the Kaiser to extri- 
 cate his own personal affairs from the hopeless
 
 The Kaiser as Business Man 51 
 
 muddle in which his magnificence and impulsive- 
 ness has entangled them. 
 
 His income as German Emperor is only 
 £130,000, and Prussia has had to pay for the 
 honour by a civil list of £770,000, recently in- 
 creased to £900,000. But very early in his reign 
 he found that £1,000,000 a year was not ade- 
 quate to his conception of the magnificence of 
 Kaiserdom, for the Kaiser is probably the wild- 
 est spendthrift that ever wore a crown. 
 
 The upkeep of his fifty castles and palaces is 
 a legitimate expense, no doubt, but he has never 
 consented to a modest scale of expenditure in 
 connexion with any of them. He maintains and 
 manages three theatres; the Royal Opera and 
 the Eoyal Theatre in Berlin, and the Royal 
 Theatre at Wiesbaden. They are all run at a 
 heavy loss. His Court is the most pompous 
 and costly in Europe. The multiplication of 
 functionaries with high-sounding titles, char- 
 acteristic of the Courts of the old German 
 Principalities, is exaggerated in the Kaiser's 
 personal surroundings ; and in his case they are 
 all salaried on a scale which is princely, accord- 
 ing to the standard of German officialdom. The 
 Minister of the Imperial House, the Director of 
 the Imperial House, The Director of Royal
 
 52 The Real Kaiser 
 
 Archives, the President of Heraldry, the Court 
 Marshall, the Master of the Hunt, the Master of 
 the Kitchen, the Master of the Stables, the 
 Master of Ceremonies, and others with similar 
 titles, are all at the head of elaborate and costly 
 departments of the Kaiser's Court. The 
 Kaiser pays for all. 
 
 He has also to provide for such a host of poor 
 relatives as afflict no other European monarch. 
 The incomes of his six sons are all paid by the 
 Kaiser himself, and as they have grown up and 
 married, his expense from this source alone has 
 been a very heavy one. When travelling 
 abroad, he scatters gifts with oriental reckless- 
 ness. After his Mediterranean tour there was 
 left behind him a trail of diamond rings and 
 pins, gold watches and necklaces with which 
 modern times provide no parallel. 
 
 Then his pose as patron of the arts and pro- 
 fessions is an expensive one. He is always dis- 
 covering new artists and sculptors and buying 
 their works at prices far above their market 
 value. His art collection does more credit to 
 the goodness of his impulsive nature than to 
 the excellence of his judgment. His reward has 
 been a good deal of ill-natured criticism from 
 many of the men who owe their success in life
 
 The Kaiser as Business Man 58 
 
 to the very lack of judgment they lampoon. Let 
 the Kaiser see a church in a state of dilapida- 
 tion, and he at once sets about restoring it from 
 his own design. Most of the cost usually falls 
 upon the Imperial architect. 
 
 Such a man sees a chance of spending money 
 wherever he goes. In the early stages of his 
 life he found no compensating balance. He was 
 continually in money difficulties of the most em- 
 barrassing description. The fact peeped out in 
 all the little ill-judged economies that mark the 
 constitutional spendthrift. He was mean to the 
 verge of parsimony in domestic affairs. The 
 little Princess did not like the buttons on her 
 new yachting suit; they looked common. She 
 wanted to replace them with some she had seen 
 at Wertheims, at a shilling apiece. ''What!" 
 cried her father. ' ' A shilling each for buttons. 
 Nonsense, that is far too much." So the 
 Princess had to be content with her common 
 buttons. Continual^ he complained of ex- 
 penses that the ordinary middle-class man ac- 
 cepts as inevitable; it was the Kaiser's way of 
 economising. 
 
 But his close intimacy with the leaders of Ger- 
 man finance has enabled him to apply his great 
 business ability to the very profitable develop-
 
 54 The Real Kaiser 
 
 ment of his private resources. These were very 
 considerable at the outset. The Kaiser is the 
 largest landowner of Prussia. His estates are 
 250,000 acres in extent and eighty-three in num- 
 ber. He owns much of the best agricultural 
 land in Germany, and valuable mineral tracts 
 as well. 
 
 His early management of these lands was 
 royal. The workers are still the best-paid of 
 their class in Germany, and the old-age pen- 
 sions and allowances for widows come from the 
 Imperial purse. But soon the Kaiser's estates 
 began to develop on very shrewd business lines. 
 An instance in point is the growth of the Im- 
 perial stud for breeding race-horses, established 
 under the guidance of Count Lehndorf. The 
 Kaiser's primary object was the improvement 
 of the German troop-horse, an object which has 
 been achieved, as we learned in the year 1914. 
 But the initial expense was enormous, and the 
 means of recouping it was skilfully devised, an 
 object lesson being taken from France and 
 Great Britain. 
 
 Graditz, and the other Imperial studs, are 
 fine business speculations, because modern Ger- 
 many has been equipped with race-courses, such 
 as Griinewald, where the Berliner can spend his
 
 The Kaiser as Business Man 55 
 
 holiday making acquaintance with the fascina- 
 tion of the Pari-mutuel. The writer has seen 
 crowds at these modern race-courses, Carlshorst 
 and Griinewald especially, equal to that at Ep- 
 som on Derby Day. For cheapness and con- 
 venience they stand unrivalled, and as a conse- 
 quence the Berliner of the twentieth century 
 has developed a passion for betting equal to 
 that of the Parisian. A goodly share of the 
 prize money falls to the Imperial stud, and the 
 price of bloodstock in Germany has been en- 
 hanced enormously. 
 
 ' A better example of the Kaiser's business 
 ability is shown in the development of the pot- 
 tery factory attached to his Cadinen estate. 
 The Majolica ware, which is the special product 
 of this factory, has become a ver^^ familiar ob- 
 ject in modern Germany, especially since the 
 opening of a large shop in Leipziger Strasse, in 
 Berlin, under the title of the Hohenzollern In- 
 dustrial Art Store. 
 
 One very clever woman in the business set was 
 able to secure a very early example of this ware, 
 and displayed it, not too prominently, in her re- 
 ception-room where the honour of a visit from 
 Majesty was to be accorded. The Kaiser's rov- 
 ing eye lit on it immediately upon his entrance.
 
 56 The Real Kaiser 
 
 His delight was frank and unconcealed. "Ha, 
 ha," he shouted, "the tradesman calls on his 
 patrons. Good! And what is the next arti- 
 cle?" 
 
 The opening of the art store was a huge suc- 
 cess. Kempinsky, keeper of the huge restau- 
 rants where thousands of Berliners lunch and 
 dine with a comforting sense of bigness, both 
 of apartments and meals, redecorated his es- 
 tablishments entirely with the Cadinen Majolica. 
 The Imperial Bank of Leipsic had a whole ceil- 
 ing made of the ware. But the popular line of 
 the store was the porcelain bust of the Kaiser, 
 made from a design by the Imperial owner of 
 the shop, and pr6duced at a price within the 
 means of modest purses. The writer has be- 
 come unpleasantly familiar with that porcelain 
 bust during the last two years, and personally 
 would not give the guinea which is demanded 
 for the standard size. But it is good business, 
 and the Kaiser is not ashamed of it. 
 
 Let it be said that he displays an equal readi- 
 ness to act as commercial agent for the national 
 goods. In fact he succeeded in shocking Ad- 
 miral Grigorovitch, an aristocratic Russian 
 sailor and one of the least business-like men in 
 the world. At a Kiel naval review, a German
 
 The Kaiser as Business Man 57 
 
 cruiser of the latest type had come under no- 
 tice, when the Kaiser turned to the Admiral. 
 "In our yards," he said, *'we can turn out six 
 of those in the shortest possible time, if the 
 order is promptly given. And they are the very 
 type that Eussia wants." The remark was 
 made in the hearing of several representatives 
 of foreign powers, and in the silence which fol- 
 lowed the Kaiser was the only unembarrassed 
 person. 
 
 From time to time little indications are given 
 of the Kaiser's widespread business interests 
 which annoy the aristocrats as much as they 
 amuse the burghers. For instance, it was found 
 that he has six shares in a Hamburg brewery 
 which yield him an income of £200 a year. He 
 has probably much bigger brewing interests 
 than that, for his great crony Prince Fuersten- 
 burg, the leading capitalist of Germany, is one 
 of its first brewers. 
 
 The late Carl Hagenbeck told me of an inter- 
 esting business talk he had with the Kaiser, 
 who owns good land in German South-west Af- 
 rica which he originally equipped as a sheep 
 farm. He consulted Hagenbeck on the possi- 
 bility of ostrich farming on this land, and, as a 
 result of the interview, the zoo expert was com-
 
 58 The Real Kaiser 
 
 missioned to stock a large ostrich farm for the 
 Emperor. The outlay, according to Hagenbeck, 
 is likely to be a very profitable one. 
 
 In Brazil, too, the Kaiser has interests which 
 are imperilled by the acute crisis through which 
 the finance of that country is now passing. The 
 capital, however, has been so shrewdly placed 
 that it is likely to represent a huge fortune at 
 no distant date. Security is a more marked 
 feature of his speculations in California, and the 
 sum at stake is not so great. His most recent 
 field of financial enterprise is the Canadian 
 State of British Columbia, and it is likely that 
 more will be heard of this very soon. His in- 
 terests there are not on the gigantic scale that 
 rumour has credited them with being, but they 
 are very substantial. Should the Canadian 
 Government take the matter in hand, they will 
 have no difficulty in tracing the transaction, if 
 not to the Kaiser, at least very near to Potsdam. 
 
 Herr Martin, the most renowned of German 
 financial writers, in an article published in the 
 National Zeitwig at the beginning of the year 
 1914, placed the Kaiser as the wealthiest per- 
 sonage in Germany. He estimated his fortune 
 at £20,000,000 ; the greater part of which wealth 
 has been created by the Kaiser's own exertions.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 THE KAISER AT HOME 
 
 Kinde, Kuehe, Kleider, Kirche — und Kaiser. — The 
 Kaiser's motto for women. 
 
 Oh, wisely has the Kaiser said 
 Four C's should rule in housewife's head. 
 A Child to love, a Church for prayer, 
 Pair Cook, and Clothes in good repair. 
 
 No Child; then life is dull and long. 
 No Church; then everything goes wrong. 
 No Cook; and this the husband loathes. 
 No taste; who likes untidy clothes? 
 
 Percy Fitzgerald. 
 
 '*I SHALL have a soreness in the heart until I 
 see the wife and youngsters," said the Kaiser 
 to the Bishop of Salisbury, when the last cere- 
 mony in connexion with the Palestine journey 
 had been concluded. 
 
 Like most of the Kaiser's utterances, that was 
 a very genuine expression of his sentiment of 
 the moment. Unlike very many of his sayings, 
 it represented a very consistent attitude of the 
 Emperor throughout his whole life. In all the 
 controversy that has raged around him, and 
 through all the criticism that has been showered 
 
 59
 
 60 The Real Kaiser 
 
 upon him, no serious doubt lias ever been cast 
 upon the happiness and wholesomeness of his 
 home life. 
 
 There can be no secrets here, no possibility of 
 misunderstanding. The everyday existence of 
 the Kaiser, the Kaiserin, and the members of 
 their family comes under the purview of so 
 many eyes that it would be impossible to hide 
 away any skeleton in a cupboard. In our own 
 homely English phrase, the Kaiser has been 
 proved ''a good husband and a good father," 
 a man who is never so happy as when he can 
 renew the domestic ties which shackle him so 
 pleasantly. 
 
 In the eyes of ev^ery German the Kaiser has 
 done his first duty as a German and a monarch ; 
 he has given his country six stalwart sons. He 
 has brought them up in the German tradition 
 of stern duty and iron discipline. Some of them 
 have married — early, as becomes Hohenzollern 
 princes — and have maintained the German repu- 
 tation for fruitfulness. His daughter, the fam- 
 ily favourite, has married the Duke of Bruns- 
 wick, and has fulfilled the people 's hope by heal- 
 ing a long-maintained breach in the walls of 
 the Empire. 
 
 The Kaiserin is a consort of the old-fashioned
 
 The Kaiser at Home 61 
 
 German school. "No English nonsense about 
 her, ' ' say the worthy burghers, still mindful of 
 the forceful woman whose life was made so un- 
 happy by running counter to German tastes 
 and German prejudices. A pleasant bright- 
 faced lady, with an abundance of beautiful 
 snowy-white hair, she has never lost the hold 
 she early gained on the hearts of her people. 
 She lives strictly, according to the motto laid 
 down by the Kaiser himself. Her life is de- 
 voted to children, household duties, Church, 
 clothes, and the Kaiser. 
 
 ' Each evening she receives from an aide the 
 programme of the Kaiser's arrangements for 
 the following day, and her own time-table is de- 
 vised to fit in with that programme. For a day 
 is lost to the Kaiser if he does not spend some 
 part of it in close intercourse with the wife he 
 loves so well. Into the intimate circle of his 
 private life the Kaiser has also taken the Crown 
 Princess, the beautiful girl who won much of 
 his popularity for the heir to the throne. It is 
 characteristic of the Kaiser that in the breach 
 which has occurred between himself and his 
 headstrong heir, there has been no cessation of 
 the very fatherly and friendly regard he has 
 always displayed to his daughter-in-law.
 
 62 The Real Kaiser 
 
 The Kaiser 's day begins at six, an invariable 
 rule except wben he is travelling, when he allows 
 himself and his staff an extra hour of repose. 
 Much work is done before breakfast, a family 
 meal with no Court ceremony. Official duties 
 begin afterwards, and are accompanied by much 
 ceremony, for the pomp of the Kaiser's Court 
 exceeds that of any other in the world, not even 
 excepting that of the Czar. 
 
 At the Kaiser's favourite evening supper of 
 cold meat and beer the chance comes again to 
 throw off the ties of formality, and the Imperial 
 family reverts to the pleasant homely inter- 
 course that is characteristic of an ordinary mid- 
 dle-class family in 'Germany. A few intimates 
 may be entertained, and the Kaiser often takes 
 part in a game of cards. He favours the essen- 
 tially German game of skat, and will only hear 
 of the smallest stakes. Even then he is a bad 
 loser, and more awkward still, is very quick to 
 notice and rebuke the player who attempts to 
 save an unpleasant situation by allowing him to 
 win. 
 
 The Kaiser boasts a good hearty appetite, but 
 drinks in strict moderation. He is particularly 
 fond of Hamburg steak, which is meat chopped 
 fine with onions, and fried, and consumes his
 
 The Kaiser at Home 63 
 
 German average of sausage. Roast goose al- 
 ways tempts him, and invariably makes him 
 bilious and ill-tempered ; so Herr Carl Jaedicke, 
 formerly his head cook, but now unfortunately 
 no more, would never serve that dish. For this 
 Herr Jaedicke was sometimes most unjustly 
 blamed by his Imperial master. 
 
 Herr Jaedicke was the successor of a long 
 line of German cooks who styled themselves 
 Chef, and served the Imperial family with dishes 
 which were fondly believed by some of its mem- 
 bers to be samples of French cookery. But 
 not by the Kaiser, who knew a good deal better. 
 So one day he determined to put in a real Ger- 
 man cook, who would supply honest German 
 food. Herr Jaedicke was chosen, and proved a 
 real find. 
 
 He would not be called Chef, but fell back on 
 the German title of Mundkoch. He changed 
 the Imperial Menu to a Speisekarte, and then, 
 with the collaboration of the Kaiser himself, 
 set out to find German equivalents to all the 
 great cosmopolitan French titles for standing 
 dishes. He was grieved, this excellent Herr 
 Jaedicke, when his Imperial master suddenly 
 lost interest in the pastime. The game stopped 
 at the letter M, word Mayonnaise, to which no
 
 64 The Real Kaiser 
 
 real German equivalent could be found, though 
 Herr Jaedicke believed to have solved the prob- 
 lem, coining the ingenious variant of Meion- 
 neise. Apparently the Kaiser did not agree 
 with him. 
 
 A part, not showy but indispensable, is also 
 played in the Kaiser's home life by the ver- 
 satile Herr Haby, Hof Friseur and inventor of 
 the Kaiser moustache. Herr Haby is not un- 
 known in England ; a tall man of military mien 
 who sports a moustache so aggressive that the 
 small boys of Windsor took him for Majesty 
 himself, and cheered him whenever he ventured 
 into the street. 
 
 Herr Haby ''fixed" his master's moustache 
 by the invention of a toilet water of surpassing 
 worth, to which he gave the name "Es ist 
 erreicht," which corresponds, he said, to our 
 English word Eureka. It was an American 
 who reminded Herr Haby that Eureka was not 
 originally an English word, and suggested ' ' The 
 Limit" as nearly a literal rendering of his in- 
 spiration. This, however, was rejected by the 
 inventor. 
 
 "Es ist erreicht" is reserved by the inventor 
 for the sole use of Majesty himself, and he was 
 consequently called upon to provide an equiva-
 
 The Kaiser at Home 65 
 
 lent for the use of 20,000,000 loyal Germans, 
 who also wished their moustaches to point sky- 
 wards. Hence the Schnurrbartbinde, also Herr 
 Haby's invention, and a ver^^ profitable one. 
 It is a strip of canvas, which is worn across the 
 upper lip at night after the moustache has been 
 well moistened, and gives the user a very mina- 
 tory air. From this device the inventor derived 
 a substantial fortune, until the Kaiser lowered 
 the points of his moustache and ruined his 
 friseur's business. 
 
 Herr Haby has yet another claim to fame, for 
 it was he who devised the soapless shave, con- 
 sequent upon a remark of the Kaiser that much 
 time was wasted in lathering. Two days later 
 this gem of a Hof Friseur was able to announce 
 that the wastage had been permanently 
 checked, and the Kaiser for many years has 
 not been submitted to the indignity of soaping. 
 
 As the Kaiser's boys grew up, they were sent 
 away to be educated at Ploen, where a strict 
 hand was kept upon them. They were also sub- 
 ject to careful supervision when at home on 
 holiday, but the hand laid on them was always 
 a kindly and just one. "My young ones," as 
 the Kaiser always called them, had a better time 
 than most German boys of their age. The
 
 66 The Real Kaiser 
 
 Crown Prince proved a spirited youth, with 
 strong sporting proclivities. He rode in a 
 steeplechase at Karlshorst, and won a dashing 
 race and a stern rebuke afterwards. A Crown 
 Prince is not intended to end his life in a ditch. 
 He has other duties. 
 
 One sees the common sense and justice of it 
 all, and must honour the Kaiser for reproducing 
 in his home all the best features of the ordinary 
 life of the German citizen. 
 
 For the Empress he has never failed to show 
 the courteous consideration which might be ex- 
 pected from his public eulogies of his Consort. 
 And these have been many, and very handsome. 
 "The link which .unites me to Schleswig-Hol- 
 stein, and which makes this state dearer to me 
 than any other, is the gem which sparkles by 
 TL\y side. Her Majesty the Empress, a daughter 
 of this province, a model of all the virtues that 
 adorn a German princess." 
 
 And again, ' * Our wives can learn from Queen 
 Louise that the principal task of a woman does 
 not lie in the domain of political meetings and 
 propaganda, but in the quiet duties of the hearth 
 and of the family. ' ' 
 
 Obedient to his slightest wish, even to dis- 
 pensing with the jewels which every German
 
 Tlie Kaiser at Home 67 
 
 woman loves, the Empress was adamant on one 
 point. She flatly refused to wear any dresses 
 that were not made in Germany, and emphasised 
 to the ladies of the Court her opinion that, if 
 they chose, they could find in Berlin raiment 
 far more becoming and tasteful than in Paris. 
 This led to the Kaiser practising an innocent 
 deception, in which he made the Crown Princess 
 his partner. 
 
 Princess Cecilie has always been the most 
 tastefully dressed lady at the German Court, 
 owing to her unswerving adherence to the 
 Parisian modistes. Distressed by some un- 
 usually crude specimen of the Berlin modes, the 
 Kaiser asked the Princess if the Kaiserin could 
 not be fitted with a French gown without being 
 aware of the fact. The Princess declared it was 
 quite easy, and entering into the spirit of the 
 thing, obtained one of ''Mamma's" best fitting 
 dresses as a model. 
 
 In due course the Kaiser explained to the 
 Kaiserin that he wished to present her with a 
 dress of his own selection, a wish which occa- 
 sioned the Empress no surprise. He also hoped 
 that she would wear it at the gala performance 
 at the opera that evening, and this was done. 
 All her intimates pressed round the Empress,
 
 68 The Real Kaiser 
 
 complimenting her after the German fashion on 
 her very charming gown, to her intense satis- 
 faction. 
 
 '■ ' Have I not always told you that the prettiest 
 dresses of all are to be obtained in Berlin, if 
 they are only chosen with discretion," she tri- 
 umphantly repeated. 
 
 The Kaiser and Kaiserin are never happier 
 than when they are able to leave Berlin for a 
 vacation at one of the Kaiser's estates in the 
 country. Here the Kaiser plays the part of 
 British Squire with great gusto. He tramps 
 about the country-side arrayed in Harris tweed 
 and gaiters, with a big Dutch pipe full of coarse 
 tobacco in his mouth, and a green Tyrolese hat 
 on his head. He likes to catch his men in the 
 early morning, as they begin their work. 
 
 ''Morgen Kinder" or ''Morgen Arbeiter" is 
 his greeting, and they dutifully return him a 
 respectful ^'Morgen Majestat," as they get 
 ready to reply to his hundred and one ques- 
 tions, the answers to which he never appears 
 to hear. He is all for big things on his farms ; 
 giant rye to astonish the natives, and swollen 
 stangelspargel (asparagus). He is reputed a 
 good judge of stock, but rather too impatient 
 to make a successful orchardist.
 
 Tlie Kaiser at Home 69 
 
 Plenty of solid food and beer are consumed 
 by him when in the country, and in the evening 
 an abundance of a brew of lemonade, cunningly 
 compounded by the Empress from orange and 
 lemon juice, and a local mineral water. Long 
 homely evenings with plenty of talk and simple 
 games are the rule. It was at one of his coun- 
 try estates that the Kaiser produced a parcel, 
 announcing that it was "a present from Uncle 
 Edward." This proved to be the game of 
 Ping-pong, then at the zenith of its popularity. 
 Into this game he threw himself with all his 
 heart and soul, but like most devotees of the 
 amusement, tired of it very rapidly. 
 
 His library is a small one, for he depends 
 upon his press cuttings for information and 
 reading matter. About six thousand volumes 
 comprise the Kaiser's w^hole stock of books, 
 and these are mainly works of reference, mili- 
 tary tactics, and theology. When Colonel 
 Roosevelt visited him, he was presented by the 
 Kaiser with a number of books, one half of 
 which were theological works; while most of 
 the others were books on military matters; a 
 sure index to the Emperor's tastes. 
 
 It is noticed by those around him that, since 
 his sons have arrived at maturity, and more
 
 70 The Real Kaiser 
 
 especially since tlie Princess Victoria Louise 
 married, the Kaiser has become a much less hu- 
 man man. Not even the society of his consort 
 suffices to compensate him for the ''young 
 ones," whose adolescence has deprived him of 
 what was one of the main pleasures of his life.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE KAISER'S LIGHTER MOMENTS 
 
 "The Kaiser has a keen sense of humour." — Mr. Andrew 
 Carnegie. 
 
 I ONCE had the opportunity of watching a splen- 
 did Court function, attended both by the Kaiser 
 and King Edward VII. Both monarchs were 
 the centre of groups, composed of pretty women 
 and distinguished men, and in both groups the 
 conversation appeared to be spirited and amus- 
 ing. It was noticeable that from the group 
 around the Kaiser laughter followed the Em- 
 peror's words, and that the leader in the laugh- 
 ter was the Kaiser himself. At times he was 
 almost boisterous. 
 
 There were ripples of amusement from the 
 surrounding of King Edward too, and these 
 frequently followed some remark made by His 
 Majesty. But, though obviously entertained, 
 the English King was not moved to open mirth. 
 His smiles were reserved for the remarks ad- 
 dressed to him. He did not appear to lead the 
 conversation so much as to take an occasional 
 
 71
 
 72 The Beat Kaiser 
 
 and very effective part in it. That was an im- 
 pression gathered at a distance. 
 
 The Kaiser reserves his lighter moments for 
 his visits to foreign countries, and for occa- 
 sions when he is free among his intimates. On 
 his yacht at Kiel, or when squiring at Cadinen, 
 he lets himself go. Then his noisy hilarity is 
 unbounded; and to these occasions he owes the 
 reputation of being the most jovial monarch of 
 Christendom. 
 
 He is also merry in the company of the ar- 
 tistic set whose patron he likes to be, and here 
 has earned the reputation of having keen sense 
 of humour. That_reputation he is careful shall 
 not pursue him among the business people he 
 meets, or among the middle class professionals, 
 who utterly fail to understand it. With them 
 he is always grave, and austere to the verge of 
 gloom. 
 
 I once complained to a German friend, a man- 
 ufacturer, that he had no sense of humour. His 
 reply to an accusation that would have annoyed 
 any Englishman or American deprived me of 
 the power of further speech. ''Why should I 
 have?" he asked simply. 
 
 In any case, the German idea of humour is
 
 The Kaiser's Lighter Moments 73 
 
 widely different from our own. A comparison 
 of Simplicissimus and Punch will serve to mark 
 the contrast. The German paper is often gross, 
 and nearly always cruel; most effectively cruel 
 on occasion. Punch is never either gross or 
 cruel, even if it lacks the element of surprise 
 which distinguishes the very funny American 
 humourists. 
 
 The Kaiser is known to be a connoisseur in 
 that class of story which in this country is re- 
 served for the smoking-room. He is also con- 
 victed of being the most inveterate royal prac- 
 tical joker on record since the time of Nero. 
 
 But one cannot help thinking that a really 
 fine sense of humour would prevent his finding 
 his most exquisite amusement in placing his 
 worthy friends and servants in absurd and pain- 
 ful positions, which his exalted rank renders 
 them incapable of resenting. True humour is 
 closely allied to sensibility, and consideration 
 for the feelings of others. 
 
 On the imperial yacht Hohenzollern there is 
 but one caricature, though it has been said that 
 the Kaiser is so amused by caricatures of him- 
 self that he has made a large collection of them. 
 The drawing in question represents ''Swedish
 
 74 The Real Kaiser 
 
 Drill at Sea, ' ' and shows a slim Kaiser leading 
 a squad of fat courtiers and generals at early- 
 morning exercise. 
 
 Indeed this is the choicest jest the Imperial 
 mind ever devised. During the famous Medi- 
 terranean trip it was an every morning occur- 
 rence on deck ; a band of puffy Geheimrate and 
 obese generals lined up, the Kaiser at the head, 
 and ordered by a stern instructor to ''give the 
 right fashion to their bones." The grinning 
 spectators usually included a section of the 
 crew, and the Imperial jester never tired of the 
 joke. 
 
 Funnier still was the outcome of one of his 
 best jokes. 
 
 The intended victim was a blunt old admiral, 
 renowned for his outspoken comment and his 
 Gargantuan appetite. This old sea-dog was 
 placed next the Kaiser at ynittagessen, after a 
 long morning in the sharp air. His favourite 
 dish of boiled beef and vegetables was served, 
 and after h^ had heaped a large plate, the Kaiser 
 began to ply him with sharp questions. Tempt- 
 ing mouthfuls were impaled on his fork, but 
 never reached his mouth. Soon he was talk- 
 ing with the bitter emphasis that had made 
 him celebrated, and everybody else was quietly
 
 The Kaiser's Lighter Moments 75 
 
 eating. In the middle of Ms remarks, a lackey 
 came to remove his full plate. "Leave it," 
 roared the hungry sailor, at the same time trans- 
 fixing the servant's hand with the prongs of 
 his fork. Then Majesty realised that his jest 
 had turned out even better than he expected, 
 and his loud Ha! ha! led the chorus of laugh- 
 ter. 
 
 Sir Frank Lascelles, a former British Am- 
 bassador to Berlin, has recorded another typical 
 instance of Imperial humour. The joke con- 
 sisted in penetrating to the Ambassador's bed- 
 rpom while that Minister was still in bed, and 
 sitting on the bedside and conversing for twenty 
 minutes. When the Kaiser prepared to leave, 
 it became necessary for our representative to 
 rise and accompany him to the door, clad only 
 in a pyjama suit. The Kaiser flung the door 
 wide open, roaring "Here's a sight" to the 
 waiting adjutant, a German colonel, who was 
 naturally convulsed at his master's humour. 
 
 The Kaiser's love for making others uncom- 
 fortable has been turned to shrewd use by some 
 of those with whom he condescends to famil- 
 iarity, as, for instance, that smart little Jew, 
 Herr Alfred Ballin. "Your Majesty," he said, 
 when rung up one day on the telephone by the
 
 76 The Real Kaiser 
 
 Kaiser, ''Your humble servant could not stand 
 before j^ou trembling more abjectly than I do." 
 
 ''How is that?" asked the Kaiser sharply, 
 scenting some misdemeanour. 
 
 "Because I was having a cold bath when your 
 call came through, and stand at the 'phone drip- 
 ping and shivering. ' ' 
 
 There was a roar of Imperial laughter as 
 the Kaiser bade him go and dry himself, and 
 then come and see him at once. For the rest 
 of that day the Emperor was in high feather. 
 
 When the Kaiser had the post-card craze, he 
 himself designed some comic cards, not very 
 funny perhaps, but he had them reproduced 
 for distribution among his friends. Now the 
 Kaiser's stationery is fearful and wonderful. 
 He affects a light blue paper of beautiful qual- 
 ity, and bearing an elaborate monogram. The 
 sheets are of large size, and are never folded; 
 so that the envelopes which contain his commu- 
 nications ace of a goodly size. They are all 
 marked with the instruction "Matter of the 
 highest importance," and very often they do 
 contain matter of importance to the recipients. 
 
 Well, the Kaiser made a list of pompous ex- 
 pectant people around the Court, including the 
 impossible candidates for all sorts of distinc-
 
 The Kaiser s Lighter Moments 77 
 
 tions, and to each one he addressed one of his 
 funny post cards in one of his portentous en- 
 velopes. He had all these communications de- 
 livered by hand in the middle of the night, so 
 that every office and title seeker was rung out 
 of his bed to receive the Imperial missive. In 
 many cases a well-deserved rebuke was doubt- 
 less administered, but the feelings of worthy 
 servants so bitterly hoaxed and disappointed 
 may also be taken into account. In many cases 
 the Kaiser rubbed it in; in fact, the joke kept 
 the Court guffawing for a week. 
 
 One of the victims of the Emperor's keen 
 sense of humour was King Ferdinand of Bul- 
 garia, and the jest was perpetrated at a time 
 when the Kaiser was his host. King Ferdi- 
 nand, even as a young man, was not exactly 
 slim, and was always keenly conscious of his 
 own dignity. The incident occurred after a 
 dinner at the castle of Brunswick on a beauti- 
 ful night, when a magnificent band was playing 
 in the castle grounds. King Ferdinand was 
 leaning far out of a window, in order the better 
 to hear, and displayed a broad and tempting 
 back. Behind him crept the Kaiser, and 
 brought the Mailed Fist down between his 
 shoulders with a resounding thwack.
 
 78 The Real Kaiser 
 
 King Ferdinand turned, furious and red, and 
 when he saw who his assailant was, summoned 
 all his dignity to the occasion. ''I pray your 
 Majesty to abstain from practical jokes," he 
 said, and withdrew, refusing to be conciliated. 
 The pair next met in London at the funeral of 
 King Edward but the Bulgarian monarch re- 
 fused either to forgive or forget. The very 
 sight of William caused him to growl like a 
 sullen bear, though the Kaiser persistently ig- 
 nored his resentment. 
 
 Herr Haby, the good barber who wears the 
 title of Hof Friseur, and shaves the Kaiser once 
 a day, has to be very punctual, for the Kaiser's 
 day is mapped out very carefully beforehand. 
 On one occasion he was a few minutes late, but 
 the Kaiser did not appear to hear his apology. 
 When he came on the next day, his master said 
 carelessly, "By the way, have you still got the 
 gold watch I presented to you?" 
 
 *'Yes, Majesty, here it is." 
 
 ' ' It does not appear to be as good as I thought 
 it was when I purchased it. Please give it to 
 me, and I will replace it with a better one. ' ' 
 
 The watch was delivered, and poor Herr Haby 
 received in exchange a big nickel affair, costing 
 about two marks.
 
 The Kaiser s Lighter Moments 79 
 
 There is also a very practical side to the 
 jokes the Kaiser plays on his business friends. 
 He once invited a party of them to drink beer 
 with him one evening, and deftly introduced 
 the subject of one of the Imperial schemes 
 which required money for its execution. He 
 followed this with a subscription list, which he 
 handed to Herr Thyssen, the iron King, an old 
 fellow who is careful of his pence. With a wry 
 face Thyssen wrote himself down for £5,000, 
 and returned the list. 
 
 "Oh, this will never do," said the Kaiser, 
 glancing at it, ' ' when I come to pass it to some 
 of our friends here, who will come lower down, 
 they will be ashamed to give such small sums 
 as their proportion will represent. You must 
 double it, at least." 
 
 Some time later there was another beer drink- 
 ing, and another subscription list. When a 
 third invitation was sent round, the victims took 
 counsel among themselves. The result was 
 that when the Kaiser entered the room, and 
 begged them to be seated, they remained stand- 
 ing; while Thyssen silently turned out his 
 breeches pocket, showing that it was empty. 
 
 "Oh, is that the matter?" laughed the Kaiser, 
 "well, gentlemen, the beer is free to-night."
 
 80 The Real Kaiser 
 
 Perhaps the best test of a sense of humour is 
 the bearing of the humourist when the joke is 
 against himself. 
 
 On the occasion of one of the Kaiser's visits 
 to this country, the Eton boys met him at Wind- 
 sor station, and unharnessing the horses from 
 the carriage, dragged him up to the Castle 
 themselves. The Kaiser saw a good chance to 
 make a speech, and rose while the unharnessing 
 was going on. He had just explained what a 
 pleasure it was for him to visit "dear Grand- 
 mamma," when all arrangements were com- 
 pleted. Off went the equipage, causing the Em- 
 peror to sit down with disconcerting sudden- 
 ness. 
 
 That would have been a very good time to 
 laugh, but the Kaiser was as black as thunder. 
 Indeed, he has never since been able to endure 
 the sight of a boy in a short jacket and a shabby 
 tall hat. 
 
 By way of contrast, a scene on Epsom race- 
 course is worth recalling. One of King George 's 
 race-horses had just won, amid a storm of 
 cheers; and the jockey was an unconscionably 
 long time in returning to the paddock to weigh 
 in. During the expectant lull a voice was raised 
 in banter, a big voice from one of the cheap
 
 The Kaiser's Lighter Moments 81 
 
 rings, a voice roughened by many years of call- 
 ing the odds. The banter was none too delicate, 
 but just the sort of rough chaff a British open- 
 air crowd loves. And the subject was the King. 
 
 Instinctively all eyes turned to the spot 
 where he stood among his noblemen, and it was 
 seen that he was convulsed by an uncontrolla- 
 ble fit of jolly British laughter. The group 
 round him was similarly affected, and from the 
 100,000 people present a roar went up to the 
 open sky. A king and his subjects joining in 
 honest mirth at a joke against Eoyalty, a fine 
 sight for the breezy British downs. 
 
 Now, would the Kaiser's sense of humour 
 have permitted him to laugh in public at a joke 
 against himself? The answer, as they say in 
 the House of Commons, is in the vernacular.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 THE VAIN KAISER 
 
 "Vanity, Vanity! There is nothing in him but Vanity." 
 — Herr Behel. 
 
 LuDWiG Ganghofer, the Bavarian novelist whom 
 the Kaiser admires, had one trying experience 
 with him. The Kaiser brought to him a poem 
 he had himself written, and asked that he should 
 criticise it. It was frankly a bad piece of work ; 
 probably it did not scan. Ganghofer prepared 
 to break the fact to William gently, by remark- 
 ing, '^The poem seems to require alteration in 
 certain respects," when he found the Kaiser 
 gazing at him in unaffected amazement. 
 
 With a puzzled face the Kaiser took the poem 
 and read it through. Then his brow cleared. 
 "Oh, I see," he said, ''it requires my signa- 
 ture. ' ' And calling for a pen, he perfected the 
 work. 
 
 Now that is the story of a man who is full of 
 personal vanity, and not merely a man swollen 
 with the importance of his position as autocrat 
 of a great Empire. Not that the Kaiser ever 
 overlooked the latter fact. 
 
 82
 
 The Vain Kaiser 88 
 
 One day he needed a knife to cut the end of 
 his cigar, and a young officer handed him one. 
 ' * Keep that, ' ' he said in returning it, ' ' and pre- 
 serve it carefully. One day it will be historic. ' ' 
 
 But his personal vanity shouts aloud in a 
 thousand characteristics. It proclaims itself in 
 the fashion of his moustache, in his love for uni- 
 f omis, and in the importance he attaches to them 
 and to titles. He could find no better way of 
 expressing his resentment at Great Britain 
 when the war broke out, than by renouncing his 
 titles, and returning his British uniforms. He 
 sent a message to that effect to the British 
 Ambassador in Berlin before the war was many 
 hours old. "His Majesty begs that you will tell 
 the King that he has been proud of the titles of 
 British Field Marshall and British Admiral, 
 but that in consequence of what has occurred, he 
 must now at once divest himself of those titles." 
 
 The uniforms have duly been returned, but 
 the Kaiser is still able to wear more different 
 uniforms than any other man in the history of 
 the world. 
 
 He is entitled to wear 150 different kinds of 
 foreign uniform alone, while the variety of Ger- 
 man uniforms he can assume brings the total up 
 to well over 500. A whole suite of apartments,
 
 84 The Beat Kaiser 
 
 full of wardrobes, is devoted at Potsdam to tlie 
 housing of the Kaiser's uniforms, and he often 
 wears ten or a dozen uniforms in the course of a 
 day. If, for instance, he were receiving a dis- 
 tinguished Russian in uniform, he would put on 
 one of his thirty Russian uniforms for the occa- 
 sion ; and so on. 
 
 It is not surprising to learn that he has the 
 privilege, in some honorary capacity, of wear- 
 ing the unifonn of every regiment in the Ger- 
 man Army. It is amazing to find, though, that 
 he cherishes this privilege and exercises it. 
 
 A story was circulated in Paris that the 
 Crown Prince one day found him about to go 
 out, attired in the full dress uniform of a Ger- 
 man admiral, and asked with some curiosity 
 where he was going. ''To the Aquarium," re- 
 plied the Kaiser. I am assured from Germany 
 that this story is a foul and malicious untruth. 
 
 It is true, however, that when the flying arm 
 was added to the German Army, the Kaiser did 
 not lose a day in designing a new uniform for 
 the aviation branch, and that he claimed the 
 privilege of being the first person to wear it. 
 
 Of decorations he has no less than 323, and he 
 puts a due value on them all. He also attaches 
 tremendous importance to the personal gift of 
 
 I
 
 The Vain Kaiser 85 
 
 a decoration, and thinks such an honour, coming 
 from him, far outweighs many considerations 
 more solid in character. This was discovered 
 by an unfortunate musical instrument maker of 
 Markneukirchen. 
 
 This good man contrived a motor-horn which 
 sounded four separate notes of surpassing clear- 
 ness and beauty. He was so pleased with his 
 invention that he had a fine silver model made, 
 and sent it to the Emperor. It was tried on the 
 Imperial motor-car, and pleased the owner so 
 much that he said that he would personally deco- 
 r'ate the clever inventor. 
 
 In conferring the decoration, the Kaiser made 
 a gracious little speech, in which he stated that 
 he was so pleased with the new motor-horn that, 
 as a mark of his extreme favour, he would re- 
 serve it for his own exclusive use. Probably it 
 has not yet dawned upon him that the enterpris- 
 ing musical instrument maker might much pre- 
 fer to draw the profits from the sale of a motor- 
 horn "as used by the Kaiser." His colossal 
 vanity prevents such a consideration from oc- 
 curring to him. 
 
 The Kaiser used to have his ** civil" clothes 
 made in London, and was very particular about 
 the cut and fit of them. He thinks he looks best.
 
 86 The Beat Kaiser 
 
 when out of uniform, in Harris tweeds, and they 
 certainly suit his figure and complexion. There 
 is one tweed suit which he received not long ago 
 which certainly contains something he has not 
 reckoned for. The tailor who made the coat 
 was a pronounced socialist, and requiring some 
 padding for the shoulders, laid his hand upon a 
 copy of the Socialist newspaper Justice. It 
 seemed an appropriate padding for such a gar- 
 ment, so in it went, and there it probably re- 
 mains to this day. 
 
 Long before King Edward made the Hom- 
 burg hat popular in this country, it was the fa- 
 vourite headgear of the Kaiser when out of uni- 
 form. He is an amateur of neckties, and once 
 confessed to the ownership of 18,000. He wears 
 his clothes with the air of a man who still courts 
 the opinion the world may choose to form as to 
 his personal appearance. 
 
 One of the bugbears of his existence springs 
 from the prevailing German fashions and cus- 
 toms with clothes, more especially among the 
 men. For years the Kaiser has been trying to 
 get his men to conform to the ordinary conven- 
 tions concerning clothing, and has made the 
 most rigid rules, and given the most elaborate 
 instructions on this point.
 
 The Vain Kaiser 87 
 
 It has not been of the slightest use. A Ger- 
 man of good social standing will cheerfully don 
 evening dress to attend a wedding ceremony, 
 but the evening celebration of the festivities will 
 lind him beaming in the foyer of the opera, in all 
 the glory of a frock suit, bowler hat, and vivid 
 yellow boots. He says this is "bequem," con- 
 venient ; to the utter stranger it is sometimes a 
 little startling. 
 
 The Kaiser's vanity has prevented his attain- 
 ing anything like the average girth of the mean- 
 est of his middle-aged subjects. When a young 
 'man, he marked a certain hole in his belt, and 
 decided that beyond that he would not permit 
 his waist to expand. Although constitutionally 
 inclined to stoutness and a hearty eater of Ger- 
 man food, his active habits have enabled him to 
 keep his resolution. 
 
 He is unaffectedly distressed at the stoutness 
 of his subjects; it seems to reflect upon him. 
 He is always counselling them to take down 
 their weight. "More sport, less beer," he says 
 to the students, who take no notice. ''Less of 
 sweet food," he urges upon the young women, 
 but they will not listen. 
 
 If he does not like fat people, he likes big 
 things. His visiting cards are the largest
 
 88 The Real Kaiser 
 
 known ; six inches by four. When the plans for 
 a German monument in South-west Africa were 
 discussed, the Kaiser wanted an elephant; but 
 the sculptors did not consider an elephant suit- 
 able. In the difference of opinion, the monu- 
 ment was allowed to remain unerected. 
 
 When the Kaiser visited Hamburg on one oc- 
 casion, his sharp eyes fell upon the railway sta- 
 tion, and he frowned. ' ' We want a new railway 
 station here," he said to the Burgomaster, and 
 described with his right arm an arc of the sky. 
 This is a characteristic gesture with him, espe- 
 cially of recent years. It indicates vastness. 
 He attended to the Hamburg railway station 
 himself; it is certainly big and convenient be- 
 yond the dreams of a traveller in Great Brit- 
 ain. 
 
 The first statue of himself the Kaiser permit- 
 ted to be erected in Germany stands on a bridge 
 that crosses the Ehine at Cologne. It weighs 
 four and a half tons. 
 
 His vanity compels him to many unworthy 
 poses, one of which is that of a man more 
 erudite than he really is. One story is inno- 
 cently told by Professor Van't Hoff, a dear old 
 Dutchman who won the Nobel prize for chemis- 
 try. He was then at Amsterdam University,
 
 The Vain Kaiser 89 
 
 but the honour won him a very good appoint- 
 ment at Berlin. 
 
 Van't Hoff is the man who knows more about 
 the Aurora Borealis than anybody else on the 
 face of the earth. He has specialised through 
 a long and useful life in the peculiarities of this 
 Arctic phenomenon. The surest way to his 
 good graces is to speak well of the Aurora Bore- 
 alis. 
 
 Soon after the professor arrived in Berlin, 
 he was invited to the Palace and entertained by 
 the Kaiser and Crown Prince, en famille. The 
 conversation soon chanced to turn upon the 
 Aurora Borealis, and the excellent professor 
 was amazed to find how much both his hosts 
 knew of that interesting winter display. They 
 were able to speak of his own interesting theo- 
 ries, and to deride as mere charlatanism the wild 
 speculations of other writers on the same topic. 
 The professor has recorded that he was filled 
 with admiration and pleasure at the interesting 
 way in which the Emperor spoke of these 
 things. 
 
 By no means so easy a victim was Herr von 
 Troft du Solz, the Prussian Minister of Educa- 
 tion, who accompanied the Kaiser on a trip in 
 Rhineland. At Treves the Kaiser turned
 
 90 The Real Kaiser 
 
 sharply to him and asked, ''What Roman Le- 
 gions were stationed here?" 
 
 Troft du Solz knew the answer, for a very- 
 good reason. One of his subordinates in the 
 department had been called upon for some in- 
 formation for the Kaiser only a few days before 
 the trip started, and it covered the very point 
 on which the Kaiser was now questioning him. 
 But he bravely said he didn't know. 
 
 "The 20th and 21st Legions were stationed 
 here," said Majesty, and every one looked re- 
 spectful admiration. 
 
 Such a man would naturally be ready at a mo- 
 ment 's notice to fill a role for which he had no 
 qualification whatever. His genuine interest in 
 all the fine arts accounts naturally for the 
 prominence he has given to them throughout his 
 life. But only an inordinate vanity could com- 
 pel him to pose as an exponent of each in turn, 
 and gravely to give lessons to experts of the 
 very highest order. 
 
 It is nothing to him to show a conductor the 
 due interpretation of a musical passage, or a 
 ballet mistress some intricate dance steps. Ref- 
 erence is made elsewhere to this side of his 
 character. 
 
 One finds him equally immersed in much less
 
 The Vain Kaiser 91 
 
 interesting trifles. He once took some interest 
 in the establishment of a brick-kiln on his estate 
 at Cadinen, and helped in the early stages of the 
 working of the plant. Later he arranged an im- 
 portant ceremony at the brickyard, nothing less 
 than his own investiture as '^Ehrenziegelei- 
 meister," that is, honorary master brickmaker. 
 And it was a very grave and solemn ceremony. 
 
 His vanity has recently made him pose as the 
 stern man who never smiles, a pose maintained 
 now for some years before the public. Once, 
 when being photographed, he was constrained 
 t'o smile at the rather imperious instructions is- 
 sued to him by the photographer. When the 
 proof was shown to him, it was discovered that 
 he was represented with a slight smile. His ap- 
 prehension was at once aroused, and he never 
 rested until the plate of the photograph had been 
 destroyed in his presence. 
 
 One of the small things that might amuse an- 
 other King, but embitters his existence, is the 
 presence in Berlin of an exact double of him- 
 self, who is a chimney-sweep. The reproduc- 
 tion of this man 's picture in the daily papers — 
 and this is constantly occurring — is the prelude 
 to one of the Kaiser's bad days. 
 
 His vanity has its tragic as well as its amus-
 
 92 The Real Kaiser 
 
 ing side. For him Ms physical affliction is a bit- 
 ter thing to bear, but his own resolution and 
 skill have made it almost unnoticeable. Long 
 ago he learned to make his right hand do the 
 work of both, and he manages so deftly that an 
 American writer once wrote of him, in a burst 
 of enthusiasm, * ' He is the only man in the world 
 who can eat lobster gracefully with but one 
 hand." 
 
 J
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 THE KULTUR-KAISER 
 
 "Like a young hunting-dog, nosing about from one thing 
 to another." — Bismarck. 
 
 "The Princes of the West were the patrons of German 
 culture; the Ilohenzollerns were the political teachers and 
 taskmasters," — von Buelow. 
 
 There is no question I am more frequently 
 asked in these days than this: — "But what do 
 •they mean by always talking about their cul- 
 ture?" Americans understand easily enough, 
 especially those who hail from the neighbour- 
 hood of Boston, Mass., but the root idea of kul- 
 tur is somehow repugnant to an Englishman. 
 This is a country where the deliberate encour- 
 agement of the arts and sciences is pooh-poohed, 
 and where the State concerns itself least of all 
 with such matters as drama and music. British 
 concern for creative art and literature is occa- 
 sionally shown by the granting of some beggarly 
 pension to the starving dependants of a dead 
 genius, but no more than that is done. 
 
 It has already been stated that the Kaiser sup- 
 ports three large theatres ; I believe he supports 
 
 93
 
 94j The Real Kaiser 
 
 more than that, but cannot at the moment make 
 sure of the details. He does not support them 
 because he wishes to make money out of them, 
 or because the theatre is a pet hobby of his own 
 — though he is more than a little interested in 
 the theatre — but because he believes the theatre 
 is an institution worthy of State patronage. 
 
 When a German asks me why Shakespeare is 
 not more frequently played on our stage, and 
 I tell him that Shakespeare spells ruin to the 
 manager, he simply does not understand. He 
 does not understand in the first place that the 
 presentation of Shakespeare is left to private 
 enterjjrise in the rich and educated country that 
 produced him; nor does he understand that 
 British theatre-goers are so little ''cultured" 
 that they deliberately stay away from the thea- 
 tre when a play of Shakespeare is on the boards. 
 To a German Shakespeare is one of our great 
 national possessions ; one of the few things they 
 really envy u-s. 
 
 This may not serve altogether to illustrate 
 what the German means by culture, and though 
 it is difficult to indulge in broad generalisations, 
 I think I may venture to say that the average 
 German is really fond of good music. Often he 
 is a good performer himself; he is nearly al-
 
 The Kultiir-Kaiser 95 
 
 ways an excellent listener. He would be 
 ashamed not to be able to appreciate these 
 things, it is part of his teaching as well as his 
 instinct to like them. 
 
 The GeiTQan goes farther than that. He 
 makes a duty of many things we regard as pleas- 
 ures for those who like them, and things to be 
 avoided by those who do not. Methodical, and 
 keen to learn, the German early recognises that 
 there is a right way and a wrong way of doing 
 things, and only the right wa}'^ appeals to him. 
 This perpetual search for the right way is a 
 branch of his endless topic of ''kultur." 
 
 I once mentioned in a German house that my 
 only claim to athletic distinction had been won 
 as an oarsman, and at once brought one of the 
 youths present to my side. Nothing would sat- 
 isfy him but that I should visit his rowing club 
 at Wannsee, and give my opinion upon it. 
 Well, it was a more perfectly arranged place 
 than anything of the kind I had ever seen ; full 
 of all sorts of ingenious devices for getting the 
 boats in and out of the water, and diagrams 
 showing the anatomically correct positions and 
 the wrong positions in rowing. It was really an 
 object lesson in organisation. 
 
 Then he took me out upon a balcony overlook-
 
 96 The Real Kaiser 
 
 ing the water, and showed me an eight-oared 
 crew just returning to the shed. He said the 
 men were training for a regatta, and were cred- 
 ited with much ' ' kultur. " '' What did I think ? ' ' 
 The best I could say was that no one of them 
 seemed to row any worse than the others ; for a 
 more wooden exhibition of oarsmanship it 
 would be hard to imagine. 
 
 But it is not only by encouraging all forms of 
 art and by talking about "kultur," in connexion 
 with every conceivable subject that the Germans 
 have earned a reputation as a cultured race. In 
 the days before the materialistic era of the Ger- 
 man Emj)ire, Germany produced a long line of 
 great musicians, poets, writers, and artist 
 craftsmen that entitle the country to the claim 
 so boldly made. It is worthy of note that these 
 great men were the product of the Southern 
 States, and of the free cities of the West; and 
 that Prussia can lay little claim to any share in 
 the sum of, Germany's culture product. It is 
 further noticeable that since the era of indus- 
 trial progress, the race of intellectual giants 
 seems dead in Germany ; and that culture there 
 is confined to an intense appreciation of all 
 forms of art, good and bad as well ; and to crea- 
 tive efforts that are either frankly mediocre ; or,
 
 The Kultur-Kaiser 97 
 
 as in the case of the music of Richard Strauss, 
 left for the verdict of another generation, since 
 the present one is so fully divided in opinion. 
 
 Early in his reign the Kaiser took German 
 culture under his wing, with results that were 
 sometimes ludicrous. He has said many 
 shrewd things and few stupid ones about art. 
 He has done some amazingly foolish things in 
 his desire to show that, as an exponent of Ger- 
 man culture, he can add performance to under- 
 standing and appreciation. It must be said for 
 him that one section of Germans has encour- 
 aged him in this course by praise that either says 
 little for their veracity, or condemns them for 
 rank bad taste. But the most nauseous German 
 flatterers have had their rivals in this country, 
 as any one may assure himself who cares to turn 
 up the files of the London daily papers of the 
 day succeeding the performance of his prepos- 
 terous ''Hymn to Aegir," at Covent Garden 
 Opera House. Nor was there in this country a 
 section of critics, as in Germany, to say frankly 
 that the composition was formless, and mediocre 
 to the verge of flatness. 
 
 Anybody really interested in the Kaiser's ar- 
 tistic performance may be referred to a book 
 published in 1907 by Professor Seidel, entitled
 
 98 The Real Kaiser 
 
 Der Kaiser und die Kunst, profusely illustrated 
 with masterpieces from the Imperial pencil and 
 brush. The Kaiser once studied art under Pro- 
 fessor Salzmann, and to that painter he after- 
 wards sent a seapiece for criticism. In due 
 course the critic's remarks reached the Kaiser; 
 they were so carefully worded that the Imperial 
 artist at once telegraphed back, "What does 
 wind too anxious mean? Is it so stormily 
 painted that you shuddered at it, or is it not 
 stormy enough I" 
 
 In Professor Seidel's book may be found a 
 reproduction of one of the Emperor's most fa- 
 mous pictures, entitled the German vine. It is 
 a crude production, but interesting, since it 
 shows all the nations of the earth sheltering 
 gratefully under the German vine of culture. 
 
 The Kaiser's interest in the theatre has al- 
 ready been mentioned; he really takes a regal 
 view of his theatrical responsibilities. In an 
 address delivered to the actors and actresses at 
 the Eoyal Schauspielhaus he defined his position 
 with uncompromising exactness. 
 
 "When I succeeded to the throne I was con- 
 vinced and had firmly determined that the Royal 
 theatre, like the schools and the universities,
 
 The Kultur-Kaiser 99 
 
 must be an instrument of the monarch. . . . 
 The theatre is also one of my weapons." 
 
 One of his hereditary positions is that of 
 titular theatrical censor, a position he has not 
 hesitated to use, when occasion arose. He is 
 further a stickler for correctness in all things 
 theatrical. On one occasion, during the perfor- 
 mance of one of Shakespeare 's plays, he thought 
 he noticed some liberty taken with the text, 
 and sent for the manager. The event proved 
 that he was correct, the Geraian exponents of 
 culture had interpolated four lines by Dugel- 
 staedt in order to make the meaning of a pass- 
 age clearer. I confess with shame that I do not 
 know v/ho Dugelstaedt is, but the Kaiser knew. 
 ''One does not take liberties with Shakespeare," 
 he thundered, and the offending Dugelstaedt 
 had to be excised. 
 
 Some of his theatrical dicta are worth repro- 
 ducing, if only for their shrewdness and com- 
 mon sense. For instance, ' ' The working classes 
 do not like plays dealing with unemployment or 
 strikes, but dramas of history and romance." 
 He also said about opera, ''Glueck is the man 
 for me; Wagner is too noisy." 
 
 His theatrical enterprises cost him something
 
 100 The Real Kaiser 
 
 like £75,000 a year, but he does not mind that 
 nowadays. He has designed dresses for Verdi's 
 Aida, and among the ballet productions super- 
 vised and dressed by him are two masterpieces, 
 Coppelia and Corfu. It is stated that once on 
 his yacht at Kiel he obliged his guests with a 
 spirited rendering of a British hornpipe, but I 
 prefer not to believe this. 
 
 He has certainly shown himself possessed of 
 a rare sense of dramatic fitness. Once, when 
 he was shooting, that rare European animal an 
 elk fell to his rifle. He at once instructed the 
 huntsmen to sound an ''elk call." It was an 
 awkward moment ^f or the chief huntsman, who 
 had to confess that' his men knew no elk call, 
 and feared that Majesty would have to content 
 himself with the ordinary deer call. ''Wait a 
 few minutes," said William, "and I will write 
 you an elk call." And he did, to the supreme 
 satisfaction of every German present. 
 
 One of his more recent achievements was to 
 write and compose eight marching songs for the 
 army. That was before the war. 
 
 Architecture and statuary interest him even 
 more than music, pictures, and the theatre. 
 Some of the buildings he has designed and 
 erected have merits, both in style and conveni-
 
 The Kultur-Kaiser 101 
 
 ence ; but of recent years he has been possessed 
 with a passion for bigness. He is not alone 
 among Germans of the twentieth century in this 
 respect ; indeed, if there is one thing more mo- 
 notonous than anything else about recent Ger- 
 man taste it is this passion for huge things. It 
 finds its outward and most forbidding expres- 
 sion in such statues as the monstrous Bismarck 
 **denkmal" at Hamburg, an immense mis- 
 shapen mass of stone that stands on a command- 
 ing eminence in that beautiful city, and de- 
 presses the visitor by its sheer size and ugli- 
 ness. 
 
 Whether the Kaiser is himself responsible for 
 this passion for things that are kolossal in mod- 
 ern Germany, or whether he is only the outward 
 sign of a craze that has bitten a whole race, 
 would be difficult to determine. It is certain 
 that of recent years the German finds an outlet 
 for his cultured soul in sheer vastness, whether 
 it be in meals or mailboats. ''Not big enough" 
 is the hardest criticism a German can pass upon 
 anything. The same passion is in evidence in 
 America, where nature has shown the way, and 
 where big things often seem only in keeping 
 with the atmosphere and physical aspect of the 
 country. But in Germany it constantly jars.
 
 102 The Real Kaiser 
 
 It is one phase of the culture which has fol- 
 lowed in the wake of the material prosperity re- 
 sulting from the new regime of William II in 
 Germany. Another expression of the same ma- 
 terialism is the ambition of Berlin to compete 
 with Paris for the reputation of being a pleas- 
 ure city. "A night out" in Berlin is a por- 
 tentous business, for which the ordinary visitor 
 needs to undergo a course of training. A 
 theatre, a music-hall, a visit to the Blumensale, 
 and two suppers of the most substantial kind 
 usually find the German reveller inclined for a 
 game of cards at two o'clock in the morning, 
 though in accordance with the energetic Ger- 
 man custom, nine o'clock will find him doing 
 business in his office. And this also is culture. 
 
 If the Kaiser were not constantly talking 
 about ''Ivultur," one would be less ready to 
 blame him for the degradation which German 
 ideals have recently undergone. As it is, he 
 must take his share for the gross materialism 
 and empty display which is the hall-mark of the 
 ultra-modern German culture.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 WHAT GERMANS THINK OF THE KAISER 
 
 "As half a Gennan he has not much love for the Ger- 
 mans, and is not loved by them." — Hermann Obrist. 
 
 "Sixty million Germans; seventy million 
 opinions," scrawled the Kaiser on the margin 
 of a press cutting which displeased him. He 
 has a very neat way of putting things some- 
 times. 
 
 Of recent years, — and especially since the 
 Kaiser confided in the London Daily Telegraph 
 — it is hard to get a good word for the Kaiser 
 from any German. Young Germans and old 
 ones, peaceful Germans and fire-eaters, work- 
 men and artists, have all caught the knack of 
 grumbling at him. He can do or say nothing to 
 please them. They nag at him in season and 
 out. 
 
 This, of course, before the declaration of war. 
 One gathers that, since that event, he has taken 
 the place he covets as national demi-God. His 
 reception in Berlin after the outbreak of the 
 
 103
 
 104) The Real Kaiser 
 
 war, and the reference made to him in German 
 papers that were formerly his most severe 
 critics, point to that conclusion. 
 
 From the very beginning of his reign, he has 
 been subjected to a public and private criticism 
 that nothing could check. His acts, his char- 
 acter, his speeches, lend themselves to the 
 critics; and the German race is a critical one, 
 most unfairly so in many respects. 
 
 Conscious of his own good intentions, and con- 
 fident in his ability to execute them, the Kaiser 
 used formerly to resent this criticism very bit- 
 terly. To check it he had recourse to the very 
 drastic law against high treason, and many of 
 his subjects found themselves arraigned for 
 Lese majeste because of utterances of a very 
 trivial nature. Sentences aggregating to 30,- 
 000 years' imprisonment have been passed by 
 the German courts in the endeavour to prevent 
 Germans from saying and writing nasty things 
 about their'Emperor. The deterrent effect was 
 not apparent; the offence seemed rather to 
 thrive upon this treatment. 
 
 In newspapers of all shades of opinion — save 
 only those that are official or semi-official, — in 
 every gathering, whether public or private, in 
 the Eeichstag itself, his acts were criticised in a
 
 What Germans Think of the Kaiser 105 
 
 manner that would surprise the people of a 
 country such as this. 
 
 Some of this criticism was as undeserved as it 
 was tasteless and spiteful. For instance, the 
 musical, theatrical and art critics of Berlin 
 seemed in a tacit conspiracy to pooh-pooh every- 
 thing the Kaiser took in hand. If it were known 
 that he was particularly interested in the pro- 
 duction of a new opera, that opera was certain 
 to be unmercifully ''slated" when the critics 
 had got to work upon it. Open sneers at his 
 dramatic productions, the pictures he liked, and 
 the sculptures he praised were the rule rather 
 than the exception. 
 
 To a stranger, the Germans, and especially 
 the artistic set, exhibited themselves in a very 
 unamiable light when the name of the Kaiser 
 was mentioned. But they had endured years of 
 hectoring and lecturing from him, on subjects 
 about which they knew very much more than he, 
 and possibly their attitude was only a natural 
 one. 
 
 The Germans who put pen to paper in criti- 
 cism of their Emperor would naturally be of 
 the writing and artistic class, and some of their 
 printed opinions are amazing in their frankness 
 and brutal directness.
 
 106 The Real Kaiser 
 
 *'Tlie Kaiser," writes Hermann Obrist, a 
 well-known sculptor, "is himself half an Eng- 
 lishman, and is fully misunderstood by them ; as 
 half a German, he has not much love for the 
 Germans, and is not loved by them. 
 
 '■ ' To many of us the Kaiser is a tragic figure. 
 Restless, tireless, homeless, he takes a passion- 
 ate interest in 'great art,' dedicates monu- 
 ments and buildings, opens and visits Exhibi- 
 tions, and, in spite of all, makes speeches which 
 could only have been delivered by one of a thor- 
 oughly inartistic nature — or worse, by one who 
 entertains the art views of the seventies, the 
 worst known. 
 
 "He loves and inspires his army as few kings 
 before him have done, yet many of his officers 
 fear nothing so much as that at the outbreak of 
 war he will attempt to take command. ' ' 
 
 More subtle is the method of Ernst von Wol- 
 zogen, a famous writer : 
 
 "The magnificent display with which he sur- 
 rounds himself, his speeches, the fabulous quick- 
 ness with which his alert mind grasps anything 
 new, must naturally make a deep impression, 
 and the touch of fantastic romanticism in all his 
 utterances must lend him a poetic charm, even 
 in the eyes of the sober humanity of to-day.
 
 What Germans Think of the Kaiser 107 
 
 *'We have in our Kaiser a Banner-bearer — 
 not merely decorative, but physically tireless 
 and enthusiastic in his performance of his 
 duties — whom all the world envies us. That 
 the Banner-bearer should also be an intellectual 
 Commander-in-chief is, perhaps, too much to 
 ask, especially in our time." 
 
 This was followed by a cartoon, in which the 
 prominent men in Berlin's artistic world were 
 represented as boys indulging in a game of sol- 
 diers, from which the Kaiser had retired in a 
 pet, saying, "Don't want to be a Banner- 
 bearer." 
 
 " He is separated from his people by a Chinese 
 wall," complains Dr. Bruno Wille, one of Ger- 
 many's many philosophers; who goes on to say: 
 "The knightly and noble elements in him, his 
 wholesome family life, his tireless idealism, and 
 the long maintenance of peace, are worthy of 
 recognition, but how pitiable is the dependence 
 of his Government upon Centrists, Junkers and 
 money magnates. ' ' 
 
 Another Herr professor, Ludwig Gurlitt, 
 casts his stone after the following fashion: 
 
 "Kaiser Wilhelm has a high opinion of the 
 political possibilities of his people. It is pain- 
 ful to be obliged to say that he stands in antag-
 
 108 The Real Kaiser 
 
 onism to the majority of independent intellect- 
 ual leaders. He regards his people, the masses, 
 as children not yet of age, and thinks the Gov- 
 ernment competent to prescribe the course of 
 their social and cultural development — a pro- 
 found and fatal mistake! That the sovereign 
 shall decide for his subjects in matters of 
 science, art and faith is a mediaBval idea. ' ' 
 
 "The Kaiser's relation to art," writes Dr. 
 Adolf Behne, an art critic, "is this, that he 
 regards himself as the leader of art devel- 
 opment, whereas he stands wholly apart from 
 it." 
 
 A final opinion must be given, as it comes 
 from the theatrical critic, Hans von Huelsen, 
 who is nearly related to Graf von Huelsen, the 
 intendant of Germany's Royal theatres. He de- 
 clares that the Kaiser's theatrical activities 
 have been wholly for the bad, and that the 
 houses under the Kaiser's control are on a much 
 lower plane' than the good theatres under private 
 management. 
 
 Coming from well-known and responsible 
 men, all this necessarily appears to the English 
 reader pretty strong meat. In this country, as 
 I once said to a German friend, we lower our 
 voices when we wish to say we do not altogether
 
 What Germans Think of the Kaiser 109 
 
 like the Albert Memorial. The retort came pat, 
 ''The Kaiser swears it is beautiful." 
 
 If the things quoted above are written and 
 published, some idea may be gained of what is 
 said in private about the German Emperor. 
 Frankly, the Germans are detestable when they 
 discuss their monarch; it is a sneaking disloy- 
 alty that has an element of danger behind it. If 
 a stranger, and especially an Englishman, 
 chances to join the chorus with a jocular remark, 
 it is remembered against him. It is safer to in- 
 terfere in a quarrel between drunken husband 
 and wife. And they have taken the Crown 
 Prince to their bosoms. 
 
 The Crown Prince is the youthful Kaiser, 
 minus the brains and plus the taste for dissipa- 
 tion, which was reflected by the officers of the 
 German Army who have occupied the Cham- 
 pagne country of France. His musical and 
 dramatic taste is limited by the class of comic 
 opera which has recently afflicted Berlin, a gross 
 and decadent offspring of the Merry Widow. 
 He habitually consorts with high-born boors, 
 though not a boor himself, either by nature or 
 by training. He has passed his thirtieth year, 
 and has not yet given any sign of real excellence, 
 except his ability to win a steeplechase.
 
 110 The Real Kaiser 
 
 Yet he has assumed the role of Henry Hot- 
 spur with a certain deftness, and plays it with 
 a dash that cannot be denied. He has won the 
 hearts of the masses by impulsive and generous 
 acts, such as might have been expected of his 
 father's son. He is dear to the Army, hand-in- 
 giove with Junkerdom, and feared and detested 
 by the money magnates of the Empire. They 
 have had good reason for their fear of him. 
 
 This is the idol Germany set up in the place of 
 the brilliant, eloquent Kaiser. Germany is 
 about to pay a bitter price for the choice.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 WHAT THE KAISER THINKS OF THE GERilANS 
 
 "Germany would be worse off, but Germans better off, 
 without him." — Kappmann. 
 
 Two things must be borne in mind when con- 
 sidering the Kaiser's attitude to the people of 
 Germany. The first is, that he is the type of the 
 new Germany, which considers only results. In 
 obtaining those results, it is necessary that the 
 highest organisation should be employed. And 
 in Germany the highest organisation is based on 
 a consideration of human beings in the mass, 
 and not as individuals. The Kaiser thinks of 
 his people, as some financiers think of money, in 
 millions. 
 
 The other consideration is the fact that the 
 Kaiser believes implicitly in his divine right to 
 rule Germany, in small things as in great. He 
 is not the first, but the latest, and possibly the 
 last example of a ruler with his soul made cal- 
 lous by that belief. He will probably go down 
 
 to history as the irrefutable proof that a despot- 
 
 111
 
 112 The Real Kaiser 
 
 ism, benevolent in big things, is the worst curse 
 that could afflict the individuals of a race. 
 
 The effect of thinking in quantities of human 
 beings produces the most staggering impression 
 that the visitor gets of German life to-day. The 
 economic necessities of the country demand that 
 so many millions of Germans should be retained 
 for agricultural production. They are conse- 
 quently retained, in some places under condi- 
 tions that are feudal in their antiquity. Poland 
 is to be Germanized, and the German Poles are 
 consequently treated as a huge mass of human 
 material on which the German leaven is to 
 work. 
 
 All the problems of life are treated in the 
 same systematic, machine-like way. Poverty, 
 old age, unemployment are dealt with rigidly 
 and in the mass. They are dealt with effec- 
 tively, to all outward appearance, but inhu- 
 manly. 
 
 This inhumanity peeps out everywhere in the 
 everyday life of Germany. It has blazed forth 
 in the supreme trial of war. A position can be 
 taken, say the German Army theorists, in two 
 days by the expenditure of 50,000 men. It could 
 be taken in a week by the loss of one-third as 
 many. The time is worth it, there are still
 
 What the Kaiser Thinks of the Germans 113 
 
 enough men when those are lost; therefore 
 spend the men. 
 
 On this equation of material result with hu- 
 man life, human suffering, and human effort, all 
 the schemes of the Kaiser are based. At the 
 end of twenty-five years of his reign, he re- 
 viewed the progress of Germany during that 
 period, and was justly proud of the accomplish- 
 ment. He said this had been done by Germany, 
 by the aid of God, and under the direction of the 
 Kaiser. But he said no word to show that he 
 realised that Germans had done this by suffer- 
 ing and long toil and ceaseless effort, by de- 
 privation and tireless energy, by sacrificing the 
 present for the future. 
 
 ''He regards his people as children not yet 
 of age, ' ' complained Ludwig Gurlitt. He would 
 have been more accurate had he said the Em- 
 peror regarded his people as so much plastic ma- 
 terial, to be shaped to his will. In the big 
 things, this habit has converted Germany into a 
 highly effective machine, producing remarkable 
 results. In the smaller things, it has been fol- 
 lowed by consequences that are both tragic and 
 comical. The broad aspects of modern Ger- 
 many have been treated in many recent books 
 with a fullness and accuracy that should make
 
 114 The Real Kaiser 
 
 them familiar to the general reader in this coun- 
 try. But some of the small things have worked 
 out in a way that is very interesting and amus- 
 ing. 
 
 The Kaiser did not like the table manners of 
 his people, and set out to improve them. He 
 issued a set of instructions : not to tuck a servi- 
 ette under the chin, how to take soup, and so 
 forth. Of course this was published far and 
 wide over the face of the earth, to the vast an- 
 noyance of the great proportion of Germans 
 whose manners are beyond such reproach at 
 table. The Kaiser had imposed on the whole of 
 his people a reputation which was only earned 
 by a part. 
 
 Beside, the effect desired was not produced. 
 Many young Germans are as correct about such 
 things as are the people of any other country. 
 But Germans, when they pass middle age, get 
 slacker than, the folk of other lands ; possibly be- 
 cause they are led such a hard life when they are 
 young. They want to be gemuethlich, comfort- 
 able, easy-going; and no rules of the Kaiser 
 will prevent them. That is the reason that 
 when a stranger enters the Kaiser Keller, or 
 Kempinsky's, or any other of the great barns 
 they call restaurants in Berlin, he is at a loss to
 
 What the Kaiser Thinks of the Germans 115 
 
 account for the labial, lapping noise that is so 
 audible, until he realises that it signifies the Ger- 
 man assimilation of soup. 
 
 The Kaiser also issued a sumptuary edict pre- 
 scribing what clothes were to be worn, and the 
 exact use of evening dress. It called the atten- 
 tion of the whole world to things about German 
 manners that most outsiders would never have 
 known, and angered all the Germans who are 
 correct about such things. His edict certainly 
 made a difference, but did not atfect the large 
 cultured class, who are neither conventional nor 
 Bohemian. 
 
 When he came to the classes, and applied to 
 them his mass treatment, the Kaiser blundered 
 more painfully still. His views about most 
 things are sound and admirably expressed, but 
 he could not help lumping the people who did 
 not require them with those who needed them 
 most. He treated artists, sculptors, musicians 
 and actors in the mass, and bitterly antagonised 
 the individual. 
 
 He is particularly fond of statues, and has 
 them made by the score. The Sieges Allee in 
 the Berlin Tiergarten is an evidence of this 
 taste ; it was all done at his own expense. Those 
 statues were the work of a variety of artists, but
 
 116 The Real Kaiser 
 
 the Kaiser did not desire that any of them 
 should be better than the others. Uniformity 
 of treatment was his avowed object, and it can 
 be said that none of those statues is any worse 
 or better, as an object of art, than its fellows. 
 But the effect on the artists themselves can be 
 imagined. 
 
 As a theatrical manager, he has lumped actors 
 as a class, and resents the fact that some of 
 those he wants for his theatres prefer to play to 
 American audiences, where discrimination in 
 values and in salaries can be assured. As an 
 art patron, he takes much the same view of art- 
 ists and pictures. And these things serve to ac- 
 count for the opinion of the Kaiser held by the 
 large professional class of Germany. 
 
 At one time the Kaiser resented this opinion 
 as the blackest ingratitude. '*! have suffered 
 much ingratitude from artists," he complained 
 to Satzmann, ''although I have tried to create 
 for them a good position. I have treated them 
 to good prices." 
 
 More recently, however, he has ignored their 
 criticism, and taken his own way, with a lofty 
 scorn that has something regally magnificent 
 about it. He is quite sure that he knows best, 
 in art, as in everything pertaining to the de-
 
 What the Kaiser Thinks of the Germans 117 
 
 velopment of Germany. In fact there are no 
 German artists to be considered, only German 
 art. 
 
 Not very long ago there was a competition 
 among German architects for the design of the 
 new German embassy at Washington. A jury, 
 including Herr von Jagow, Foreign Minister, 
 Count Bernstorff, American Ambassador, and a 
 number of leading German architects was con- 
 stituted to judge the 270 designs submitted. 
 They awarded the prize to a design by Herr 
 Moehring. This design did not please the 
 Kaiser, who said it was not suitable to harmon- 
 ise with the architecture of Washington. He 
 also rejected the other 270 designs, and ap- 
 pointed Herr von Ihne, the Court architect, to 
 attend to the matter properly. That meant a 
 design in which the ideas of the Kaiser would 
 be fully prominent. 
 
 More recently still, he had plans made for a 
 gigantic new Royal opera house in Berlin, to 
 cost over £1,000,000. The designs did not 
 please many people, including the Chief Burgo- 
 master of Berlin, and objections were raised. 
 They were waived aside by William, with the re- 
 mark that, as he was to pay the piper, he was en- 
 titled to call his own tune. The retort that the
 
 118 The Real Kaiser 
 
 municipality of Berlin would have to bear nearly 
 one-half the cost passed by him unheeded. It is 
 his way of showing what he thinks of the Ger- 
 mans; they simply don't know. 
 
 Of course, he has his own way. There was a 
 building in one of the suburbs of Berlin, which 
 was surmounted by a sort of lightning rod, at 
 the top of which was a huge gilt circle, like a 
 magnified motor-sign. It was explained that 
 the plans of the building were submitted to the 
 Kaiser, and returned by him with a mark of 
 this description projecting from the corner 
 tower; a stroke and then a circle. Nobody 
 knew what it meant, and nobody cared to ask 
 him at the time. 
 
 The addition was accordingly made, in sup- 
 posed regard to his wish, and very odd it looked. 
 Some intelligent official saw it when it was fin- 
 ished, and succeeded in finding out what the 
 Kaiser had really wanted. It turned out that 
 he thought the tower too squat, and had marked 
 the plan for a higher tower. 
 
 The question of the moment was, who was go- 
 ing to pay for the necessary alteration, and 
 whether it could be executed before the Kaiser 
 came that way.
 
 What the Kaiser Thinks of the Germans 119 
 
 Contempt — it is nothing else — on the side of 
 the Kaiser, and a bitter resentment of it on the 
 part of thinking Germans, have caused the Em- 
 peror and his subjects to drift very far apart. 
 One result has been a distrust of his people by 
 the Kaiser. 
 
 One day I stood with a very loyal German in 
 the Tiergarten, and watched the Kaiser ride by. 
 He was by himself, in front of his attendant 
 suite, and he rode a great black charger. The 
 reins were gathered in his left hand, and he 
 looked at the gazing people with a bitter look 
 of despite. His right hand moved restlessly 
 about, as my friend pointed out. *'He is ready 
 to grip his revolver," was the explanation. 
 **He always carries one, and he is always like 
 that in Berlin." That statement is generally 
 believed. 
 
 Now the Kaiser has had a remarkable 
 immunity from attempts upon his life. Once, 
 early in his reign, bombs were sent to him and 
 to his Chancellor of the moment, Caprivi ; a mys- 
 terious affair which has never yet been ex- 
 plained. But, otherwise, the record of attempts 
 upon the Kaiser includes only a few lunatic acts 
 of no importance or significance.
 
 120 The Beat Kaiser 
 
 Whatever may be the faults of the German 
 people, they do not readily stoop to the crime of 
 political assassination. 
 
 Their faults are many, but to understand their 
 relations with their Emperor and with the out- 
 side world, a closer inspection of their achieve- 
 ments becomes necessary.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 WHAT IS GERMANY? 
 
 "Wherever the German eagle has thrust his talons into a 
 country, that country is German, and will remain German." 
 — The Kaiser. 
 
 What is Germany, and who are tlie Germans ? 
 . The question is not so easy to answer as, on 
 the face of it, it ought to be. As I write, the 
 German Empire includes a liberal slice of Po- 
 land, a whole province of Denmark, and the 
 French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. On 
 the other hand, if language, race and customs 
 count in the making of a nation, there are in 
 Europe some twenty million Germans who live 
 beyond the frontiers of the Empire. This in- 
 cludes the very genuine Germans, who inhabit 
 the German cantons of Switzerland, and the 
 inhabitants of the greater part of Austria 
 proper. 
 
 When I have visited Germany — and before 
 the outbreak of hostilities I did so frequently, 
 and for fairly long periods — I always returned 
 
 121
 
 122 TJie Real Kaiser 
 
 impressed with a sneaking fear that I and all 
 my fellow-Britons were Germans too. Very de- 
 generate and uncultured Germans, of course, 
 but Germans of sorts. If I was not entirely 
 convinced, it was not the fault of the learned 
 doctors and writers, who never fail to impress 
 on the friendly Englishman his share in the 
 glories of Germany. They mean it, in a very 
 friendly way. 
 
 I will not trouble my readers here, or here- 
 after, with a recapitulation of all the ingenious 
 arguments which lie behind the German claim 
 that all the Anglo-Saxon races, and the Scan- 
 dinavians and Dutch as well, are but branches of 
 the race of which the Germans are the bright 
 and shining examples. I could repeat them, if 
 I wished; for I have heard them so often, and 
 at such wearisome length. I refrain, but I 
 would like to emphasise the fact that they are 
 genuinely and firmly held. There is no more 
 ardent upholder of this belief than the Kaiser 
 himself. 
 
 Yet the German Empire is the newest of the 
 great powers, much newer than the United 
 States of America, and little older than the 
 Dominion of Canada. There was something 
 like a United Germany in the early Middle 
 
 \ 
 
 ._i.
 
 What is Germany? 123 
 
 Ages, as the result of the statesmanship and 
 warlike skill of that great monarch, Charle- 
 magne. But, owing to the unfortunate geo- 
 graphical position of Germany, it disintegrated ; 
 just as the fortunate position of the British 
 Isles permitted the gradual welding of the four 
 little kingdoms and the mixed races dwelling 
 there into the British nation, mother of one 
 great Empire. 
 
 One glance at the map will reveal much of the 
 misfortune of Germany's geographical position. 
 The Empire presents a portion of its frontier 
 to almost every European nation, and has less 
 of seacoast in proportion to its area than any 
 other maritime power. Contrast the British 
 Islands, with no frontier to defend against a 
 neighbour, and an enormous extent of coastline 
 in proportion to its area. Germany was 
 severely handicapped in the very dawn of civili- 
 sation. 
 
 Pressure of unfriendly neighbours, and that 
 vast religious schism known as the Protestant 
 Reformation, divided the Germany of Charle- 
 magne into nearly three hundred little warring 
 States and principalities. Each was ruled by a 
 boorish, illiterate princeling. Each contributed 
 representatives to a sort of Parliament — the
 
 124 The Real Kaiser 
 
 Diet of the Empire — in which the spiritual 
 power had a large share of representation. 
 
 It required more than a common force to ex- 
 tinguish the bulk of these petty principalities, 
 and to weld the rest into the fabric of Empire 
 we now know as Germany. The force was the 
 edge of the sword, and it was applied by the 
 warrior State of Prussia. From Frederick the 
 Great to Wilhelm II, the kings of Prussia have 
 been, without exception, warrior kings. They 
 have known but one argument, and have always 
 kept that by their sides, sharpened and ready 
 for use. 
 
 The Union of 1871 was only achieved by the 
 free use of that argument, whereby the absolute 
 dominance of Prussia was ensured. Austria 
 was forced out, just as Bavaria and Baden were 
 constrained to join. All the little "one-horse" 
 States were only too glad to be taken in, and 
 the horde of princes, who had no existing States 
 to rule, were soothed by being assigned a special 
 top division in the German aristocracy all to 
 themselves. 
 
 At this time, in 1871, even Prussia was tired 
 of fighting. There was a considerable collec- 
 tion of war booty, in addition to the looted terri- 
 tory, to be divided among the victors. Bavaria
 
 What is Germany? 125 
 
 and Baden had been mulcted in considerable 
 sums for the unresisted occupation of their ter- 
 ritory by the Prussians. Austria had paid a 
 heavy indemnity as the price of peace from the 
 Seven Weeks' War. And France had con- 
 tributed £200,000,000. The wide Prussian maw 
 was full, for even Bismarck admitted that Prus- 
 sia was "satiated" by its gains. 
 
 In the new Union, Prussia was supreme. To 
 the stay-at-home Englislunan to-day, Prussia 
 stands for Germany, though he will tell you that 
 he knows well that there are other kinds of Ger- 
 mans. It is curious to see the effect produced 
 upon Britons who visit Germany ; their impres- 
 sions varying, of course, according to the dis- 
 trict visited. The legend of the kindly German 
 comes from Rhineland and the South ; the Ger- 
 man boor is reported by the stranger to Berlin 
 and East Prussia ; while the polish of the Ger- 
 man business or professional life cannot fail to 
 impress the visitor to any of the towns of West 
 Germany. 
 
 In a word, the Pmssian is fat and fierce, the 
 Bavarian is fat and jolly, and the Hamburger 
 is fat and civil. And there are other kinds of 
 Germans, all very fat and energetic. 
 
 In 1871 Germany, with its 40,000,000 people.
 
 126 The Real Kaiser 
 
 was a poor country. Its assets as a business 
 concern were nothing very remarkable. 
 
 There was a lot of good agricultural land, 
 tilled with great industry, which until then had 
 been the mainstay of the country in time of 
 peace. The mineral resources were certainly 
 considerable. Good coal and iron mean a great 
 deal, and Germany had plenty of these, and fine 
 timber as well. But she had no seaports, no 
 shipping, no gi-eat industries. 
 
 There was, however, a good deal of other 
 people 's money ; more money, in fact, than there 
 had ever been in Germany before. And they 
 put it to a good use, the development of manu- 
 facturing industry. 
 
 When I have been accused of being an in- 
 ferior sort of German, I have liked to go into 
 a German factory, and note how much modern 
 industrial Germany owes to England. I like 
 to note how much clumsier the German worker 
 is than the corresponding English worker, with 
 his generations of inherited skill. And I reflect 
 on the poor position Germany would occupy to- 
 day, if it were not for machinery, and for Great 
 Britain. 
 
 All their beautiful machinery grew out of the 
 British models they imported to copy in bulk.
 
 What is Germany? 127 
 
 They imported British workmen to show them 
 how it was to be used, and English goods, on 
 the imitation of which they exercised their pren- 
 tice hands. I find many Britons, who ought to 
 know better, who honestly believe that the main 
 output of the German factories are knives that 
 will not cut, guns that burst when they are fired, 
 and textiles woven from slioddy. They will not 
 believe me when I tell them that in that branch 
 of the trade war, Birmingham, Sheffield, and 
 Yorkshire have recovered their lost laurels. 
 . There is one man in every big German fac- 
 tory who interests me beyond all others. He 
 may hold some University degree or other; he 
 invariably has the degree of one of the big 
 technical High Schools which are a feature of 
 Germany's educational system. In some cases 
 he may be found collaborating with a specialist 
 in chemical research, or some other highly quali- 
 fied scientist. But my man is the man of the la- 
 bour-saving machines. He has them in theory, 
 where the Briton has them in practice only. 
 He knows just what a special machine will cost 
 to make, and work before it is even designed, 
 save in the rough. 
 
 It is required, for instance, to make some 
 small article of metal in large quantities, and
 
 128 The Real Kaiser 
 
 the man wlio requires the article in question 
 asks for quotation of prices from England and 
 Germany. For the manufacture of a special 
 automatic machine must be constructed. The 
 English manufacturer knows roughly what kind 
 of machine will be required, and the cost of 
 articles of about the same size and similar ma- 
 terial. He allows a margin all round for fail- 
 ures, though the chances are he will get the 
 machine very nearly right at the first trial. And 
 he quotes with a safety margin. 
 
 In Germany the matter is put in the hands 
 of my technical expert, who proceeds to design 
 the machine on paper. There is no need to 
 experiment when his work is done ; he has esti- 
 mated all the costs, labour, material, plant, and 
 all the rest of it. The German quotation for 
 the work is almost invariably lower than the 
 British, and the quality of the article just as 
 good. 
 
 This capacity for thoroughness, for detail, 
 for harnessing science to technics, has been one 
 of Germany's two main assets in the struggle 
 for industrial development. The other has 
 been the tireless energy of the German worker. 
 It is not that the German loves work, as one 
 sees members of the Anglo-Saxon race love
 
 What is Germany? 129 
 
 it, especially in the newer countries. But the 
 German knows he has to work hard to make 
 both ends meet. In one of his books, Mr. H. 
 Gr. Wells describes a man who had '*a sort of 
 dismal grit. ' ' That is the quality that the Ger- 
 man worker has brought to bear on the task of 
 making Germany a great trading nation. 
 
 Every man who worked with his hands has 
 paid his part of the price of the achievement. 
 Life is made wretched for the poor in Germany 
 by the protective tariff. Bismarck flattered 
 himself that the people would not know how 
 much they were paying in indirect taxation. 
 Even he lived to discover his mistake, but it 
 is of recent years that the burden has been 
 heaviest on the worker. For the preservation 
 of the passing agricultural industry, a heavy 
 duty lies on imported food. Nor are the prod- 
 ucts of the German factories as cheap to Ger- 
 mans as to the outside world. The German 
 manufacturer often has two prices, one for the 
 home market and one for the foreign consumer. 
 He takes advantage of the home protective 
 tariff to squeeze a little more out of his own 
 people, so that he may charge a little less in 
 the open markets of the world. The ingenious 
 process is known as "dumping," and is claimed
 
 130 The Real Kaiser 
 
 by Germans as the invention of a German busi- 
 ness scientist. Probably it is. 
 
 Bear in mind, too, that every one of these 
 Germans has given two of the best years of his 
 life to the war machine. In that period he may 
 have gained the faculty of order and organisa- 
 tion, which has contributed so much to German 
 industrial success. But the individual is con- 
 scious of a great disadvantage when he com- 
 pares himself with the young Briton, who is 
 laying the foundation of a business career at 
 a period when the German is drilling. 
 
 The German is acutely conscious of the dis- 
 advantages with which he has to contend. He 
 feels the incidence of protection, he is alive to 
 the geographical handicap of Germany, he 
 grudges the two years he sacrifices to mili- 
 tarism, and he never ceases to think about these 
 things. It is in this mental harping on his 
 grievance that one finds the cause of the very 
 general feeling, which Prince von Biilow rightly 
 describes as the key to German character. That 
 feeling is envy. 
 
 This envy is noticeable, even above the con- 
 ceit which is another characteristic of the Ger- 
 man mentality. May I say that, bitter as it is, 
 the envy is an intelligible envy; that gross as
 
 What is Germany? 131 
 
 it is in many instances, the conceit is a pardon- 
 able conceit. I am one of the English who can 
 take off my hat to the Gemian people for their 
 amazing performance, in the teeth of adverse 
 fate, and admit that no other nation in the world 
 could have done it. 
 
 My readiness to admit the fact has brought 
 upon me many a discussion that I did not alto- 
 gether enjoy. The very best Germans are not 
 tactful in their choice of subjects for discussion 
 with friendly English, nor in the method chosen 
 f.or enforcing their arguments. The proofs of 
 Germany's success in industrialism are in the 
 bluebooks, and the German statistical books 
 are usually a j^ear ahead of our own with fig- 
 ures, and a generation ahead in accuracy. The 
 German business man has the figures by heart, 
 and reels them off. A shocking comparison is 
 instituted between German and British progress 
 in the race for the world's markets. 
 
 The peroration comes in thunderous German 
 sentences. If the Germans could do so much 
 with a poor country like Geraiany, what might 
 they not have done with Great Britain. With 
 Great Britain, the most Westerly of the nations 
 and of the Old World, and almost the most 
 Easterly of the nations of the New. Great
 
 132 The Real Kaiser 
 
 Britain, the country preserved from invasion 
 by the rampart of the Ocean, with dozens of 
 fine ports for shipping, with wide colonial ter- 
 ritories to pour their raw material into her mar- 
 kets, with shipping ready to hand, and a coaling 
 station at every remote corner of the Seven 
 Seas. 
 
 Envy, conceit, and worse things peep from 
 behind the constant reiteration of the question. 
 
 Sometimes, I allow myself to think what the 
 Germans would really have done with Great 
 Britain. And I shudder.
 
 CHAPTER Xlll 
 
 THE KAISER AND WORLD-POLITICS 
 
 "We are the salt of the earth, and must show ourselves 
 worthy of our great destiny." — The Kaiser. 
 
 On more than one of his visits to England, 
 the Kaiser met the late Mr. Chamberlain, for 
 whom he conceived a great admiration. I have 
 seen one of the Kaiser's Press-cutting slips, on 
 Tv;hich is pasted an extract from Chamberlain's 
 fighting speeches. On the margin is scrawled, 
 in the Kaiser's handwriting, the comment: 
 "Marvellous Joe! He has a warrior soul." 
 
 That warrior soul is perhaps not too far re- 
 moved from our stirring life to take comfort 
 in the fact that one of his chance fighting 
 phrases has become the battle cry of the men 
 of England, struggling for freedom and civilisa- 
 tion. He would surely like to know that when 
 the shrapnel of the German bursts thickest over 
 the trenches, a brave young voice may often 
 be heard crying the old defiant question, ''Are 
 we downhearted?" and provoking a sturdy 
 chorus of British "Noes" that greatly puzzles 
 our French Allies. 
 
 133
 
 134 The Real Kaiser 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain's Colonial tour, and the re- 
 discovery by him of the British Empire, set 
 the Kaiser dreaming, and caused him to revive 
 the almost forgotten scheme for a German Co- 
 lonial Empire. 
 
 For the Kaiser, about this time, was setting 
 himself to the solution of the great German 
 problem, as propounded by the saner of his 
 many professors, such as Dr. Bohrbach. This 
 problem can be propounded in a few words. At 
 the time of the Union, Germany had a popula- 
 tion of 40,000,000, and being then an agricul- 
 tural nation, produced all the food it required. 
 At the end of the century, Germany had be- 
 come an industrial nation, and was still pro- 
 ducing only enough food for 40,000,000 people. 
 In the meantime the population had increased 
 to 55,000,000, and was increasing at the rate of 
 800,000 a year. The population is now (1914) 
 65,000,000, and the annual increase is about 
 1,000,000. ' 
 
 Now Germany must buy food for the odd 20,- 
 000,000 or so, and has nothing to give in ex- 
 change, except the work of Gorman hands. It 
 has had to import raw material, and convert 
 that into manufactured goods, finding foreign 
 markets for sufficient of these manufactures to
 
 The Kaiser and World-Politics 135 
 
 feed the millions for whom the local agricul- 
 turalists cannot grow food. Each year these 
 foreign markets had to be wider and richer for 
 Germany. That is the stark problem, stripped 
 of all consideration of money-getting, as pro- 
 pounded by Dr. Eohrbach. 
 
 Another ingenious professor, I think it was 
 Dr. Fuchs, illustrated the problem by a parable 
 and a diagram which caught the imagination 
 of the Kaiser. For the purpose of this illus- 
 tration, Germany was represented as a build- 
 ing of many stories, the bottom or foundation 
 story being Agriculture. On this foundation 
 the edifice of German prosperity had to be 
 erected. The story representing industry was 
 bigger than the bottom one, jutting out on all 
 sides around it, and supported by precarious- 
 looking props. The problem of Professor 
 Number Two was this: — Suppose some evil- 
 minded person came and kicked away these 
 props, what would become of the whole build- 
 ing? 
 
 Other professors, less gentle than Dr. Eohr- 
 bach, were stating the problem in more violent 
 terms, and were suggesting solutions by no 
 means peaceable. But on the parable of the 
 overhanging story the Kaiser undoubtedly
 
 186 The Real Kaiser 
 
 founded his doctrine of Welt-Politik for the 
 German Empire. He stated it shortly and suc- 
 cinctly in one of his speeches made at the 
 time — 
 
 ''The German Empire has become a world- 
 Empire. Everywhere, in far-away parts of the 
 globe, live thousands of our compatriots. Ger- 
 man goods, German science, German manufac- 
 tures cross the ocean. The value of that which 
 Germany has on the sea amounts to thousands 
 of millions." 
 
 The claim is not an unreasonable one, and 
 the justification of Germany's powerful navy, 
 built to protect her shipping and her wide world 
 interests, is not difficult. But neither navy nor 
 mercantile marine would serve to divert to Ger- 
 many the valuable raw material destined by 
 its growers for other parts of the world. 
 
 A decade before Germany had been colony- 
 mad. The mania for picking up and annexing 
 stray portions of the world had bitten the peo- 
 ple and its rulers, though Bismarck, who ini- 
 tiated the German colonial regime, had not 
 much faith in its value. The Colonies had 
 proved expensive ; they had cost Gennany quite 
 £100,000,000 in all, and Reichstag and people 
 had lost heart and interest in them. 
 
 .iL.
 
 The Kaiser and World-Politics 137 
 
 But Mr. Chamberlain's new colonial policy 
 and the important stand made by our oversea 
 Dominions during the Boer War, had recalled 
 the wandering attention of the Kaiser to the 
 German Colonies. He cast about for a Ger- 
 man Chamberlain, to breathe life into the dead 
 bones of the German Colonial Empire; and he 
 thought he would find him from among the busi- 
 ness men with whom he was in touch. Mr. 
 Chamberlain was a business man, no mere bu- 
 reaucrat or aristocrat, and to the ranks of the 
 business men the Kaiser turned. There he 
 found Herr Dernburg. 
 
 Dernburg, a banker with a strong strain of 
 Jewish blood, gave up business interests worth 
 something like £20,000 a year to answer the Em- 
 peror's call. He threw himself at the task after 
 the fashion of Chamberlain, and by his fiery 
 speeches throughout the country won an elec- 
 tion on the question of revitalizing the Colonies. 
 His colonial regime lasted nearly four years, 
 terminating in failure in 1910. He has left be- 
 hind him some marvellous reports of the pos- 
 sibilities of the German Colonies and the debris 
 of a struggle with German bureaucracy in 
 which he was badly worsted. He stayed long 
 enough to hear his Colonies summed up in the
 
 138 The Real Kaiser 
 
 Reichstag in one scathing sentence: "Those 
 that are fertile are not healthy, and those that 
 are healthy are not fertile. ' ' 
 
 His downfall represented the failure of a 
 very legitimate attempt on the part of the 
 Kaiser to solve the pressing problem repre- 
 sented by the overhanging story in the German 
 edifice. It occurred not a year before the 
 drama arising from the Agadir incident, and 
 the humiliation inflicted upon the Kaiser and 
 his ministers by French and British diplomacy. 
 
 The effect of the two incidents, following in 
 quick succession, upon the mind of the Kaiser 
 will be worthy of the closest examination. The 
 legitimate development of the colonies already 
 in Germany's possession had been baulked, 
 both by the German system of bureaucracy and 
 by Dernburg's failure to accomplish a task, 
 probably beyond the power of living man. 
 The attempt to enforce the doctrine of world- 
 politics had been thwarted by the clumsiness of 
 his ministers, and the unexpected firmness of 
 two of the powers holding a far larger share 
 of that "place in the sun" which he felt was 
 the just due of the German people. 
 
 That God had called the German race to take 
 not only a place in the sun, but the foremost
 
 The Kaiser and World-Politics 139 
 
 place, he never doubted. ''Our German people 
 will be the granite rock on which Almighty God 
 will complete His building of the civilisation of 
 the world," he cried, in one of his speeches. 
 Meantime, the problem of finding markets was 
 becoming more pressing, the supports of the 
 overlapping story seemed already to him to 
 totter. His dream of an all-powerful German 
 Empire was more of a dream than ever. But 
 he continued to enunciate it. 
 
 "I dream of an Empire, and it is this: The 
 newly-born German Empire must possess the 
 confidence of everybody, must be considered 
 everywhere as a quiet, honest and peaceful 
 neighbour; and if some day in the future a 
 German world-empire is spoken of, it must not 
 be based on the conquests of the sword, but on 
 the reciprocal confidence of nations united for 
 an identical end." 
 
 His professors — not those who propound the 
 problems, but those who professed to answer 
 them — had long before decided that such talk 
 was only gefluegelte, the winged words of the 
 Kaiser, empty talk. For years they had been 
 feeding the inherent German envy of other 
 races, and inquiring why Germany should al- 
 ways remain the Cinderella of Europe. They
 
 140 The Real Kaiser 
 
 had been hinting at much simpler ways of cre- 
 ating a German Colonial Empire than trying to 
 transform into paradises the left-off deserts of 
 luckier and less deserving races. 
 
 Now they did not scruple to put their pro- 
 posals into the very plainest of language. * * The 
 time is at hand," writes the learned Dr. Eom- 
 mel of Leipsic, ''when the five poor sons of 
 the German family, allured by the resources and 
 the fertility of France, will easily make an end 
 of the solitary son of the French family. When 
 a growing nation borders on one of lesser den- 
 sity, which, as a result, creates a centre of de- 
 pression, there is -formed a current, known in 
 the vernacular as an invasion, a phenomenon in 
 which law and morals are, for the time being, 
 laid on one side. 
 
 "The land between the Vosges and the Py- 
 renees was not made by the Almighty just in 
 order that 38,000,000 Frenchmen should vege- 
 tate there without growing, when 100,000,000 
 Germans could live and flourish there so well, 
 according to the divine law." 
 
 That is by no means a rare or extreme ex- 
 pression of modern German thought. It is only 
 what has been openly written and said in Ger- 
 many for some years. Sometimes it is put for-
 
 The Kaiser and World-Politics 141 
 
 ward as an interesting theory, and serves to 
 affront an Englishman who is too indifferent 
 to care about the crack-brained theories of crazy- 
 professors. But it is now the main branch of 
 the flourishing tree of Welt-Politik. 
 
 Dr. Rommel's words are directed to France, 
 but we can also claim a share of the attentions 
 of the professors of this school. There is one 
 well-known sentence in Bemhardi's book, on 
 which a whole host of kindred speculations are 
 founded. It reads: — 
 
 ' "In all times the right of conquest by war 
 has been admitted. It may be that a growing 
 people cannot win colonies from uncivilised 
 races, and yet the state wishes to retain the 
 surplus population which the mother-country 
 can no longer feed. Then the only course left 
 is to acquire the necessary territory by war. 
 Thus the instinct of self-preservation leads in- 
 evitably to war, and the conquest of foreign 
 soil. It is not the possessor but the victor who 
 then has the right. The threatened people will 
 see the point of Goethe's lines: 
 
 "That which thoi; did'st mherit from thy sires, 
 In order to possess it must be won." 
 
 I repeat that this is no rare outpouring of
 
 142 The Real Kaiser 
 
 German "culture." It has been served up, less 
 frankly and bluntly perhaps, in every state of 
 the Empire as matter for scientific discussion 
 and popular consumption. Much of it was writ- 
 ten to an address at Potsdam, and the good 
 Dr. Hamann has taken care that it reached 
 its mark in the proper shape, and at the suitable 
 time. 
 
 Who can judge its effect upon the German 
 Emperor? He was fully aware of the pressing 
 need of the envious, overworked people he ruled. 
 He had attempted a legitimate development of 
 the German colonies, and failed. He had tried 
 the effect of his method of preserving peace by 
 threatening with the best army in the world, 
 and the second best navy. Again he had failed 
 to get his way, and a path to the coveted place 
 in the sun. 
 
 It is noteworthy that from a period dating 
 a year after the fall of Herr Dernburg, there 
 was more of Welt-Politik, and less of peace — 
 and more ominous still, less of war — in his 
 speeches than ever before.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE KAISER AS DIPLOMAT 
 
 "Only diplomats consider him a soldier, and only soldiers 
 consider him a diplomat." — Henri de Neusanne. 
 
 Theee was an old hatter in Berlin, who used 
 to tell his intimates that among his customers 
 the largest head was possessed by Bismarck, 
 and the smallest by his royal master, Kaiser 
 William the Great. He never lived to take the 
 measure of a royal head that must surely have 
 exceeded in girth that of the Iron Chancellor 
 himself. 
 
 "He will be his own Reichskanzler, " Bis- 
 marck had said, long before the young William 
 came to the throne. He was to prove the truth 
 of his prophecy in his own person. With the 
 advent of William II, the parting of the ways 
 was at hand for Germany. The "old course,'* 
 so long and successfully pursued by Bismarck, 
 was coming to an end; the "new course," on 
 which Germany was to embark into the perilous 
 waters of World-Politics, was near at hand. 
 
 The dramatic break between veteran Chan- 
 
 143
 
 144 The Real Kaiser 
 
 cellor and novice Kaiser, between master and 
 pupil, nevertheless came as a shock to Europe. 
 The event which led to it was the summoning of 
 an International Socialist Conference to Ber- 
 lin, under the auspices of William himself. 
 This was hotly opposed by the wise old Chan- 
 cellor, and rightly, as events were to prove. 
 The difference of opinion led to a terrible scene 
 between Kaiser and Chancellor, in which Bis- 
 marck proffered his verbal resignation. 
 
 When Bismarck left the Kaiser, William at 
 once sent an aide-de-camp after him, with in- 
 structions to demand the resignation in writ- 
 ing. The answer -came that the Kaiser would 
 receive it on the following day. William's in- 
 struction was that the aide-de-camp should not 
 leave until he had received the desired docu- 
 ment. Thus, with every show of ignominy, was 
 terminated the career of the real founder of the 
 German Empire. 
 
 The principles of the old diplomacy are too 
 well known to need enunciation here. Bismarck 
 cut off any Power signalled out for attack from 
 relations with other powers, likely to prove 
 friendly in the hour of need. Then, and only 
 when the isolation was complete, the fatal blow
 
 The Kaiser as Diplomat 145 
 
 was struck, with the sudden fury to which the 
 German army has ever been trained. 
 
 The appointment of Caprivi to fill the place 
 of the deposed giant confirmed Bismarck's 
 prophecy to the full. Caprivi was a simple sol- 
 dier, with no training in the diplomatic schools 
 of Europe. It was obvious to the whole world 
 that the Kaiser intended to be his own Chan- 
 cellor. The true history of those days has been 
 told, but never yet issued to the world. Bis- 
 marck's own account of all that passed lies 
 in the Bank of England, ready for publication, 
 when all who are mentioned in its pages shall 
 have passed away. 
 
 The new course began with alarums and ex- 
 cursions, alternate promises of abiding peace 
 and threats of instant war. For some years 
 the Chancelleries of Europe marked each word 
 of the new Kaiser with apprehension, but grad- 
 ually, by continually talking on every conceiva- 
 ble subject under the sun, William dissipated 
 the general apprehension. 
 
 Hohenlohe succeeded Caprivi, and the court- 
 ier diplomat was no less a figure-head than 
 the soldier who preceded him. Hohenlohe was 
 followed by von Buelow, who alone of the
 
 146 The Real Kaiser 
 
 Kaiser's Chancellors is worthy to be mentioned 
 in the same breath as Bismarck. Any one who 
 wishes to understand the aims and aspirations 
 of modern Germany can find no better or fairer- 
 minded presentation of them than in his book 
 Imperial Germany * an excellent translation of 
 which can be procured. 
 
 From that book, written from the German 
 point of view, may be gathered an accurate idea 
 of the reasons which prompted German policy 
 at the end of the nineteenth century. 
 
 The murder of three German missionaries in 
 China afforded an opportunity for interference 
 in the affairs of the Far East, so that Germany 
 was able to demand a lease of Kiao-Chau, at 
 the end of the war between China and Japan, 
 and to prevent Japan from obtaining a settle- 
 ment of that dispute as advantageous as would 
 otherwise have been the case. The fruits of 
 that policy Germany is gathering to-day. 
 
 It is much more difficult to follow the diplo- 
 macy of the Kaiser where it more nearly con- 
 cerns our own country. It is the fashion of 
 the moment to attribute to him a desire to fol- 
 low the cynical precepts of his old teacher Bis- 
 marck, and to set down his every act to delib- 
 erate and mischievous design. His telegram 
 
 * Published by Dodd, Mead & C!o.
 
 The Kaiser as Diplomat 147 
 
 to Kruger, after the Jameson raid, is a case in 
 point. That telegram, dated January 3, 1896, 
 was couched as follows: 
 
 **I express to you my since rest congratula- 
 tions that you and your people have succeeded 
 by your own energ\'', without appealing to the 
 aid of friendly powers, in defeating the armed 
 forces which, as disturbers of the peace, in- 
 vaded your country, in re-establishing order, 
 and in protecting the independence of the coun- 
 try against attack from without." 
 
 ' How far that message was dictated by im- 
 pulse, and how far by a deliberate design to 
 embroil this country with other nations of Eu- 
 rope, can only be settled when heads are cooler 
 and enmity has subsided. It certainly stated 
 only what the rest of Europe was thinking. 
 The Kaiser has made his own defence to the 
 imputation of hostile intent, as shall presently 
 be seen. 
 
 The deepest import is also attached to his 
 undertaking given to Eussia on the eve of the 
 Kusso-Japanese war. It is argued that by 
 promising that no attack should be made by 
 Geraiany on Eussia while that country was en- 
 gaged in the struggle with her opponent in the 
 Far East, he egged on the Czar to a humiliation
 
 148 The Real Kaiser 
 
 which he knew was in store for him. This the 
 Kaiser has categorically denied. On the mar- 
 gin of a press cutting attributing to him these 
 designs, he wrote: "This is a lie. God keep 
 me from ever meddling in the international af- 
 fairs of foreign countries." 
 
 It has to be remembered that the Kaiser has 
 consistently expressed himself as hostile to the 
 yellow races, and has pronounced his opinion 
 that from the Far East is to come the greatest 
 danger to civilisation. His policy, as far as it 
 can be traced, has been consistently opposed to 
 the power of Japan. 
 
 On the other hand, to attribute to him a fore- 
 sight so keen as to grasp the coming humilia- 
 tion of Eussia at the hands of Japan, is to 
 grant him a wisdom and power of prediction 
 that was not shared at the time by many, even 
 among those in high places. In other matters 
 he has not shown the same ability to foresee 
 the trend of events. 
 
 His interference in the Morocco question had 
 results that reached even farther. That in- 
 terference was based on the German Moroccan 
 Commercial treaty of 1890, and on the treaty 
 of Madrid, which assigned to the Powers a joint 
 right of protection over Morocco. Germany's
 
 The Kaiser as Diplomat 149 
 
 action was caused by an arrangement between 
 France and Great Britain, made in 1904, 
 whereby France acknowledged our Authority 
 in Egypt, while we recognised French policy in 
 regard to Morocco. 
 
 In 1905 the Kaiser landed at Tangier, and 
 took the Sultan of Morocco under German pro- 
 tection. If M. Delcasse, the French Minister 
 for Foreign Affairs, had been given his way, 
 war would have followed. In the event, the 
 resignation of Delcasse was forced, and the 
 affairs of Morocco were referred for settlement 
 to the conference of Algeciras. There, with 
 the support of Austria, Germany succeeded in 
 limiting the influence of France in Morocco. 
 The Austrian effort was acknowledged in one 
 of the Kaiser's famous telegrams, in which he 
 praised the "brilliant second" Austria had 
 played, and promised to repay the good turn. 
 Later he was to redeem the promise by stand- 
 ing by ''in shining armour," while Austria ap- 
 propriated the Servian provinces of Bosnia- 
 Herzegovina. 
 
 The German intervention in Morocco was 
 based on wider considerations than German 
 commercial interests in that country. It had 
 its ground on the great welding force of Mo-
 
 150 The Real Kaiser 
 
 hammedanism, a faith professed by 300,000,000 
 human beings, all possessed with common in- 
 terests. In all Mohammedan countries that 
 were accessible, the German influence was at 
 work, and especially in Turkey, where German 
 policy and German money had obtained a no- 
 table concession, the right to build a railway 
 across Asia Minor, and so to open a short pas- 
 sage from Europe to Southern Asia. 
 
 These were exploits in the world of diplo- 
 macy on which the Kaiser and his Chancellor 
 justly prided themselves. But they had the ef- 
 fect of creating what Bismarck had always suc- 
 ceeded in avoiding, a combination of great and 
 unfriendly powers. By this time a community 
 of interests and a growing sentiment had united 
 France and Great Britain by an understand- 
 ing, the terms of w^hich could be modified to 
 suit circumstances which might arise. France 
 was allied by a definite treaty with Russia, so 
 that Gemiany was confronted with a formidable 
 array of three great Powers joined by an en- 
 tente, the very nature of which the Kaiser was 
 unable to fathom. 
 
 To dissipate the friendly understanding be- 
 tween France and Great Britain was now the 
 aim of his diplomacy, and to that end was de-
 
 The Kaiser as Diplomat 151 
 
 signed the famous interview that appeared in 
 the Daily Telegraph of London. In that in- 
 terview he claimed that he was the chief friend 
 of Great Britain, in a country that was hostile, 
 and was made more hostile by British suspi- 
 cions. He advanced as proof the fact that he 
 alone had prevented a combination of the Eu- 
 ropean Powers to intervene during the Boer 
 war, and so to save the Republics and humiliate 
 England. ''When the struggle was at its 
 height," he said, ''the Governments of France 
 and Russia invited me to join with them to call 
 upon England to put an end to the war. The 
 moment had come to humiliate England to the 
 dust. Posterity will one day read the exact 
 terms of the telegram — now in the archives of 
 Windsor Castle — in which I informed the Sov- 
 ereign of England of the answer I had returned 
 to the Powers which then sought to compass 
 her fall. Englishmen who now insult me by 
 doubting my word should know what were my 
 actions in the hour of their adversity. ' ' 
 
 Later, he declared, he had saved a strained 
 situation by his correct attitude to the Boer 
 delegates to Europe. 
 
 "The Boer delegates were feted in Holland; 
 France gave them a rapturous welcome. They
 
 152 The Real Kaiser 
 
 wished to come to Berlin, where the German 
 people would have crowned them with flowers. 
 But when they asked me to receive them — I 
 refused. The delegates went away empty- 
 handed. ' ' 
 
 His conduct, he averred, had earned him a 
 lasting unpopularity in Germany. 
 
 ' ' The prevailing sentiment among a large sec- 
 tion of the middle and lower classes of my 
 own people is not friendly to England. I am, 
 therefore, so to speak, in a minority in my own 
 land." 
 
 There is no more evidence to-day than there 
 was at the time to cast against these statements 
 of the Kaiser. No denial has ever been made 
 of the existence of the telegram at Windsor 
 Castle, and the truth of the remainder of his 
 contentions could not be disputed. But the 
 publication of the interview caused an upheaval 
 of German opinion. 
 
 The feeling was intensified by the statements 
 about another interview, given to Dr. Hale for 
 publication in the pages of the Century Maga- 
 zine of New York. This interview is alleged 
 to have been even a stronger bid for American 
 friendship. The interview was suppressed, for 
 no other consideration, it is stated, than the
 
 The Kaiser as Diplomat 153 
 
 feeling of the editor of the magazine that its 
 publication would have been harmful to the 
 Kaiser himself. Other statements were made, 
 in which a large sum of money was mentioned. 
 An unsavoury atmosphere surrounds the whole 
 transaction, for any blameworthy share in 
 which Dr. Hale can be fully acquitted, as can 
 the proprietor of the magazine in question. 
 
 But the American interview certainly coun- 
 teracted any good effect which the Kaiser might 
 have produced in England by his statement to 
 the Daily Telegraph, while complicating his po- 
 sition still further with his own people. 
 
 Feeling against him was intense throughout 
 the length and breadth of Germany. It found 
 its expression ultimately in the action of his 
 Chancellor, von Buelow. He extracted a 
 pledge from the Kaiser of '* greater reserve" 
 in National affairs, and thereby sealed his own 
 doom. In the words of Mr. F. W. Wile {Men 
 around the Kaiser), "The Imperial Gazette 
 proclaimed that the Kaiser had assured the 
 man with the muzzle of his 'continued confi- 
 dence,' but Buelow actually lay in extremis 
 from the moment he quit his chastened sover- 
 eign's presence." 
 
 The actual dismissal was delayed for six
 
 154 The Beat Kaiser 
 
 months, but in the middle of 1909 Bethmann- 
 HoUweg succeeded von Buelow. The fall of 
 Buelow paved the way to Agadir. With the 
 warning words uttered by Mr. Lloyd George 
 still fresh in the memory of all, it is not neces- 
 sary to detail the humiliation then inflicted by 
 France and Great Britain upon the Kaiser and 
 his Chancellor and Foreign Minister. 
 
 It gave the war party in Germany a firm 
 grip upon their Emperor, but did not serve as 
 a lesson to the blunderers in whose hands Ger- 
 man diplomacy was confided. As we shall see, 
 an appeal to force was now inevitable, as far 
 as Germany could effect that end. 
 
 Even at this late stage in the game a Bis- 
 marck might have saved Germany from such 
 an array of strength as she was finally called 
 upon to face. A Bismarck would certainly 
 have ensured a divided British Empire in war, 
 instead of the great unity that has been created 
 by German' disregard for the value of ''a scrap 
 of paper." 
 
 This was the crowning failure to the Kaiser's 
 career as a diplomatist, and points more elo- 
 quently to the conclusion that all his acts in 
 that capacity have been swayed by impulse, 
 and belief in the efficacy of a theatrical show
 
 The Kaiser as Diplomat 155 
 
 of force. For, if we judge him by his utter- 
 ances extending over a quarter of a century, 
 he has always believed that he could preserve 
 the peace of Europe by making an overwhelm- 
 ing display of force.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 THE KAISER AND PEACE 
 
 "I struggle all the time to preserve peace." 
 
 Into the Roman Senate there once strode a 
 foreign envoy holding aloft the hem of his robe. 
 **I bring you here," he cried. ''Peace or war. 
 Choose which you will." 
 
 Throughout the long reign of the Kaiser, 
 Fate has always stood before him, urging upon 
 him the fateful choice. Not once, but a dozen 
 times in the course of a quarter of a century, 
 has the traditional policy of Prussia brought 
 the Kaiser face to face with the stern decision. 
 He completed the twenty-fifth year of his reign 
 amid a chorus of congratulations from the 
 world's Press on the fact that he had invaria- 
 bly chosenr the shining white gift of Peace. 
 This outstanding fact should always be borne 
 in mind by those who wish to form an estimate 
 of the life struggle of the real Kaiser. 
 
 He came to the Imperial throne with exalted 
 words of peace in his mouth. ''The eyes of 
 the whole world are lifted questioningly to- 
 
 156
 
 The Kaiser and Peace 157 
 
 ward us," lie proclaimed. ''They sue for 
 peace. Only in peace can the world's trade be 
 developed, in peace only can it prosper. We 
 desire to maintain that peace, and will do so." 
 
 In the sincerity of that promise, all his in- 
 timates believed. Count von Munster, who was 
 German Ambassador at Paris, made a very 
 forcible declaration of his belief to de Frey- 
 cinet, who records it in his memoirs, ''I know 
 William," said von Munster; "I played with 
 him as a child, and I never miss seeing him when 
 I am in Berlin. His sentiments are deeply re- 
 ligious. He will never be the first to make 
 war. ' ' 
 
 Indeed, peace was a thing more eminently to 
 be desired by Germany than by any other coun- 
 try, when the Kaiser came to the throne. The 
 serious men of the age were those who had 
 fought in a succession of wars. They were 
 glorious and profitable wars, but they had dis- 
 located the whole commercial life of Germany, 
 and the country was still in the stage of re- 
 covery. The whole feeling of the masses was 
 firmly behind the Kaiser every time he ex- 
 tolled the virtues of peace. He was keen 
 enough as a business man, and sjTupathetic 
 enough as a monarch, to appreciate this.
 
 158 The Real Kaiser 
 
 After twenty-five years as Deutscher Kaiser, 
 lie still adhered to Ms initial proposition. In 
 a speech reviewing the marvellous transforma- 
 tion wrought in the Empire during that period, 
 he concluded : ' ' That this has happened under 
 the fertilizing rays of the sun of peace, the 
 strength of which has victoriously dispelled ev- 
 ery cloud appearing on the horizon, makes me 
 particularly happy." 
 
 A hundred hardheaded men who had been 
 in close contact with him were firmly convinced 
 of the sincerity of these, and many kindred ut- 
 terances. Fried, the winner of a Nobel peace 
 prize, Carnegie, Lipton, and other British wit- 
 nesses, have testified to this. More convincing 
 is the evidence of the little group of Jewish 
 capitalists in Germany, such as Ballin, who en- 
 joyed the intimacy and confidence of the Kaiser. 
 The growth of the Hamburg- Amerika line, and 
 the recent movements of its vessels, are testi- 
 mony that Ballin to the very last had refused to 
 believe in an imminent war with Britain; and 
 he stands to-day, practically a ruined man, 
 with his life work crumbling at his feet, be- 
 cause of the fulness of that belief. 
 
 It may be asked how such levelheaded men 
 could adhere to that opinion in the face of the
 
 The Kaiser and Peace 159 
 
 wildly provocative acts, and the intensely war- 
 like speeches, for which the Kaiser has also 
 been responsible, at very close intervals, 
 throughout his reign. An explanation will be 
 found in the words of William himself, tagged 
 on to a speech in which he had eloquently pro- 
 claimed the glories of peace, and had announced 
 his ambition to live through history by the 
 proud title of Wilhelm der Friedreiche: — Wil- 
 liam the Peaceful. 
 
 ' ' If our enemies knew that, ■ ' he added, ' ' they 
 would think Germany was weak, and would at- 
 tack us. Therefore our army must remain 
 strong, and appear threatening, and thanks to 
 our army and the fear it imposes, Germany will 
 win the commercial and industrial supremacy 
 which is the goal of my life. ' ' 
 
 An illuminating incident is that of the ser- 
 mon of Pastor Hammelreuth, a good man whose 
 flock dwelt in a small Westphalian town. The 
 Kaiser paid a surprise visit to the church one 
 Sunday morning, just as service was beginning, 
 and strode to a prominent seat in the church. 
 A few days before, he had delivered himself 
 of one of his most inflammatory martial 
 speeches. 
 
 The pastor was a brave man. He abandoned
 
 160 The Real Kaiser 
 
 the sermon lie had prepared, and substituted an 
 impromptu on the horrors of war. He con- 
 cluded with the flat statement that the man who 
 caused a European war would have an awful 
 responsibility to bear, both now and hereafter. 
 William heard it through with stern, set face, 
 and at the conclusion sent for the bold preacher. 
 '*A very good discourse," he said, "and every 
 word of it true." 
 
 The Kaiser's argument, that to maintain an 
 advantageous peace it is necessary to be pre- 
 pared to wage a successful war, is not peculiar 
 to Germany. We have heard it advanced in this 
 country, almost to the verge of weariness. In 
 recent days we have heard that the country's 
 timely attention to these warning voices would 
 have saved the world from the horrors of a 
 great European war. And we have been told, 
 in the same breath, that, if we had refrained 
 from declaring war on Germany when we did, 
 we should but have postponed the evil day. 
 
 The contradictions of our own militarists may 
 at least serve to illustrate and emphasise the 
 difficulties of the Kaiser's position as main- 
 tainer of the world's peace by force of arms. 
 
 It must further be pointed out that a warlike 
 policy is traditional with Germany. All the
 
 The Kaiser and Peace 161 
 
 Empire has ever got has been gained by force 
 of arms. Unity, increased territory, and the 
 capital for commercial expansion were all 
 gained at the point of the sword. It was only 
 to a generation of tired and sated warriors that 
 William the Peaceful could expound his doc- 
 trine of an armed peace. When a new genera- 
 tion had grown up, the Kaiser's difficulties as 
 peace advocate were intensified. 
 
 That the leader of the new generation should 
 be his own son and heir was only in accordance 
 with the traditions of the Hohenzollerns. The 
 Kaiser had attained his youthful popularity by 
 bitterly opposing his own father, the generous 
 Friedrich. He renounced his claim to British 
 consideration as partly an Englishman by his 
 treatment of his own mother, an English prin- 
 cess. As a son he had sowed the wind, for the 
 reward of popularity with his people ; as a lov- 
 ing father he reaped the whirlwind. 
 
 The party behind the warlike Crown Prince 
 not only consisted of the young hotbloods of the 
 Germany army. He had the solid backing of 
 the Conservative party, the landowners of 
 Prussia. Poor always, and growing poorer in 
 spite of the tariff designed to benefit their agri- 
 culture at the expense of the industrial com-
 
 162 The Real Kaiser 
 
 munity, they rebelled at the Kaiser's intimacy 
 with the money magnates and industrial chiefs. 
 Their pride of birth, their pride in arms, and 
 their inherited traditions were revolted by the 
 spectacle. Every peace declaration the Kaiser 
 had made nauseated them. War was more than 
 a profession to these people, it was a religion. 
 
 The Crown Prince had behind him as well the 
 sympathy, perhaps the unconscious sympathy, 
 of the masses. We are told that we are not now 
 making war on the German people, but on the 
 war caste, of which the Kaiser and his sons are 
 the emblem. I deny this. 
 
 I have been accustomed to go into German 
 houses in many provincial centres, where I am 
 received as a friend and even as a connexion, 
 though by marriage only. In more than one 
 of these houses it was the custom of the young 
 men to rise and leave the room when I entered. 
 Bright, pleasant young fellows, whom I knew as 
 simple manly boys, would not stay in the same 
 room as the enemy of their country. They 
 would not assume a friendship they did not feel. 
 These were not young aristocrats, shackled with 
 the pride of birth and the traditions of Junker- 
 dom. They were just young fellows of the
 
 The Kaiser and Peace 163 
 
 middle class, prejudiced by militarism and the 
 poison of a hideous philosophy. 
 
 None who has not lived much in Germany dur- 
 ing very recent years can believe how wide- 
 spread is this poison of violence and aggression. 
 It peeps out in the columns of the daily papers, 
 it is for ever in the mouths of teachers and 
 speakers. In the friendly houses I have men- 
 tioned I became accustomed, when a few friends 
 had met, to see some elderly gentleman rise, 
 apropos of nothing at all, and deliver a speech 
 lasting twenty minutes. The subject was al- 
 ways the same, the deprivation of Germany's 
 just rights. The indolence and greed of my 
 o^\Ti country, the unfruitfulness of France, and 
 the ability and culture of Germany were dilated 
 upon in turn. 
 
 All this feeling found expression after the 
 dramatic meeting of the Eeichstag which fol- 
 lowed the Morocco settlement in 1911. At that 
 meeting Dr. von Heydebrand, the leader of the 
 Conservative party, and the most powerful man 
 in that assembly, rose and delivered an unparal- 
 leled invective against the Government for its 
 craven peacefulness. In the Royal box sat the 
 Crown Prince, wearing his uniform as Colonel
 
 164 The Real Kaiser 
 
 of the Death's Head Hussars. With shining 
 eyes and parted lips he leaned forward, devour- 
 ing every word of the scathing indictment. 
 When this call to arms concluded, the heir to the 
 throne ostentatiously clapped his hands, lead- 
 ing a volley of applause in which members of all 
 parties joined. 
 
 Germany had been submitted to a bitter 
 humiliation, and the real Germany was peeping 
 out from under the covering of theory and cul- 
 ture which had hidden it from the world. For 
 that humiliation Germany blamed the Kaiser 
 alone. ''The Emperor kept the peace alone," 
 wrote Professor Delbrueck, adding that during 
 the Boer War he was the only friend that Eng- 
 land had in Europe. The old cry of ''English- 
 man" was revived against him. It was the 
 worst thing Young Germany could devise to 
 cast against him. 
 
 The Kaiser awoke next day to find himself and 
 his ministers derided and scorned. For what? 
 For having kept the peace of Europe. For hav- 
 ing submitted Germany to a humiliation. For 
 having admitted that the bluff of the best army 
 and the second best navy in the world is of no 
 avail for a nation which does not really mean 
 war, when confronted by courageous and reso-
 
 The Kaiser and Peace 165 
 
 lute opponents. In that hour died William the 
 Peaceful. 
 
 He made the change apparent to the whole 
 Court. His demeanour proclaimed, not the 
 profound humiliation he had experienced at the 
 hands of his son, but a new resolution. The 
 whisper went round that "Majesty was acting 
 again." His joviality of demeanour was laid 
 aside, even among intimates. His appearances 
 in public were no less frequent, and the most 
 casual observer could notice the change in him. 
 He became the smileless Emperor, the man who 
 was mastered by a stern resolve. 
 
 Those who knew him best, knew that the die 
 was cast. Fate had dropped the suspended fold 
 of her garment, and the black gift of War was 
 about to roll out. Germany began to prepare 
 in grim earnest to convert her show of might 
 to actual readiness for conflict. With what 
 stealth and ferocity the preparation was made 
 the history of the first weeks of the war will 
 partly testify. Much of the story of that hid- 
 den readiness for the great Sin has yet to be 
 revealed. 
 
 But the lifelong struggle of the Kaiser was 
 over. ''I struggle all my life for peace," he 
 had said. The trained warrior King may have
 
 166 The Real Kaiser 
 
 felt a relief when tlie struggle was over, when 
 he could take the place usurped by his son and 
 heir, as leader of a nation under arms and con- 
 vinced by a false logic of the righteousness of 
 aggression. 
 
 That part of Europe which he had convinced 
 of his peacefulness continued in its belief. It 
 was his reward, if it can be called a reward, for 
 the struggle he had made against the conviction 
 of his people. "On him for two decades has 
 the peace of Europe depended, and the peace of 
 Europe has been kept," wrote the Times on the 
 occasion of his last visit to this country. That 
 fact is apt to be overlooked in the welter of tor- 
 ment that has changed the face of the world. 
 
 But history will record that he struggled to 
 preserve peace. History will also decide that 
 he might have struggled harder. 
 
 His infamy will be the greater, since he alone 
 of all the warlike band understood the full mean- 
 ing of the step that was to be taken. His quick 
 understanding and many-sided character en- 
 abled him to see that Germany was about to ad- 
 minister to humanity the greatest shock it had 
 ever received since the crucifixion of the Re- 
 deemer. The militarist fanatics who plotted 
 with him, misled by their perverted logic, saw
 
 The Kaiser and Peace 167 
 
 nothing monstrous in their deliberate scheme for 
 shocking the world into acquiescence. 
 
 Only William the Peaceful could estimate the 
 effect of these burnings and tortures of women 
 and children, this arranged programme of 
 bestial inhuman violence. He knew how the 
 Germans would make war when they got the 
 chance ; he had experienced the elemental brute 
 that dominated his people. When the Imperial 
 family drove into Berlin after war had been 
 declared, through the joking, cheering crowds, 
 the Crown Prince was all gay laughter, and his 
 consort smiled and waved her hands to the war- 
 mad throng. But the Kaiser preserved the 
 masklike face he had been wearing ever since 
 the rein had been given to the Fury in his soul. 
 Stern and grim he was, for he could gauge the 
 future. Yes, he knew; the Kaiser knew!
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE KAISER AND HIS HEIR 
 
 "The picture of reality appears to stand out in bolder, 
 firmer, and more natural outlines to the eyes of the son 
 than it does in many a speech of the Kaiserly father." — 
 Dr. Paul Liman, 1914. 
 
 The fateful crisis of 1908 deposed the Kaiser 
 from the hopes of militant Germany for ever. 
 Whatever suspicions may have been cherished 
 in this country and in other foreign lands, 
 Junkerdom decided finally that the peaceful ut- 
 terances of the Kaiser were to be taken at their 
 face value, and that it must look elsewhere for a 
 leader for its scheme of armed aggression. 
 
 It was not necessary to look far, for the- in- 
 strument was ready to hand in the heir to the 
 throne. Frederick William, up to the time of 
 his marriage, had been regarded as a young 
 man who allowed himself to be treated as a boy, 
 a mere puppet in the hands of a masterful 
 father. His secret courtship of Cecilie, Duch- 
 ess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, touched the 
 spring of sentiment in the hearts of the GeiTQan 
 
 168
 
 The Kaiser and His Heir 169 
 
 people. Her substantial dowry of £1,000,000 
 placed him for the first time in a position of in- 
 dependence, for until then his income was de- 
 rived directly from the Kaiser, and was only 
 paid subject to his father's good will. 
 
 His wedding took place in 1905. In 1907 he 
 performed a public service to Germany by 
 bringing to the notice of the Kaiser the charges 
 levelled against a group of officers who were in 
 intimate relations with the Emperor. The 
 Kaiser at that time was the only man in the 
 Empire who did not know what was being writ- 
 ten by Harden in his paper Zukunft against 
 Prince Eulenberg, his personal friend, General 
 Kuno von Moltke, his aide-de-camp, and others 
 who were allied to them. The cutting bureau 
 had been keeping the charges back from the 
 Kaiser. It was the Crown Prince who took his 
 courage in his hand, and brought the whole mat- 
 ter before the Kaiser. He was thus the direct 
 instrument in ending a scandal which was hor- 
 rifying even the most cynical Germans. 
 
 About the end of 1908, little paragraphs be- 
 gan to appear in the German papers, tending to 
 show what a charming young man this Crown 
 Prince really was. He was most kind-hearted ; 
 stopped his motor car to give a weary labourer a
 
 170 The Ileal Kaiser 
 
 lift to his home. He was passionately fond of 
 children, and would always stop in the street to 
 pet and admire the little ones. He gave a pretty 
 flower girl twenty marks for a bunch of violets ; 
 he showed in many ways that he had a heart of 
 gold. All little stories designed to tickle the 
 surface sentiment of the masses. 
 
 It also appeared from the Press that he was 
 a broad-minded young man, who did not share 
 his father's prejudice against the proletariat. 
 He attended and applauded Hauptmann's play, 
 which the Kaiser had banned on account of its 
 Socialistic tendency. He chatted with an old 
 cobbler who was a pronounced Social Democrat, 
 and told him that * ' Social Democrats would one 
 day be received at Potsdam." 
 
 All this was gall and wormwood to the Kaiser. 
 The Crown Prince found it advisable to make a 
 shooting trip in India, but his reputation re- 
 mained behind in Germany. He returned to 
 greater popularity than ever, and became more 
 immersed than ever in the affairs of the Em- 
 pire. In April, 1911, he interfered in the recon- 
 ciliation with the Duke of Cumberland, brought 
 about by the betrothal of Princess Victoria 
 Louise to the Duke of Brunswick. He wrote a 
 letter to the Chancellor, insisting that the recon-
 
 The Kaiser and His Heir 171 
 
 ciliation should only take place on condition that 
 the Duke publicly renounced his claim to the 
 throne of Hanover. 
 
 This letter was published in the German 
 press, and a dispute followed; one section of 
 the Press openly espousing the cause of young 
 Hotspur. He was sent away from Berlin to act 
 as Colonel of the Death's Head Hussars, then 
 quartered at Dantzic. But he had made another 
 daring and successful appeal to the patriotism 
 of the German masses. 
 
 He left Dantzic, without permission, to play 
 his dramatic part in the Agadir debate in the 
 Reichstag. For this he was openly applauded 
 by the Chauvinist Press ; for his plan was now 
 sufficiently apparent. 
 
 The Cro^vn Prince henceforth becomes a 
 prime factor in German affairs. He returned 
 to Dantzic with his purpose half accomplished. 
 
 He was recalled to Berlin at the end of 1913, 
 and took leave of his Hussars in a letter that 
 was read at roll-call. His purpose rings clearly 
 in every sentence of it. 
 
 ' ' HussAEs or MY Regiment, — 
 
 ''For more than two years I have worn the 
 same coat and faithfully followed the same
 
 172 The Real Kaiser 
 
 standard as you. His Majesty the Emperor 
 and King has assigned to me a fresh field of 
 military work, and I must obey. It is cursedly 
 difficult for me, and my heart is breaking at the 
 thought that I shall no longer ride through life 
 at your head. You will all feel that, I am sure. 
 
 "The two happiest years of my life I have 
 spent in your ranks; to-day I carry my youth 
 to the grave. True, they can separate me from 
 you, but my heart and my spirit remain with 
 you. If some day the King calls, and the signal 
 March! March! is blown, then think of him 
 whose most yearning wish it always was to ex- 
 perience at your 'side this moment of highest 
 soldierly happiness. 
 
 "But the firm and deep bond that indissolu- 
 bly unites you, my children of the regiment, 
 with me will only be rent asunder, when for me, 
 too, the hour has struck for the march to the 
 great army above. My dearly loved regiment, 
 Hurrah ! ' ' 
 
 Almost in the same hour there was taking 
 place in Alsace that serious breach of the consti- 
 tution which is known for convenience as the 
 Zabern incident. While Colonel von Renter 
 was pursuing his wild course of aggression, he
 
 The Kaiser and His Heir 173 
 
 received a telegram from the Crown Prince. It 
 was brief but explicit: "Go ahead, and stick 
 to it." And when the incident had reached its 
 climax, the Crown Prince employed the wires 
 once more with the brief message, ''Bravo." 
 
 From the time of the Agadir debate the 
 Kaiser ceased in his speeches and proclama- 
 tions to refer to his task of preserving the 
 peace of Europe. Only one exception was 
 made, and that was the proclamation issued on 
 the twenty-fifth anniversary of his accession, 
 when the whole press of the world was comment- 
 ing favourably on the fact that in his reign of a 
 quarter of a century he had carried out his vow 
 to keep the peace. 
 
 Late in 1913 he paid a fateful visit to the Em- 
 peror of Austria and the Archduke Ferdinand 
 at Schoenbrunn. This visit was immediately 
 preceded by the most sinister rumours in the 
 German and Austrian Press. The St. Peters- 
 burg correspondent of the Kolnisclie Zeitung 
 openly accused Russia of arming for war; the 
 rumour was confirmed by the organ of the Aus- 
 trian War Minister, the MilitariscJie Rund- 
 schau. The Kaiser's visit to Schoenbrunn had 
 been planned as a secret; he was to have gone 
 incognito ; but the plan leaked out in the Press.
 
 174 The Real Kaiser 
 
 Only the scantiest account of tlie visit was ever 
 published. 
 
 In the meantime the Crown Prince was pur- 
 suing his purposeful propaganda. He wrote a 
 preface to a pamphlet of a wildly warlike na- 
 ture, entitled Germany under Arms. From the 
 preface the following passage may be taken as a 
 sample of the whole. 
 
 ' ' Our Fatherland, more than other countries, 
 is forced to rely upon its trusty weapons. Ill 
 defended by unfavourable geographical fron- 
 tiers, and situated in the centre of Europe, it is 
 not regarded with love by all nations. It is the 
 holy duty of Germany, above all other peoples 
 of our old earth, to maintain an Army and a 
 Fleet ever at the highest point of readiness. 
 Only then, supported by our own good sword, 
 can we preserve the place in the sun which is our 
 due, but is not willingly granted us." 
 
 Nothing could be more eloquent of the success 
 with which he had stolen the Kaiser's tliunder. 
 The achievement was celebrated by the publica- 
 tion of a biography by Dr. Paul Liman, which is 
 one of the most popular books in Berlin to-day. 
 The writer openly compares him with the Em- 
 peror, to the latter 's disadvantage. 
 
 "And indeed the straightforward and clear
 
 The Kaiser and His Heir 175 
 
 character of the son appears to be free from all 
 leaning towards that unfortunate mysticism 
 which, in the November days of 1908, nearly led 
 to a Jena for the monarchical idea. . . . The 
 German who loves his people, who believes in 
 the greatness and future of the Homeland, and 
 will not have its authority lowered, must not 
 shut his eyes in such dreams, must not let him- 
 self be lulled to sleep by the Peace Song of the 
 Utopians." 
 
 • In April, 1914, occurred the fiftieth anniver- 
 sary of the fall of Dueppel, which was the turn- 
 ing point in the war of aggression waged by 
 Germany and Austria against little Denmark. 
 Nobody in Germany remembered the date, or 
 attached any particular significance to it, until 
 the appearance of a Cabinet Order from the 
 Kaiser to the Army on the subject of "the 
 struggle for Germany's Northern marches." 
 
 The order concluded : — 
 
 "To-day it is the need of my heart to offer 
 my thanks to all those who fifty years ago staked 
 their lives for Prussia's greatness and honour. 
 The deeds of the fathers live in the memory of 
 their sons and grandsons. I know that these 
 sons, in loyal devotion to me, and to the Father- 
 land, will do likewise if ever an enemy's hand
 
 176 The Real Kaiser 
 
 assails what was won by such precious sacri- 
 fice." 
 
 Events were now moving quickly. Germany 
 and Austria were provisioning for war, as re- 
 ports from America and Canada have made 
 abundantly clear. In June, 1914, the Kaiser, 
 accompanied by Admiral von Tirpitz, the Min- 
 ister of the Navy, paid yet another visit to the 
 Austrian Crown Prince, and at Konopitz the 
 final details of the great plot were finally set- 
 tled. History records how that plot was shat- 
 tered, and how its execution was precipitated 
 on a fresh pretext by the crime of Sarajevo. 
 
 While the father was at Konopitz the son was 
 not idle. A chance account of his activities is 
 preserved in a message from the Brussels cor- 
 respondent of the Daily Telegraph, published in 
 the issue of that paper for June 10, 1914. At 
 the time the people of this country were lapped 
 in security, ,and the message, published as a 
 curious circumstance and without any com- 
 ment, attracted little attention. Nor has any 
 reference been made to it since, and as it ap- 
 pears to have escaped attention in the pressure 
 of the present, no excuse need be made for re- 
 producing it in full.
 
 The Kaiser and His Heir 177 
 
 GERMAN CROWN PRINCE 
 
 CURIOUS MOTOR TOUR 
 
 From our own Correspondent 
 
 Brussels, Tuesday. 
 
 It has transpired that the Crown Prince of Germany com- 
 pleted last Sunday, near the Belgian frontier, a military 
 staff excursion in Alsace Lorraine. 
 
 From Metz he travelled in an autocar to St. Vith and 
 Montjoie, along the very road a German army invading 
 Belgium to strike at France's most unprotected frontier 
 would use as a base. 
 
 Tn Belgian Military circles the fact is considered some- 
 what disquieting. 
 
 In June, 1914, while the Kaiser was plotting 
 with the Austrian Archduke at Konopitz, the 
 Crown Prince was spying out the country 
 through which he was to lead an invading army 
 in August. A notable task for the heir to the 
 throne of an Empire which claims world pre- 
 dominance. 
 
 Shortly afterwards there was published a 
 pamphlet by a crazy Pan-Germanist named Fro- 
 benius, entitled Germany's Hour of Destiny. 
 It foretold the great European war, assigning 
 as its date either 1915 or 1916. The Crown 
 Prince was apparently too busy to write a pref- 
 ace to it, but he found time to dispatch a tele-
 
 178 The Beat Kaiser 
 
 gram to Frobenius, pronouncing it ''excellent." 
 After the murder of the Archduke Ferdinand, 
 Professor Buckholz, of Posen, a violent Chau- 
 vinist, made a speech attacking the German 
 Chancellor in unmeasured terms as a weak- 
 kneed incompetent. To him, too, the Crown 
 Prince sent a wire, saying that it was "excel- 
 lent." 
 
 There is no need to describe what followed. 
 The pretext was there, the preparations were 
 made, the Kaiser went on a yachting tour, and 
 Germany plunged Europe into war. 
 
 One picture more of defeated father and tri- 
 umphant heir may be added. It is taken from 
 an account given by Dr. Poutsma, one of the few 
 British subjects left with freedom to observe in 
 Berlin, and supplied by him to the Daily Citi- 
 zen. It describes the entry of the Imperial 
 party to Berlin after the declaration of war. 
 
 "During my enforced stay in the capital I 
 saw the entrance of the Kaiser, the Kaiserin, 
 and the Crown Prince, with his wife and the 
 princes, from Potsdam. It was a scene of the 
 wildest enthusiasm. The picture of the Em- 
 peror is a vivid memory. He did not bow once 
 in acknowledgment of the shouts of the crowd. 
 The Crown Prince nodded, and his wife nodded
 
 The Kaiser and His Heir 179 
 
 and smiled continually, but tlie Emperor sat 
 with one hand at his golden helmet, stern and 
 inscrutable, a figure of destiny. There was not 
 during the whole time the faintest flicker of a 
 smile. ' '
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE KAISER AND RELIGION 
 
 "God liveth as of old. Our great ally still reigneth." 
 — The Kaiser. 
 
 One can laugh at the vain Kaiser, with his 
 countless uniforms and his "fixed" moustache. 
 One can wonder at the protean Kaiser, striving 
 to show the chief exponents of a cultured race 
 the true inwardness of the finer arts. One can 
 despise the brutal Kaiser, making mirth of the 
 humiliation of his best friends. One can ad- 
 mire the paternal Kaiser, sore at heart in a for- 
 eign land till he can rejoin the wife and the 
 young ones. One can pity the duped Kaiser, 
 surrounded by a host of subtle and evil flat- 
 terers. One can scorn the weak Kaiser, swear- 
 ing to devote his life to the maintenance of 
 peace, pursuing that object with blusterous 
 threats backed by an untold aggregation of or- 
 ganised force, and finally making the great re- 
 nunciation because his son had stolen from him 
 the esteem of a gross warrior race. Finally, 
 one can shudder at William the War Lord, de- 
 liberately loosing on a stunned world his bestial 
 
 180
 
 The Kaiser and Religion 181 
 
 legions, and urging them on to fresh infamies 
 with examples drawn from the worst barbarities 
 of the pre-Christian era. 
 
 "What human sentiment is left, then, for the 
 Kaiser who claims the active aid of an Omnip- 
 otent Creator when caught in the very act of 
 profaning God's holy house? 
 
 It is rarely fitting that the relations of any 
 human being with the Supreme should be made 
 the subject of discussion and conjecture. These 
 are days when many are renewing such rela- 
 tions with a profound humility and a sense of 
 unbounded littleness. A new era in the world's 
 history has dawned, an era in which no man can 
 dare to judge his fellow. 
 
 Yet the imagination of the Christian world 
 has not been arrested so much by the spectacle 
 of rending bombs thrown on harmless women 
 and children, of drunken men carousing before 
 Church altars, and of all the other unnameable 
 atrocities of the time, as of the cause and in- 
 stigator of these doings claiming God as his Ally 
 in their perpetration. Everywhere men and 
 women are discussing these things in shocked 
 undertones. There need be no excuse, then, if 
 they are considered in such a book as this. 
 
 The Kaiser's career, his life, his sermons and
 
 182 The Real Kaiser 
 
 speeches warrant the belief that in the procla- 
 mation that God is with him he is sincere, and 
 not a brazen hypocrite, impiously committing 
 the unpardonable sin in the face of an attentive 
 world. 
 
 He stands at the head of a proud nation that 
 a century ago was not. He is the supreme ruler 
 of 65,000,000 people who have created a mighty 
 Empire out of a host of contemptible principali- 
 ties. In the history of that century there is 
 nothing to record for Germany but a series of 
 miraculous successes. 
 
 By war Germany was made a nation, and by 
 such wars as the world has never known. 
 Seven weeks sufficed to crush Austria ; in a few 
 months proud France was humbled in the dust. 
 The German soldier of those days marched to 
 battle like the Ironsides of Cromwell, with 
 hymns in his mouth, the marvellous hymns of 
 Martin Luther. 
 
 ^ ' Ein ' f este Berg ist unser Gott ' ' ( Our God is 
 a tower of strength), they chanted, and had 
 reason to believe it, for they fought only to win. 
 A hundred times the Kaiser has asserted that 
 the God of Battles always turned the day for 
 Germany.
 
 The Kaiser and Religion 183 
 
 Preaching on his yacht, the Hohenzollern, at 
 the time when a German force had been des- 
 l^atched to China, he took his text from Exodus 
 xvii. 
 
 ''It came to pass, when Moses held np his 
 hand, that Israel prevailed, and when he let 
 down his hand Amalek prevailed." 
 
 The discourse was a confident appeal to the 
 God of Battles for help for the German arms, 
 and reached its climax in an amazing passage : 
 ''Yes, the ancient God still lives! The great 
 Ally still rules. Our God is a strong tower ; the 
 Holy God, who will not let wickedness triumph, 
 but will uphold His cause against an unholy peo- 
 ple ; the Almighty God who breaks through the 
 strongest walls as though they were cobwebs, 
 and scatters the masses like sand." 
 
 One other conception of the Deity recurs in 
 the Kaiser's speeches and sermons, and that is 
 of the revelation of His goodness through the 
 works of Nature. Some of the passages deal- 
 ing with this topic are remarkable for their elo- 
 quence and beauty. Preaching on the deck of 
 his yacht he took his text from the 104th 
 Psalm : 
 
 "Bless the Lord, my soul. Lord my
 
 184 The Real Kaiser 
 
 God, Thou art very great; Who coverest Thy- 
 self with light as with a garment, Who stretch- 
 est out the heavens like a curtain. ' ' 
 
 In the sermon occur many fine passages, of 
 which the following is an example : 
 
 ''At home the church bells are ringing now, 
 and the organ is pealing. Here there is another 
 ringing, and another sound runs about us. Yet 
 it is only a ground tone that runs through the 
 melody here as there, and says: 'Come and let 
 us worship and bow down ; let us fall upon our 
 knees before the Lord our maker. ' On the high 
 seas we learn this more emphatically, and he 
 who does not learn it here will never learn it at 
 all. The praise of God out of the book of na- 
 ture; that is written all over our text." 
 
 It is not difficult in both these sermons, and 
 indeed in all the Kaiser's religious discourses, 
 to trace the source of his inspiration. 
 
 "I of ten study the Bible," he said to Pastor 
 Stolle of Schirmenitz; "and I love to read it 
 every night. The Bible lies on a table beside 
 my bed. I find the most beautiful thoughts ex- 
 pressed in it." 
 
 The Kaiser's Bible is, of course, the noble 
 translation made by Martin Luther, which 
 fixed a standard for written German. Those
 
 The Kaiser and Religion 185 
 
 who know the German Bible will realise how the 
 stress of the time comes out in its pages. Our 
 own glorious English Bible was translated by 
 peaceful scholars, attuned by circumstance to 
 its message of peace and hope. In no version 
 are the promises of redemption more grandly 
 emphasised. 
 
 But Luther's Bible was the work of a fighter, 
 and the grandest renderings it contains of the 
 original are the warlike books of the Old Testa- 
 ment. Those are the passages that constantly 
 emerge from the Kaiser's talks on sacred 
 things. Passages threatening destruction to 
 the enemies of God's chosen people, and pass- 
 ages exalting the God of Battles, who fought 
 actively for His people and brought their foes 
 to confusion. 
 
 In the progress of the German people in 
 peace the Kaiser saw the hand of God revealed 
 no less plainly than by their victories on the 
 field of battle. That progress in the teeth of 
 difficulty was the miracle of the second half of 
 the nineteenth century. The Kaiser constantly 
 refers to this achievement, never failing to at- 
 tribute it to the goodness of God. 
 
 But never once does he strike the note of hu- 
 mility. One seeks in vain for some sign of the
 
 186 The Real Kaiser 
 
 humble and the contrite heart. The Kaiser 
 vaunts the God of Battles, who brought His peo- 
 ple to victory. He openly boasts of the Crea- 
 tor as a commercial asset of Germany. The 
 thought swells him with pride and haughtiness, 
 but never with a doubt of his worthiness for so 
 great Divine favour. This is supreme arro- 
 gance, but it is not hypocrisy; say rather, it is 
 religious fanaticism of the most dangerous kind. 
 
 With unthinkable insolence he claims the con- 
 tinuous protection of the God by whose Divine 
 will he says he rules supreme ; he claims it not 
 as a suppliant, but as a confident creditor. 
 
 "I place my whole Empire, my whole people, 
 my whole army, myself and my family under 
 the protection of Him who said: 'Heaven and 
 earth shall pass away; but My words shall not 
 pass away. ' ' ' 
 
 The Kaiser's ancestors rode away to the 
 Cnisades shouting: "Paiens ont Tort; Chre- 
 tiens ont Droit" (''God fights for Christians, 
 and for Pagans only the Power of Evil"). In 
 the same spirit the Catholic and Protestant 
 Princes of Germany entered upon the barbari- 
 ties of the Thirty Years' War. The crowning 
 impiety was left for the Kaiser, who openly 
 avows that God, by fair means or foul, will bring
 
 The Kaiser and Religion 187 
 
 His cliosen people of Germany to the first place 
 in this world, even through a self-created welter 
 of blood and torture. It has remained for him 
 to commit the greatest wrong ever perpetrated 
 in the name of Christianity, exulting the while 
 in the covering shield of "Our good old God." 
 
 Quern Dens vult perdere, prius dementat.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE KAISER AND HIS CREATURES 
 
 "Camerilla is the name for a hideous foreign plant, and 
 the effort to implant it into Germany has always been 
 attended with great detriment to the nation." — von Buelow. 
 
 Since the War began the whole venomous hos- 
 tility of Germany has been concentrated upon 
 England. From the meanest peasant under 
 arms to the Kaiser himself, every German is 
 anxious to take a summary vengeance upon this 
 country, for what they choose to term its treach- 
 ery. Their bitterness is the bitter hate of a 
 bully who suddenly finds himself thrashed and 
 humiliated before a crowd by an individual 
 whom he supposed the meekest and most inof- 
 fensive person present. 
 
 This consistent underrating of the power and 
 intelligence of the British race is due to a va- 
 riety of circumstances, first among which is the 
 idiotic self-satisfaction of the Germans them- 
 selves. It also proceeds from the very genuine 
 desire on our part to keep the peace with Ger- 
 many, and by our frank expression of our own 
 
 188
 
 The Kaiser and His Creatures 180 
 
 differences of opinion internally. It must fur- 
 ther be remembered that the German, in his 
 gnawing envy of the advantages which we un- 
 doubtedly enjoy through no particular merit 
 of our own, has chosen to shut his eyes to the 
 spiritual force which impels many of our acts 
 as a nation, and to attribute them to the blind 
 selfishness which is the mainspring of all Ger- 
 man action. Hence Germany's total and fatal 
 misunderstanding of the attitude of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 The Kaiser himself should have laiown bet- 
 ter ; and for the greater part of his reign he has 
 shown that in his saner moments he did know 
 better. He is half an Englishman himself, and 
 has spent a considerable time in this country. 
 He is familiar with the outlook of representative 
 Englishmen, and has had the best opportunity 
 for ascertaining that they are neither poltroons 
 nor blind fools, whatever the halfpenny papers 
 may have chosen to write about them in time of 
 peace. He has shown himself proud of his Eng- 
 lish blood; he formerly missed no opportunity 
 of claiming his relationship with our own royal 
 family; it was his custom when in this country 
 to sign himself, in visiting books and even in 
 letters, not as Wilhelm, but William.
 
 190 The Real Kaiser 
 
 To bring himself to the level of the ignorance 
 of his subjects, it must have been necessary for 
 him to indulge in a course of wilful self-decep- 
 tion extending over a period of some years. 
 Some account of his method of keeping in touch 
 with current news and opinion throughout the 
 world has already been given. The Press 
 Bureau controlled by Geheimrat Hamann has 
 been an exceedingly useful institution for him, 
 but its uses were capable of being converted into 
 dangerous ones in the very moment that he 
 yielded to the desire only to see things as he 
 wished them to appear. 
 
 There is abundant evidence that the Press 
 Bureau has recently employed itself to this end. 
 Nothing could be more eloquent of the fact than 
 his ignorance of the articles written by Maxi- 
 milian Harden, and the charges levelled by that 
 writer against the camanlla which surrounded 
 the Emperor. Of those charges William him- 
 self remained in ignorance while all Germany 
 was discussing them, and it needed the extreme 
 action of the Crown Prince to bring them under 
 his notice. In another instance he was shown 
 to have been utterly misled as to the character 
 and capabilities of a tenant farmer, who had
 
 The Kaiser and His Creatures 191 
 
 recourse to the law courts to contest an eject- 
 ment, with the result that an Imperial apology 
 was finally tendered to him. These, and similar 
 cases, have been the subject of much comment in 
 Germany itself, where the opinion was openly 
 expressed that the Kaiser was abandoning him- 
 self to the influence of a group of irresponsible 
 advisers. 
 
 The contempt for Great Britain which these 
 creatures of the Kaiser have so openly dis- 
 played is very genuinely held by them. It has 
 been nurtured on the reports of the German se- 
 cret service, a service as extensive as it has 
 proved incompetent. The acknowledged Ger- 
 man outlay on espionage is £780,000 a year in 
 times of peace, but this does not constitute any- 
 thing like the total of the money devoted to this 
 purpose. Every German citizen in a foreign 
 land is held at the disposal of the government, 
 for the purpose of furnishing information likely 
 to be useful. The Kaiser's intimacy with the 
 great capitalists and commercial magnates of 
 Germany is not wholly unconnected with the ad- 
 vancement of German interests abroad, by 
 means that would be thought unworthy by hon- 
 ourable British merchants. German consuls.
 
 192 The Real Kaiser 
 
 and even German ministers, cannot be held 
 blameless of this dishonour; it is an accepted 
 thing in all classes of German life. 
 
 *' Where are your spies I" asked the Crown 
 Prince of our Ambassador, when he wished to 
 insult him at a dinner. He referred to the mili- 
 tary and naval attaches at the British Embassy 
 in Berlin. 
 
 German belief that England has fallen into a 
 selfish and decadent sloth is almost pathetic. 
 I have often had it proved to me most conclu- 
 sively, without caring to say one word in contra- 
 diction of the theory. I fancy most British folk 
 in Germany have preferred to let such state- 
 ments go by default. A favourite argument 
 was our indifference to competitive sport. The 
 Germans were looking forward to the Olympic 
 games to show us what culture could do for a 
 race of supermen, on what they considered our 
 own ground of sporting pre-eminence. They 
 were wildly angry because we would not begin to 
 get ready for this great event years beforehand ; 
 and the refusal of the nation to subscribe £100,- 
 000, or even 100,000 pence, to that end was ad- 
 vanced as evidence of our decadence and lack 
 of culture. 
 
 Besides, we were a decadent race. Had not
 
 The Kaiser and His Creatures 193 
 
 Mr. Kipling said we fawned on the younger 
 nation for men who could shoot and ridel 
 That is a favourite quotation in Germany. 
 And Mr. Chamberlain, and Lord Roberts, had 
 not the warnings of these great men gone un- 
 heeded? Did not King George himself implore 
 us to Wake Up, without any apparent response! 
 All the host of professors and generals who have 
 been writing books about the things Gennany 
 is just about to do have been infected with the 
 same view, and have set down Great Britain as 
 a negligible quantity. It never occurred to a 
 single German, high or low, that a nation that 
 did not care twopence about the Olympic games 
 would attach so much importance to its treaty 
 obligations with a little place like Belgium. 
 The Germans are still frankly amazed at our 
 *' treachery" in regard to the "little scrap of 
 paper. ' ^ 
 
 But there was one German who ought to have 
 known, and who showed in 1911 that he did 
 know. Sooner than accept the consequences of 
 war with Great Britain in 1911, the Kaiser ac- 
 cepted the humiliation of Agadir. He was then 
 under no hallucination about our holding to our 
 pledged word. He stood alone in his belief in 
 the honour and in the might of Great Britain.
 
 194 The Beat Kaiser 
 
 ''He alone kept the peace," said one of his own 
 ministers, Delbrueck; and it was true. 
 
 The subtle degeneration that has taken place 
 in the Kaiser since then is only too apparent. 
 It is proclaimed aloud by the recent photo- 
 graphs that have been taken of him, with their 
 coarsening of the lower lines of the face. His 
 inordinate vanity, and the arrogant flattery of 
 his creatures, have permitted him to obscure the 
 keen intellect that formerly was the only Ger- 
 man measure of the true relation between Ger- 
 many and Great Britain. What he recognised 
 in 1911, he ignored in 1914. 
 
 Even he was not prepared for the full conse- 
 quences of that mistake in ignoring Great Brit- 
 ain; Englishmen themselves were not pre- 
 pared, and few of them appear yet to recognise 
 the extent of our own readiness. Consider what 
 has happened in the two months of August 
 and September, and estimate the effect of the 
 series of numbing blows inflicted on German 
 power, every one proceeding directly from 
 Great Britain. I do not wish to exalt this na- 
 tion unduly above those which are allied to us 
 in the struggle ; the more especially as those na- 
 tions have been called upon to make sacrifices, 
 compared to which those we have made our-
 
 The Kaiser and His Creatures 195 
 
 selves, great tliongh they be, are up to the pres- 
 ent comparatively trifling. But it is the deca- 
 dent slothful nation, the people which confessed 
 its own unreadiness for battle, which has struck 
 the forceful blows at Germany's might and 
 pride. 
 
 It was nothing that we owned the largest and 
 most effective battle fleet ; but it was a miracle 
 that the fleet should have been found, when the 
 war-cloud burst, assembled as a fighting force 
 in ,some place unknown to the Kaiser's most 
 confident spies. And when it was revealed, the 
 place was the right place. That was an ex- 
 ample of British '' treachery. " It was nothing 
 that we possessed a standing Army, small but 
 highly organised ; but it was unexpected that 
 the whole of that army could immediately be 
 spared for service abroad. That it should have 
 been possible to land that army on the battle- 
 field within a few days, without the loss of a 
 single man, and without any interference on the 
 part of Germany's £200,000,000 fleet; that was 
 another example of British ** treachery. " 
 
 How was it that from every British Colony 
 there went forth an expedition of self-reliant 
 men, chuckling at the chance of hauling down 
 the German flag where it had been planted with
 
 196 The Real Kaiser 
 
 so mucli expenditure of effort and treasure in 
 remote parts of the world? In some places 
 they co-operated with French forces, striking 
 swift sure blows here and there. Germany ar- 
 gues correctly, that they must have been ready ; 
 and once more breathes the word ' * treachery. ' ' 
 
 Half a million young men have volunteered 
 for military service, and behind them stand half 
 a million more; and in reserve are still many 
 millions of willing volunteers. That we might 
 have expected in so good a cause. But whence 
 have been drawn the rifles and equipments for 
 all these new soldiers. I confess their ready 
 appearance has amazed me more than any other 
 of the wonders of these days. No more dismal 
 evidence for the German agents of our readi- 
 ness, even for so great a struggle as this, could 
 have been offered. It is organisation, some- 
 thing they understand ; and again they raise the 
 cry of treachery. 
 
 I saw recently a band of 5,000 young men at 
 their drill ; the young men who had been too in- 
 different to bother about the Olympic contest in 
 the Berlin stadium. They had come from our 
 Universities and Public Schools, where more 
 than half of them had received the training of 
 budding British officers. Their cherished pas-
 
 The Kaiser and His Creatures 197 
 
 times were too sacred to theni to be made into 
 an international gallery play ; but they were one 
 and all content to give themselves in the hum- 
 blest capacity for a matter that was very dear 
 to them, the honour of their country. Straight, 
 trained bodies and alert, trained minds, quiet 
 young men with good British faces and not a 
 sign of military swagger ; they were giving their 
 whole attention to the matter of making the 
 finest regiment of soldiers the world shall see 
 since the glorious days of Greece. 
 
 How I wished some of my Gennan friends 
 could see that concrete answer to their argu- 
 ment of British decadence, and to their stupid 
 belief in the loss of British prestige. It would 
 have convinced them of their childish blunder, a 
 conviction that must still be painfully enforced 
 upon them. 
 
 But the Kaiser is in no need of such evidence. 
 He is already fully aware of the fatal conse- 
 quences of his self-deceit. He has already dis- 
 played all the chagrin of a man who has fallen 
 into irretraceable error with his eyes fully 
 opened. He has proved as much by the poi- 
 soned malice of his unsoldierly order to extermi- 
 nate the whole British Army. Great general 
 he is not, but the veriest novice in the art of
 
 198 The Real Kaiser 
 
 war knows that in that way no great victories 
 are won. Only the conscious leader of an un- 
 just and a lost cause would have given such a 
 command. 
 
 Did the Kaiser give it? Then the less Kaiser 
 he I
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE KAISER AS SEA LORD 
 
 " Our future lies upon the water." — The Kaiser opening 
 the new port of Stettin, 1890. 
 
 ""We must grasp the trident." — The Kaiser at Kiel. 
 
 Eaely in the course of the great war we have 
 learned by experience that the German navy is 
 no -mere aggregation of ships, the result of 
 lavish expenditure of money. It is a highly 
 organised fighting force, directed by skilful of- 
 ficers and manned by brave and skilful sailors. 
 Those of its cruisers left upon the high seas to 
 harry British commerce have defied their pur- 
 suers, though acting in the face of difficulties 
 of coaling and provisioning that cannot be over- 
 estimated. Their captains have proved cour- 
 teous and even chivalrous foes, as becomes 
 brave and skilful seamen. 
 
 The main fleet, hemmed in by a superior force, 
 and threatened from behind by the Eussian 
 squadron in the Baltic, has waged uneven war 
 with patience and skill, giving as good as it got, 
 and displaying a dash and certainty in its rare 
 
 199
 
 200 The Real Kaiser 
 
 sallies which compelled the admiration of its 
 more experienced foes. One incident smirches 
 the record of the German navy up to date, the 
 firing by the officers of a sinking cruiser npon 
 their own men, when the latter had jumped 
 overboard, and were attempting to save their 
 lives. That incident is explained by the fact 
 that the story of the Birkenhead is the example 
 chosen for the men of the German navy, and 
 that all are enjoined to go down with a lost ship, 
 rather than be saved by the mercy of a trium- 
 phant foe. 
 
 The German navy is the work of the brain of 
 the Kaiser himself, and of his own chosen right- 
 hand man, the great Admiral von Tirpitz, the 
 German Minister of Marine. The origin of the 
 navy of to-day is related by Prince Buelow in 
 Imperial Germany, in which he tells how he was 
 entrusted with his share of the task, when he ac- 
 cepted the Chancellorship from the Kaiser on 
 the yacht Hohenzollern, at Kiel, on June 28, 
 1907. 
 
 A new Navy Bill was brought before the 
 Reichstag on November 27 of that year, which 
 provided for the construction of seven battle- 
 ships, two large and seven small cruisers. The 
 Bill was worded: ''Without prejudice to the
 
 The Kaiser as Sea Lord 201 
 
 rights of the Reichstag, and without demanding 
 the imposition of new taxes, the allied govern- 
 ments are not pursuing an aimless policy with 
 regard to the navy; their sole object is to cre- 
 ate within a definite time a national fleet, merely 
 of such strength and power as to protect effec- 
 tively the naval interests of the Empire." 
 
 That Bill marked a new era in German naval 
 affairs. Up till then no regular policy of ship- 
 building had been adopted, but from that time 
 forward Germany brought forward an annual 
 programme of shipbuilding, which rapidly 
 threatened competition with that of Great Brit- 
 ain itself. This scheme for a powerful Ger- 
 man navy was dearer to the heart of the Kaiser 
 than any other of his plans for the aggrandise- 
 ment of Germany. 
 
 His immense business capacity was shown in 
 the planned adaptation of private shipbuilding 
 yards for the purpose of warship construction. 
 The building of Germany's merchant marine 
 was not only made a great industrial undertak- 
 ing, but at the same time a great scheme for na- 
 tional defence, and even aggression. In the es- 
 tablishment of these shipbuilding yards the 
 Kaiser took the keenest personal interest, and 
 it was owing to his intervention that all were
 
 202 The Real Kaiser 
 
 established on a scale of such importance that 
 the rapid building of the largest warships was 
 made possible at so many of them. 
 
 The extent of Germany's possibilities for the 
 rapid building of warships was revealed by 
 Count Eeventlow in an appendix to his book 
 Weltfrieden oder Weltkrieg {World-Peace or 
 World-War) (1907). In answer to the Count's 
 questions, Krupp's Germania yards replied that 
 they were capable of completing a large battle- 
 ship or cruiser within a period of twenty-four 
 to thirty months, and that the seven slipways at 
 their disposal would enable them to lay down at 
 least two of these vessels every year. The 
 Howaldts works, also at Kiel, returned a similar 
 reply, and guaranteed to deliver one large bat- 
 tleship or cruiser every year after the first two 
 years. The mechanical appliances available at 
 Kiel were of the most modern type, and skilled 
 labour was plentiful. The Vulkan yards at 
 Stettin stated that they could lay down two bat- 
 tleships of 18,000 tons each, and two cruisers of 
 15,000 tons every year. If the guns and armour 
 were promptly delivered by the makers, they 
 too would be able to complete the ships within 
 twenty-four or thirty months. When the Vul-
 
 The Kaiser as Sea Lord 203 
 
 kans' new yards at Hamburg had been opened 
 tbeir productive capacity would be increased 50 
 to 75 per cent. 
 
 The firm of Blohm and Voss estimated that 
 they could lay down two large ships, either bat- 
 tleships or cruisers, every year, and that they 
 could deliver them within two or two and a half 
 years if a continuous succession of orders was 
 assured. Herr Schichau, of Schichau's works 
 at Danzig and Elbing, replied that, if necessary, 
 he could ^'comfortably accommodate four bat- 
 tleships of 18,000 tons each upon the stocks, and 
 could also at the same time carry on the work of 
 fitting out two or three similar vessels. The 
 Weser Shipbuilding Company drew attention to 
 its new yards, and pledged its ability to lay down 
 two battleships and two cruisers simultane- 
 ously, and to complete them within a period of 
 from twenty-four to thirty months. 
 
 This report was made in 1907, so that within 
 ten years of the initiation of the German navy 
 scheme, arrangements had been perfected for 
 competing on equal terms with Great Britain 
 in a race in the building of warships. In this 
 remarkable progress the Kaiser and Admiral 
 von Tirpitz were assisted by the operations of
 
 204 The Beat Kaiser 
 
 tlie German Navy League, an organisation with 
 a very popular seaman at his head, Admiral 
 von Koester. 
 
 In a very few years the League, started with 
 a membership of a few thousands, could boast 
 a million members, all of whom were actively 
 concerned in advancing the development of the 
 German Navy. Their spheres of influence were 
 many and varied, and it was owing to the exer- 
 tions of the League that the Reichstag was in- 
 duced to pass the yearly increasing naval es- 
 timates without any dissentient voice, even 
 when a sum of £23,000,000 was demanded. 
 
 This naval expansion could, of course, only 
 be accomplished if Germany was free from in- 
 terference on the part of England. Had the 
 situation been reversed, there can be no doubt 
 that the weaker naval power would never have 
 been given the opportunity to build ships at 
 such an ominously rapid rate. Peaceful efforts 
 were made from this side to limit the rate of 
 Germany's naval expansion, but they were re- 
 jected without any artifice on Germany's part. 
 The only alternative was a shipbuilding activity 
 on our own part corresponding almost in pro- 
 portion to that of Germany. 
 
 Other nations were forced to follow suit, so
 
 The Kaiser as Sea Lord 205 
 
 that the sudden naval activity promoted by the 
 Kaiser was responsible for such an accelera- 
 tion of naval armament as the world has never 
 seen since the days of the great Armada. The 
 position at the beginning of the year 1914 was 
 that Germany had a Navy, the strength of 
 which was nominally represented in the follow- 
 ing figures : — 
 
 Dreadnoughts, 20; other battleships, 19; 
 cruisers, 52; torpedo craft, 152; submarines, 
 24. 
 
 It is probable that the Navy was stronger 
 than these figures show at the time of the actual 
 outbreak of hostilities. 
 
 This vast organisation is controlled by Ad- 
 miral von Tirpitz, possibly the most able of the 
 lieutenants the Kaiser has discovered. Mr. 
 Wile accords him first place in that fascinating 
 collection he has made of Men Around the 
 Kaiser, and relates how a simple commoner 
 created a second branch of national defence, 
 and now stands designated by common acclaim 
 as the next Chancellor of the Empire. This 
 has been made possible by von Tirpitz himself, 
 who has trained his highly efficient subordinates 
 so well that he could, before the War, have 
 been withdrawn from the Admiralty without
 
 206 The Real Kaiser 
 
 sacrificing the efficiency which has characterised 
 his administration. This is the highest tribute 
 that can be paid to any organiser. 
 
 Tirpitz makes no secret of the fact that the 
 German Navy is modelled on that of Great 
 Britain, just as German industrialism was orig- 
 inally modelled on our own. The very tradi- 
 tions of the German Navy, which as a new 
 growth was without traditions of its own, were 
 borrowed from the Navy that has so long con- 
 trolled the seas. The purpose of the building 
 of this Armada has never been hidden; it is 
 some day to dispute the mastery of the seas 
 with its prototyp'e ; and the fact was openly rec- 
 ognised in the toast of its officers, "Am Tag"; 
 — to the great Day when that purpose may be 
 fulfilled. 
 
 The nominal command of the Navy, in ac- 
 cordance with Prussian custom, is vested in the 
 Kaiser's brother. Prince Henry of Prussia, 
 and the Kaiser himself has never failed to dis- 
 play an interest in it quite equal to that shown 
 in the German first arm of the service, the 
 Army. In a speech delivered on June 15, 1888, 
 he said: "The Navy knows not only that it 
 has filled me with great joy to belong to it 
 through an external bond, but also that from 
 
 J
 
 The Kaiser as Sea Lord 207 
 
 my earliest youth, in complete agreement with 
 my dear brother, Prince Henry of Prussia, a 
 warm and lively interest has united me to it." 
 
 That interest increased with the growth of 
 the Navy, and the Kaiser was never happier 
 than when he could entertain his international 
 friends at Kiel, and display to them the mar- 
 vellous progress of his own child of the sea. 
 Indeed, his fondness for boats and- ships of 
 every kind has been a marked trait of his char- 
 acter from youth onwards, and earned for him 
 among his sailors another nickname among the 
 many he has worn — that of ' ' Gondola Billy. ' ' 
 
 He has been more than once attacked in the 
 Reichstag for his pretentions to naval knowl- 
 edge, one Socialist deputy going so far as to 
 say: — 
 
 ''The Kaiser is utterly unfit to command a 
 naval manoeuvre, never having passed any ex- 
 amination or test. He is merely an amateur 
 sailor." However that may be, he has the true 
 feeling for the sea and understanding of naval 
 affairs, has been an enthusiast in yachting from 
 an early age, and in that capacity has proved 
 himself a practical and daring sailor. 
 
 The real test of the Navy which he has in- 
 duced the German people to build at such a
 
 208 The Real Kaiser 
 
 sacrifice of effort and treasure is yet to be 
 made, but the indications already given point 
 to a display of daring and bold fighting that 
 will justify, from the German point of view, the 
 bold navy policy he pursued.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE KAISER AS WAR LORD 
 
 "Hurrah for the dry powder and the sharp sword." 
 
 "The best word is a blow — the Army and the 'i^axy are 
 the pillars of the State." 
 
 The Kaiser occupies the same position to the 
 German Army as he does to everything else in 
 Germany. He is the real and authoritative 
 head of it. He is assisted by an Imperial Staff 
 and a War Cabinet, and there is also a War 
 Minister. All these high appointments are 
 made by the Kaiser himself, so that he is in 
 very fact the War Lord he is represented to 
 be. The actual command of the army is as- 
 signed to Prince Albert of Prussia, but that po- 
 sition, too, is a gift in the hands of the Kaiser. 
 The military organisation he controls is the 
 most perfect the world has ever known. 
 Prussia was the first modern country to adopt 
 universal military service, the date being 1814, 
 or exactly a hundred years ago; later on con- 
 scription became universal throughout Ger- 
 many. The celebration of the hundredth an- 
 
 209
 
 210 The Real Kaiser 
 
 niversary of tMs epoch lias taken place since 
 the war began, the newspapers throughout Ger- 
 many commenting upon it as the main factor 
 in the progress of the nation. Those who have 
 sought to draw distinctions between the mili- 
 tary Prussians and the peaceful Bavarians and 
 West Germans are referred to the files of the 
 leading papers in those districts for a refuta- 
 tion of their arguments. 
 
 It is not possible at this date to state with 
 any accuracy the number of men called to arms 
 for the present war; but an estimate has been 
 made that 6,000,000 were mobilised with incon- 
 ceivable rapidity. In rapidity of action the 
 German war machine stands unexampled. 
 The plan for mobilisation is recast at varying 
 intervals, never less frequently than twice a 
 year, and the fact that all the Railways of Ger- 
 many are the property of the state makes this 
 rapid mobilisation easier. 
 
 A portion of the actual mobilisation was wit- 
 nessed by Dr. Poutsma, who appears to have 
 seen more than any other British subject in 
 Germany at the time, his Dutch blood and the 
 peculiar relation in which he stood to the Do- 
 mitiion of South Africa, probably procuring 
 him this privilege. He has given an account
 
 The Kaiser as War Lord 211 
 
 of what he saw that bears the imprint of truth 
 on the face of it. The men walked into the 
 mobilisation depots with their personal belong- 
 ings, and came out at the other gate fully 
 equipped and uniformed soldiers; the railway 
 service for the troops worked with miraculous 
 certainty and perfection; and Germany was 
 able to rush great armies over the borders of 
 her enemies' territories before they could pre- 
 pare anything like an adequate line of defence. 
 
 These things have to be recognised before we 
 can estimate what civilisation owes to Belgium 
 and the gallant defenders of Liege for checking 
 a disaster that would have swept the French 
 army back to the Pyrenees. The arrangements 
 for this swift appeal to arms were made by the 
 Imperial staff, and the value of the Kaiser's 
 own great capacity for business organisation 
 on the grand scale is apparent in the smooth- 
 ness of its working. 
 
 The Kaiser, as we have seen, has also had a 
 very severe training in practical soldiering, and 
 esteems himself among the great generals of 
 all time. It would indeed be strange if the 
 qualities which make him an impassioned ora- 
 tor, and impel him to dabble with such zest in 
 all the arts, permitted him also to excel in the
 
 212 The Real Kaiser 
 
 art of war. The evidence is clear to the con- 
 trary ; this miracle has not happened. 
 
 There is, or was, a very blunt old German gen- 
 eral named von Stiilpnagel, who, in a fit of dis- 
 gust after the annual army manoeuvres, ex- 
 pressed himself very candidly on the subject of 
 the Kaiser's command. It appears that the 
 army commanded by the Kaiser himself had re- 
 ceived an adverse verdict from the umpires of 
 whom von Stiilpnagel was one, and the Emperor 
 had made no secret of his chagrin. The old gen- 
 eral retorted that the Kaiser's idea of military 
 operations consisted mainly in arranging dra- 
 matic cavalry charges, more in keeping with 
 the conception o'f an elaborate military display 
 arranged by Max Keinhardt than with the root 
 principles of modern warfare. ''Sheer mili- 
 tary nonsense" was the verdict of this candid 
 critic. This verdict throws a valuable side- 
 light on the Kaiser's instructions to his sol- 
 diers. 
 
 For my own part, I can vividly realise the 
 Kaiser presiding at a council of war, where one 
 hard-headed matter-of-fact old general after an- 
 other details the perfect arrangements made 
 for inflicting a swift and crushing blow. The 
 point is made and insisted on, that there shall
 
 The Kaiser as War Lord 213 
 
 be no humanitarian nonsense about the cam- 
 paign when it starts. All opposition must be 
 crushed in the very instant that any sign of 
 it appears. Secret and elaborate arrangements 
 have been made to that end. 
 
 At Krupp's have been cast, though the out- 
 side world knows it not, guns such as none else 
 ever dreamed of, monstrous steel tubes that can 
 hurl a shell of more than a ton weight for a 
 distance of ten miles. In its huge parabola, 
 this shell attains a height of more than half 
 a mile, and strikes with all the impact given by 
 gravity after descending from that height. 
 The impact, and the rendering explosions it 
 holds, crumble the solid rock to powder; no 
 fort ever constructed can resist the disintegra- 
 tion. 
 
 The Zeppelins, housed all over the country, 
 have an effective range of three hundred miles 
 from their various bases ; their crews are all 
 skilled aeronauts, and the machines are fur- 
 nished with huge bombs, which can be dropped 
 from unassailable heights, to the utter destruc- 
 tion of all beneath. Bands of fire-soldiers have 
 been organised, says another grim report, 
 some with belts that are really petrol tanks 
 fitted with a spray, so that in a few minutes a
 
 214 The Real Kaiser 
 
 whole village can be made inflammable. Others 
 have incendiary bombs, and little tablets of 
 compressed benzine to act as kindlers. All is 
 ready for the work of laying waste by fire and 
 sword, bomb and huge engines of destruction. 
 
 Better still, says another report, our trusty 
 secret agents have done their work well. Our 
 great siege guns need elaborate preparations 
 for their effective use, and these are ready be- 
 forehand. At Namur, at Maubeuge, anjrwhere 
 where forts exist on our line of march to con- 
 quest, patriotic men have quietly acquired sites 
 for workshops, or any other plausible purpose 
 that may suit the locality. There, in the great- 
 est secrecy, the concrete beds to hold the huge 
 siege guns have been laid and are now harden- 
 ing ; the ranges have been accurately measured. 
 Namur cannot hold out twenty-four hours; the 
 key to Maubeuge lies in our hands. The Ger- 
 man patriots who have done these things have 
 all been decorated with the Iron Cross. The 
 grim old generals nod; ''ja wohl"; all is pre- 
 pared as a matter of course. That is the only 
 way to make war. 
 
 But what effect have these plans on the quick 
 imagination of the Kaiser? Images drawn 
 from the Old Testament leap to his mind. *'It
 
 Tlie Kaiser as War Lord 215 
 
 came to pass, when the people heard the sound 
 of the trumpet, and the people shouted with 
 a great shout, that the wall fell down jQat, so 
 that the people went up into the city, every 
 man straight before him, and they took the 
 city. 
 
 ''And they utterly destroyed all that was in 
 the city, both man and woman, young and old, 
 and ox and sheep and ass, with the edge of the 
 sword. 
 
 "And they burnt the city with fire and all 
 tha't was therein. ' ' Was he not another Joshua, 
 to whom Jehovah, the God of Battles, had given 
 the power to make the walls of strong cities 
 fall down flat? Even as the Canaanites of old, 
 so must the enemies of God's chosen people to- 
 day perish, man and woman, young and old, 
 by the edge of the sword and by fire. The 
 Bible says so, and "The Bible is for me a spring 
 whence I draw strength and light." 
 
 The tales of the Huns occur to him; how 
 they, like the modern Germans, were forced by 
 the need for expanding territory South and 
 "West, led by the great Attila, after whom he 
 had christened his second son Eitel. Attila 
 gave and asked no quarters; he swept all be- 
 fore him. So in very fact should the Germans
 
 216 The Real Kaiser 
 
 of to-day wage their warfare, if it must needs 
 be. 
 
 But first let the nations know what war really 
 meant. No young wife, with husband and 
 brothers far away in the trenches, ever imag- 
 ined such vivid and true pictures of the horror 
 of war as this War Lord. If they knew what 
 was before them, these inferior races would 
 make way, and give Germany her just share of 
 the world. The decadent British, who waged 
 war as they played games, with an eye on the 
 relies and mercy in their hearts for the indi- 
 viduals among their enemies, they could never 
 stand up against this torment of organised de- 
 struction. Surely they would give way, if they 
 were warned in time. 
 
 The Kaiser knew, too, what never troubled 
 the hard-headed old Prussian commanders one 
 jot — that there would be an outcry from all 
 civilisation when he let loose his great engine of 
 torment. -And by every word of warning, and 
 by all show of ferocity, he strove to avert the 
 evil day as far as he might. "Give peace in 
 my time," was the prayer of his inmost heart. 
 
 His responsibility was all the greater, and 
 he accepted it as fully as any savage Viking 
 of the pre-Christian era. As War Lord he de- 
 
 1
 
 The Kaiser as War Lord 217 
 
 liberately descended to the level of the savage, 
 and impressed on soldiers that they must do 
 likewise : — 
 
 ''When you meet the foe you will defeat him. 
 No quarter will be given, no prisoners will be 
 taken. Let all who fall into your hands be 
 at your mercy. Just as the Huns a thousand 
 years ago, under the leadership of Etzel 
 (Attila), gained a reputation in virtue of which 
 they still live in historical traditions, so may 
 the name of Geimany become known in such 
 a. manner in China that no Chinaman will ever 
 again even dare to look askance at a German." 
 
 That message, given to the expeditionary 
 force for China in July, 1900, was blazoned forth 
 to the world with the knowledge and approval of 
 the Kaiser. The first part of it was circulated 
 throughout Germany on postcards. Now the 
 world was to receive an object lesson that would 
 scare any power from ever wishing to encoun- 
 ter the mighty ruthless legions of the German 
 Army. 
 
 In the case of England, he felt such an object 
 lesson was certain of its effect. Soldiers who 
 shrank from any appearance of inhumanity, 
 even when encountering a stubborn and cun- 
 ning enemy, would certainly flinch from grim
 
 218 The Real Kaiser 
 
 warfare of this kind. Besides, lie had seen the 
 British Army and knew that it was a negligible 
 force. His estimate was that of Bemhardi. 
 
 '^For a war in Continental Europe, we have 
 only to take into account the regular army of 
 130,000 men stationed in England. 
 
 ^'England can only employ her regular army 
 in a Continental war so long as all is quiet in 
 the Colonies." 
 
 ^ ' The Territorial army is 270,000 strong, and 
 is destined exclusively for home defence. For 
 a Continental European war it may be left out 
 of account." 
 
 ''The self-govq.rning Colonies have a militia 
 which is sometimes only in process of forma- 
 tion. They can be completely ignored so far 
 as concerns any European theatre of war." 
 
 The comment on these cocksure generalisa- 
 tions is that within one month of the sudden 
 outbreak of hostilities Great Britain had more 
 than 130,000 men fighting on the Continent; 
 that a month later there were highly efficient 
 Territorial forces fighting with them, and that 
 70,000 native Indian troops were on their way 
 to the front; and that in camp, or on the way 
 to Europe, were quite 50,000 of the Colonial 
 ''militia," soldiers endowed with a spirit and 
 
 J
 
 The Kaiser as War Lord 219 
 
 initiative sucli as the vivid imagination of the 
 Kaiser has not yet conceived. 
 
 The German Colonies, one hy one, had fallen 
 into the hands of the despised colonial ''mili- 
 tia" without an effective blow being struck to 
 preserve them. And in Great Britain, a new 
 army of 500,000 volunteers, the very pick of 
 British youth, was drilling with an enthusiasm 
 and devotion unknown in the annals of war; 
 while behind them yet 500,000 more were pre- 
 paring to enlist, as soon as arrangements could 
 bye made for equipping and drilling them. 
 
 All the evil that is in the Kaiser comes out 
 when those whose friendship he has sought, on 
 his own terms, refuse to strike with him any 
 discreditable bargain. His lifelong hatred of 
 the Social Democrats of Germany, the insult 
 he hurled at King Edward through his friend 
 Lord Esher, the renunciation of his British uni- 
 forms and titles, are examples that have been 
 given. 
 
 "Any one who resists me, him will I smash," 
 he cried once in a fit of grandiloquence. In a 
 similar passion of devilish resentment he de- 
 creed the utter annihilation of the British 
 Army, as soon as he heard the incredible news 
 that one had been landed in France.
 
 220 The Beat Kaiser 
 
 *'It is my Royal and Imperial command that 
 you concentrate your energies, for the immedi- 
 ate present, upon one single purpose, and that 
 is that you address all your skill, and all your 
 valour of my soldiers, to exterminate first the 
 treacherous English and to walk over General 
 French's contemptible little Army." — Order 
 given at Aix-la-Chapelle, August 19, 1914. 
 
 If these are the orders given by the supreme 
 head of the German army, there can be no cause 
 for wonder that about the methods of its sol- 
 diers there have grown up legends of devilish 
 inhumanity far outrunning the terrible reality. 
 These stories of- incredible tortures and mu- 
 tilations are credited, because the wild orders 
 of the Kaiser himself give them colour. 
 
 The grim record is damning enough. Civ- 
 ilian hostages shot by hundreds, villages pil- 
 laged and burned to the ground, whole cities 
 sacked and set to the flames, ancient buildings 
 and sacred cathedrals given to wanton destruc- 
 tion, mock surrender to cover treacherous acts ; 
 all these things have been proved against the 
 troops of the Kaiser. The German War Lord, 
 by his orders and his reasons given afterwards, 
 has made himself personally responsible for 
 them. 

 
 The Kaiser as War Lord 221 
 
 But the tales of senseless hideous mutilation 
 are fables. They are still believed, although 
 sufficient time has elapsed for the strongest 
 proofs to have been accumulated of their truth, 
 if they were true. No such proof has been ob- 
 tained. It has been stated, for instance, that 
 the German soldiers have cut oif the hands of 
 nurses, of doctors, of soldiers, of Belgian non- 
 combatants. A whole army of photographers 
 has been sent to obtain actual pictures of such 
 outrages. They have shown us the sad remains 
 of fallen Louvain, the shattered fabric of 
 Eheims Cathedral, the ruined villages of Bel- 
 gium; but not one photograph of these muti- 
 lated survivors of German devilment has ever 
 been obtained. 
 
 The only reason is that such survivors do 
 not exist. When M. Vandervelde, the Belgian 
 socialist leader and a member of the Govern- 
 ment, was in this country on his way to America, 
 he told an assembly of responsible Englishmen 
 a terrible tale of German inhumanity in Bel- 
 gium, his account including some of these in- 
 human maimings. Questioned as to whether 
 he himself had witnessed the outrages, or 
 whether he had himself seen the victims, he 
 replied with all frankness that he had not. He
 
 222 Tlie Real Kaiser 
 
 based Ms statements on tlie word of reliable 
 witnesses whose evidence had been taken by 
 a highly constituted legal board. 
 
 These supreme barbarities are out of tune 
 with the practical range of the German mind. 
 They can only be held to have occurred when 
 some convincing proof of the fact has been ob- 
 tained. 
 
 But it is not the fault of the Kaiser if they 
 have never taken place. "Extermination" and 
 "no quarter" are ugly words, coming from the 
 head of the State and army. If the ignorant 
 soldiers had been as rabid and extreme as their 
 Kaiser, there would by this time have been 
 only too strong evidence of outrages that would 
 shake the very foundation of civilisation.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 THE REAL KAISER 
 
 "How art thou fallen from Heaven, Lucifer, son of 
 the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground which 
 did weaken the nations! . . . 
 
 "And thou shalt say : I will go up to the land of miwalled 
 villages, I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell 
 safely, all of them dwelling without walls and having 
 neither bars nor gates. 
 
 "To take a spoil and to take a prey; to turn thine hand 
 upon the desolate places that are now inhabited." — Isaiah 
 xiv. 
 
 Some of the many aspects of the Kaiser have 
 been presented in detail; they still remain like 
 the sejDarated pieces of an intricate puzzle. 
 The difficult task of putting them together must 
 be attempted. 
 
 Two years ago we hailed him as the best 
 product of his race, the head of a warrior na- 
 tion whose desire to expand by sheer aggres- 
 sion he had kept in check for a quarter of a 
 century. To-day he is simply the brigand 
 chief, who has been craftily lying in ambush 
 during the whole period of his life for the plun- 
 der of Europe. Such a conception may fit- 
 
 223
 
 224 The Real Kaiser 
 
 tingly be cherished of almost the whole of the 
 German aristocracy, and of the bulk of the 
 German people as well, whether Prussian or 
 not. All Germany shares the same soul tex- 
 ture, which is nothing very fine. 
 
 But William is more than a German; he is 
 half English ; almost the best informed man of 
 his day ; widely travelled ; a man of keen imag- 
 ination and quick appreciation; a great organ- 
 iser and an orator of marvellous power; a lov- 
 ing husband ; an ardent patriot. 
 
 On the other side of the account must be 
 placed his stupendous vanity; his passion for 
 autocracy; the pYe-Christian quality of his re- 
 ligion; his inherited cruelty; his total lack of 
 scruple. 
 
 The task he set himself was impossible of 
 achievement; the provision for the new nation 
 he ruled of a place among the great Powers 
 at least equal to the greatest and superior to 
 all the rest. Germany had come upon the 
 scene too late for that ambition to be realised, 
 even by force of arms. The Kaiser's model 
 power. Great Britain, had only attained the 
 place he sought by patiently preserving through 
 the centuries the stoutness of moral fibre that
 
 The Real Kaiser 225 
 
 resisted the process of decay undergone by- 
 other world-powers. 
 
 The Kaiser's presumptuous vanity led him 
 to attempt the work of centuries in his own life- 
 time. He even hoped to accomplish the task 
 without resort to arms, which his over-quick 
 imagination caused him to dread. All the 
 good in him that is represented by his loving 
 fatherhood rose in protest against the shedding 
 of streams of blood. His very vanity and his 
 huge self-esteem made him picture himself as a 
 despot indeed, but a benevolent despot. 
 
 He saw Germany's swift progress with a 
 pride that fed his own inordinate conceit. He 
 realised, as quickly as the most erudite of his 
 professors, that the progress was a hothouse 
 growth, and that the plant must be fed with 
 fresh supplies from the stimulating source 
 which gave it its original impetus. He sought 
 for fresh worlds for Germany's peaceful occu- 
 pation, but found them not; all the places in 
 the sun were occupied. 
 
 He was closely in touch with the vast busi- 
 ness interests of Germany, and there encoun- 
 tered a problem which may yet be made clear. 
 Long-headed men in Germany have been saying
 
 226 The Real Kaiser 
 
 for some time past that the country was rap- 
 idly approaching an industrial crisis, and that 
 the German financial system was so inextrica- 
 bly interlaced that all commercial Germany 
 would be shattered by the coming storm. It 
 may be so ; if so, the Kaiser, with his £20,000,- 
 000 of invested capital, must have been aware 
 of it. 
 
 In the markets of the world Germany was 
 no longer having it all her own way. German 
 methods had come to be recognised, and were 
 being opposed on the same plane of action. 
 South America, formerly the best of Germany's 
 foreign customers, was passing through a pe- 
 riod of depression. Brazil's staples of rubber 
 and coffee had fallen almost below a profit- 
 yielding price; Argentina had experienced bad 
 seasons; Chile's mineral resources were ap- 
 proaching exhaustion. As the Kaiser's eco- 
 nomic professors told him, the German prob- 
 lem was becoming acute. 
 
 The world outside was distinctly unsympa- 
 thetic. Germany's wild campaign of ship- 
 building had involved all the nations, and es- 
 pecially Great Britain, in heavy expenses they 
 would gladly have been spared. All Europe 
 was panting at the pace the Kaiser was set-
 
 The Real Kaiser 227 
 
 ting, but grimly determined to be in at the 
 finish. England's plain intimation that she 
 would always keep her lead in that direction 
 was accepted as a very real fact, even by the 
 dullest German of Prussia. But it was ac- 
 cepted with a resentment that can only now be 
 measured. 
 
 German resentment at Britain's attempt to 
 limit her shipbuilding activities is intelligible 
 enough; for a limit could only have been set 
 by an act of unjustifiable aggression. But 
 German resentment at Britain's building more 
 warships than she would otherwise have 
 needed was only one ridiculous symptom of the 
 Anglophobia which possessed her. 
 
 Worse still for Germany, the Kaiser's frank 
 expositions of German aims and ambitions had 
 arrayed the Great Powers of Europe against 
 German influence. The nature of the bond of 
 the Powers was beyond the means of German 
 diplomacy to fathom; it resisted all the efforts 
 of the German secret service. How loose and 
 indeterminate that bond really was has re- 
 cently been revealed by Sir Edward Grey. 
 
 Its very looseness was a tribute paid by 
 France and Eussia to the National honour of 
 Great Britain.
 
 228 The Beat Kaiser 
 
 All these circumstances represented the com- 
 plete failure of the Kaiser's scheme for making 
 Germany a world-Power without recourse to 
 arms. His trade scheme was collapsing, his 
 colonial scheme had already failed, his great 
 show of force had only provoked a greater 
 show of armed force. 
 
 All the original problems remained for solu- 
 tion, and in an aggravated state. 
 
 Now, through all this time the clear vision of 
 the Kaiser was obscured by a curious mist. 
 We are hearing the continual argument raised 
 by his professors that the sympathies of such 
 countries as America should be with Germany 
 in this great war, because Germany is the ''cul- 
 ture nation." To Germans that seems a valid 
 argument. To the Kaiser it began to present 
 itself as an excuse for real aggression. His 
 religious belief, his profound faith in the ulti- 
 mate destiny of the German race, the vanity 
 which made him sure that he was the chosen in- 
 strument for fulfilling that destiny, all pointed 
 to the one conclusion. 
 
 Professors by the score were maintaining that 
 all the worthy people in the world were only Ger- 
 mans of some kind or other, and Pan-Germanism 
 was a faith that appealed to his spacious van-
 
 The Real Kaiser 229 
 
 ity. He looked back on the beginning of the 
 German Empire, and found that by force of 
 arms only could Bavaria, Baden and other 
 states be forced into the Union. Sheer wan- 
 ton aggression had been resorted to, and, as 
 they now saw, for their own good. Such an 
 argument could only convince a man of the 
 most colossal vanity, whom circumstances had 
 made anxious to accept it. 
 
 All the hideous processes by which this 
 further Germanisation of the world was to be 
 accomplished were patent to the Kaiser. His 
 fellow-fanatics saw only the logic and efficiency 
 of them, but his view was a wider one. He 
 still shrank, when they were ready to strike; 
 it needed all his monstrous conception of him- 
 self as a benevolent despot to bring him to the 
 striking point. It further needed another 
 stimulus, the threatened substitution of his son 
 for himself, as the instrument in accomplishing 
 Germany's destiny. 
 
 But the real poverty of the Kaiser's soul 
 came out in the final test. France had ac- 
 cepted England's friendship with a blind faith 
 in British honour. The Kaiser's men mocked 
 at British honour; they were sure there was 
 nothing in the bond to force England to budge ;
 
 230 The Real Kaiser 
 
 it was against lier interest to budge; therefore 
 England would not budge. 
 
 There had been a time when the Kaiser knew 
 better. He should have known better now. If 
 he erred in his estimate of the position, the 
 scales were soon torn from his eyes. He rec- 
 ognised quickly enough that Germany had for- 
 feited by his supreme blunder any claim to the 
 world's sympathy that the difficulties and mis- 
 fortunes of the nation might have earned. 
 Most Germans will not recognise it even on 
 their dying day. 
 
 His failure leaves him base, coarse, still bom- 
 bastic, and almost pitiful. He is no Napoleon, 
 to justify his insane ambition to his own peo- 
 ple by glorious deeds of arms. It will only be 
 remembered of him in the near future that he 
 made the name of German hated as no name has 
 ever been hated before. His great schemes 
 have already fallen in ruins about him, leaving 
 him a tragic figure with hardly one shred of his 
 aforetime dignity and nobility. 
 
 In no other guise, it would seem, the real 
 Kaiser must end his existence. 
 
 THE END 
 
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