The Schemes of the Kaiser by Juliette Adam (free ereaders TXT) 📖

was in the hands of Germans. "Sooner or later," said he, "the Danube will belong to Germany."

According to Mr. Bigelow, all the people who have the misfortune to live in the neighbourhood of the frontiers of Russia only dream of becoming Germans, in order to escape her.

There is one remarkable quality which William II possesses and which Mr. Bigelow has forgotten, and that is his talent as a scenic artist and _impresario_ for any and every kind of ceremony; in this he is past master. For the 375th Anniversary of October 31, 1517, the day on which the famous theses, which inaugurated the Reformation, were posted by Martin Luther on the door of the chapel at Wittenberg, the Emperor-King surpassed himself. The Imperial procession aroused the greatest enthusiasm in the little town by its successful reconstruction of the historic picture. The speech of the _summus episcopus_ cast all sermons into the shade by its lofty tone and spirit of tolerance.


[1] _La Nouvelle Revue_, January 16, 1891, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[2] _La Nouvelle Revue_, February 1, 1891, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[3] _La Nouvelle Revue_, March 1, 1891, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[4] _La Nouvelle Revue_, March 15, 1891, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[5] Spanish insurrection against the French invasion under the first Empire.

[6] _La Nouvelle Revue_, April 1, 1891, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[7] _La Nouvelle Revue_, May 1, 1891, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[8] _La Nouvelle Revue_, May 15, 1891, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[9] _La Nouvelle Revue_, June 1, 1891, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[10] _La Nouvelle Revue_, August 1, 1891, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[11] _Ibid._, August 15, 1891.

[12] _La Nouvelle Revue_, September 1, 1891, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[13] _Ibid._, September 15,1891.

[14] _La Nouvelle Revue_, October 1, 1891, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[15] _La Nouvelle Revue_, November 15, 1891, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[16] An allusion to the Commander's statue in "Don Juan."

[17] _La Nouvelle Revue_, December 15, 1891, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[18] _La Nouvelle Revue_, January 1, 1892, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[19] _La Nouvelle Revue_, February 15, 1892, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[20] _La Nouvelle Revue_, March 1, 1892, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[21] _La Nouvelle Revue_, March 15, 1892, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[22] _La Nouvelle Revue_, April 15, 1892, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[23] _La Nouvelle Revue_, May 1, 1892, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[24] _La Nouvelle Revue_, June 1, 1892, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[25] _La Nouvelle Revue_, July 15, 1892, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[26] _La Nouvelle Revue_, September 1, 1892, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[27] _La Nouvelle Revue_, September 15, 1892, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[28] _La Nouvelle Revue_, October 1, 1892, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[29] _La Nouvelle Revue_, November 16, 1892, "Letters on Foreign Policy."


CHAPTER III

1893

William II receives the Tzarewitch--Germany would rather shed the last drop of her blood than give up Alsace-Lorraine--William's journey to Italy--The German manoeuvres in Alsace-Lorraine.

January 13, 1893. [1]

Being too weak a man to accept such responsibility as that involved in the scheme of military reforms, Von Caprivi has, so to speak, by his suppliant attitude towards the parties in the Reichstag, forced William II to assert himself. In spite of his leanings towards prudent reform, the Emperor-King, whose pride we know, has found himself all of a sudden in a sorry plight on the question of the increase of the standing army. The rising tide of public censure, mounting to the foot of the throne itself, found no one to hold it back but a bewildered lock-keeper. And so the Emperor, with his helmet on his head, appeared upon the scene, to take charge of the damming operations. On January 1 he addressed his generals, his enthusiastic officers (who, like all soldiers, have a holy horror of politicians), and said to them, "I shall smash the obstacles that they raise against me."

Thus it happens that it is no longer Von Caprivi who confronts the Reichstag, no longer the hesitating successor of Bismarck, whom the country accuses of leading it on the path to ruin: the Emperor-King takes charge in person. Instead of being a question of policy and bargaining between the political parties, the question becomes one of loyalty. In Parliament, the resistance of the country, instead of being a legitimate opposition intended to enlighten the sovereign, becomes revolutionary. So now the Reichstag is compelled either to vote the scheme of military reform, or to be dissolved; Germany must either confirm her representatives in their obedience, or take the consequences of her hostility towards the Emperor and his army. The Reichstag will submit, and Germany will humbly offer to her Sovereign an additional million of troops in the next five or six years. William II will hasten their general submission by threats of war and revolution, as unlimited as is the field of his falsehood.


February 12, 1893. [2]

William II has left no stone unturned, and has displayed the utmost skill, in endeavouring to enfold in his influence the heir to the throne of Russia. He has devoted to this end all the splendour that an Imperial Sovereign can display in the entertainment of his guest, all the resources of enthusiasm which he can lead his people to display in welcoming him, all his tricks of apparent good-will, all the fascination of a mind which is apt to dazzle those who meet it for the first time (although later on it is apt to inspire them with weariness by its very excesses), every manifestation of a wistful friendship which proclaims itself misunderstood.

The whole Germany of tradition displayed itself before the eyes of the Tzarewitch, all its treacherous appearance of good nature, all its dishonest methods, composed of a mixture of vanity and apparent simplicity, whose object it is to make people believe in a sort of unconsciousness of great strength. The German Emperor made an appeal for a union of princes to resist the restless democracy of our times, and repeated it with urgency, and in the usual stock phrases. In a word, William II laid under contribution, to charm the son of the Tzar, all his arts and spells of fascination. Why wonder that he succeeded, when we remember that M. Jules Simon, a French Republican, member of the Government of National Defence in 1870, came back from Berlin singing the praises of the King of Prussia? Also, that the entire Press of our country, with the sole exception of the _Nouvelle Revue_, was wont, at the commencement of William's reign, to speak with sympathy of the genial character of the "young Emperor," to praise his schemes of social reform, and to express its belief in the superiority of a mind which, as a matter of fact, is remarkable only for its excesses and disorder? But all Germany, like M. Jules Simon and the French Press, will find out the truth. The country may have gone into ecstasies over the first acts and first speeches of its young sovereign, but it will soon learn to know how little connection there is between the words and assurances of William of Hohenzollern and his deeds.

At the outset, during the sojourn of the Tzarewitch at Berlin, whilst he was being carefully coddled by the Emperor, the chancellor, Von Caprivi (who boasts of having no initiative of his own and of acting only under the orders of his master), was inspiring accusations, and making them himself before the military commission, charging the war party in Russia with secretly plotting against Germany. One would like to know where the war party in Russia can possibly be at the present moment?

At the same time that William II was endeavouring to recover and restore amicable relations with the Tzar, he had every intention of carrying through his schemes of military re-organisation and the increase of the army, which, as Von Caprivi was wont to say after His Majesty, constitute essential safeguards against a Russian invasion. Now, the good Germans welcomed the son of Alexander III; they meant to prove to William II how useless they considered the increase of the army, inasmuch as the Tzar, with whom lies the final arbitrament of war, had shown his desire for peace by sending his son to Berlin. The Tzar, whose statecraft is great and profound, had clearly foreseen what the German people would think of the presence of his son in their midst; he showed them by this means that the increase of the army is useless, and that all the agitation and complications which William provokes, the oppositions and the struggles which he himself creates amongst the forces that he lets loose, give rise to dangers, far greater than any with which Russia could ever threaten Germany.

William II wears blinkers; he can sometimes see in front of him, but never around him nor behind. He believed that the Tzar and the Russian Press were going to be affected by the same sort of enthusiasm which he had inspired in the Tzarewitch, but the Tzar, Russia, and the Russian Press considered matters dispassionately and saw them in their right light; they were even of opinion that William II had displayed far too much vanity in his reception of the Tzarewitch and too little dignity. Consequently, after the departure of the Tzarewitch, the Emperor-King of Prussia, had a fit of rage, furious with disappointment at not having been able to follow up the success which he had obtained with the Tzarewitch himself. In one of those fits of ungovernable temper which lead him to commit so many irreparable mistakes, and which are the despair of his Government and his Court, he caused Von Caprivi's Press to publish the news of an attempt upon the life of the Tzar. But the methods of reptile journalism are now thoroughly understood and the Emperor Alexander, guessing the source of this lie, demanded an immediate apology, which Admiral Prince Henry hastened to convey, in the name of his brother, to the Russian Embassy. At the same time that he invented this story of the attempt on the life of the Tzar, the King of Prussia, German Emperor, proposed a toast in honour of the Duke of Edinburgh, Commander-in-Chief of the British Fleet, in which he looked forward to "the glorious day when the British fleet should fight the common enemy." The common and double enemy of England and Germany, as every one is aware, is France and Russia.


March 11, 1893. [3]

Until quite recently, the proposed military law was heatedly discussed in Germany. Realising that the Military Commission was on the point of rejecting it, William II finished his speech in the following words--

"The supporters of the proposed Sedlitz Law accused the Government of weakness, when it withdrew the Bill in the face of the clearly declared opposition of a majority of the nation. Well, then, the proposed military law provides us with an opportunity of showing that my Government is not a weak one, and that the firm will of my grandfather, the Emperor William, lives again in me."

A few days before the vote in the Reichstag, Herr Bebel had raised the question of International Arbitration wherein, he said, lay Germany's best means of proving her love for peace, even should it involve the risk of having the question of Alsace-Lorraine brought before an International Tribunal. Hereupon, Von Caprivi, Chancellor of the Prusso-German Empire, replied to