The Schemes of the Kaiser by Juliette Adam (classic novels for teens TXT) 📕

intolerable for those statesmen who have any regard for the dignity of their country.

Our new Minister of Foreign Affairs, upon coming to the Quai d'Orsay, felt keenly the humiliation inflicted upon France by the persistent weakness of our policy. From the outset he succeeded in foiling the Sultan's dangerous scheme for securing a representative of the Holy See at Constantinople which would have abolished at one stroke the whole French protectorate over Christians in the East.

Cardinal Ledochowsky, Prefect of Propaganda, with the help of the prospective Nuncio at Constantinople, and in order to emphasise the collapse of French influence in the East, was making his plans in readiness for William II to assume, solemnly and definitely, a protectorate over the Christians. Already the Kaiser's trusty friend at the Vatican had decided to instruct the Catholic clergy in Palestine to render exceptional honours to the German Emperor on the occasion of his journey to the Holy Places. But the Council of the Congregation, in plenary session, has opposed the wishes of Cardinal Ledochowsky, and so there will be no nomination of a representative of the Holy See at the Court of the Grand Turk. The German Emperor must needs be content with the honours "usually accorded to reigning princes." This is the kind of rebuff that neither Abdul Hamid nor William II readily forgives.

One of the German Emperor's chief joys is to break things. To bewilder people by the suddenness of his resolutions, to court all risks, to proclaim his power, to sow the wind and reap the whirlwind: these are the pleasures of the German Emperor, King of Prussia. There is no need for me to repeat the strange Neronian stories that are whispered in Germany concerning certain incidents of William's sea-voyages and journeys in Norway. A number of mysterious deaths following one upon the other provide sufficient material for these tales. For those who, like myself, have never ceased to regard William II as a creature of unbridled pride, it is enough from time to time to note one of his actions, so as to form our judgment of the man and to be able to predict to what heights of complacent admiration for himself and of severity for others he is likely to attain hereafter.


August 10, 1898. [9]

Created by force, the unity of Germany is maintained by force. On the day that another force arises, Germany will collapse, for her cohesion has only been attained and cemented by cunning and contempt for the truth; she has lived by the sword and she shall perish by the sword.

It is said that Bismarck was the real obstacle to an understanding between England and Germany. It is certainly true that neither France nor Russia has anything to gain by England's throwing herself into the arms of Germany. Mr. Chamberlain is ready to do all in his power to draw England into the Triple Alliance, and William II, no longer dreading the criticisms of Varzin, would now accept with pleasure the proposals which he seemed to disdain. Nevertheless, the real rival that threatens England's future is Germany.

The German peril, industrial and commercial, inspires England with fear, and we should know how to turn this situation to our advantage. Let us do all we can to prevent an _entente_ being arranged which would deprive us of a card and add one to the enemy's hand.

A war in China between Russia and Great Britain, no matter how it might end, would fulfil Germany's dream of being delivered from Russia in the East and the Balkans. This is precisely what William II desires and seeks--herein pursuing Bismarckian tactics. France and Russia must, therefore, exercise all their skill to prevent it, and go exceeding warily amidst the intrigues that are now afoot.

What has been the result of the Note which the representatives of the Powers have handed to the Porte, on the initiative of France and Russia, stating that they will never permit the landing of new Turkish forces in Crete? Merely to prove that Austria and Germany refuse to be parties to these proceedings, and to speak plainly, support the Sultan. Ah, if Russia could only be kept busy in China! What a godsend if France could be left alone to play the part of this admirable European Concert, the genial notion of our last Minister of Foreign Affairs!

Germany alone secures her ends, profits by all the disturbances she creates, waxes and grows fat, and William II smiles at the thought of a world-wide kingdom ruled by himself alone. Once master of the whole earth, he may come to stand face to face with God.


September 11, 1898. [10]

On the occasion of a gala dinner at Hanover, William II, always in a hurry to display his likes and everlastingly parading his dislikes, did not fail to seize the opportunity of being polite to England and uncivil to France. He proposed a toast to the health of the 10th Army Corps, recalling to memory the brotherhood of arms between Englishmen and Germans at Waterloo; he glorified the victory of the Sirdar, Kitchener, in the Soudan.

A few days later, speaking of peace, the German Emperor, King of Prussia, let fly his Parthian arrow at his august brother, the Tzar. At Porta, in Westphalia, he said: "Peace can only be obtained by keeping a trained army ready for battle. May God grant that 'e may always be able to work for the maintenance of peace by the use of this good and sharp-edged weapon."

Nothing could have been more bluntly expressed; it is now perfectly clear that the reduction of armaments has no place in the dreams of William II. I know not by what subterfuge he will pretend to approve of a Congress "to prepare for universal peace," but I know that, for him, the dominating and absorbing interest of life lies in conquest, in victories, in war. Turkey victorious, America victorious, England victorious--these are the lights that lead him on. He excels at gathering in the inheritance won for him by his own people, and he likes to have a share also in the successes of others. He has had his share in Turkey and has filed his application in America. He is already beginning with England in China and speculating with Great Britain in Delagoa Bay, under the eyes of his greatly distressed friends of the Transvaal.

Amidst a hundred other schemes, the German Emperor, King of Prussia, is by no means neglecting his apotheosis at Jerusalem. We are told even the details of his clothes, which combine the military with the civil, "An open tunic of light cloth, brown coloured; tight trousers, boots and sword-scabbard of yellow leather, the insignia of a German General of the Guards, a helmet winged with the Prussian eagle." A truly pious rig-out forsooth, in which to go and kneel before the tomb of Christ! They say that, in order to judge of the effect of this costume, William II has posed for his photograph forty times.

The German Church in Palestine certainly never expected to see the _summus episcopus_ adopting an attitude of extreme humility in that country. If any simple-minded Lutheran were to address the Kaiser in the streets of Jerusalem, after the manner of the Hungarian workman, who saw the archbishop primate, all glittering with gold in his gala coach, passing over the Buda bridge, William II would answer him in the same style as did the archbishop: "That is just the sort of carriage in which Jesus used to drive," exclaimed the workman. The archbishop heard him, and leaning from the carriage door, replied: "Jesus, my good fellow, was the son of a carpenter. I am the son of a magnate, and Archbishop Primate of Hungary."

William II undoubtedly believes that he does Christ an honour in going to visit Him. He goes in the full pride of a personality which sees in itself all the great events of the past, gathered together as in an historic procession. He goes, with all the pomp and circumstance of a glorious omnipotence, he, whose diplomacy has made a protege of the Khalif and a footstool of the Crescent--he goes, I say, to manifest himself as the Emperor of Christianity.

Was all then to be lost to us at a stroke--the Crusades, all the moral and economic interests of France in the East, that secular protectorate of which we, the possessors, make so light whilst William II devotes to its conquest all the resources of his skill and cunning? Not so! Our Minister of Foreign Affairs was on the alert. William XI, who is an artistic walking advertisement, designed, like a Mucha or a Cheret, for the German market, has now had evidence of the fact that, if religion is an article of export for him, anti-clericalism is nothing of the kind for us. Our interests in the East have been protected and preserved. The Pope of Lutheranism has not been able to silence the Pope of Rome. The radical Republic which represents France remains the grand-daughter of Saint Louis. On hearing the authoritative news of William II's journey to Jerusalem, Cardinal Langenieux, Archbishop of Rheims, begged Leo XIII for "a reassuring word." Up to the present, the Holy See has recognised our Protectorate in the East as a simple fact; to-day it is recognised as a right. Here is the "reassuring word," the answer given by Leo XIII to Cardinal Langenieux:--

"We know that for centuries the French nation's protectorate has been established in Eastern Countries and that it has been confirmed by treaties between governments. Therefore no change whatsoever should be made in this matter. This nation's protectorate, wherever it is exercised, should be religiously maintained and missionaries must be notified accordingly, so that, if they have need of help, they may have recourse to the Consuls and other agents of the French nation."

At their last Congress the German Catholics--we know that the Catholics constitute a third of the population of Germany and that their representatives can hold in check the Imperial policy in the Reichstag--openly expressed their sympathy for Leo XIII, for the "noble exile at Rome, who is compelled, from the day of his elevation to the Papacy, to pledge himself never to cross the threshold of the Vatican alive." When William II is compelled hereafter to make concessions to the Centre in the Reichstag, his allies, the Italians, will be well advised to give the matter their attention.


September 26, 1898. [11]

All the actions of that modern Lohengrin, William II, derive their inspiration from a Wagnerian theory concerning the harmony of discords. This friend of the Sultan, soon to be the guest of the Khedive, congratulates Kitchener, the Sirdar, whose deeds are the blood-stained consecration of England's machinations in Mussulman territory.

Almost at the identical moment that he sent his telegram to the Sirdar to celebrate a British victory, he said at the opening of the new harbour at Stettin: "I rejoice that the ancient spirit of Pomerania is still alive in the present generation, urging it from the land towards the sea. _Our future lies on the water_."

Queen of the Seas, take warning!

We know how William II is wont to express his pacific ideas and what is his conception of the reduction of armaments--with blustering threats and hosannahs in praise of rifles and cannons. On the subject of peace, the German mind has long since been fixed in its ideas.