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

us, memories which, in reminding her of victory, were meant to remind us of a defeat to which our conquerors have added cruelty.

I watch with fervour the expression of our patriotism. A race which forgets the brutal insults of superior force deserves slavery. Italy would never have reconquered Milan and Venice had she resigned herself to see them pass under the yoke of the stranger. Forty years and more had passed since the 2nd of May, [5] when Prince Napoleon thought fit to send Prince Jerome as Ambassador to Madrid. He was forced to leave it. Princess Murat was in no way responsible for what the French Generals had done. She came in the suite of the Empress Eugenie, but Spain found a way to make her displeasure manifest without any lack of courtesy. To the Empress Frederick, France has shown a melancholy kind of astonishment rather than dislike, and has displayed an infinite courtesy. Not a single demonstration, not a gesture, not a word from the population of Paris has done anything to detract from the city's world-wide reputation for hospitality.

The Emperor William I and Bismarck, who pretended to make war only against the Empire, would have shown themselves to be great and far-seeing political minds had they left Republican France in possession of the whole of her territory. Although beaten at Sedan, she would have remembered Jena, and Germany's revenge would have quickly been forgotten.

Let us remember the words of the Emperor of Germany--

"I would rather that all my people should fall upon the field of battle than give back to France a single clover-field of Alsace-Lorraine."

The _Post_ of Strasburg, recalling this declaration, adds--

"The French _bourgeoisie_ is too cowardly to begin a war. It is willing to smile at the words of Deroulede, but does not move. The people of Alsace-Lorraine have done quite rightly in turning away from these talkers. We have _permitted_ them to become Germans, why then, should they refuse the privilege?"

But William II continues to evoke the red vision of France militant, in order to obtain the vote for his military credits. It would seem that his liberalism has gone to join his socialism. At the dinner of the Brandenburgers he said "God inspires me; the people and the nation owe me their obedience." No matter whether he bungles or blunders, God alone is responsible, and it is not for the people or the nation to argue. And what is more, has not the new President of the Evangelical Church just proclaimed William II as _summus episcopus_? Just as William claims to decide infallibly every political question he will now decide all theological questions, without asking any help from the supreme council of the Evangelical Church.

Pope, Emperor and King--but does anybody suppose that this will satisfy him?


March 27, 1891. [6]

The reception of the delegates from Alsace-Lorraine at Berlin is characteristic. William II, eternally pre-occupied with stage-effects, has on this occasion accentuated the disproportion between the framework and the results obtained. He insisted upon it that the proceedings should be as imposing as the refusal of the delegates' request was to be humiliating. All the pomp and circumstance of State was displayed for the occasion, with the result of producing a scene, carefully prepared in advance, worthy of a Nero. The Emperor of Germany surrounded by his military household, in the hall of his Knights of the Guard, receives the complaints of the representatives of Alsace-Lorraine, who have come to ask for a relaxation of the laws imposed on them by conquest. To them, William II made answer: "The sooner the population of Alsace-Lorraine becomes convinced that the ties which bind her to the German Empire will never be broken, the sooner she proves more definitely that she is resolved henceforward to display unswerving fidelity towards _me_ and towards the Empire, the sooner will this hope of hers be realised."

Above the Imperial Palace, during this scene, the yellow flag of the Emperors of Germany floated side by side with the purple banner of Prussia.

Another picture--

The Emperor gives a banquet to the delegates of Alsace-Lorraine, after having refused to hear their complaints. At the same table with them he invites Herr Krupp to sit, in order to remind the people of the annexed provinces of the cannons which defeated France and will defeat her again. Here we have a reproduction of the Roman Empire in decay. The power of the conqueror, imposed in all its pomp upon the vanquished, with the cruelty of a bygone age.

The all-absorbing personality of William grows more and more jealous. He would like to fill the whole stage of the theatre of the empire and of the world itself. More than that, he even demands that the past should date from himself, and he turns history inside out, having it written to begin with his reign, and reascending the course of time. First himself, then the house of Hohenzollern, then Prussia, and let that suffice. The other dynasties, other kingdoms of Germany, count for so little that it is sufficient merely to mention their existence. The history of which I speak, written for the German Army, will be prescribed later on for use of the high schools.

From each department of the public service William lifts an important part of its business. From the Department of Education he takes the direction of public worship, which, in his capacity as _summus episcopus_, he proposes to control in person. From the War Department he takes the section having control of maps and fortresses, which, he proposes to place under the general staff and his own direction. He is planning to make a province of Berlin, so that he himself may govern it in military fashion, etc., etc. Is it possible that the mind of such a man, thus inflated with pride, should not succumb to every temptation of ambition? Is there any one of those about him, or amongst his subjects, who can say where these ambitions will end? When one thinks of the mass of ambitions and emotions that William II has exhausted since he came to the throne, when one thinks of the difficult questions he has raised, the obstacles he has created and the enterprises he has undertaken, how is it possible not to _fear_ the future?

Germany is beginning to be oppressed by a feeling of uneasiness. She is beginning to realise that her Emperor, by designing the orbit of his activity on too large a scale, is producing the contrary effect, with the result that sooner or later, the narrowing circumference of that orbit will close in upon him, and he will only be able to break its barriers by violent repression from within _and by a sudden outbreak of war without_. Militarism and militarism only, the passion for which is ever recurrent with William II, can satisfy his morbid craving for movement and action. Thus we see him celebrating the Anniversary of William I by a review of his troops and by a speech, so seriously threatening a breach of the peace, that even the newspapers of the opposition hesitate to reproduce it. All France should realise that _the German Emperor will make war upon her without warning and without formal declaration, just as he surprises his own garrisons_. By his orders, the statement is made on all sides that the rifle of the German army is villainously bad. Let us not believe a word of it. On the contrary, we should know that the greater part of the Prussian artillery is superior to ours; let us be on our guard against every surprise and ready.


April 28, 1891. [7]

On the occasion of the presentation of new standards to his troops, the Emperor observed that the number 18 is one of deep significance for his race, that it corresponds with six important dates in the history of Prussia. "For this reason," he added, "I have chosen the 18th of April as the day on which to present the new standards." As William II himself puts it, this day, like all the "eighteenths" that went before it, has its special significance.

The strange words uttered by the monarch on this occasion--always intoxicated with the sense of his power, and sometimes by _Kaiserbier_--are denied to-day, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that the _Monitor of the Empire_ has not published them. "Let our soldiers come to me," he proclaimed in the White Hall, to "overcome the resistance of the enemies of the Fatherland, abroad as well as at home."

On the one hand, after the manner of the Middle Ages, he reveals to us the ancient mysteries of the Cabal, on the other, as an up-to-date emperor, he compels his brother Henry to become a sportsman like himself. On occasion he will don the uniform of the Navy, interrupt a post-captain's lecture, and throw overboard the so-called plan of re-organisation, so as to substitute a new strategy of his own making for the use of the German fleet.

So Field-Marshal von Moltke is dead at last. His place is already filled by the Emperor, who is willing to be called his pupil, but a pupil equal in the art of strategy to his master and a better soldier. The remarkably peaceful death of Von Moltke only reminds me of the violent deaths that he brought about. It was to him that we owed the bombardment of Paris. Only yesterday, Marshal Canrobert said "he was our most implacable foe, and in that capacity, we must continue to regard him with hatred and contempt." Von Moltke himself was wont to say "when war is necessary it is holy." He leaves behind him all the plans in readiness for the next war.

William II, you may be sure, will proceed to depreciate the military work of Von Moltke, just as he tries to depreciate his diplomatic and parliamentary work. He has reached a pitch of infatuation unbelievable; and is becoming, as I have said before, more and more of a Nero every day. At the present moment he is instigating the construction of an arena at Schildorn where spectacles after the ancient manner will be given. These, according to William, are intended to afford instruction to the masses as well as to the classes. A very fitting conclusion this, to the fears which he has expressed about seeing the youth of the German schools working too hard and overloading its memory. For the same reason, no doubt, he has made Von Sedlitz Minister of Public Instruction--it is an unfortunate name--an individual who has never been to College, who has never studied at any University, and who only attended school up to the age of twelve.

Now, it seems, William II is bored with the Palace of his forefathers. For the next two years he is going to establish his Imperial Residence at Potsdam; consequently all his ministers and high officials are compelled to reside partly at Potsdam. His mania for change leads him to destroy the historic character of the old castle; his scandalised architects have been ordered to restore it in modern style. And Berlin, his faithful Berlin, is abandoned. It is said that at a gala dinner the other day the Emperor uttered these words: "The Empire has been made by the army, and not by a parliamentary majority." But it is also