Emperor Wilhelm II

“ Wilhelm II. received me cordially. It was not the first time we had met. About the time of his ascending the throne I had been the means of inflicting on him a defeat which a smaller man would have found [11] it hard to forgive. Fortunately, the German Kaiser was of metal sterling enough to recognise merit even in an enemy, and to realise that my fidelity to my then employer was the best guarantee that I should be equally faithful to himself, if it fell to my lot to serve him.
‘What has Finkelstein told you?’ was the Emperor’s first question, after he had graciously invited me to sit down. ”

“ Wilhelm II, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, who wrote the inspiring hymn, “O Christ, Thy grace unto us lend,” was not only a poet and musician, but also a man of war. He was twice wounded in battle with the Imperial forces, and was once left for dead. He was taken prisoner by Tilly, but was released by the emperor. When Gustavus Adolphus came to Germany to save the Protestant cause, Wilhelm after some hesitation joined him. However, when the Duke in 1635 made a separate peace with the emperor, the Swedish army ravaged his territory. ”

“ Ever since he became Emperor, Wilhelm has been instilling his extraordinary beliefs into his army and into his people, until today we have a psychology in the Teuton Empire which will probably make it possible for the military autocracy to continue the war to a far greater length than would be conceivable in any other country in the world. ”

“ Many people had at the sight of them an intuitive feeling that they were not mortal men, but rather mystical embodiments of the power of nature, just as the gods of the sun, the sea, and the storm were the conceptions of the old religions. They passed on, and at a short interval behind them came the Emperor Wilhelm. His supreme importance was emphasized by the space left before and after him. ”

“ It has been said that "the egg from which was hatched the German Empire was laid on the battlefield of Sedan." But, not to speak of the offer of the Imperial Crown to King Frederick Wilhelm by the Frankfort Parliament in 1848, Bismarck more than a year before the Austro-Prussian war had spoken to Lord Augustus Loftus, then British Ambassador to Prussia, of his ultimate intention that the King of Prussia should become the Emperor of an united Germany. ”

“ Indeed, to break the Franco-Russian Alliance, to make the CZAR an enemy of England, to place Europe under German hegemony was an ambition strong enough to make even a dull man lively and to speed a clumsy and halting pen. It was only when the writer realised the game was up that the letters became shorter and less exuberant. But during those historic days when Great Britain, Russia, and France were drawing together under the impulse of a common danger, the Imperial scribe used every art to cajole, to flatter, to amuse, and to threaten the Emperor Nicholas. ”

“ WILLIAM I. (1797-1888) , king of Prussia and German emperor, was the second son of Frederick William III. of Prussia and Louise, a princess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. He was born at Berlin on the 22nd of March 1797, and received the names of Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig. He was a delicate child and had to be carefully nurtured. His constitution, however, was sound, and he became one of the most vigorous men in Germany. ”

“ Kaiser Wilhelm did not like the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary; he recognised the fact that he would have to deal with a determined man, who knew exactly what he wanted and would refuse to believe the flattering assurances that satisfied Emperor Francis Joseph, who, although still in full command of his mental faculties, was beginning to feel the weight of years. The Emperor was never so acute a man as his heir; the Archduke, too, had a wife whose intelligence was remarkable. Countess Chotek was ambitious, and her husband was accustomed to following her advice in State affairs. ”

“ It finds its apotheosis in the monument to Kaiser Wilhelm I., a vast incoherent group of swelling and swaggering bronze, commemorating the victory of the first Prussian Emperor in the war with the last French Emperor, and avenging the vanquished upon the victors by its ugliness. The ungainly and irrelevant assemblage of men and animals backs away from the imperial palace, and saves itself too soon from plunging over the border of a canal behind it, not far from Rauch's great statue of the great Frederic. ”

“ You forget the Sacred Presence. There is only one Emperor—he whom her Majesty permits to execute her will over the black-haired people. The vain assumption of Imperial titles by these foreign bandits is deeply offensive to the Court of Heaven. You understand? All such upstarts exist merely by the tolerance of her Majesty. We will speak of this person as the Viceroy of the German Province.’
I could scarcely resist a smile as I bowed apologetically. I imagined myself repeating this conversation to Wilhelm II., a ruler not inclined to take too low an estimate of his own consequence. ”

“ Statesmen, fearing that the Emperor would never recover, were afraid to oppose him, and he got an insight15 into affairs of State during the Emperor’s illness that enabled him to assume a position that he never gave up afterwards. The Habsburgs were obliged to look on while Duchess Hohenberg, then merely Countess Chotek, took a position that would never have been conceded to her had the Emperor been in his usual health. Kaiser Wilhelm, ever watchful, began to count on the possibility of the Emperor’s death, and the friendship between him and the Archduke dates from this epoch. ”

“ Carl Schurz has not by this time received a letter of thanks from the Emperor of Germany for his strenuous efforts in behalf of the Kaiser's Imperial schemes in the Pacific, it is because Wilhelm II. either is the most ungrateful of monarchs or is too busily occupied in watching Chinese developments to spare the time necessary to the writing of it. It cannot be that one so watchful of his own interests as the Emperor is has failed to note how strong an ally he has in the person of Mr. Schurz. ”

“ The first armored cruisers, König Wilhelm, Kronprinz, Friedrich Karl, were bought from England and France. In thirty years Germany has here achieved not only complete independence but something approaching very nearly to supremacy. His service in this field has been generally recognized. A German critic not usually favorable to the Emperor speaks thus: “Perhaps nowhere in the development of our political life does the personal activity of the Emperor stand out so strongly as in the building up of the German fleet. ”

“ Here the war might have ended; but the fearful tyranny of Ferdinand over all the Protestants in his dominions (Hungary excepted) drove them to despair, and the war advanced to its second phase. Christian IV. of Denmark, smarting under some injuries inflicted on him by the emperor, and aided by a British subsidy, came to the aid of his German co-religionists in 1624, and being joined by Mansfield and Christian of Brunswick, advanced into Lower Saxony, while the emperor, hampered by the political jealousy of the Catholic league, was unable to oppose him. ”

“ The arbitrary threat of the Emperor was badly received in the other federated states, whose newspapers pointed out that he had exceeded his authority. It gave the Socialists an opportunity to attack Emperor Wilhelm on the floor of the Reichstag. Four days after this threat was made, an orator of the Socialist party declared
"We salute the imperial words as the confession, full of weight and coming from a competent source, that annexation to Prussia is the heaviest punishment that one can threaten to impose upon a {15} people for its resistance against Germany. ”

“ The inconsistency of the letter of May 30, 1898, must have been evident to the Emperor of Russia, for if tentative offers of alliance were made by Great Britain, they were, on the Imperial writer's own showing, conceived in the interests of peace, and yet in the same letter and in the next the GERMAN EMPEROR plainly insinuates that Great Britain is inspired by some sinister design against the peace of Europe. We two, writes the GERMAN EMPEROR to the CZAR, "have the same opinions: we want peace, and we have sustained and upheld it till now . ”

“ Russia he might weaken and cajole; France he thought to subdue; Austria-Hungary was obedient; Italy might be persuaded; and as for the smaller nations, his foot would be on their necks. But what of the British Empire? Supreme on all seas, owning one-fifth of the habitable globe, peaceable until attacked, but when attacked indomitably stubborn, the English would never consent to an European hegemony. They might be deceived for a time; but ultimately, it seems, they must be vanquished. Now and again, in the course of the letters, that conviction of the GERMAN EMPEROR is vividly revealed. ”

“ Thus the Imperial letters make an historical document of the highest value, providing the key to the complex and hidden machinery of European international policies during the ten years preceding the Great War, which was their inevitable and disastrous consummation. In as far as the GERMAN EMPEROR himself is concerned, there is little scope for conjecture, inasmuch as he condemns himself with his own hand. History as a general rule is largely a matter of piecing together available evidence and filling in the gaps with ingenious and learned hypotheses. ”

“ The EMPEROR, in fact, is to threaten his Ministers with Siberia if they do not sign a treaty disastrous to Russia! And the KAISER thinks that the CZAR will be amused by such a proposal! We are left wondering what CZAR replied to his "real friend," but we may imagine that the reply was tinged with sarcasm.
To the Liberal Manchester Guardian the letters show the Kaiser as a contemptible figure, "a mediavalist fanatic on a modern throne." He is characterized as an "anti-Liberal," an. "arch-Tory," a most irresponsible person in one of the most responsible offices in the world. ”

“ The song was composed by him as a part-song for men's voices, March 14, 1854, was first sung on the 11th of the following June, and quickly found its way into print. In 1871 Wilhelm received a pension of £150 a-year from the Emperor, but did not long survive his good fortune, as he died Aug. ”

“ The arrogance, the insolence, of the Junker officer, his aristocratic pretension, his bearish manners, have made him a byword, not only in his own country but all over Europe; and his belief in sheer militarism and Jingo imperialism has made him a menace. The Kaiser has only made things worse. Vain and flighty to a degree, and, like most vain people, rather shallow, Wilhelm II has supposed himself to be a second and greater Bismarck, destined by Providence to create the said Teutonic world-empire. It is simply to fight these powers of evil that we are out. ”

“ If England go right for the Kaiser, well, and his Majesty is in good-humor with Queen, with Crown-Prince and Wilhelmina. If England go wrong for the Kaiser, dark clouds gather on the royal brow, in the royal heart; explode in thunder-storms; and at length crockery goes flying through the rooms, blows descend on the poor Prince's back; and her Majesty is in tears, mere Chaos come again. For as a general rule, unless the English Negotiation have some prospering fit, and produce exceptional phenomena, Friedrich Wilhelm, ever loyal in heart, stands steadfast by his Kaiser ”

“ There was but one small cloud on Wilhelmine's sky at this time, and this was the silence maintained by the Emperor and his advisers. Eberhard Ludwig had informed his Majesty of his marriage, craving his suzerain to ratify its legality, and permit him to raise the Countess of Urach to the rank of Duchess of Wirtemberg. He set forth that, during ten years, his former wife Johanna Elizabetha had been sterile, and therefore, as reigning Prince, he was at liberty to declare that alliance null, and for the good of his country take to wife another woman capable of bearing children. ”

“ Hardly any evidence will be needed to establish the fact that WILHELM II. was the personality with far more strength and initiative. As the letters show, the active political aims are on his side. He wants to produce an impression on the CZAR; he wants to cement Russia's policy with that of Germany, in accordance with the needs of the German interests and the peace of Europe. ”

“ A character so romantic, spontaneous, and robust must always be a favourite with the British people, who, were his lunacies less formidable, would regard him as the most delectable burlesque of the age."
However the British generally may regard him, it is certain that the German nation accepted him as their acclaimed leader. Clever, good-looking, versatile, imperious, fond of the romantic pose, Wilhelm was exactly the hero in shining armour that would capture the enthusiasm of this innocent people. ”

“ In obedience to the law to which all earthly things are subject, the inheritance left by Kaiser William will have further to develop itself in order to be in accord with the character and the needs of the time. Nobody will dare to say that he looks clearly into the future. But one thing appears certain, the new German Empire, which honors Emperor William as its father and its first head, will stand all the firmer the more it can say of itself that it has created what is the true aim and end of all government—a people united, strong and happy in liberty, peace and progress. ”