Hohenzollern

“ We have described the characteristics of the Hohenzollern dynasty who created that Prussian State. How is it that the German nation should have surrendered their destinies to a power which is so constitutionally selfish, so inherently evil, which has trampled down all the [81] principles that a modern world holds dear and sacred?
The subjection of Germany to Prussia has been a triumph of Hohenzollern diplomacy and deceit, and has been the outcome of a tragic misunderstanding on the part of a politically uneducated and inexperienced people. ”

“ Since the days when the Counts of Nuremburg became electors of Brandenburg, from the grosse Kurfurst, Frederick the Great, to the present Emperor, the house of Hohenzollern has shown itself to be the most virile dynasty in modern history. Not always clever, they possessed the rare faculty of finding, developing and using men having the necessary ability to execute their current policies. ”

“ Many people never grow up out of the obsessions of a royalist training, and so it is that the collapse of the Hohenzollern system has left great masses of the German people imaginatively bankrupt and utterly confused. Any people who had had the same training and the same experience would be equally at a loss and helpless. The idea of a great German republic, one and indivisible, has to be built up now in an atmosphere of unparalleled storm, confusion, and disaster.
It cannot be built up all at once, and meanwhile anything superficial in the way of separations may happen to Germany. ”

“ What we have to deal with is an elderly, nervous, not unintelligent person who happens to be a Hohenzollern; and who, to do him justice, does think more of the Hohenzollerns as a sacred caste than of his own particular place in it. In such families the old boast and motto of hereditary kingship has a horrible and degenerate truth. The king never dies; he only decays for ever. ”

“ A Hohenzollern was the last man in the world to undervalue what he might wish to sell. Frederick strove to persuade Europe that in him a new and greater Gustavus had appeared. He increased his army ostentatiously and bade his representative at Versailles speak of his active and impetuous way of thinking.
“You can say,” he continues, “that it is to be feared that this increase kindles a fire which may set all Europe in a blaze; that it is the way of youth to be adventurous, and that the alluring visions of heroic fame may disturb and have disturbed the peace of countless nations in the world.” ”

“ Cool heads were needed to meet the German. And the night-attack at Hohenzollern failed. The dead lay as if emptied out of sacks into the pits, into the trenches, some head downward, some with legs alone visible. ”

“ With the Hohenzollerns it is mere nonsense to dream of any enduring peace, but whether we are making a lasting and friendly peace with Germany or merely a sort of truce of military operations that will be no truce in the economic war against Hohenzollern resources, the same essential idea will, I think, guide all the peace-desiring Powers. They will try to draw the boundaries as near as they can to those of the natural map of mankind. ”

“ Henceforth the head of the Hohenzollern family could sign himself margrave and elector of Brandenburg, duke of Cleves, and duke of Prussia. In the last-named role, he was a vassal of the king of Poland; in the others, of the Holy Roman Emperor. In the course of the Thirty Years' War, the Hohenzollerns helped materially to lessen imperial control, and at the close of the struggle secured the wealthy bishoprics of Halberstadt, Minden, and Magdeburg, [Footnote: The right of accession to Magdeburg was accorded the Hohenzollerns in 1648; they did not formally possess it until 1680.] ”

“ A section of the people, the Social Democrats and the Liberals, have made fitful and impotent efforts to free themselves from the tyranny of the Hohenzollern. What they have not succeeded in doing, Europe is now doing for them. In the fulness of time, Europe has arisen to crush the Hohenzollern, to kill the “Spirit [83] of the Prussian Hive.” The war will result in the enfranchisement of Germany as it will result in the enfranchisement of Poland and Serbia. Did the history of the world ever present so tragic a paradox? Twelve million heroes are fighting the German Government. ”

“ And they all give Hohenzollern three groans!
"There it is;" and the Great Man fairly purred with satisfaction. "Une petite pièce de tout droit, isn't it?" he said. "I gave you a hint of the tune. It needs a stirring one."
"It does," said I, delighted to be able to agree with him on one point. "And you have other songs equally topical?"
He pointed to a bale in the corner that I had taken for a new carpet.
"I've had a good few to choose from," he said. "I fancy this one is about the best. My leading low-comedian writes all his own lyrics—extraordinarily adequate little man. ”

“ These men appear to have been counts of Zollern, and to have met their death in 1061. The family of Wezil died out in 1194, and the existing branches of the Hohenzollerns are descended from Burkhard and his son Frederick, whose eldest son, Frederick II., was in great favour with the German kings, Lothair the Saxon and Conrad III. Frederick II. died about 1145, and his son and successor, Frederick III., was a constant supporter of the Hohenstaufen. ”

“ The Emperor's only brother, Prince Henry of Prussia, was born in 1862, and is married to Princess Irene of Hessen. He is probably the most popular Hohenzollern to-day. He adopted the navy as a profession and devotes himself to its duties, taking no part in politics. Like the Emperor himself and the Emperor's heir, the Crown Prince, he is a great promoter of sport, and while a fair golfer (with a handicap of 14) and tennis player, gives much of his leisure to the encouragement of the automobile and other industries. Every Hohenzollern is supposed to learn a handicraft. ”

“ That part of the Hohenzollern legend which portrays Frederick as the conscious or semi-conscious architect of the modern German Empire finds little support in the record of his life. Sometimes, it is true, he used the language of Teutonic patriotism and posed as the indignant defender of German liberties against the Hapsburg. But he posed with equal indignation as the protector of Polish or Swedish “liberties” against a reforming king or as the champion of Protestantism against Powers who might be represented as its foes. ”

“ If counsel's personal convenience is involved that is another matter. But as for Zohenhollern— ["Hohenzollern, my Lord"] —he cannot expect particular treatment; and that will do, thank you.
The ushers start calling out for him to surrender to his bail: "Hohenzollern! Hhhohenzollern! Owen Zollern!" re-echoes throughout the building. "Zollern—O-N!" is heard faintly in the far distance. No one notices that a gentleman with a fierce moustache has already made his dramatic entry and is trying to push his way into the dock.... ”

“ Mounted upon their horses and clad in armor, in sight of the hostile squadron of knights, they received the accolade from Emperor Henry VII. The incident is immortalized in a picture upon my yacht Hohenzollern.
The descendants of those princes gave each other assistance at Mühldorf, [30] where the Hohenzoller won the battle for Emperor Ludwig of Bavaria. Just as at that time the houses of Wittelsbach and of Hohenzollern fought side by [162] side for the good of the empire, so now, too, and in the future they will work together. ”

“ On the other hand, it was pointed out that attacks on an individual are always more effective than attacks on a party. Finally, it was agreed that anything said against the Hohenzollern dynasty should be taken, either in reality or in appearance, from German sources, so as to avoid the risk that attacks clearly emanating from Allied sources might strengthen rather than weaken the Emperor's hold upon the people of Germany. ”

“ The division of Sigmaringen is composed of the two formerly sovereign principalities of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen and Hohenzollern-Hechingen (see Hohenzollern) , and has an area of 440 sq. m. and a population (1905) of 68,282. The Sigmaringen part of the Hohenzollern lands was the larger of the two (297 sq. m.) and lay mainly to the south of Hechingen, though the district of Haigerloch on the Neckar also belonged to it. The name of Hohenzollern is used much more frequently than the official Sigmaringen to designate the combined principalities. ”

“ These show that among the peoples who were sacrificed to William's war-policy the German nation heads the list. The more they incriminate the Hohenzollern régime, the more they exculpate the German people, for they testify most distinctly that the latter had no notion of the actual course of the events that led to war far less than the other nations—while those politicians who from scattered indications had guessed the truth were cut off during the war from every possibility of criticizing events and of enlightening the masses. ”

“ She will certainly not suffer us to play a gloriously victorious rôle. It is quite remarkable that in such crises Catholic ministers always hold the reins of our destiny—Radowitz once before, now Hohenzollern, who just now has the predominant influence, and is in favor of war. I look very darkly into the future; our troops are not better than the Austrian, because they only serve half as long; and the German troops, on whose support we reckon, are for the most part quite wretched, and, if things go ill with us, their leaders will fall away from us like dry leaves in the wind. ”

“ The candidature of a Hohenzollern might reasonably be viewed in France as an attempt to connect Prussia politically with Spain; and with so much reserve was this candidature at the first handled at Berlin that, in answer to inquiries made by Benedetti in the spring of 1869, the Secretary of State who represented Count Bismarck stated on his word of honour that the candidature had never been suggested. ”

“ There is certainly none whose history on the whole is better. Margraf George of Anspach-Baireuth was perhaps the finest character among the Protestant princes of the Reformation, without whom the good fight could not have been fought. When Charles V. besieged Metz in the winter (which, with Lorraine, had just been torn from Germany by the French) , and was compelled by the cold to withdraw, it was a Hohenzollern prince, one of the first soldiers of the time, who led the rear-guard over ground which another Hohenzollern, Prince Frederick Charles, has again made famous. ”

“ The fabulous upgrowth of Germany in the economic sphere at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century provided the means for powerful military armaments, and it created a class of force-loving industrial magnates, particularly in the iron industry. With these associated themselves those old partisans of the policy of force, the Junkers, and the greater part of the intellectuals, who were professionally engaged to proclaim the warlike glory of the Hohenzollerns and to inoculate the whole youth of Germany with the virus of megalomania. ”

“ This incorruptible German lost no time in learning French. As soon as peace was declared he set about restoring his wasted territory. He organized a standing army and built a fleet, and he used them, too, to recover Pomerania from Sweden and to circumvent the French King, and so enlarged his boundaries and strengthened his authority that Brandenburg, now next in size to Austria, was treated with the respect of an independent power, and the name of Hohenzollern began to shine bright even beside that of Hapsburg. ”

“ When Conrad of Hohenzollern was appointed Margrave and Elector, he found sturdy supporters in the lords of Burgstall; he and his successors often came there to hunt the deer and wild boars, perhaps also the wolves and bears, with which the forests around the castle abounded; for the Hohenzollerns were keen sportsmen then as now, as their vassals found to their cost. In 1555, Hans George, son of the reigning Elector, Albert Achilles, bought the neighbouring estate of Letzlingen from the Alvenslebens; there he built a house which is still the chief hunting-lodge of the Kings of Prussia. ”

“ Meanwhile there is other work to be done and the Hohenzollerns remain.
Life in Cologne is very pleasant for the occupying army. As with the Hohenzollern bridge, so with the town itself—it is typical of the material excellence which before the war marked the German organisation of practical life. German local authorities throughout the country have kept a firm and admirable grasp on the town-planning of their large modern cities. The individualism of the speculative builder is not allowed to run riot here. Not only are the new quarters in Cologne well and solidly built, but open spaces abound. ”

“ I have no doubt that the Hohenzollern was a miracle of luxury inside, with her silver bath for the Kaiser's daughter and other sybaritic appointments; but outside she was not a dream of loveliness. Neither were the two warships that we saw anything like as handsome to behold as our own battleships.
"What funny tin-pot things they look!" said Little Yeogh Wough. "Now I know why all the toy ships we have that are made in Germany [Pg 115] never look a bit like ours. They don't look so professional, somehow. Perhaps it's because we're not used to them. ”

“ Nay, when the anxious Hohenzollern further informs him that the Swedish ambassador, who has arrived on the occasion of the peace negotiations, would ask the hand of the Princess of Orange for his master, but that the Princess seems to have made her choice already and thus is apparently thwarting the Elector's plan, and when he asks the Prince if he is not in some way tangled up in all this, the latter cries out despairingly "I am lost," and hurries off to the Electress to entreat her to intervene in his behalf. ”