Kaiserswerth

“ The offer to be Kaiser was made him in his old days; but he wisely declined that too. It was in Brandenburg, by what he silently founded there, that he did his chief benefit to Germany and mankind. He understood the noble art of governing men; had in him the justice, clearness, valor and patience needed for that. A man of sterling probity, for one thing. Which indeed is the first requisite in said art:—if you will have your laws obeyed without mutiny, see well that they be pieces of God Almighty's Law: otherwise all the artillery in the world will not keep down mutiny. ”

“ All stand aghast at the Kaiser's wrath, all save one noble knight, who steps fearlessly forth from the circle, with head proudly raised, a youth of manly beauty, the blond locks falling on his shoulders, the blue eyes blazing in just indignation, approaches the Kaiser, and cries, "Herr Kaiser, it was not a 'knave.' At the breach on the bloody field thou hast said, 'Brave Werner, thou art my bravest hero!' And thou hast chosen me as companion for thy kingly son. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Imperial Majesty flatters herself it may be fair: "Treaty of Dresden, Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle; Treaties wrung from me by force, the tyrannic Sea-Powers screwing us; Kaunitz can tell! A consummate Kaunitz; who has provided remedies. Treaties do get broken. Besides, I will not go to War, unless HE the Bad One of Prussia do!"—Alas, your noble Majesty, plain it at least is, your love of Silesia is very strong. And consummate Kaunitz and it have led you into strange predicaments. ”

“ The two Biddle brothers looted the Bank of England, but they became outcasts upon the face of the earth, and always the dungeon yawned for them, just as the Kaiser and von Hindenburg never sleep at night without a vision of an oak tree, a long bough and a hemp rope dangling at the end, for the hemp is now twisted that will one day choke to death the murderous Kaiser and his War Staff.
Let no patriot, whether he lives in Spain, Russia or the United States, forget that ours is a world ruled by men who were defeated. ”

“ In a word, Friedrich Wilhelm falls out with the Kaiser more and more; experiences more and more what a Kaiser this has been towards him. Queen Sophie has fallen silent in the History Books; both the Majesties may look remorsefully, but perhaps best in silence, over the breakages and wrecks this Kaiser has brought upon them. Friedrich Wilhelm does not meanly hate the Kaiser: good man, he sometimes pities him; sometimes, we perceive, has a touch of authentic contempt for him. ”

“ Ober-Pfalz our left:—and as to the broad breast between these two; left arm and broad breast are Bavaria's, not ours. Of the Netherlands, which might be called geographically the head of Austria, alas, the long neck, Lorraine, was once ours; but whose is it? Irrecoverable for the present,—perhaps may not always be so!"
These are Kaunitz's ideas; and the young Kaiser has eagerly adopted them as the loadstar of his life. "Make the Reich a reality again," thinks the Kaiser (good, if only possible, think we too) ; "make Austria great; Austria is the Reich, how else can the Reich be real?" ”

“ I am going for Silesia, on the Reviews. I am to see the Kaiser, who has invited me to his Camp in Mahren. That is an amiable and meritorious Prince; he values your Works, reads them as diligently as he can; is anything but superstitious: in brief, a Kaiser such as Germany has not for a great while had. Neither he nor I have any love for the blockhead and barbaric sort;—but that is no reason for extirpating them: if it were, your Turks [oppressors of Greece] would not be the only victims! ”

“ The Kaiser sat on King Ferdinand’s right, and on King Ferdinand’s [Pg 174] left sat General von Falkenhayn, the chief of the German General Staff, whilst M. Radoslavoff, the Bulgarian premier, was placed on the right of the Kaiser. Interested as I was in the Kaiser, I was hardly less interested in the personality of von Falkenhayn, who is the brain of the great German War Machine. Although a man well into the fifties, he looks as if he had not yet crossed the half-century mark. It would be difficult to find a man with more refined and good-looking features. ”

“ All through luncheon I was thinking that this was the last time I should be talking to the interesting and wonderful charmeur who was sitting next to me. The Kaiser has a way of fixing those discerning gray eyes of his on you when he talks, and you have the feeling that he is sifting and weighing you in his mind—and when he smiles his face lights up with humor and interest. You feel as if a life-buoy were keeping you afloat. He has that wonderful gift of making people appear at their best. ”

“ It must be the German people we hate as an overshadowing race, if our fight is to have even the excuse of the inflamed passion of the survival of the fittest. We must acknowledge the Kaiser as the symbol of the best organized form of government, unless we are frankly anarchists; the most efficient, the most powerful, the most nearly approaching a practical socialism. ”

“ You preach the advantage of our Kaiser-led country. Do you really believe that the Kaiser is the man for the task which is coming?"
Seaman's narrow eyes glittered. He looked at his companion in satisfaction. His forehead was puckered, his eternal smile gone. He was the man of intellect.
"So you are waking up from the lethargy of Africa, my friend!" he exclaimed. "You are beginning to think. As you ask me, so shall I answer. The Kaiser is a vain, bombastic dreamer, the greatest egotist who ever lived, with a diseased personality, a ceaseless craving for the limelight. ”

“ The "Extras" added that the Kaiser would himself shortly arrive in Berlin from Potsdam. No one doubted now that the Fatherland was on the brink of grim and portentous events. War might only be a matter of hours, perhaps minutes. Instantaneously all roads led to Unter den Linden. Through it, now Oberster Kriegsherr indeed--Supreme War Lord is not an ironical sobriquet foisted upon the German Emperor by detractors, as many people think, but an actual, formal title--the Kaiser would soon be passing. History was to be made to repeat itself. ”

“ Kaiser Ludwig the Bavarian left his sons Electors of Brandenburg;—"Electors, KURFURSTS," now becomes the commoner term for so important a Country;—Electors not in easy circumstances. But no son of his succeeded Ludwig as Kaiser,—successor in the Reich was that Pfaffen-Kaiser, Johann of Bohemia's son, a Luxemburger once more. No son of Ludwig's; nor did any descendant,—except, after four hundred years, that unfortunate Kaiser Karl VII., in Maria Theresa's time. He was a descendant. Of whom we shall hear more than enough. The unluckiest of all Kaisers, that Karl VII. ”

“ Never had the Holy Romish Reich such a shock before: "Meaning to partition us like Poland?" thought the Reich, with a shudder. "They can, by degrees, if they think good; these Two Great Sovereigns!" Courage, your Durchlauchts: one of the Two great ones has not that in his thoughts; has, and will have, the reverse of that; which will be your anchorages in the storms of fate for a long time to come! Nor was it—as will shortly appear to readers—Kaunitz's immediate intention at all: enough if poor we can begin it, set it fairly under way ”

“ Dominey murmured. "The work, for its own sake, will command my every effort, even without the hope of reward."
"That," the Kaiser said, "is well spoken. It is the spirit, I believe, with which every son of my Empire regards the future. I think that they, too, more especially those who surround my person, have felt something of that divine message which has come to me. For many years I have, for the sake of my people, willed peace. ”

“ He did Crusades, one or more, for the Teutsch Ritters, in a shining manner;—unhappily with loss of an eye; nay ultimately, by the aid of quack oculists, with loss of both eyes. An ambitious man, not to be quelled by blindness; man with much negotiation in him; with a heavy stroke of fight too, and temper nothing loath at it; of which we shall see some glimpse by and by.
The pity was, for the Reich if not for him, he could not himself become Kaiser. ”

“ An ally who would continually whisper in the latter’s ear all the advantages which a friendly treaty and understanding with Germany could bring to him, as well as to the whole Russian Empire, was indispensable; of course, when it was suggested to those who controlled the actions and the politics of the Wilhelmstrasse that he might be found in the person of the Empress Alexandra’s favorite, the Kaiser came very quickly to the conclusion it would be worth while to obtain the good offices of this remarkable man. ”

“ Also there was another comfortable theory quite generally held that the Germans were a peaceful and home-loving race, thoroughly good-hearted and inoffensive, and that they were as much amused with their saber-rattling, shining-armored Kaiser as we were. Most of us looked upon the Kaiser as a joke; certainly few of us suspected that his people really regarded him as a demigod, and that many thousands of those people were even then living in the United States, under the protection of its laws and its flag. ”

“ Kaiser at last suspected of freethinking even:—in which matters Hermann much serves the Kaiser. Sometimes he is appointed arbiter between the Pope and Kaiser;—does not give it in the Kaiser's favor, but against him, where he thinks the Kaiser is wrong. He is reckoned the first great Hochmeister, this Hermann von der Salza, a Thuringer by birth, who is fourth in the series of Masters: perhaps the greatest to be found there at all, though many were considerable. It is evident that no man of his time was busier in important public affairs, or with better acceptance, than Hermann. ”

“ Margraf George was much esteemed as Duke of Jagerndorf. What his actions in that region were, I know not; but it seems he was so well thought of in Silesia, two smaller neighboring Potentates, the Duke of Oppeln and the Duke of Ratibor, who had no heirs of their body, bequeathed, with the Kaiser's assent, these towns and territories to George: [Rentsch, pp. 623, 127-131. Kaiser is Ferdinand, Karl V.'s Brother,—as yet only KING of Bohemia and Hungary, but supreme in regard to such points. His assent is dated "17th June, 1531" in Rentsch.] ”

“ Germany is not ready to have the Kaiser back. But, as at Athens, so in Berlin, national humiliation has reacted in favour of the monarch. There is a vague feeling that the Kaiser is suffering for Germany's sake, and that his exile typifies the unhappy downfall of Germany. No one thinks the Kaiser less virtuous than Lloyd George or Clemenceau. Except for the Communist movement, which naturally tends in an entirely different direction, there is a national sentimental reaction in favour of the Hohenzollerns. ”

“ Altogether the Kaiser owns about forty castles and country houses, valued at $10,000,000, and various property in Berlin, approximately worth $5,000,000. In seven different provinces he owns seventy-four estates, comprising close on half a million acres.
It is interesting to note that ever since Germany began to make preparations for a great war the Kaiser has been investing immense sums of money on the other side of the Atlantic. He is one of the largest landowners in the Western United States—not in his own name, of course—and owns a considerable section of property in the West of Canada. ”

“ Universal astonishment, indignation, even incredulity, is the humor at Vienna: the high Kaiserinn herself, kept in the dark for some time, becomes dimly aware; and by Kaiser Franz's own advice she relieves Prince Karl from his military employments, and appoints Daun instead. ”

“ In this way, he has thrown into prison those who dared to speak against the war, and has either suppressed newspapers or ordered them to print only what he wished printed; thus the German people have let him do their thinking for them.
They are a docile people. One of the first words that a German baby is taught to say is “Kaiser,” and all of the schools, which are run by the government, have taught nothing but respect for the present form of government, and almost a worship of the Kaiser himself. ”

“ You are a—person whom we fling out like sweepings, now that our eyesight returns, and accuse of common stealing. Go and be—!"
Nothing ever had so disgusted and astonished Kaiser Karl as this treatment,—not of Marlborough, whom he regarded only as he would have done a pair of military boots or a holster-pistol of superior excellence, for the uses that were in him,—but of the Kaiser Karl his own sublime self, the heart and focus of Political Nature; left in this manner, now when the sordid English and Dutch declined spending blood and money for him farther. ”

“ No. 1 LOQUITOR (in cramp doggerel, done into speech) : "To thee, O Lord, we poor folk make moan; the Devil has sown his seeds in this land! Law thy hand created for protection of thy children: but where now is Law? Widows and orphans weep that the Princes do not unite to have a Kaiser."
No. 2: "The Princes grind in the Kaiser's mill: to the Reich they fling the siftings; and keep to themselves the meal. Not much in haste, they, to give us a Kaiser."
No. 3: "Like the Plague of Frogs, there they are come out; defiling the Reich's honor. ”