THE ACCESSION

1888-1890

With his accession began for the Emperor a period of extraordinary activity which has continued practically undiminished to the present day. During that time he has been the most prominent man and monarch of his generation. From the domestic point of view his life perhaps has not been marked by many notable events, but from the point of view of politics and international relations it has been the history of his reign and to no small extent the history of the world.

When a German Emperor ascends the throne there is no great outburst of national rejoicing, no great series of popular cérémonials. There is no brilliant procession as in England, no impressive coronation like that of an English monarch in Westminster Abbey, no State visit of the monarch to the Houses of Parliament. In Germany Parliament goes to the King, not the King to Parliament.

On the same day that the Emperor began his reign he addressed proclamations to the army and navy. The addresses to the people and the Parliament were to come a few days later. In the proclamation to the army he said:

“I and the army were born for each other. Let us remain indissolubly so connected, come peace or storm, as God may will. You will now take the oath of fidelity and obedience to me, and I swear always to remember that the eyes of my ancestors are bent on me from the other world, and that one day I shall have to give an account touching the fame and the honour of the army.”

His address to the navy was in the same vein.

“We have only just put off mourning for my unforgettable grandfather, Kaiser William I, and already we have had to lower the flag for my beloved father, who took such an interest in the growth and progress of the navy. A time of earnest and sincere sorrow, however, strengthens the mind and heart of man, and so let us, keeping at heart the example of my grandfather and father, look with confidence to the future. I have learned to appreciate the high sense of honour and of duty which lives in the navy, and know that every man is ready faithfully to stake his life for the honour of the German flag, be it where it may. Accordingly I can, in this serious hour, feel fully assured that we shall stand strongly and steadily together in good or bad days, in storm or sunshine, always mindful of the Fatherland and always ready to shed our heart’s blood for the honour of the flag.”

To his people he promised that he would be a

“just and mild prince, observant of piety and religion, a protector of peace, a promoter of the country’s prosperity, a helper to the poor and needy, a faithful guardian of the right.”

To the Parliament a week later he announced that he meant to walk in the footsteps of his grandfather, particularly in regard to the working classes, to acquire the confidence of the federated princes, the affection of the people, and the friendly recognition of foreign countries. He said that in his opinion the

“most important duties of the German Emperor lay in the domain of the military and political security of the nation externally, and internally in the supervision of the carrying out of imperial laws.”

The highest of these laws, he explained, was the Imperial Constitution and “to preserve and protect the Constitution, and in especial the rights it gives to the legislative bodies, to every German, but also to the Emperor and the federated states,” he considered “among the most honourable duties of the Emperor.”

While the order of these addresses is different to what it would be in England, it entirely accords with the spirit of the Prussian monarchy and the political system of the German people. Settled in the heart of Europe, the nation rests on the army, and it is hardly too much to say that, from the Emperor’s point of view, possibly also from the popular German point of view, the interests of the army must be considered before the interests of the rest of the population. An English monarch, who issued his first address to the British navy, would be as justified in doing so by the real necessities of Great Britain as a German Emperor who first addresses the German army is justified by the real necessities of Germany; for the British navy is as vital to the British as the German army is to the German nation. In England, however, the monarch’s respect for the people and Parliament takes precedence of his respect for the army, not vice versa as in Germany.

In a speech from the throne to the Prussian Diet the Emperor took the Constitutional Oath: “I swear to hold firmly and unbrokenly to the Constitution of the Kingdom and to rule in agreement with it and the laws ... so help me God!” and went on to proclaim the continuance in Prussia and the Empire of his grandfather’s and father’s policy and work. He said at the same time, while undertaking not to make the People uneasy by trying to extend Crown rights, that he would take care that the constitutional rights of the Crown were respected and used, and that he meant to hand them over unimpaired to his successor. He concluded by saying that he would always bear in mind the words of Frederick the Great, who described himself as the “first servant of the State.”

At Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, a few months later, he declared, when unveiling a monument to his uncle, Prince Frederick Karl, a hero of the Franco-Prussian War, that he meant never to surrender a stone of the acquisitions made in the war and

“believed he voiced the feeling of the entire army in saying that Germany, rather than do so, would suffer its eighteen army corps and its whole population of 42 millions to perish on the field of battle.”

At this period of his career the Emperor was, first and foremost, a thoroughgoing Hohenzollern. Doubtless he is so still, if he talks less about the dynasty. He admired Frederick the Great, then as now, and in the first place as military commander, but the ancestor with whom he even more sympathized, and sympathizes, was the Great Elector. “The ancestor,” he said himself,

“for whom I have the most liking (Schwaermen, a hardly translatable German verb, is the word he used) and who always shone before me as an example in my youth, was the Great Elector, the man who loved his country with all his heart and strength, and unrestingly devoted himself to rescuing the Mark Brandenburg out of its deep distress and made it a strong and united whole.”

What particularly attracted the Emperor in the history of the Elector was the fact that he was the first Hohenzollern who saw the importance of promoting trade and industry, building a navy, and acquiring colonies. As yet, however, the Emperor had only clear and fairly definite ideas about the need for a navy. The world-policy may have been in embryo in his mind, but it was not born.

The imaginative side of the Emperor’s character at this period is well illustrated in a speech he made in 1890 to his favourite “Men of the Mark.” He was talking of his travels, to which allusion had been made by a previous speaker.

“My travels,” said the Emperor,

“have not only had the object of making myself acquainted with foreign countries and institutions, or to create friendly relations with neighbouring monarchs, but these journeys, which have been the subject of much misunderstanding, had for me the great value that, withdrawn from the heat of party faction, I could review our domestic conditions from a distance and submit them to calm consideration. Any one who, standing on a ship’s bridge far out at sea, with only God’s starry heaven above him, communes with himself, will not fail to appreciate the worth of such a journey. For many of my fellow-countrymen I would wish that they might live through such an hour, in which one can make up an account as to what he has attempted and what achieved. Then would he be cured of exaggerated self-estimation, and that we all need.”

Having discharged the duty of addressing his own subjects, the Emperor’s next care, after a stay at Kiel where a German Emperor and King now for the first time in history appeared in the uniform of an admiral, was personally to announce his accession at the courts of his fellow-European sovereigns. We find him, accordingly, paying visits to Alexander II in St. Petersburg, to King Oscar II in Stockholm (where he received a telegram announcing the birth of his fifth son), to Christian IX in Copenhagen, to Kaiser Franz Joseph in Vienna and to King Humbert in Rome. To both the last-mentioned he presented himself in the additional capacity of Triplice ally.

In August of the year following his accession he paid his first visit as Emperor to England. It was a very different thing, one may imagine, from the earliest recorded visit of a German Emperor to the English Court. That was in 1416, when the Emperor Sigismund (1411-1437) arrived there and was received by Henry V. Henry postponed the opening of Parliament specially on his account, made him a Knight of the Garter, and signed with him at Canterbury an offensive and defensive alliance against France. How poor the German Empire and the German Emperor were at that epoch may be judged from the fact that on his way home Sigismund had to pawn the costly gifts he had received in England.

On the present occasion a grand naval review of over a hundred warships, with crews totalling 25,000 men, was held in honour of the Emperor at Osborne. This was followed, a few days afterwards, by a parade of the troops at Aldershot under the command of General Sir Evelyn Wood. On this occasion, after expressing his admiration for the British troops, the Emperor concluded: “At Malplaquet and Waterloo, Prussian and British blood flowed in the prosecution of a common enterprise.” In a little speech after the review the Emperor spoke of the English navy as “the finest in the world.” The impression made by the Emperor on Sir Evelyn has been recorded by that general. “The Emperor is extremely wide-awake,” he writes to a friend, “with a decided, straightforward manner. He is a good rider. His quick and very intelligent spirit seizes every detail at a glance, and he possesses a wonderful memory.” The Emperor was now nominated an honorary Admiral of the British navy and as a return compliment made Queen Victoria honorary “Chef” of his own First Dragoon Guards. At the naval review a journalist asked an English naval officer what would happen if the Emperor, in command of a German fleet, should meet a British fleet in time of war between England and Germany? “Would the British fleet have to salute the Emperor?” “Certainly,” replied the naval officer; “it would fire 100 guns at him.”

Next year the Emperor was again in England, this time to be present at the Cowes regatta, which he took part in regularly during the four succeeding years, noting, doubtless, all that might prove useful for the development of the Kiel yachting “week,” the success of which he had then, as always since, particularly at heart. He was received by Queen Victoria with the simple and homely words, “Welcome, William!”

A State visit to the City of London followed, when he was accompanied by the Empress, and was entertained to a luncheon given by the City Fathers in the Guildhall. The entertainment, which took place on July 10, 1891, was remarkable for a speech delivered by the Emperor in English, in which, besides declaring his intention of maintaining the “historical friendship” between England and Germany, he proclaimed that his great object “above all” was the preservation of peace, “since peace alone can inspire that confidence which is requisite for a healthy development of science, art, and commerce.” On the same occasion he expressed his feeling of “being at home” in England “this delightful country” and spoke of the “same blood which flows alike in the veins of Germans and English.” Shortly afterwards he attended a review of volunteers at Wimbledon, and, as he said, was “agreeably astonished at the spectacle of so many citizen-soldiers in a country that had no conscription.”

The Emperor returned from England to receive the visit of his chief Triplice ally, the Emperor Franz Joseph, and to discuss with him doubtless the European situation. Bismarck has been pictured as sitting at the European chessboard pondering the moves necessary tor Germany to win the game of which the great prize was the hegemony of Europe. The chief opposing Pieces, whose aid or neutrality was desirable, were for long France, Russia, Austria, and Italy; but in 1883, with the conclusion of the Triple Alliance, Austria and Italy needed less to be considered, and the only two really important opposing pieces left were France and Russia. Still, Germany, through her allies of the Triplice, might be dragged into war, and consequently the doings of Austria and Italy, both in relation to one another and to France and Russia were, as they now are, of great importance to her.

At the time of the accession, the chessboard of our metaphor was mainly occupied with Franco-German relations and with Russian designs on Constantinople, the Dardanelles, and the Black Sea. The danger to Germany of war with France, which had arisen out of the Boulanger and Schnaebele incidents, had died down, but not altogether ceased. Hohenlohe tells us how at this time, in conversation with the Emperor, the latter ventured the forecast: “Boulanger is sure to succeed. I prophesy that as Kaiser Ernest he will pay a visit to Berlin.” He was wrong, we know, as so many prophets are.

Russian designs on Turkey had had to reckon with the opposition of England and Austria. As regards these designs, Bismarck says:

“Germany’s policy should be one of reserve. Germany would act very foolishly if in Oriental questions, without having special interests, she took a side before the other Powers, who were more nearly interested: she would therefore do well to refrain from making her move as long as possible, and thus, besides, gain the benefit of longer peace.”

The Chancellor, however, admitted that against the advantages of a policy of reserve had to be set the disadvantage of Germany’s position in the centre of Europe with its frontiers exposed to the attacks of a coalition. “From this situation,” said the Chancellor, “it results that Germany is perhaps the only Great Power in Europe which is not tempted to attain its ends by victorious war.”

“Our interest,” he goes on,

“is to maintain peace, whereas our continental neighbours without exception have wishes, either secret or officially admitted, which can only be fulfilled through war. Consequently, German policy must be to prevent war or confine it as much as possible: to keep in the background while the European game of cards is going on: and not by loss of patience or concession at the cost of the country, or vanity, or provocation from friends, allow ourselves to be driven from the waiting attitude: otherwise plectuntur Achivi! third parties will rejoice.”

That was the Bismarckian policy twenty-five years ago, and though new economic conditions have had great influence in modifying it since, particularly as it regards the East, it is practically Germany’s policy now.

In his first speech from the throne to the Reichstag the Emperor thus referred to the Triple Alliance:

“Our Alliance with Austria-Hungary is publicly known. I hold to the same with German fidelity, not merely because it has been concluded, but because I see in this defensive union a foundation for the balance of power in Europe and a legacy of German history, the importance of which is recognized by the whole of the German people, while it accords with European international law as undeniably in force up to 1866. Similar historical relations and similar national exigences of the time bind us to Italy. Both Germany and Italy desire to prolong the blessings of peace that they may pursue in tranquillity the consolidation of their newly acquired unity, the betterment of their national institutions, and the increase of their prosperity.”

In a speech a few months later he declared that the Alliance had no other purpose than to strengthen the peaceful relations of Germany to other foreign Powers. His next public reference to it was in May, 1900, when Kaiser Franz Joseph visited Berlin on the occasion of the coming of age of the German Crown Prince. “Truly,” exclaimed the Emperor, in a vein of some exaggeration,

“this Alliance is not alone an agreement in the eyes of the monarchs, but the longer it has existed, the deeper has it taken root in the convictions of the peoples, and the moment that the hearts of the peoples beat in unison nothing can tear them asunder. Common interests, common feelings, joy and sorrow shared together, unite our three nations for now twenty years, and although often enough misunderstandings and sarcasm and criticisms have been poured out on them, the three peoples have succeeded in maintaining peace hitherto, and are regarded by the whole world as its champions.”

The history of the Triplice may be shortly related here as, along with his navy, it is regarded by the Emperor as the chief factor in the preservation of the world’s peace, and is, in fact, as has been said, the foundation of his foreign policy. It arose from Bismarck’s desire to be independent of Russia and from his dread of a European coalition for example, that of France, Austria, and Russia against the German Empire. “We had,” Bismarck writes,

“carried on successful war against two of the European Great Powers (Austria and France), and it became advisable to withdraw at least one of them from the temptation to revenge which lay in the prospect an alliance with others offered. It could not be France, as any one who knew the history and temperament of the two peoples could see, nor England owing to her dislike of permanent alliances, nor Italy as her support alone was insufficient against an anti-German coalition; so that the choice lay between Austria-Hungary and Russia.”

For many reasons Bismarck would have preferred the Russian alliance, among others the traditional dynastic friendship between the two countries and the fact that no natural political or religious causes of conflict existed between them; while a union with Austria was less reliable, owing to the changeable nature of her public opinion, the heterogeneousness of her Magyar, Slav, and Catholic populations, and the loss of influence by the German element with the governing body. On the other hand, however, an alliance with Austria would be nothing new, internationally, as such a connection theoretically arose from the former connection of Germany and Austria in the Holy Roman Empire. While weighing the matter, a threatening letter from Czar Alexander II to William I, in which he called on Germany to support his Balkan policy, and said that if he refused peace could not last between their two countries, decided Bismarck in favour of Austria. The chief opponent of the new Alliance was William I, who was moved by personal chivalric feelings towards his nephew, Czar Alexander; but, disregarding this, because confident of eventually persuading his imperial master, Bismarck went to Gastein and there settled with the Austrian Minister, Count Andrassy, the principles of the Alliance. Italy came into the Alliance in 1883 as the immediate result of France obtaining a protectorate in Tunis, in return, partly, for her acquiescence in the English acquisition of Cyprus. The protectorate aroused general indignation and fear in Italy, and though it meant a large expenditure on naval and military armament, on May 20, 1882, she joined the Dual Alliance for five years, and thus turned it into the Triplice.

The Triple Alliance rests on three treaties: one between Germany and Austria-Hungary, one between Germany and Italy, and one between Austria-Hungary and Italy. While by the first Germany and Austria-Hungary bind themselves to combine in case of an attack on either by Russia, whether as original foe or as ally, and to observe “at least” benevolent neutrality in case of attack from any other quarter, by the second Germany and Italy bind themselves to mutual support in case of an attack on either by France. The third, between Austria-Hungary and Italy, binds the signatories to benevolent neutrality in case Austria-Hungary is attacked by Russia, or Italy by France.

That there are weak points in the Triple Alliance is obvious. If Austria-Hungary were a purely homogeneous country like France or Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary, even without Italy, could face with confidence an attack from either or both their powerful neighbours. But Austria-Hungary is not homogeneous. A large proportion of her population is anti-German, or at least non-German, and Italy is always subject to be tempted by an opportunity of obtaining some of Austria-Hungary’s Adriatic possessions. Moreover, a large party is even now to be found in Austria-Hungary which desires revenge for the humiliation of her defeat by Germany in 1866.

The relations of Germany to Russia have always been rather those of friendship between the monarchs of the two countries than of friendship between the two peoples; and it is easy to understand that the fear of revolution, Socialism, or “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” to use Lincoln’s celebrated phrase, at all times forms a strong and active bond of sympathy between the monarchs. In the case of Russia there is also always to be considered the obstinate, or as the Emperor would call it knightly, spirit in which his grandfather, King William I, regarded his obligation to maintain friendship with the Czar, and which for a long time made him hostile to the idea of alliance with Austria instead of alliance with Russia. The feeling, it is highly probable, is strong, if not equally strong, in the mind of the Emperor to-day, if only out of respect for the memory of his ancestor. There is not, to use a popular expression, much love lost between the two peoples, not only because of racial differences between Teuton and Slav, but because of the differences in religion and in degree of civilization. There are not a few Germans who assert that Germany’s next war will be with Russia, and that from the dominions of the Czar will be obtained the fresh territory Germany needs for her constantly expanding population.

The Czar returned the Emperor’s accession visit in Berlin in October, 1889, and it was on this occasion that the first sign of trouble between the Emperor and the old Chancellor showed itself. When the Emperor first proposed to make his round of visits of accession to foreign sovereigns, Bismarck agreed except as regarded Russia and England, objecting that visits to these countries would have an alternatively bad effect in each. The Emperor, however, as has been noted, went to Russia. During the return visit in Berlin, Bismarck had an interview with the Czar which resulted in the final adjustment of Russo-German relations, but at its close the Czar said, “Yes, I believe you and have confidence in you, but are you sure you will remain in office?” Bismarck looked surprised, and said, “Certainly, Majesty; I am quite certain I shall remain in office all my life” an odd thing, one may remark, for a man to say, who must have been familiar with the saying, “Put not your trust in princes.”

When the Czar was going away, both the Emperor and Bismarck accompanied him to the station, and on their return the Emperor gave the old Chancellor a seat in his carriage. The talk concerned the visit just over, and the Emperor again announced his intention of spending some time in Russia the following year. Bismarck now advised against the project on the ground that it would arouse hostility in Austria, and because “it was not suitable considering the Czar’s disposition towards the Emperor.”

“What disposition? What do you mean? How do you know?” questioned the Emperor quickly.

“From confidential letters I am in the habit of receiving from St. Petersburg, in addition to official reports,” replied the Chancellor.

The Emperor expressed a wish to see the letters, but Bismarck gave an evasive answer. The result was a temporary coolness between Emperor and Chancellor.

From a memorandum of Prince Hohenlohe’s we get a glimpse of one of the political currents and anti-currents just now running high. Prince Hohenlohe writes under date, June 27, 1888, when the Emperor was hardly a fortnight on the throne:

“Last evening at 8 left Berlin with Thaden after supping with Victor and Franz (son and nephew) in the Kaiserhof Hotel. Paid several visits during the day. I found Friedberg somewhat depressed. He is no longer the big man he was in the Emperor Frederick’s time, when everybody courted him. He knows that the Emperor does not favour Jews. Then I visited the new chief of the Cabinet (civil), Lucanus, a courtly, polished, obliging man, who looks more like an elegant Austrian privy councillor. Wilmoski inspires me with more confidence. At 5 to Bleichroeder’s (Bleichroeder was the great Jew banker). We spoke, or rather he spoke first, about the political situation. He is satisfied, and says Bismarck is too. Only the Emperor must take care to keep out of the hands of the Orthodox. People in the country wouldn’t stand that. (He is right there, comments Hohenlohe.) Waldersee and his followers, he said, was another danger. Waldersee was a foe of Bismarck’s and thought himself fit for anything and everything. Who knows but that these gentlemen wouldn’t begin the old game and say to the Emperor, ’You are simply nothing but a doll. Bismarck is the real ruler.’ On the old Emperor this would have made no impression, but the young one would be more sensitive. Bismarck, therefore, wanted Waldersee’s banishment, and would, if he could, send him to Strasburg (where Hohenlohe was Statthalter) as commanding general. Perhaps he was only aiming at making me (Hohenlohe) sick of my post and so get rid of Waldersee, his enemy, when I cleared out. Bleichroeder said Bismarck only introduced the compulsory pass system to show the Emperor that he too could act sharply against the French, and so as to take the wind out of the sails of the military party. Bismarck was thinking above all about seating his son Herbert firmly in the saddle (Herbert was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs). That is the sole motive of his action and thought. There was therefore no prospect of matters in the Rhineland improving. As to Russia, Bleichroeder expected some occurrence, something out of the way (exotisches) by which Russia might be won, either the withdrawal of troops from the frontier or a meeting of Emperors. The Emperor, Bismarck said, would not begin a war. If it came, however, it would not be unwelcome to him.”

Prince Hohenlohe also tells of a visit he paid in the month of the accession to the widowed Empress Frederick. “She is much bowed down,” he said,

“very harassed-looking, and I feel sure that all this recent time, all the last year in fact, she has been displaying an artificial good-humour, for now I find her in deep distress. At first she could not speak for weeping. We spoke of the Emperor Frederick’s last days, then she recovered herself a little and complained of the wickedness and meanness of men, by which she meant to allude to certain people.... Herbert Bismarck had had the impudence to tell the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) that an Emperor who could not talk and discuss things should not be allowed to reign, and so on. The Prince of Wales, the Empress said, told Herbert that if it were not that he valued good relations between England and Germany, he would have thrown him out of the door.... Waldersee was a false, unprincipled wretch, who would think nothing of ruining his country if he could only satisfy his own personal ambition.”

Prince Hohenlohe finally called on the Prince of Wales, who “spoke prudently, but showed his disgust at the roughness of the Bismarcks, and could not understand their policy of irritating France.”

The particular question concerning France that was agitating Germany at the time of the accession was the state of affairs in Alsace-Lorraine, and particularly Bismarck’s measure requiring French citizens entering the provinces to provide themselves with a pass from the German Ambassador in Paris. The amiable and conciliatory Statthalter, Prince Hohenlohe, had to make a reluctant journey to Berlin in connexion with this question. There was another question also weighing on his mind the question whether or not he should have a sentry guard before his official residence in Strasburg. The military authorities, whose rivalry with the civil authorities everywhere in Germany for influence and power still continues, wanted to have the sentries abolished, but the Prince eventually had his way. He showed Bismarck that they were necessary for his reputation with the population, which had already begun to think less of his influence as Statthalter owing to his one day at a review having incautiously and gallantly taken a back seat in his carriage in favour of some lady guests.

In normal times the composers of speeches from the throne are accustomed to describe the relations between their own and foreign countries as “friendly.” When the relations are not friendly, yet not the opposite, they are usually registered on the political barometer as “correct.” The attitude on both sides is formal, rigorously polite, reserved; such as would become a pair of people who had once been at feud and after their quarrel had been fought out agreed, if only for the sake of appearances, to show no outward animosity, but on the other hand not give an inch of way. The position of France and Germany is “correct”; it has never been friendly since 1870; and it must be many a long year before it can be friendly again. Apart from the difference between the Latin and Teutonic temperaments, apart from the legacy of hate left in Germany against France by the sufferings and humiliations the great Napoleon caused her, apart from the fact that one people is republican and the other monarchical, there is always one thing that will prevent reconciliation the loss by France of the fair provinces Alsace and Lorraine. It is of no use for Germany to remind France that up to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 this territory belonged to Germany, or rather to what then was known by that name. It was useless as well as ungracious for Bismarck to tell France to seek compensation in Africa for what she had lost in Europe. Like Rachel mourning for her children, France will not be comforted; and now, as from the heavy hour in which she lost the provinces, she grieves over the memory of them and nurses the hope, still mingled with hate, of one glorious day regaining them. There are sanguine spirits who assert that the old feeling is dying out, and the German Government studiously encourages that view. It may be so; time is having its obliterating effects; and in externals at least the Germanization of the provinces is slowly making progress. Still the wound is deep, and there seems no prospect of its healing.

Several suggestions have been made with a view to an arrangement that might leave France without reason, or with less reason, for constant meditation on revenge One of them is the neutralization of Alsace-Lorraine on the model of Belgium, while another is the distribution of the territory, so that while Alsace is divided between Baden and Bavaria, Lorraine becomes a part of Prussia A third would divide the provinces between the two nations. An illustration of the yet prevailing feeling is found in the fact that large Alsatian firms invariably use French in their correspondence with Berlin firms, and almost as invariably refer to the “customs-arrangement” with Germany in 1871. They cannot bring themselves to use the word “annexation.”

Yet of late years to anticipate somewhat the course of events Germany has made two important concessions to Alsace-Lorraine. The first was the abrogation of the so-called “Dictator-Paragraph,” which was part of the law for administering the new provinces after the war of 1870. Under the paragraph the Lieutenant-Governor (Oberpresident) of the Reichsland, as the newly incorporated territory is now officially known, was empowered in case of need to take command of the military forces and proclaim a state of siege. When announcing the abrogation of the Paragraph in the Reichstag in 1902, Chancellor von Buelow gave a resume of the relations of the provinces to the Empire since 1870. He stated that immediately after the war the population were not disposed to incorporation in the Empire, as they thought the new state of things would only be temporary and that France would soon reconquer the provinces. This state of feeling, the Chancellor explained, naturally reacted on the Government, which accordingly laid down the principle that the claims of the provinces to equal political rights with other parts of the Empire could only be recognized step by step, as the Government was satisfied that the population conformed to the new order of things.

The second important concession to the Provinces was made only recently, when the provincial committee was replaced by a popularly elected Diet and the Provinces were granted three seats in the Federal Council. There is a proviso that in case of equality in the Council meetings the votes shall not be allowed to turn the scale in favour of Prussia. The limitation is a concession to the susceptibilities of the other Federal states.

Germany’s relations with Great Britain at the time of the accession were unclouded. Mr. Gladstone had been defeated on his Home Rule proposals and Lord Salisbury was back in power. A lull had occurred in British relations with the Transvaal. All nations, including Germany, were beginning to turn their attention to the Orient with a view to the acquisition in Asia of “spheres of influence and spheres of interest,” but as yet English and German interests had not come anywhere into conflict.

The Emperor’s great internal foe and the object of his special enmity is the Social Democracy, and practically from the day of his accession he has waged war with it. His attitude towards the Socialists requires no long description, since it logically results from his traditional conception of Prussian monarchy and from the revolutionary character of Social Democratic aims. While a young man he paid little or no attention to the movement, and probably regarded it as the “passing phenomenon” he subsequently declared it to be. In 1884 the number of Social Democratic voters was something over half a million, and the number of Social Democratic members returned to the Reichstag 25: in 1890, two years after the accession, the figures were a million and a half and 35 respectively.

The Emperor’s denunciation of Social Democrats has always been unmeasured. “A crew undeserving the name of Germans,” a “plague that must be extirpated,” “traitors,” “people without a country and enemies to religion,” “foes to the Empire and the country” such were a few of the expressions he then and during the next few years publicly applied to three millions of his subjects. To-day, it may be added, the number of Social Democrats in Germany is well over four millions.

In 1889, in reply to a deputation of three coal miners’ representatives, the Emperor said:

“As regards your demands, I will have them carefully investigated (a phrase, by the way, not unknown in England) by my Government, and let you know the result through the usual official channels. Should, however, offences against public peace and order occur, should a connexion between your movement and Social Democratic circles be demonstrated, I would not be in a position to weigh your wishes with my royal goodwill, since for me every Social Democrat is the same thing as a foe to the Empire and the Fatherland. Accordingly, if I see that Social Democratic tendencies mix with the movement and lead to unlawful opposition, I will intervene with all my powers and they are great.”

And a month later:

“That the Radical agitation of the Social Democracy has turned so many heads and hearts is due to the fact that in schools, high and low, too little is taught about the cruel deeds of the French Revolution and too little about the heroic deeds of the War of Liberation, which was (with the help of English bayonets, be it parenthetically remarked) the salvation of the Fatherland.”

In 1892, to anticipate by a year or two, in reply to a guest who had observed that Social Democrats were not decreasing in numbers, the Emperor remarked:

“The moment the Social Democracy feels itself in possession of power it will not hesitate for an instant to attack the Burghertum (middle classes) very energetically. No exhibition of general benevolence is of any use against these people here only religious feeling, founded on decided faith, can have any influence.”

The Emperor, referring to the murder of a manufacturer in Mulhausen, said: “Another victim to the revolutionary movement kept alive by the Socialists. If only our people would act like men!”

And yet it is obvious, looking at it from the standpoint of to-day, that an admirably organized movement with four million parliamentary voters in an electorate of fourteen millions, with no members in an Imperial Parliament of 397 with representatives, more or less numerous, on almost every municipal board of any importance in the Empire, with the power of disturbing at any moment the relations between capital and labour, upon which the prosperity, security, and comfort of the whole population depend, and in intimate relations with the Socialists of all other countries, cannot be merely ignored or disposed of by scornful and sarcastic speeches, by official anathema, or even by close police supervision. There must be something behind it all which ought to be susceptible of explanation.

Before, however, attempting to conjecture what the something is, it will be advisable, familiar to many though the facts must be, to recapitulate, as briefly as possible, the history of the movement. Old as the story is, it is necessary to have some knowledge of it, for Social Democracy is the great, perhaps the only, domestic political thorn in the Emperor’s side.

It is a truism to say that the “social question,” the question how best to organize society, is as old as society itself. Great thinkers all down the ages, from Plato to Sir Thomas More, from More to Jean Jacques Rousseau, from Rousseau to Saint Simon, Fourier, Louis Blanc, Lassalle, and Karl Marx, have devoted their attention to it. The French Revolutionists tried to solve it, and the revolutionary movement of 1848 took up the problem in its turn.

German Social Democracy may be referred for its source to the teachings of Louis Blanc, who formed in 1840 a workmen’s society in Paris. Blanc held, as the Social Democrats hold, that capitalism was the cause of all social evil, and that the workman was powerless against it. He therefore proposed the establishment of workmen’s societies for purposes of production, and the grant of the necessary capital at a low rate of interest by the State. The doctrine was taken up in Germany with fiery enthusiasm by Ferdinand Lassalle, who, in May, 1863, founded the General German Workmen’s Society for a “peaceful, lawful agitation” in favour of universal suffrage as a first means to the desired end. Universal suffrage was granted by the North German Confederation in 1867, and in 1873 Lassalle’s adherents numbered 60,000.

Meanwhile, Karl Marx and his disciple, Frederic Engels, had been propagating their theories, and in 1848 the former published his famous work on the ideal social state. At first Marx was a partizan of revolutionary methods, but he subsequently recanted this view and proclaimed that the Socialistic aim in future should be the “strengthening of the economic and political power of the workman so that the expropriation of private property could be obtained by legislation.” The Marxian doctrine was adopted in Germany by Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel, who, at Eisenach in 1869, founded the Association of Social Democratic Workmen, to which the present German party owes its name. The Eisenach programme declared “the economic dependence of the workmen on the monopolists of the tools of labour the foundation of servitude and social evil,” and demanded “the economic emancipation of the working classes.” An attempt to get the Lassalle society to join the Eisenacher society on an international basis failed for the time, but the two associations finally coalesced at the Gotha Congress of 1875.

The attempt on the life of William I in 1878 by the anarchist Nobiling had an important effect on the fortunes of the party and the character of its programme. The Socialist Laws were passed and the police began a campaign against the Socialists, of which the mildest features were the dissolution of societies, the searching of houses, the expulsion of suspected persons, and the interdiction of Socialist newspapers and periodicals.

For the next few years the party held its annual congresses in Switzerland or Denmark, but as the Socialist Laws ceased to have effect after three years, and were not then renewed, the party resumed its congresses in Germany. The Congress at Erfurt in 1891 resulted in the issue of a new programme rejecting the Lassalle plan for the establishment of workmen’s societies for productive purposes and substituting for it the transfer of all capitalistic private property engaged in the means of production, such as lands, mines, raw material, tools, machinery, and means of transport, to the State. The term used in the programme is “state,” not “society,” but the State is in fact nothing but the society armed with coercive powers.

Other objects are universal suffrage for both sexes over twenty, electoral reform, two-year parliaments, direct legislation “through the people,” some form of parliamentary government, autonomy of the people in Empire, State, Province, and Parish, conscription, national militia instead of standing army, international arbitration, abolition of State religion, free and compulsory education, abolition of capital punishment, free burial, free medical assistance, free legal advice and advocacy, progressive succession duties, inheritance tax, abolition of indirect taxation and customs, parliamentary decisions as to peace and war, and undenominationalism in schools.

Especially for the working classes are intended the following: National and international protective legislation for workmen on the basis of a normal eight hours day, prohibition of child labour under fourteen years, prohibition of night work save rendered necessary by the nature of the work or the welfare of society, superintendence of labour and its relations by a Ministry of Labour, thorough workshop hygiene, equality of status between the agricultural labourer, servant class, and the artisan, right of association, and State insurance, as to which the working class should have an authoritative voice.

The programme contains nothing as to the practical consequences of the provisions it contains, but Herr Bebel, in his book on “Woman and Social Democracy,” gives some examples. One is that the working time will be alike for men and women, another that domestic life will be limited to the cohabitation of man and woman, for children are to be brought up by society, and a third that cooking and washing will be the care of central public kitchens and washhouses. Meanwhile, all these years, it may be noted, Herr Bebel and his millions of followers have been living exactly like everybody else.

The student of working-class conditions in Germany is unlikely to think clearly unless he distinguishes between such terms as Social Democracy, Socialism, Trade Unionism, and Labour party. Social Democracy is a species of Socialism. All Social Democrats are Socialists, but not all Socialists Social Democrats. The latter, as an enrolled political party, paying annual subscriptions and looking forward to the future state as conceived by Marx, and now by Bebel, number something under a million; the remaining three millions who voted for Social Democratic candidates at the last general election may have included men who believe in Social Democratic ideals, but the vast majority of them, unless one does grave injustice to their common sense, voted for such candidates owing to dissatisfaction with the policy of the Government and present conditions generally the high cost of living, the pressure of taxation, the severity of class distinctions, and like grievances, real or imaginary. These people are Socialists in the English or international sense of the word, not Social Democrats strictly speaking; and with these people the Emperor is most angry because he knows they form the element most capable of dangerous expansion.

Again, though the vast majority of German Socialists in the broader sense are Trade Unionists, not all Trade Unionists are Socialists. Trade Unionism the organization of labour against capital is represented in Germany by two main bodies; the free or Socialist Unions containing about two million working men, and the “Christian” or loyal “National” Unions, which are anti-Social Democrat and anti-Socialist. These have a membership of about 300,000. The Hirsch-Duncker Unions, with 100,000 members, are Liberal, but also loyal and anti-Socialist. In labour conflicts, naturally, as distinguished from politics, all workmen of the particular branch in conflict work together, whether they are Socialist or not. It need only be added that there is no so-called “Labour party” in the German Parliaments. The Social Democratic party in the Reichstag represents labour interests generally, and promote them much more insistently and successfully than they do the Utopia of their dreams.

But enough has been said to show the comprehensive and revolutionary nature of Social Democratic doctrine. The only other feature that requires mention in connexion with the movement is the desire on the part of a section of the party for a revision of its programme. The party of revision is usually identified with the names of Heinrich von Vollmar, who first suggested it, and Eduard Bernstein, who is in favour of trying to realize that portion of the programme which deals with the social needs of the existing generation, the demands of the present day, and would leave to posterity the attainment of the final goal. The views of the Revisionists differ also from those of the Radicals in respect of two other main questions which divide the party, that of voting budgets and that of going to court. The Revisionists are willing to do both, and the Radicals to do neither. A decisive split in the party is annually looked for, but hitherto, when congress-day came, the Revisionists, for the sake of peace and unity in the party, have refrained from pushing their views to extremes. One might suppose that professors of the tenets of Social Democracy would get into trouble with the police, but they avoid arrest and imprisonment by taking care to avoid attacking property or the family, advocating a republic, or introducing religious questions into their discussions.

In dealing with the growth of Social Democracy in Germany the philosophic historian would doubtless refer to the French Revolution, or go still farther back to the Reformation, as the starting-point of every great change in the views of civilized mankind during the last four and a half centuries; but it is with more recent times these pages are chiefly concerned and consequently with causes now operative. The main specific cause is the change from agriculture to industry, and with it the growth of what is generally spoken of as “industrialism.” Industrialism means the assemblage of large masses of intelligent men forming a community of their own, with its special conditions and the wants and wishes arising from them. This is the most fertile field for Socialism, for a new organization of society. In Germany Socialistic ideas kept growing with the increase of industrialism, and came to a head with the attempts by Hoedel and Nobiling on the life of the Emperor William. The anti-Socialist laws, passed for a definite period, followed, but they were not renewed; the Emperor and his Government pressed on instead with a great and far-reaching social policy, and Socialism, in the form of Social Democracy, freed from restraint, took a new lease of life.

Another cause of as general, but less ponderable, a nature is the remnant of the feudal spirit and feudal manners which lingers in the attitude of the German governing and official classes towards the rest of the population. The most objectionable features of the feudal system have passed away, the cruel and exclusive rights and privileges which only men in ignorant personal servitude to an all-powerful master could permanently endure; but traces of the system still exist in the official attitude towards the public and in the tone of the official communications issued by the administrative services generally. Attitude and tone may be referred in part to the traditional character of the Prussian monarchy, which regards the people as a flock of sheep, or as a “talent,” as the Emperor has called it, entrusted to its care and management by Heaven; but it is also due in part to the systematization of public life and largely of private life which at times makes the foreigner inclined to think Germany at once the most Socialistic and at the same time the most tyrannically ruled country in the world. Everything in Germany must be done systematically, and the system must be the result of development. But there is no use in having a system unless it is enforced otherwise it remains, like Social Democracy, a theory. Compulsion, therefore, is necessary, and the Government provides it through its official machinery and its police. The systematization has enormous public advantages, but it is difficult for the Anglo-Saxon, jealous of his individual right to direct his public life through his own representatives and his private life according to his own judgment, to accommodate himself to a system which seems to him unduly to interfere with both right and judgment.

Perhaps it is the manner in which, under the name of authority, compulsion is exercised by subordinate officialdom and in especial by the police, as much as the compulsion itself, which irritates in Germany. Every profession, business, trade, and occupation, down to that of selling matches and newspapers in the streets, is meticulously regulated; and while there is nothing to object to in this, what strikes the Anglo-Saxon as objectionable is that the regulations are enforced with the manners and in the tone of a drill-sergeant. The official in Germany, he finds, is not the servant of the public. There is a story current in England of a Duke of Norfolk, when Postmaster-General, going into a district post-office and asking for a penny stamp. The clerk was dilatory, and the Duke remonstrated. “Who are you, I should like to know?” asked the clerk impertinently, “that you are laying down the law.” “I am the public,” replied the Duke simply, at the same time showing the clerk his card. An English Foreign Secretary once told a deputation that the Ministry was “waiting for instructions from their employers the people.” In Germany it is the opposite; the official is the master and the public his dutiful servant. In Germany the official expects marked deference from the public: the post-office clerk is “Mr. Official,” the guardian of the law “Mr. Policeman” (with your hat off). The Anglo-Saxon rather expects the deference to be on the other side, and has a sordid subconsciousness that he pays the official for his services. Perhaps the Social Democrat has something of the same feeling.

One of the chief consequences of industrialism in Germany is that the people of the country are migrating to the towns. To the country bumpkin the city is an Eldorado and a lordly pleasure-house. In truth, he is much better off in it than in the stagnant life of the country. In the city he sees comfort on every hand, with possibilities of enjoyment of every kind, and if he does not soon get a share of the good things going he grows discontented and turns Socialist. In the city, too, he learns to think and compare, he perceives the distinction of classes and notices that certain classes have open to them careers from which he is excluded. Then there is the apparently inevitable antagonism between labour and capital, between the employer and employed, which drives the worker to Social Democracy, as offering the prospect of his becoming his own master and enjoying the whole fruits of his labour. He may not know Matthew Arnold’s “Sick King in Bokhara,” but he would endorse Arnold’s lines:

“And these all, for a lord
Eat not the fruit of their own hands;
Which is the heaviest of all plagues
To that man’s mind, who understands.”

But whatever its causes, Social Democracy is one of the most curious and anomalous societies extant. In a country which worships order, it calls for absolute disorder. A revolutionary movement, it anxiously avoids revolution. It is a magnificent organization for no apparent practical, direct, or immediate purpose. Proclaiming the protection of the law and enjoying the blessing of efficient government, it yet refuses to vote the budget to pay for them. It supports a large parliamentary party without any clear or consistent parliamentary policy in internal or external affairs, unless to be “agin the Government” is a policy. And lastly, if some of its economic demands are justifiable, and have in several respects been satisfied by modern legislation, its fundamental doctrine, the basis of the entire edifice, is a wild hallucination, sickening to common sense, and completely out of harmony with the progressive economic development of all nations, including its own.

In conclusion, it may be added that the social side of the Social Democracy is perhaps too often unrecognized or ignored by the foreign observer. Life for the poorer classes in Germany is apt to be more monotonous and dull than for the poorer classes of any country which nature has blessed with more fertility, more sunshine, more diversity of hill and dale, and where people are more mutually sociable and accommodating. Social Democracy offers something by way of remedy to this: a field of interest in which the workers can organize and make processions and public demonstrations and can talk and theorize and dispute, and in which the woman can share the interest with the man; or a club, a social club with the largest membership in the world except freemasonry.

We must return, however, to the Emperor. During this period, in December, 1890, he, like every one else with his own ideas on education as well as on art and religion, delivered his views on popular instruction. At this time he was then thirty he called together forty-five of the ablest educational experts of the country and addressed them on the subject of high-school education. His Minister of Education, Dr. von Grossler, had drawn up a programme of fourteen points for discussion, and the Emperor added to these a few others he wished to have considered.

German high-school education, be it remarked, is a different thing from English public-school education, and ought rather to be spoken of as German information than as German education. We have seen that the spirit of the German university differs largely from that of the English university, in that it is not concerned with the formation of character or the inculcation of manners. The same may be said of the German gymnasium, or high school, the institution from which the German youth, as a rule, goes to college. No teaching institution, English or German, be it further said on our own account, makes any serious attempt to teach what will prepare youth for intercourse with the extremely complicated world of to-day, to give him, to take but one example, the faintest notion of contract, which, if he possessed it, would save him from many a foolish undertaking and protect him from many a business betrayal, Far from it. All the disagreeable, and many of the painful incidents of his subsequent life, all equally avoidable if knowledge regarding them had been instilled into him in his early years, he must buy with money and suffering and disgust in after-years.

But the Emperor is waiting to be heard. His entire speech need not be quoted, but only its chief contentions. In introducing his remarks he claimed to speak with knowledge as having himself sat on a public-school bench at Cassel.

The Social Democracy being to the Emperor what King Charles’s head was to Mr. Dick, it is not surprising to find almost his first statement being to the effect that if boys had been properly taught up to then, there would be no Social Democracy. Up to 1870, he said, the great subject of instruction for youth was the necessity for German unity. Unity had been achieved, the Empire was now founded, and there the matter rested. “Now,” said the Emperor, “we must recognize that the school is for the purpose of teaching how the Empire is to be maintained. I see nothing of such teaching, and I ought to know, for I am at the head of the Empire, and all such questions come under my observation. What,” he continues,

“is lacking in the education of our youth? The chief fault is that since 1870 the philologists have sat in the high schools as beati possidentes and laid chief stress upon the knowledge to be acquired and not on the formation of character and the demands of the present time. Emphasis has been put on the ability to know, not on the ability to do the pupil is expected to know, that is the main thing, and whether what he knows is suitable for the conduct of life or not is considered a secondary matter. I am told the school has only to do with the gymnastics of the mind, and that a young man, well trained in these gymnastics, is equipped for the needs of life. This is all wrong and can’t go on.”

Then the Empire-builder speaks what is wanted above all is a national basis.

“We must make German the foundation for the gymnasium: we must produce patriotic young Germans, not young Greeks and Romans. We must depart from the centuries-old basis, from the old monastic education of the Middle Ages, when Latin was the main thing and a tincture of Greek besides. That is no longer the standard. German must be the standard. The German exercise must be the pivot on which all things turn. When in the exit examination (Abiturientenexamen) a student hands in a German essay, one can judge from it what are the mental acquirements of the young man and decide whether he is fit for anything or not. Of course people will object the Latin exercise is very important, very good for instructing students in other languages, and so on. Yes, gentlemen, I have been through the mill. How do we get this Latin exercise? I have often seen a young man get, say 4-1/2 marks, for his German exercise ’satisfactory,’ it was considered and 2 for his Latin exercise. The youngster deserved punishment instead of praise, because it is clear he did not write his Latin exercise in a proper way; and of all the Latin exercises we wrote there was not one in a dozen which was done without cribbing. These exercises were marked ‘good,’ but when we wrote an essay on ’Minna von Barnhelm’ (one of Lessing’s dramas) we got hardly ‘satisfactory.’ So I say, away with the Latin exercise, it only harms us, and robs us of time we might give to German.”

The Emperor goes on to recommend the study of the nation’s history, geography, and literature ("Der Sage,” poetry, he calls it).

“Let us begin at home,” he says; “when we have learned enough at home, we can go to the museums. But above all we must know our German history. In my time the Grand Elector was a very foggy personage, the Seven Years’ War was quite outside consideration, and history ended with the close of the last century, the French Revolution. The War of Liberation, the most important for the young citizen, was not taught thoroughly, and I only learned to know it, thank God, through the very interesting lectures of Dr. Hinzpeter. This, however, is the punctum saliens. Why are our young men misled? Why do we find so many unclear, confused world-improvers? Why is our government so cavilled at and criticized, and so often told to look at foreign nations? Because the young men do not know how our conditions have developed, and that the roots of the development lie in the period of the French Revolution. Consequently, I am convinced that if they understood the transition period from the Revolution to the nineteenth century in its fundamental features, they would have a far better understanding of the questions of to-day than they now have. At the universities they can supplement their school knowledge.”

The Emperor then turned to other points. It was “absolutely necessary” to reduce the hours of work. When he was at school, he said, all German parents were crying out against the evil, and the Government set on foot an inquiry. He and his brother (Henry) had every morning to hand a memorandum to the head master showing how many hours it had taken them to prepare the lessons for the day. In the Emperor’s case it took, “honestly,” from 5-1/2 to 7 hours’ home study. To this was to be added 6 hours in school and 2 hours for eating meals “How much of the day,” the Emperor asks, “was left? If I,” he said, “hadn’t been able to ride to and from school I wouldn’t have known what the world even looked like.” The result of this, he continued, was an

“over-production of educated people, more than the nation wanted and more than was tolerable for the sufferers themselves. Hence the class Bismarck called the abiturienten-proletariat, all the so-called hunger candidates, especially the Mr. Journalists, who are often broken-down scholars and a danger to us. This surplus, far too large as it is, is like an irrigation field that cannot soak up any more water, and it must be got rid of.”

Another matter touched on by the Emperor was a reduction in the amount to be learned, so that more time might be had for the formation of character. This cannot be done now, he remarks, in a class containing thirty youngsters, who have such a huge amount of subjects to master. The teacher, too, the Emperor said, must learn that his work is not over when he has delivered his lecture. “It isn’t a matter of knowledge,” he concludes “but a matter of educating the young people for the practical affairs of life.”

The Emperor lastly dealt with the subject of shortsightedness. “I am looking for soldiers,” he said.

“We need a strong and healthy generation, which will also serve the Fatherland as intellectual leaders and officials. This mass of shortsightedness is no use, since a man who can’t use his eyes how can he do anything later?”

and he went on to mention the extraordinary facts that in some of the primary classes of German schools as many as 74 per cent, were shortsighted, and that in his class at Cassel, of the twenty-one pupils, eighteen wore spectacles, while two of them could not see the desk before them without their glasses.

The Englishman in Germany often attributes German shortsightedness to the Gothic character of German print. It is more probable that the long hours of study spent poring over books without fresh-air exercise, judiciously interposed, is responsible for it.

It has been said that every one, like the Emperor, has his own theory of education, but there is one passage in the Emperor’s speech with which almost all men will agree that, namely, in which he urges that knowledge is not the only perhaps not the chief thing, but that young people must be educated for the practical affairs of life. Unfortunately, as to how we are successfully to do this, the Emperor is silent; and it may be that there is no certain or exact way. One could, of course but we are concerned with the Emperor.

The difference of opinion between the Emperor and Bismarck regarding the Emperor’s visit to Russia seems to have left no permanent ill-will in the Emperor’s mind, for on returning in October, 1889, from visits to Athens, where he attended the wedding of his sister Sophie with the Heir-Apparent of Greece, Prince Constantine (now King Constantine), and Constantinople, where he was allowed to inspect the Sultan’s seraglio, he sent a letter to the Chancellor praying God to grant that the latter’s “faithful and experienced counsel might for many years assist him in his difficult and responsible office.” In January, 1890, however, the question of renewing the Socialist Laws, which would expire shortly, came up for settlement. A council of Ministers, under the Emperor’s presidency, was called to decide it. When the council met, Bismarck was greatly surprised by a proposal of the Emperor to issue edicts developing the principles laid down by his grandfather for working-class reform instead of renewing the Socialist Laws. The Reichstag took the Emperor’s view and voted against the renewal of the Laws. It only now remained to give effect to the Emperor’s edicts. They were considered at a further council of Ministers, at which the Emperor exhorted them to “leave the Social Democracy to me, I can manage them alone.” The Ministers agreed, and Bismarck was in a minority of one. This, however, was only the beginning of the end. Bismarck decided to continue in office until he had carried through Parliament a new military Bill, which was to come before it in May or June. Meanwhile fresh matters of controversy between the Emperor and the Chancellor arose regarding the grant of imperial audiences to Ministers other than the Chancellor. Bismarck insisted that the Chancellor alone had the right to be received by the Emperor for the discussion of State affairs.

The quarrel was accentuated by a lively scene which occurred between the Emperor and the Chancellor about this period in connexion with a visit the leader of the Catholic Centre party had paid the Chancellor, and on March 17th the Emperor sent his chief Adjutant, General von Hahnke, to say he awaited the Chancellor’s resignation. Bismarck replied that to resign at this juncture would be an act of desertion; the Emperor could dismiss him. At the same time the Chancellor summoned a meeting of Ministers for the afternoon, but while they were discussing the situation a message was brought from the Emperor telling them he did not require their advice in such a matter and that he had made up his mind about the Chancellor. The messenger on the same occasion expressed to Bismarck the Emperor’s surprise at not having received a formal resignation. Bismarck’s reply was that it would require some days to prepare such a document, as it was the last official statement of a “Minister who had played a meritorious part in the history of Prussia and Germany, and history should know why he had been dismissed.” Three days later, on March 20th, an hour or two after the formal resignation reached the palace, the Emperor’s letter granting the Chancellor’s request for his release, naming him Duke of Lauenburg and announcing the appointment of General von Caprivi as his successor, was put into the old Chancellor’s hands.