BEFORE THE “NOVEMBER STORM”

1906-1907

In the domestic life of the Emperor during these years fall two or three events of more than ordinary interest. From the dynastic point of view was of importance the birth of a son and heir to the Crown Prince in the Marble Palace at Potsdam.

The Emperor was at sea, on his annual northern trip, when the birth occurred. As the ship approached Bergen the town was seen to be gaily decorated with flags. As it happened, everybody on board knew of the birth except the Emperor, but none of the officers round him ventured to congratulate him, because they supposed he knew of it already and were waiting for him to refer to it. At Bergen the German Minister, Stuebel, and German Consul, Mohr, came on board. The Minister, being a diplomatist, said nothing, but the Consul, as Consuls will, spoke his mind and ventured his congratulations. “What? I am a grandfather!” exclaimed the Emperor. “Why, that’s splendid! and I knew nothing about it!” The captain of the ship then asked should he fire the salute of twenty-one guns usual on such occasions. “No,” said the Emperor, “that won’t do. Mohr is a great talker. Let us first see the official despatches from Berlin.” The party, including the Emperor, went down into the cabin to await the despatches, which were being brought from Bergen.

On their arrival a basketful of State papers was placed before the Emperor. The first one he took out was a telegram from the Sultan of Turkey with congratulations (great merriment); the second from an unknown lady in Berlin, with a name corresponding to the English “Brown,” with four lines of congratulatory poetry; and it was not until more than a hundred despatches had been opened that they came to one from the Minister of the Interior and another from the Empress announcing the birth. Popular reports at the time represented the Emperor as boiling over with anger at his being kept or left in ignorance of the happy event. As a matter of fact, he was in high good-humour, and himself mentioned a similar occurrence at Metz in 1870, when an important movement of the French army was not reported because it was assumed that it was already known to the Intelligence Department. As a public sign of his satisfaction he amnestied the half-dozen of his subjects who happened to be in gaol as punishment for lèse majesté.

Another domestic event at this time was the celebration by the Emperor and Empress of their silver wedding. Berlin, of course, was illuminated and beflagged. There was a great gathering of royal relatives, a State banquet, and a special parade of troops. At the latter were remarkable for their huge proportions two former grenadiers of the regiment of Guards the Emperor commanded in his youth. They were now settled in America, but came over to Germany on the Emperor’s particular invitation and, of course, at his private expense.

The last item of domestic interest this year (1906) worth record was the marriage of Prince Eitel Frederick, the Emperor’s second son, with Princess Sophie Charlotte of Oldenburg. In his speech to the bridal pair on their wedding-day the Emperor referred to the personal likeness the young Prince bore to his great-grandfather, Emperor William, and expressed the hope that the Prince might grow more like him in character from year to year.

Meantime the Emperor had to pass through a season of great annoyance owing to the scandal which arose in connection with the so-called “Camarilla.” The existence of a small and secret group of viciously minded men among the Emperor’s entourage was disclosed to the public by the well-known pamphleteer, Maximilian Harden, a Jew by birth named Witowski, who as a younger man had been on semi-confidential terms with Prince Bismarck and subsequently with Foreign Secretary von Holstein. As a result of Harden’s disclosures some highly placed friends of the Emperor were compromised and had ultimately to disappear from public life as well as from the Court. It was perfectly evident throughout that the Emperor had been totally ignorant of the private character of the men forming the “Camarilla,” and nothing was proved to show that the group which formed it had ever unduly, or indeed in any fashion, influenced him.

An allusion made to the scandal by a deputy in the Reichstag brought the Chancellor, Prince von Buelow, to his feet in defence of the monarch. “The view,” he said,

“that the monarch in Germany should not have his own opinions as to State and Government, and should only think what his Ministers desire him to think, is contrary to German State law and contrary to the will of the German people”

("Quite right,” on the Right). “The German people,” continued the Chancellor,

“want no shadow-king, but an Emperor of flesh and blood. The conduct and statements of a strong personality like the Emperor’s are not tantamount to a breach of the Constitution. Can you tell me a single case in which the Emperor has acted contrary to the Constitution?”

The Chancellor concluded:

“As to a Camarilla Camarilla is no German word. It is a hateful, foreign, poisonous plant which no one has ever tried to introduce into Germany without doing great injury to the people and to the Prince. Our Emperor is a man of far too upright a character and much too clear-headed to seek counsel in political things from any other quarter than his appointed advisers and his own sense of duty.”

The Camarilla scandal was all the more painful as it was made a ground for insinuations disgraceful to German officers as a body. Such insinuations were, as they would be to-day, entirely unfounded.

Another thing that annoyed the Emperor this year was the publication of ex-Chancellor Prince Hohenlohe’s Memoirs. The publication drew from him a telegram to a son of the ex-Chancellor in which he expressed his “astonishment and indignation” at the publication of confidential private conversations between him and Prince Hohenlohe regarding Prince Bismarck’s dismissal. “I must stigmatize,” the Emperor telegraphed,

“such conduct as in the last degree tactless, indiscreet, and entirely inopportune. It is a thing unheard-of that occurrences relating to a sovereign reigning at the time should be published without his permission.”

Germans as a people are passionately fond of dancing, and though everybody knows that the people of Vienna bear away the palm in this respect, claim to be the best waltzers in the world. The Emperor, accordingly, won great popularity among the dancers of his realm this year by lending a favourable ear to the sighing of the young ladies of the provincial town of Crefeld for a regiment which would provide them with a supply of dancing partners. The Emperor took occasion to visit the town, and brought with him a regiment of the Guards from Duesseldorf to form part of the new garrison. He was received by the city authorities, and was at the same time, doubtless, greeted from balcony and window by multitudes of fair-haired Crefeld maidens, who looked with delightful anticipations on the gallant soldiers, who were to relieve the tedium of their evenings, riding by. “To-day,” the Emperor told the assembled city fathers, “I have kept my word to the town of Crefeld, and when I make a promise I keep it too (stormy applause). I have brought the town its garrison and the young ladies their dancers.” The “stormy applause” was again renewed amid, one may imagine, the enthusiastic waving of pocket-handkerchiefs from the windows and the balconies.

The salient feature of foreign politics just now was, naturally, the close on March 31st of the Conference of Algeciras. Its results have been referred to in the chapter on Morocco, and mention need only be made here of the famous telegram regarding it sent by the Emperor on April 12th of this year (1906) to the Foreign Minister of Austria, Count Goluchowski. “A capital example of good faith among allies!” he telegraphed to the Count, meaning Austria’s support of Germany at Algeciras. “You showed yourself a brilliant second in the tourney, and can reckon on the like service from me on a similar occasion.”

Internal affairs, and particularly the parliamentary situation in Germany, had during the three or four years before that of the “November Storm” demanded a good deal of the Emperor’s attention. The everlasting fight with the rebel angels of the Hohenzollern heaven, the Social Democracy, had been going on all through the reign. Now the Emperor would fulminate against it, now his Chancellor, Prince von Buelow, would attack it with brilliant ability and sarcasm in Parliament. Still the Social Democratic movement grew, still the Vorwaerts, the party organ, continued to rail at industrial capitalists and the large landowners alike, still Herr Lucifer-Bebel bitterly assailed every measure of the Government. The fact seems to be that the people were getting restive under the imperial burdens the Emperor’s world-policy entailed. The cost of living, partly as a result of the new German tariff, with maximum and minimum duties, which now replaced the Caprivi commercial treaties, was steadily rising. The Morocco episode had ended without territorial gain, if with no loss of national honour or prestige. The Poles were antagonized afresh by a stricter application of the Settlement Law for Germanizing Prussian Poland. Colonial troubles in South-west Africa with Herero and other recalcitrant tribes were making heavy demands on the Treasury.

The parliamentary situation was, as usual, at the mercy of the Centrum party, which, with its hundred or more members, can always make a majority by combining with Liberal parties of the Left (including the Socialists) or Conservative parties of the Right. In December, 1906, when the Budget was laid before Parliament, it was found to contain a demand for about L1,500,000 for the troops in South-west Africa. The Centrum refused to grant more than L1,000,000, and required, moreover, an undertaking that the number of troops in the colony should be reduced. The Social Democrats, with a number of Progressives and other Left parties sufficient to form a majority, joined the Centrum, and the Government demand was rejected by 177 to 168 votes. On the result of the voting being declared, Chancellor von Buelow solemnly rose and drew a paper from his pocket. It was an order from the Emperor dissolving Parliament.

The general elections were to be held in January following, and great efforts were made by the Emperor and Chancellor to secure a Government majority against the combined Centrists and Socialists. The country was appealed to to say whether Germany should lose her African colonies or not; a patriotic response was made, and, though the Centrum, as always, came back to Parliament in undiminished strength, the Socialists lost one-half of their eighty seats.

The Emperor, needless to say, was tremendously gratified. On the night the final results were announced he gave a large dinner-party at the Palace, and read out to the Royal Family and his guests the bulletins as they came in. Towards one o’clock in the morning the official totals were known. The streets were knee-deep in snow, but the people were not deterred from making a demonstration in their thousands before the palace. By and by lights were seen moving hurriedly to and fro along the first floor containing the Emperor’s apartments. A general illumination of the suite of rooms followed, a window was thrown up, and the Emperor, bare-headed, was seen in the opening. Instantly complete stillness fell on the vast square, and the Emperor, leaning far out over the balcony, and evidently much excited, spoke in stentorian tones and with a dramatic waving of his right arm as follows: “Gentlemen!” the “gentlemen” included half the hooligans of Berlin, but such are the accidents of political life

“Gentlemen! This fine ovation springs from the feeling that you are proud of having done your duty by your country. In the words of our great Chancellor (Bismarck), who said that if the Germans were once put in the saddle they would soon learn to ride, you can ride and you will ride, and ride down, any one who opposes us, especially when all classes and creeds stand fast together. Do not let this hour of triumph pass as a moment of patriotic enthusiasm, but keep to the road on which you have started.”

The speech closed with a verse from Kleist’s “Prince von Homburg,” a favourite monarchist drama of the Emperor’s, conveying the idea that good Hohenzollern rule had knocked bad Social-Democratic agitation into a cocked hat.

The result of the elections enabled the Chancellor to form a new “bloc” party in Parliament, consisting of conservatives and Liberals, on whose united aid he could rely in promoting national measures. As the Chancellor said, he did not expect Conservatives to turn into Liberals and Liberals into Conservatives overnight nor did he expect the two parties to vote solid on matters of secondary interest and importance; but he expected them to support the Government on questions that concerned the welfare of the whole Empire.

Before 1907, the year we have now reached, Franco-German and Anglo-German relations had long varied from cool to stormy. They had not for many years been at “set-fair,” nor have they apparently reached that halcyon stage as yet. During the Moroccan troubles it was generally believed that on two or three occasions war was imminent either between France and Germany or between Germany and England. That there was such a danger at the time of M. Delcasse’s retirement from the conduct of French foreign affairs just previous to the Algeciras Conference is a matter of general conviction in all countries; but there is no publicly known evidence that danger of war between England and Germany has been acute at any time of recent years. Nor at any time of recent years has the bulk of the people in either country really desired or intended war. There has been international exasperation, sometimes amounting to hostility, continuously; but it was largely due to Chauvinism on both sides, and was in great measure counteracted by the efforts of public-spirited bodies and men in both countries, by international visits of amity and goodwill, and by the determination of both the English and German Governments not to go to war without good and sufficient cause.

Among the most striking testimonies to this determination was the visit of the Emperor to England in November, 1907.

The visit was made expressly an affair of State. The Emperor was accompanied by the Empress, and the visit became a pageant and a demonstration a pageant in respect of the national honours paid to the imperial guests and a demonstration of national regard and respect for them as friends of England. Nothing could have been simpler, or more tactful or more sincere than the utterances, private as well as public, of the Emperor throughout his stay. His very first speech, the few words he addressed to the Mayor of Windsor, displayed all three qualities. “It seems to me,” he said, “like a home-coming when I enter Windsor. I am always pleased to be here.” At the Guildhall subsequently, referring to the two nations, he used, and not for the first time, the phrase “Blood is thicker than water.”

At the Guildhall, on this occasion, the Emperor reminded his hearers that he was a freeman of the City of London, having been the recipient of that honour from the hands of Lord Mayor Sir Joseph Savory on his accession visit to London in 1891. He then referred to the visit of the Lord Mayor, Sir William Treloar, to Berlin the year previous, and promised a similar hearty welcome to any deputation from the City of London to his capital. “In this place sixteen years ago,” continued the Emperor,

“I said that all my efforts would be directed to the preservation of peace. History will do me the justice of recognizing that I have unfalteringly pursued this aim. The main support, however, and the foundation of the world’s peace is the maintenance of good relations between our two countries. I will, in future also, do all I can to strengthen them, and the wishes of my people are at one with my own in this.”

The procession that followed upon the visit to the Guildhall made a special impression on the Emperor. “I was so close to the people,” he said afterwards,

“who were assembled in hundreds of thousands, that I could look straight into their eyes, and from the expression on their faces I could see that their reception of the Empress and myself was no artificial welcome but an out-and-out sincere one. That stirred us deeply and gave us great satisfaction. The Empress and I will take back with us recollections of London and England we shall never forget.”

While at Windsor the Emperor received a deputation of sixteen members of Oxford University, headed by Lord Curzon, who came to present him with the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws voted him by the University while he was still on his way to England. It was a picturesque scene: the members of the University in their academic robes were surrounded by a brilliant company representing the intellect of the country; and the Emperor, with the doctor’s hood over his field-marshal’s uniform, was the cynosure of all eyes.

The Emperor’s reply to Lord Curzon’s address, highly complimentary to the University though it was, was perhaps chiefly remarkable for the expression of his expectations from the Rhodes’ Scholarship foundation. “The gift of your great fellow-countryman, Cecil Rhodes,” he said,

“affords an opportunity to students, not only from the British colonies, but also from Germany and the United States, to obtain the benefits of an Oxford education. The opportunity afforded to young Germans during their period of study to mix with young Englishmen is one of the most satisfactory results of Rhodes’s far-seeing mind. Under the auspices of the Oxford alma mater, the young students will have an opportunity of studying the character and qualities of the respective nations, of fostering by this means the spirit of good comradeship, and creating an atmosphere of mutual respect and friendship between the two countries.”

The Emperor had always admired the Colossus of South Africa, discerning in him no doubt many of those attributes which he felt existed in himself or which he would like to think existed; and the admiration stood the test of personal acquaintance when Cecil Rhodes visited Berlin in March, 1899, in connexion with his scheme for the Cape to Cairo railway. It does not sound very complimentary to his own subjects, the “salt of the earth,” but it is on record that the Emperor then said to Rhodes that he wished “he had more men like him.” At the close of the visit the Empress returned to Germany, while the Emperor took a much needed rest-cure for three weeks at Highcliffe Castle, a country mansion in Hampshire he rented for the purpose from its owner, Colonel Stuart-Wortley.

In the course of this work, it may have been noticed, no particular attention has been devoted to the Emperor in his military capacity. The reason is, because it is taken for granted that all the world knows the Emperor in his character as War Lord, that he is practically never out of uniform, and that his care for the army is only second if it is second to that for the stability and power of his monarchy. The two things in fact are closely identified, and, from the Emperor’s standpoint, on both together depend the security, and to a large extent the prosperity, of the Empire. He knows or believes that Germany is surrounded by hordes of potential enemies, as a lighthouse is often surrounded by an ocean that, while treacherously calm, may at any time rage about the edifice; that round the lighthouse are gathered his folk, who look to it for safety; and that the monarchy is the lighthouse itself, a rocher de bronze, towering above all.

In this connexion it may be noted that the army in Germany is not a mercenary body like the English army, but is simply and solely a certain portion of the people, naturally the younger men, passing for two or three years, according as they serve in the infantry or cavalry, through the ranks. The system of recruiting, as everybody knows, is called conscription; it ought rather to be described as a system of national education, whereby the rude and raw youth of the country is converted into an admirable class of well-disciplined, self-respecting and healthy, as well as patriotic, citizens. The Emperor believes, contrary to the opinion of many English army officers, that a man to be a good soldier must also be a good Christian, and thus we find him enforcing, or trying to enforce, among his officers the moral qualities which Christianity is meant to foster.

Among these qualities is simplicity of life, and as a result of simplicity of life, contentment with simple and not too costly pleasures. We saw the Emperor as a young colonel forbidding his officers to join a Berlin club where gambling was prevalent. This year, after a luxurious lunch at one of the regimental messes, he issues an order, or rather an edict, expressing his wish that officers in their messes should content themselves with simpler food and wines, and in particular that when he himself is a guest, the meal should consist only of soup, fish, vegetables, a roast and cheese. Ordinary red or white table-wine, a glass of “bowl” ("cup"), or German champagne should be handed round. Liqueurs, or other forms of what the French know as “châsse-cafe,” after dinner were best avoided. The edict of course caused amusement as well as a certain amount of discontent with what was felt to be a kind of objectionable paternal interference, and it is doubtful whether it has had much lasting effect. Even now, the German officer laughingly tells one that when the Emperor dines at an officers’ mess either French champagne (which is infinitely superior to German) is poured into German champagne bottles, or else the French label is carefully shrouded in a napkin that swathes the bottle up to the neck. Apropos of German champagne, a story is current that Bismarck, one day dining at the palace, refused the German champagne being handed round. The Emperor noticed the refusal and said pointedly to Bismarck: “I always drink German champagne, because I think it right to encourage our national industries. Every patriot should do so.” “Your Majesty,” replied the grim old Chancellor, “my patriotism does not extend to my stomach.”

In the domain of aesthetics this year the Emperor had some pleasant and some painful experiences. Joachim, the great violinist, and a great favourite of his, died in August, and his death was followed next month, September, by that of the composer Grieg, the “Chopin of the North,” as the Emperor called him, whose friendship the Emperor had acquired on one of his Norwegian trips. Quite at the end of the year his early tutor, Dr. Hinzpeter, for whom he always had a semi-filial regard, passed away.

On the other hand, among the Emperor’s pleasant experiences may be reckoned the visit of Mr. Beerbohm Tree and his English company to the German capital. Their repertory of Shakespearean drama greatly delighted the Emperor, who expressed his pleasure to Mr. Tree and his fellow-players personally, and did not dismiss them without substantial tokens of his appreciation.

Earlier in the year the French actress, Suzanne Depres, visited Berlin and appealed strongly to the Emperor’s taste for the “classical” in music and drama. Inviting the actress to the royal box, he said to her:

“You have shown us such a natural, living Phaedra that we were all strongly moved. How fine a part it is! As a youngster I used to learn verses from ‘Phaedra’ by heart. I am told that in France devotion to classical tradition is growing weaker, and that Moliere and Racine are more and more seldom played. What a pity! Our people, on the contrary, remain faithful to their great poets and enjoy their works. After school comes college, and after college the theatre. It should elevate and expand the soul. The people do not need any representation of reality they are well acquainted with that in their daily lives. One must put something greater and nobler before them, something superior to ‘La Dame aux Camélias.’”

A month later, however, he made one of his extremely rare visits to an ordinary Berlin theatre to see “The Hound of the Baskervilles”!

Meanwhile in domestic politics Chancellor von Buelow’s famous “bloc” continued to work satisfactorily, notwithstanding difficulties arising from the conflicting interests of industry and agriculture, Free Trade and Protection and differences of creed and race. At the end of this year it was near falling asunder in connection with the question of judicial reform, but Prince von Buelow kept it together for a while by an impassioned appeal to the patriotism of both parties. In the course of the speech he told the House how, when he was standing at Bismarck’s death-bed, he noticed on the wall the portrait of a man, Ludwig Uhland, who had said “no head could rule over Germany that was not well anointed with democratic oil,” and drew the conclusion from the contrast between the dying man of action and the poet that only the union of old Prussian conservative energy and discipline with German broad-hearted, liberal spirit could secure a happy future for the nation. The “bloc,” as we shall see, broke up in 1909 and Prince von Buelow resigned. The Chancellor afterwards attributed his fall entirely to the Conservatives, but it is possible, even probable, that it was in at least some measure due to the events of the annus mirabilis, 1908, which now opened.