THE CHANCELLOR IN ACTION

The German merchant marine, on the other hand, had not dared to follow the path courageously blazed by Admiral von Stosch. And now the brave German shipyard company was faced with ruin, since the North German Lloyd had refused its offer to build a passenger steamer, alleging that the English, because of their years of shipbuilding traditions, could build it better. It was a serious emergency. I hastened to Prince Bismarck and laid before him the matter as I have described it above.

The Chancellor was furious; his eyes flashed, his fist came crashing down on the table.

"What! Do you mean to say that these shopkeepers would rather have their boats built in England than in Germany? Why, that is unheard of! And is a good German shipyard to fail for such a reason? The devil take this gang of traders!"

He rang the bell and a servant entered.

"Have Privy Councilor X come here immediately from the Foreign Office!"

In a few minutes—during which the Prince stamped up and down the room—the man summoned appeared.

"Telegram to Hamburg, to our envoy—the Lloyd in Bremen is to have its new ship built by the Vulcan Company in Stettin!"

The Privy Councilor vanished in hot haste, "with his coat tails sticking straight out behind him." The Prince turned to me and said: "I am greatly obliged to you. You have done the fatherland, and also myself, an important service. Henceforth ships will be built only in our yards—I'll take care to make this clear to the Hanseatic crowd. You may telegraph to the Vulcan people that the Chancellor will guarantee that the ship will be built in the Vulcan yards. May this be the first of a whole lot of such ships! As for the workers whom you have thus saved from unemployment, I hope that they will express their thanks to you!"

I passed on the news to Privy Councilor Schlutow at Stettin and great was the joy caused thereby. This was the first step upon the road destined to lead to the construction of the magnificent German express steamers.

When I went, after I had ascended the throne in 1888, to Stettin, in order to place honorary insignia on the flags of my Pomeranian Grenadiers, I also visited the Vulcan shipyards, at the invitation of the directors. After my reception by the directors outside the yards, the great doors were flung open and I walked inside. But, instead of work and pounding hammers, I found deep silence. The entire body of workmen was standing in a half circle, with bared heads; in the middle stood the oldest workman of all, a man with a snow-white beard, bearing a laurel wreath in his hand.

I was deeply moved. Schlutow whispered to me: "A little pleasure for you, which the workmen themselves have thought up." The old workman stepped forward and, in pithy, plain words, expressed to me the gratitude of the workmen to me for having saved them, and, above all, their wives and children, from hardship and hunger, by my appeal to Bismarck about the building of the ship. As a token of their gratitude, he asked my permission to hand over the laurel wreath. Most deeply moved, I took the wreath and expressed my pleasure at receiving my first laurels, without the shedding of a drop of blood, from the hands of honest German workmen.

That was in the year 1888! In those days, the German laboring classes knew how to appreciate the blessing of labor.

[CHAPTER II]
Caprivi

When I began my reign, General von Caprivi was Chief of the Admiralty. He was the last general to hold this post. I at once took energetically in hand the development and reform—in fact, one may say the foundation anew—of the Imperial German Navy, based on my preliminary studies in England and at home. That was not to the liking of the General, who was able, but rather self-willed, and not entirely devoid of pride.

Unquestionably he had rendered valuable services in mobilization, improvement of the officer corps, and the improvement and development of the torpedo-boat organization. On the other hand, the building of ships and the replacement of worn-out material were in a deplorable state, to the detriment of the fleet and to the dissatisfaction of the shipbuilding industry, which was growing and looking about for employment.

Being an old Prussian general, Caprivi's way of thinking was that of his day—that of his comrades of 1864, 1865, 1870, 1871—in his eyes, the army had always done everything and would continue to do so in the future; therefore, no great demands for money to be devoted to the navy should be imposed upon the country, since, should this be done, there was danger that the sums destined to the army might be decreased and its development thereby hampered. This idea, from which he was not to be dissuaded, is false. The amounts granted did not flow into a reservoir from which they might be directed, by the mere turning of a valve, now into army, now into navy, channels. Whenever Caprivi was unwilling to demand anything for naval construction, in order, by so doing, to turn more money toward the army, things did not happen as he foresaw. By his action the army received not one penny more, but merely whatever the Minister of War asked for and received in accordance with his budget.

There was need of creating a Secretaryship of State for the Navy which, entirely independent of the Ministry of War, should have as its duty to demand and obtain for the navy as much as was required for the protection of our commerce and colonies. And that is what came to pass later on.

Caprivi soon came to me with the request that I relieve him from his post. He stated that he was not satisfied with it in itself; that, moreover, I had all sorts of plans for the future affecting the navy which he considered impossible of realization, in the first place, because there existed no means of replacement for the officer corps—at that time the yearly influx of cadets was between sixty and eighty—and a large navy without a large officer corps was unthinkable. In addition to this, he informed me, he had soon seen in the course of the inspection tours of His Majesty that the Emperor knew more about naval matters than he, the General, which placed him in an impossible situation in relation to his subordinates.

In view of these circumstances, I parted with him, placing him in command of an army corps. Following the motto, "The navy for the seamen!" I chose, for the first time, an admiral as its chief, a step which was received in maritime circles with great joy. The man chosen was Admiral Count Monts.