CHAPTER I
"If only Emperor William would be true to himself—be natural, in fact!" exclaimed Count S——, a Prussian nobleman, high in the diplomatic service of his country, with whom I was discussing the German Emperor a year or so ago. Then my friend, who had, a short time previously, been brought into frequent personal contact with his sovereign, in connection with his official duties, went on to say:
"There are really two distinct characters, one might almost say two personalities, in the kaiser. When he is himself he is the most charming companion that it is possible to conceive. His manners are as genial and as winning as those of his father and grandfather, both of whom he surpasses in brilliancy of intellect, and in quickness of repartee, as well as in a keen sense of humor. He gives one the impression of possessing a heart full of the most generous impulses,—aye, of a generosity carried even to excess, and this, together with a species of indescribable magnetism which appears to radiate from him in these moments, contributes to render him a most sympathetic man."
"But," interposed an Englishman who was present, "that is not how he is portrayed to the outer world. Nor is that the impression which he made upon me and upon others when he was at Cowes."
"That is precisely why I deplore so much that the emperor should fail to appear in his true colors," continued Count S——. "All the qualities which I have just now ascribed to him are too often concealed beneath a mantle of reserve, self-consciousness, nay, even pose. During my recent interviews with his majesty, whenever we happened to be alone, he would show himself in the light which I have just described to you. But let a third person appear upon the scene—be it even a mere servant—at once his entire manner would change. The magnetic current so pleasantly established between us would be cut through, his eyes would lose their kindly, friendly light, and become hard, his attitude self-conscious and constrained, the very tone of his speech sharp, abrupt, commanding, I would almost say arrogant. In fact he would give one the impression that he was playing a rôle—the rôle of emperor—that he was, in one word, posing, even if it were only for the benefit of the menial who had interrupted us. But when the intruder had vanished, William would, like a flash, become his own charming self again. That is what made me exclaim just now, 'if only the kaiser would be true to himself!—be natural, in fact.'"
"I fully agree with you, my dear S——," I remarked, after a short pause. "If the emperor has remained anything like what he was prior to his ascension to the throne, your estimate of his character is correct." And I went on to relate a little incident which occurred on the occasion of my first meeting with the emperor many years ago.
This meeting took place on that particular spot where the empires of Germany, Austria, and Russia may be said to meet, the frontier guards of each of those three nations being within hail of one another. The great autumnal military manoeuvres were in progress, and a merry party, including a number of ladies, were riding home from the mimic battlefield. We passed through a narrow lane, bordered on each side by groups of stunted willows and birch trees, under the sparse shadow of which nestled a few cottages painted in blue, pink, or yellow, in true Polish fashion. Suddenly our progress was arrested by terrifying screams proceeding from one of these hovels. Several of us were out of our saddles in an instant and rushed in at the low door.
Before the hearth, where a huge peat-fire was burning, stood a young peasant woman, her face distorted with agonized grief, and holding in her arms a bundle of blackened rags. We found that her baby had fallen into the glowing embers, while she herself was occupied out of doors, and the poor mite was so badly burned that there seemed but little hope of its ever reviving from its state of almost complete coma. We were all busying ourselves eagerly about the child and its distraught mother, when raising my eyes from the palpitating form of the child, I caught sight of "Prince William," as the kaiser was then called, standing near the door, apparently quite undisturbed and unmoved by this tragedy in lowly life. It even seemed to me in the dim light as if he were smiling derisively at our efforts to relieve the sufferings of the little one, and to soothe the grief of its mother. But my indignation vanished quickly when a slanting ray of the setting sun, piercing through the grime of the little window, revealed the presence on his cheek of two very large and bona-fide tears, which had welled up in his eyes, to which the lad was endeavoring to impart an expression of callous indifference; and when at last we left the hut to seek a doctor for the tiny sufferer it was Prince William's own military coat, none too new, and even, to say the truth, much worn, that remained as an additional coverlet upon the roughly-hewn wooden cot, over which the sobbing mother was bending.
"Nobody," I added, "will, therefore, make me believe that Emperor William has not got a very soft spot in his heart, and that beneath the mannerisms which he considers it necessary to affect in order to maintain the dignity of his position as emperor,—those mannerisms which have given rise to so much misapprehension about his character,—there is not concealed a very kindly spirit, literally brimming over with generous impulses, which, if more widely known, would serve to render the kaiser the most popular, as he is the most interesting figure of Old World royalty."
It is because Emperor Francis-Joseph and the veteran King of Saxony are so thoroughly acquainted with his real nature, that they are truly and honestly fond of him. Both of them old men, with no sons in whom to seek support for the eventide of lives that have been saddened by many a public and private sorrow, they entertain a fatherly affection for William, who as emperor treats them in public as brother sovereigns, and as equals, but accords to them in private the most touching filial deference and regard, remembering full well the kindness which both of them showed to him when he was still the much-snubbed, and not altogether justly-treated "Prince William." They on their side are led by his behavior towards them to regard him in the light of a son. Of course they cannot be blind to his faults, but they are disposed to treat them with an indulgence that is even more than paternal, and to see in them relatively trivial defects, due to the manner in which he was brought up, and which are certain to disappear with advancing years and experience.
During his early manhood, Prince William was by no means a favorite either at his grandfather's court or at that of any other foreign sovereign which he was occasionally allowed to visit. Pale-faced and delicate-looking, very severely treated by his mother, who is what one is bound to call une maîtresse femme, the boy at seventeen was by no manner of means prepossessing, and his efforts to assert himself, and to crush down a good deal of natural awkwardness and timidity added to his singularly unlikeable appearance.
In those days it could clearly be seen that everything that he did or said was meant to create an impression of dignity and of grandeur, to which his physique did not lend itself very easily, and the contrast between him and his bosom friend the courteous, graceful and dashing Crown Prince of Austria, was very marked.
Good-hearted and endowed with a great many truly generous instincts the young fellow was, however, sorely handicapped by his education, the abnormal strictness displayed towards him at the Court of Berlin, and also by a continually and most distressingly empty purse. It is a hard and almost pitiful thing for the heir apparent of a great empire to find himself often without the necessary amount with which to cut the figure which his social rank forces him to adopt, and it must have been especially galling to the overbearing and proud nature of this boy to be continually obliged to borrow from his friends, nay even from his aides de camp, small sums wherewith to pay his way wherever he went. Nevertheless his father and mother, then Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Germany, believed it to be a thoroughly wholesome thing for the young man to have to humble his pride, should he not be content with the very small allowance made to him, this unfortunate idea being, however, the cause of a great deal of bitterness, which to this day has not completely faded from the heart of the now omnipotent ruler of the German Empire.
It is undeniable that many eccentricities and false moves on the part of William II. have been grossly exaggerated and placed before the public in a false light, showing him up as a conceited, bumptious and silly person, whereas not only his state of health, but his entourage should have been blamed for whatever he did that was out of place. During a great many years the young prince suffered from what is called technically otitis media, namely, a disease of the middle ear, very painful, exasperating and even somewhat humiliating to endure, and which he must have inherited in some extraordinary way from his great-uncle, King William IV. of Prussia, who died insane. There are certainly some traits of resemblance between this hapless monarch and the present occupant of the German throne, for in both there exists and has existed the same exaggerated and narrow-minded religious beliefs, bordering on mysticism, and also an all-embracing faith in their absolute and unquestionable infallibility.
It has long since become a well-anchored creed that William II. has occasional fits of insanity. This is by no means the case, but it must be admitted that the peculiar malady to which I referred above, and which is as yet not eradicated from his system, causes him, at times, days of the most excruciating pains all over the back and side of his head, and it is scarcely surprising that at such moments the emperor should act in a way which astonishes the uninitiated. Indeed, William II. displays extraordinary force of character in suppressing physical agony, when the duties he owes to the state force him to come forward when unfit for anything else but the sick room.
The truth of the matter is that there are but few who can boast of knowing him well, and the masses as well as the classes both at home and abroad seem to take a peculiarly keen delight in accepting for gospel truth any sweeping statements made about him by the press of all civilized countries.
Although twenty-nine years of age when he ascended the throne on June 15, 1888, he may be said to have been at that time still but a raw youth, continually kept in the background, and treated more or less like a child, without any consequence or weight. It is, therefore, not remarkable that the first years of his reign should have been signalized by many errors of judgment; for it is not with impunity that one suddenly releases a person, locked up for years in a dark room and drives him into dazzlingly-lighted spaces without a guide, a philosopher, or a friend by his side to lead him on the way. The mental, as well as the physical optic has to gradually become accustomed to so complete a change, and this fact was not sufficiently taken into consideration by all the detractors of the young monarch, when he, to speak very familiarly, leaped over the saddle in his anxiety to secure for himself a firm seat on the throne of his forefathers.
It is well to mention also that Emperor Frederick III., who reigned alas! but for a few weeks, was positively worshipped by the German people, and not without cause, for he was undoubtedly one of the finest personalities of this century. His appearance, his demeanor, his unaffected dignity, kindness of heart, and loftiness of purpose were difficult to surpass, and it was a bitter disappointment to his subjects when death snatched him away before he had had time to carry out the grand plans and ideas which he had long cherished and reserved for the time when he would have the reins of government in his own hands.
Speaking with all kindness and good-will, one cannot but after a fashion understand the disappointment of the Germans when this towering military figure, this magnificent specimen of perfect physical and mental manhood, vanished from their ken, to be replaced by the slender, pale-faced, somewhat arrogant and despotic young man, who resembled this father so little.
Emperor William II. is an extremely intelligent personage, in spite of all that may have been said to the contrary. He thinks for himself when he has a mind to do so, and, what is more, thinks logically, and is quite capable of following a thus logically-attained conclusion to its furthermost point. He feels keenly his enormous responsibilities, and the tremendous international importance of his position as the ruler of over 50,000,000 people, for he well knows that any man wearing on his head the double crown of King of Prussia, and of German Emperor, is a being endowed with powers which are bound to compel attention from every point of the European Continent. Being given, as I have just remarked, that his health and his physique are neither of them of a kind to aid him in the tremendous task which belongs to him by right of birth, it is easily explainable that his self-assertive ways and imperious manners should often be mistaken for posing and posturing. Moreover, his imperfect left arm—a misfortune which has been a source of great distress to him ever since his birth—is but another one of those physical troubles which his pride makes him anxious to conceal, this only adding to his stilted and repellent attitude. In spite of all these drawbacks, the emperor fences exceedingly well, rides with pluck, and even skill, managing to hold his reins with his poor withered left hand when in uniform, in order to keep his sword-arm free, and during his visit to Austrian Poland, which I referred to at the beginning of this chapter, I more than once saw him with my own eyes, whilst we were riding across country, take obstacles which would have made a far older and more experienced hunter pause and reflect on.
Nobody, even the best-intentioned, can deny that Emperor William has many faults; those are, however, either ignored altogether, or else exaggerated to an extent that eclipses all his good qualities, by his various biographers. Very few pen-portraits of royal personages that pass through the hands of the publishers can be said to present a true picture of their subject. Either the writer holds up the object of his literary effort as a person so blameless as to suggest the idea that he is an impossible prig, or else every piece of malevolent gossip is construed into a positive fact, his shortcomings magnified until they lose all touch of resemblance, while every word and action capable of misrepresentation is construed in the manner most detrimental to his reputation. In one word, he is either glorified as a preposterous saint, or else held up to public execration as an equally impossible villain. Now, in pictorial art, a portrait, in order to present a satisfactory and successful resemblance to its subject, must contain lights and shadows. You cannot have all light, or all shadow, but it is necessary to have a judicious mixture of both. So it is with the art of biography. If one wishes to give in print a true, and above all, a human picture of one's subject, it is necessary to mingle the shadows with the lights. In fact, the former may be said to set off the latter, and there are many shortcomings, especially those which the French, so graphically describe as petits vices,—small vices—which, resulting from a generous and impulsive temperament, serve, like the Rembrandt shadow of a portrait, to render the subject more attractive to the eye.
It is my object, not to give a definitive biography of either of the two kaisers, or even a mere record of their vie intime, but rather to present to my readers a series of incidents, full of lights and full of shadows, showing their surroundings, describing as far as possible the atmosphere in which they move, the conditions of life which they are obliged to consider, the temptations to which they are exposed—and to which they sometimes succumb—and when I have completed my task I venture to believe that the readers of these volumes, while they may find the two emperors neither quite so blameless, nor yet quite so bad as they expected, may nevertheless experience a greater degree of sympathy and regard for them as being after all so extremely human.