Such a charge is incapable of complete disproof, but at any rate it is obvious that Freytag could know nothing of the contents, either of the Crown Prince’s letters to his wife, who was at that time working day and night in the German hospitals, or of the letters of the Crown Princess and her sister to their relations in England. Yet he describes Princess Alice as “at heart during the whole of the war a brave German woman,” which is a plain insinuation that the Crown Princess had not her whole heart in the success of the German arms. The whole plan of dénigrement is the more subtle, for Freytag professes the most ardent admiration for the ability of the Crown Princess, her rich natural gifts, and her keen soaring intellect. At the same time he says:
“The Crown Prince’s love for her was the highest and holiest passion of his life, and filled his whole existence; she was the lady of his youth, the confidante of all his thoughts, his trusted counsellor whenever she was so inclined. Arrangements of the garden, decorations of the house, education of the children, judgments of men and things, were in every respect regulated by him in accordance with her thoughts and wishes. It is perfectly intelligible that so complete an ascendancy of the wife over the husband, who was destined to be the future ruler of Prussia, threatened to occasion difficulties and conflicts, which, perhaps, would be greater for the woman than the man—greater for the wife who led and inspired the husband whose guidance she ought to have accepted.”
Here again we see the limitations of Freytag’s undoubtedly great intellect, as well as his instinctive German middle-class conception of woman’s sphere. To the North-German the idea of woman as a comrade, as being even approximately on a level with her husband, was then, and is still to a great extent, inconceivable. In that view of matrimony the wife is really a chattel, or at best a respected housekeeper.
It may be asked, how could Freytag have supposed that the Emperor Frederick would have submitted to such domination on the part of his wife? The answer is that Freytag’s conception of the emperor’s character was hopelessly erroneous. He is obliged to confirm his title to be considered the originator of the idea of a German Empire, but he attributes it to a mere love of pomp and ceremony, a passion for Court millinery. The plain truth is that few monarchs have been simpler in their personal tastes than the Emperor Frederick; the etiquette, the monotony, and the restraint of Court life bored him, and he was never so happy as when he could escape to the congenial society of savants, artists, and writers. It is certainly true that his imaginative and poetical gifts induced him to try to infuse some elements of dignity and meaning into the routine of Court ceremonial, but that he cared for such ceremonial in itself, or attached to it any greater value than that of symbolism, is frankly absurd.
Freytag even accuses the Crown Prince of having been ready to risk civil war in order that he might secure the creation of the Imperial dignity after the Franco-German War. This is based on a misapprehension of the Prince’s discussions with Bismarck at Versailles. The Crown Prince believed that force would be unnecessary, and that the South German States would accept the Constitution proclaimed by the majority of the Princes assembled at Versailles. It is possible that he would have advocated compulsion if Bavaria and Würtemberg had thrown themselves into the arms of Austria, but he well knew that that contingency was in the last degree improbable.
Early in 1889 the Empress Frederick suffered another bereavement which, though not of course to be compared with many which she had endured, nevertheless added perceptibly to her state of melancholy and depression. This was the death of the venerable Empress Augusta, which broke a much valued link with the happy past. From those days in the early fifties when that highly-bred and highly-cultivated Princess had become “Aunt Prussia” to the Royal children at Windsor, and even more after the marriage of the Princess Royal, she had remained a loyal and most kindly and affectionate friend to her daughter-in-law. The two Royal ladies looked upon life from widely different angles, and the elder must often have disapproved of the way in which the younger interpreted her duty. But the Empress Augusta never faltered in her admiration and affection for one who was so entirely unlike herself, and in these latter days the death of the Emperor Frederick had brought them, if possible, even more closely together.
The dramatic fall of Bismarck—the “Dropping the Pilot” of Sir John Tenniel’s memorable cartoon in Punch—occurred in March, 1890. It could hardly have been regretted by the Empress Frederick, but she was far too magnanimous, and we may add too well aware of Bismarck’s incomparable services to the Empire, to regard the event as in any sense a personal triumph for herself.
What is truly astonishing, in view of all that had passed, is that the fallen Minister should have turned to her for sympathy, and should even, according to some authorities, have begged her to exert on his behalf her now growing influence with her son. It is said that she then reminded him that his past treatment of her had deprived her of any power of helping him now, but such an answer does not accord with what we know of the Empress’s whole character. She was surely incapable at such a moment of adding anything to the humiliation of her old enemy. Besides, Professor Nippold speaks of Bismarck’s having himself written: “Her influence over her husband was very great at any time, and became greater with the years, to culminate at the time when he was Emperor. But also in her was the conviction that my position close to the throne was in the interest of the dynasty.”
There are, indeed, different versions of what took place in the now famous interview between Bismarck and the Empress Frederick. It is quite possible that she regarded the Minister’s dismissal from office as an imprudent and even dangerous step. However that may be, Prince Hohenlohe declares that Bismarck did not entreat the Empress to intercede for him with the Emperor; he merely said, when the Empress asked if she could do anything for him, “I ask only for sympathy.” But he certainly did ask to be received by her in audience, although he must have vividly remembered the insolent message which he had sent her immediately after the Emperor Frederick’s death, when she had requested him to come to her.
A year later, at Homburg, Prince Hohenlohe and the Empress Frederick had a long conversation over the Bismarck affair. She said she was not at all surprised at his dismissal, that “Bismarck was of a combative nature and would never cease to fight. He could do nothing else.” She talked of previous incidents, of Bismarck’s groundless distrust of her, and of the Empress Augusta, and expressed the opinion “that we had only to thank the old Emperor’s quiet gentleness for any success of Bismarck’s. He was a very dangerous opponent, but not a Republican. He was too Prussian for that. But the Brandenburg-Prussian noble was determined to rule, though it were with the King.”