It should have become clear that the part which the Emperor William has played in the formulation and carrying out of Germany's naval policy has been quite insignificant in comparison with that played by his Minister. The really effective work which the monarch has done for his fleet has been that of which the wider public has heard least. The Emperor's brain is not an originating or creative one, but it is keenly apprehensive, appreciative, and assimilative, and its owner was quick to perceive the value of many of the forces and institutions which have made the British Fleet supreme, not only in numerical strength but also in esprit de corps and organization. From his visits to England he took back much useful information as to the construction and handling of ships, and in many other respects he found British models which he considered worthy of imitation in his own country. Thus the Institution of Naval Architects was provided with a German counterpart in the Schiffbau-technische Gesellschaft, the ideals of self-discipline of sport were fostered in the Imperial Navy, and when the temperance movement in the British Fleet had developed sufficient strength to attract attention, the Emperor inaugurated a similar propaganda among his crews. As has already been seen, William II. has generously admitted the debt of the German Fleet to its British sister, and beyond all doubt he has done more than anyone else to incur it.
The Emperor has also been able to do a good deal towards the propagation of his naval ideas through his autocratic control over the official machinery of Prussia, which constitutes more than three-fifths of the area, and nearly that proportion of the population of Germany. In a country where the tentacles of the central authority reach to the remotest village this control means a great deal. In particular, through the Ministry of Education, the rising generation has been initiated into the mysteries of "world-policy" and sea-power. The teaching of history and geography has been used to impress upon susceptible minds the importance of colonies and fleets, and to suggest with more or less precision and emphasis that Great Britain is the jealous rival who chiefly obstructs Germany's path to that "place in the sun" which is her due. The process, commenced in the schools, has been continued at the universities. Indeed, here as elsewhere, Germany's professors have been the pioneers of her progress, and were putting forward her claim to sea-power long before the Emperor was born. Friedrich List, the father of German economics, urged, in 1840, that Denmark and Holland should be taken into the Germanic Confederation, which "would then obtain what it at present lacks—namely, fisheries and sea-power, ocean-borne trade, and colonies." In another passage he said:
"What intelligent citizens of those seaports (Hamburg and Bremen) can rejoice over the continual increase of their tonnage, when he reflects that a couple of frigates, putting out from Heligoland, could destroy inside twenty-four hours the work of a quarter of a century."
List also maintained that Germany was "called by nature to place herself at the head of the colonizing and civilizing nations," and "that the time had come for the formation of a Continental alliance against the naval supremacy of England." Treitschke, writing of the European situation in the later thirties, said:
"Against so absolutely ruthless a commercial policy, inciting and making mischief all over the world, all other civilized nations seemed natural allies. England was the stronghold of barbarism in international law. To England alone was it due that, to the shame of humanity, naval warfare still remained organized piracy. It was the common duty of all nations to restore on the seas that balance of power, long existing on the Continent, that healthy equipoise which permitted no State to do exactly as it liked, and consequently assured to all a humane international law. The civilization of the human race demanded that the manifold magnificence of the world's history, which had once commenced with the rule of monosyllabic Chinese, should not end in a vicious circle with the empire of the monosyllabic Britons. As soon as the Eastern Question was reopened a far-sighted statesmanship was bound to attempt at least to restrict the oppressive foreign rule which the English Fleet maintained from Gibraltar, Malta, and Corfu, and to restore the Mediterranean to the Mediterranean peoples."
At the same time the Professor was teaching his students at the Berlin University that "the settlement with England will be the most difficult of all," and that "the result of our next war must be, if possible, the acquisition of some colony."
The modern schoolmasters and professors of Germany have worked to produce a race inspired with the ambitions of List and the rancours of Treitschke, and imbued with the idea that an unexampled destiny awaits their nation. That the Emperor William early recognized what schools and universities might be made to do in this direction is clear from the speech with which he opened the Educational Conference convened by him in 1890, and in which he complained that the traditional curriculum "lacked a patriotic basis." "We should," he exclaimed, "rear patriotic Germans and not young Greeks and Romans." It was also with a political purpose that he recommended a reversal of the usual order in which history was taught—that is to say, that the most recent periods should be taken first, and the student led back step by step to the events of antiquity.
While the Emperor is not omnipotent in legislation, he is, in Prussia, at any rate, practically unfettered in administration—that more extensive and equally important branch of government—and so the impulsions of his will can be forced down through the reticulations of the bureaucratic system till they are felt by the humblest official. He thus has at his disposal a large body of zealous co-operators anxious to comply with his desires even if they should have no direct relation to their official duties.
To appreciate the operation of this force, it is only necessary to turn over the pages of the German Navy League Handbook and notice how prominent a part the provincial agents of the central authority and subordinate members of the official body have played in the propaganda of that organization. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that, wherever difficulty has been experienced in forming a local branch of the League, gentle pressure has been brought to bear on the stationmaster, postmaster, or gymnasium-director of the town, and has compelled him to take the initiative. In numerous cases such persons have, of course, come forward and founded branches of the League without any prompting, knowing well that their zeal would be in accordance with the "wishes of the Emperor," and would be rewarded by preferment when a suitable opportunity arose.
The Navy League is the only instrument the Emperor possesses for systematically and persistently propagating his ideas on world-policy and sea-power among the German people as a whole. It was founded in 1898, at his personal instance, but in all probability at Admiral von Tirpitz's suggestion, with the assistance of funds principally furnished by the Krupp family, which, as the chief material beneficiary from any increase in the German Fleet, could well afford to invest a little money in this way. Even in Bismarck's time the head of the Krupp firm had been induced to start a number of newspapers to advocate the augmentation of those armaments from which he had derived a considerable proportion of his vast wealth, and it is one of the least edifying features of modern Germany that those of its citizens who show the most bellicose spirit have a direct personal interest in the waging of war. The financial founders of the Navy League included other prosperous manufacturers who were anxious to deserve decorations or titles, and who, in some instances, went so far as to compel their employees to join the organization and so help to swell its membership.