It would be a mistake to suppose that this admirable wife and mother, this incarnation of Protestant Germany on the Imperial throne, is in any way a pacifist. When the Emperor, after twenty-five years of his reign had passed, abruptly left the straight and tranquil path that he had marked out for the happiness of his subjects, his consort, we may be quite sure, made no effort to hold him back. In spite of her placid femininity, German patriotism, with its dreams of domination, continually haunts her brain. The horrors of war, that bane to mothers—bella matribus detestata—do not dismay the wife of William II. During the crisis of Agadir, when the Court of Berlin was chafing with impatience to measure its strength with France on another field than that of diplomacy, the Empress shared the impulse which she felt throbbing in the air around her. In a tone of reproach she said to Herr von Kiderlen-Wächter, whom she disliked: “Are we always going to retreat before the French and put up with their insolence?”
II.
For some years past the Crown Prince has been talked about a great deal, a fact which has certainly not been displeasing to him. He has been credited with a decisive influence on the course of events at the moment when the threatenings of war became critical. It was alleged that this young man of thirty-two, acting behind the scenes, was the real deus ex machina of the whole drama; that he, the idol of the army, had imposed his will and that of the officers’ corps on his father, while the latter’s mind was not yet made up. The Crown Prince deserves
“Nor such wild honour nor such brand of shame.”[4]
In physique, he is an officer of light infantry: slender of waist and narrow of chest, he cuts a smart figure, especially on horseback. He does not in any way resemble the usual Hohenzollern type, with its broad shoulders and regular features. His face is extremely youthful, with a certain vagueness in its outlines; his forehead recedes; his eyes show no sign of a lively intelligence, and his body has a look of suppleness rather than of strength and fitness for war. Appearances in this case are deceptive. The Prince is a tough soldier and an ardent sportsman. Polo, tennis, football, hockey, golf, yachting—there is no sport that he does not practise. Before the war, he liked to imitate the English, and posed as a German Anglomaniac. His father had to forbid him to ride in steeplechases, because an heir-apparent must on no account run the risk of a dangerous fall, but was unable to prevent him from going in for aviation. Of all William II.’s sons, the Crown Prince seems to be the most soldierly; but this does not mean that he will ever make a capable army leader.
At a first glance he does not seem to bear any resemblance to the Emperor, but after a time one finds out several parallel traits in their characters. Less well-informed, less cultured, less versatile, but just as self-willed, the son has inherited his father’s impetuous spirit and incurable propensity for freely uttering his thoughts. A line of impulsive rulers is what the modern Hohenzollerns, very different from their ancestors, have given to Germany.
The Crown Prince has the soul of a fighter, or at any rate he prides himself on that quality. At an official dinner, where he sat next to the wife of an ambassador from one of the Entente Powers, he could not think of anything more clever and gallant to say than that it was his cherished dream to make war and to lead a charge at the head of his regiment. His militarism, however, does not prevent him from venturing into certain intellectual and even literary fields. A diary of his hunting-tour in India, published in his name, has given us a detailed account of his feats as a Nimrod. Less commonplace and more personal is a brief passage, eagerly reproduced in the German Press, in which, on leaving Danzig, he bade farewell to his regiment of Death’s Head Hussars. His spirit reveals itself here in a certain vein of martial poetry. If any German pacifists—of whom there is a very large number, whatever the world may think—read this rhapsody in honour of Bellona, they must have felt considerable misgivings.
The relations between the Emperor and his son ceased to be very cordial from the day when the young Prince, brimming over with ambition and desire for popularity, tried to get himself talked about by dabbling in politics. His first open interference in State affairs is worth recalling, because it is a striking testimony to his feelings with regard to France. It took place in 1911, at that meeting of the Reichstag where Herr von Heydebrand, the spokesman of the Prussian Junkers, delivered a trenchant criticism of German policy in Morocco, of the treaty of 4th November, and of the way in which the Chancellor had defended the interests of the Empire. During this philippic, the Crown Prince, sitting by himself in the Imperial box, made repeated signs of approval. Since then he has become the hope of the reactionary party and of the military caste. Encouraged by this success, he has never omitted, on any important occasion, to express his ideas or to convey them by some mouthpiece, even when these ideas were in conflict with those of his father, as represented by the Chancellor. It would be superfluous to quote these various demonstrations. A congratulatory telegram to the hero of the Zabern affair finally won for the Prince the hearts of those who in Prussia wear the “King’s garb”—in other words, the officers of the army.
If only he had always remained on the neutral ground that lies between politics and the army! His want of tact and good feeling in this respect is shown by the way in which he tried to baulk the efforts of the Imperial Government in the settlement of the Brunswick succession. The oath of loyalty to the Emperor tendered by Duke Ernest of Cumberland, heir to the Duchy and son-in-law to His Majesty, on entering the army, did not seem to the Crown Prince (or, for the matter of that, to a good many typical Prussians) sufficient reason for admitting his brother-in-law to the last Guelph inheritance, to which he was the legitimate successor. The Crown Prince held that Duke Ernest should further be required to make a formal renunciation of his claims to the Hanoverian throne. The Emperor proved more shrewd and more politic, and the young ducal couple was enabled to enter Brunswick amid general acclamation. A section of the German Press, disgusted at the Crown Prince’s perpetual meddling with affairs that did not concern him, drily reminded him that he had no special status under the Prussian or Imperial constitution, and that he could only claim the right, enjoyed by every citizen, of stating his opinion as a mere private individual.