At the close of the meeting Count Waldersee, who had been one of those present, took Ballin’s arm and said to him: “As you are now sure to be hanged from the Brandenburger Tor, let us go to Hiller’s before it comes off, to have some lunch together.” Ballin never ceased to be grateful to the Count for this sign of kindness, and his friendship with him and his family lasted until his death. The arrangements made by the Hamburg-Amerika Linie for the reception of its guests were carefully prepared and carried out. It is not easy to give an idea to a non-expert of the great many minute details which have to be attended to in order to accommodate a large number of exacting visitors on a steamer in such a manner that nobody finds anything to complain of, especially if, as is but natural on an occasion such as this, an endless variety of questions as to precedence and etiquette have to be taken into account. Great pains and much circumspection are necessary to arrange to everybody’s satisfaction all matters affecting the reception of the guests, the provision of food and drinks, the conveyance of luggage, etc. Thanks to the infinite care, however, with which Ballin and his fellow-workers attended to this matter, everything turned out eminently satisfactory. In the evening, when the guests of the Hamburg-Amerika Linie were returning to their steamer at the close of the festivities, the company agreeably surprised them by providing an artistically arranged collation of cold meats, etc., and the news of this spread so quickly that from the other vessels people who felt that the official catering had not taken sufficient account of their appetites, lost no time in availing themselves of this opportunity of a meal.
This event, at any rate, helped to establish the reputation of the company’s hospitality.
It may be presumed that this incident had shown the Kaiser—who, although he did not object to being contradicted in private, could not bear it in public—that the Hamburg Company was animated by a spirit of independence which did not subordinate itself to other influences without a protest, and which jealously guarded its position. It must be stated that the Kaiser never bore Ballin any ill will on account of his opposition, which may be partly due to the great pains the Packetfahrt took in order to make the festivities a success. The event may also have induced the Kaiser to watch the progress of the Hamburg-Amerika Linie after that with particular attention. His special interest was centred round the provision for new construction, and in this matter he exerted his influence from an early time in favour of the German yards.
The first occasion of the Kaiser’s pleading in favour of German yards dates from the time previous to his accession to the throne. Ballin, in a speech which he delivered when the trial trip of the s.s. Meteor took place, stated the facts connected with this intervention as follows: The directors had just started negotiations with British shipbuilding firms for the building of their first express steamer when the Prussian Minister to the Free City of Hamburg called to inform them, at the request of Prince Bismarck, that the latter, acting upon the urgent representations of Prince Wilhelm, suggested that they should entrust the building of the big vessel to a German yard. The Prince was profoundly convinced that Germany, for the sake of her own future, must cease to play the part of Cinderella among the nations, and that there was no want of engineers among his countrymen who, if given a chance, would prove just as efficient as their fellow-craftsmen in England. The Packetfahrt thereupon entrusted the building of the vessel to the Stettin Vulkan yard. She was the fast steamer Auguste Victoria, and was christened after the young Empress. Launched in 1888, she immediately won “the blue riband of the Atlantic” on her first trip.
Another and still more practical suggestion of the Kaiser was put forward at the time when the company were about to build an excursion steamer. The satisfactory results which their fast steamers had yielded during the dead season in the transatlantic passage business when used for pleasure cruises had induced them to take this step, and when the Kaiser’s attention was drawn to this project, he, on the strength of the experience he had made with his Hohenzollern, designed a sketch and composed a memorandum dealing with the equipment of such a steamer. It was Ballin’s opinion that this Imperial memorandum contained some suggestions worth studying, although it was but natural that the monarch could not be expected to be sufficiently acquainted with all the practical considerations which the company had to bear in mind in order to make the innovation pay, and that, therefore, some of his recommendations could not be carried out.
If we remember what vivid pleasure the Kaiser derived from his own holiday cruises, it cannot surprise us to see that he took such a keen interest in the company’s excursion trips. How keen it was may be inferred from an incident which happened early in his reign, and to which Ballin, when describing his first experiences on this subject, referred in his above-mentioned speech on the occasion of the trial trip of the Meteor. Ballin said: “Even among my most intimate associates people were not wanting who thought that I was not quite right in my mind when, at the head of 241 intrepid travellers, I set out on the first pleasure cruise to the Far East in January, 1891. The Kaiser had just inspected the vessel, and then bade farewell to the company and myself by saying: ‘That’s right. Make our countrymen feel at home on the open sea, and both your company and the whole nation will reap the benefit.’”
In after years the Kaiser’s interest in the company chiefly centred round those landmarks in its progress which marked the country’s expansion in the direction of Weltpolitik, e.g. its participation in the Imperial Mail Service to the Far East, its taking up a share in the African trade, etc. In fact, after 1901, when the Kaiser had keenly interested himself in the establishment of the Morgan Trust and its connexion with German shipping companies, there was scarcely an important event in the history of the company (such as the extension of its services, the addition of a big new steamer, etc.) which he allowed to pass without a few cordial words of congratulation. He also took the liveliest interest in the personal well-being of Ballin. He always sent him the compliments of the season at Christmas or for the New Year, generally in the shape of picture post-cards or photographs from his travels, together with a few gracious words, and he never failed to remember the anniversaries of important events in Ballin’s life or to inquire after him on recovering from an illness. Ballin, in his turn, acquainted the Kaiser with anything which he believed might be of interest to His Majesty, or might improve his knowledge of the economic conditions existing in his own as well as in foreign countries. He kept him informed about all the more important pool negotiations, e.g. those in connexion with the establishment, in 1908, of the general pool, and those referring to the agreements concluded with other German shipping companies, etc. Whenever he noticed on his travels any signs of important developments, chiefly those of a political kind, he furnished his Imperial friend with reports on the foreign situation.
In 1904 the Kaiser’s interest in Ballin took a particularly practical form. Ballin had suffered a great deal from neuralgic pains which, in spite of the treatment of various physicians, did not really and permanently diminish until the patient was taken in hand by Professor Schweninger, the famous medical adviser of no less a man than Bismarck. Ballin himself testified to the unvaried attention and kindness of Dr. Schweninger, and to the great success of his treatment. It is to be assumed that Schweninger, because of his energetic manner of dealing with his patients, was eminently suited to Ballin’s disposition, which was not an easy one for his doctor and for those round him to cope with.
“As early as January, 1904,” Ballin remarks in his notes, “the Kaiser had sent a telegram inviting me to attend the Ordensfest celebrations in Berlin, and during the subsequent levee he favoured me with a lengthy conversation, chiefly because he wanted to tell me how greatly he was alarmed at the state of my health. His physician, Professor Leuthold, had evidently given him an unfavourable account of it. The Kaiser explained that he could no longer allow me to go on without proper assistance or without a substitute who would do my work when I was away for any length of time. This state of things caused him a great deal of anxiety, and, as it was a matter of national interest, he was bound to occupy himself with this problem. He did not wish to expose himself to a repetition of the danger—which he had experienced in the Krupp case—that a large concern like ours should at any moment be without a qualified steersman at the helm. He said he knew that of all the gentlemen in his entourage Herr v. Grumme was the one I liked best, and that I had an excellent opinion of him. He also considered Grumme the best man he had ever had round him, and it would be difficult to replace him. Nevertheless he would be glad to induce Grumme to join the services of the Hamburg-Amerika Linie, if I thought that this would solve the difficulty he had just referred to, and that such a solution would fall in with my own wishes. He was convinced that I should soon be restored to my normal health if I were relieved of some part of my work, and that this would enable me to do much useful service to the nation and himself; so he would be pleased to make the sacrifice. I sincerely thanked His Majesty, and assured him that I could not think of any solution that I should like better than the one he had proposed, and that, if he were really prepared to do so much for me, I would beg him to discuss the matter with Grumme. That very evening he sent for Grumme, who immediately expressed his readiness to enter the services of our company if such was His Majesty’s pleasure.”
The lively interest which the Kaiser took in the development of our mercantile marine was naturally closely connected with the growth of the Imperial Navy and with our naval policy in general. The country’s maritime interests and the merchant fleet were the real motives that prompted his own naval policy, whereas Tirpitz chiefly looked upon them as a valuable asset for propaganda purposes. During the first stage of the naval policy and of the naval propaganda—which at that time were conducted on quite moderate lines—Ballin, as he repeatedly told me, played a very active part. It was the time when the well-known periodical Nautikus, afterwards issued at regular annual intervals, was first published by the Ministry for the Navy, and when a very active propaganda in favour of the navy and of the country’s maritime interests was started. Experience has proved how difficult it is to start such a propaganda, especially through the medium of a Press so loosely organized as was the German Press in those days. But it is still more difficult to stop, or even to lessen, such propaganda once it has been started, because the preliminary condition for any active propaganda work is that a large number of individual persons and organizations should be interested in it. It is next to impossible to induce these people to discontinue their activities when it is no longer thought desirable to keep up the propaganda after its original aim has been achieved. Germany’s maritime interests remained a favourite subject of Press discussions, and the animation with which these were carried on reached a climax whenever a supplementary Navy Bill was introduced. Even when it was intended to widen the Kiel Canal, as it proved too narrow for the vessels of the “Dreadnought” type, the necessity for doing so was explained by reference to the constantly increasing size of the new steamers built for the mercantile marine; although, seeing that the shallow waters of the Baltic and of the channels leading into it made it quite impossible to use them for this purpose, nobody ever proposed to send those big ships through the canal. In later years Ballin often spoke with great bitterness of those journalists who would never leave off writing about “the daring of our merchant fleet” in terms of unmeasured eulogy, and whom he described as the greatest enemies of the Hamburg-Amerika Linie.