A number of scandals in army and colonial administration had been exposed in 1906. It will be remembered that for years back the Emperor had been insisting on union between the various religious creeds. This was perhaps due in part to a spirit of toleration, but to a larger extent it was due to the fact that the Centre party (Catholic) had for a number of years been in control. The Reichstag of 1906 was dissolved, ostensibly over the government’s quarrel with the Centre party over the comparatively paltry sum of $2,000,000 demanded for the Southwest African colony. In reality the causes probably lay deeper. The late Reichstag had voted an insufficient sum for the navy and was beginning to object to the increasing taxes on the necessities of life. The Navy League was demanding a doubling of the German fleet. The government seemed to wish to undertake a more rapid policy of expansion. Mr. Barker is authority for the statement that leaders of the imperialistic agitation had gone so far as to recommend that if the Reichstag did not vote the credits necessary for doubling the fleet, a coup d’état should be effected by the government and that it should levy the taxes and govern in case of necessity against the will of the Reichstag or without the Reichstag. The expansionist policy was strongly advocated by the Colonial party and the Navy League and was championed by the Chancellor. As the Social Democrats opposed increases in taxation, they were likewise now specially under the ban of official disapproval. There are usually about forty parties in the Reichstag. The issue was, therefore, clearly drawn between a policy of imperialism and a stronger insistence on world-policy, on the one hand, and Social Democracy and the opposition on the other. The Emperor and the Chancellor, particularly the latter, threw themselves vigorously into the campaign, and in spite of the support of the Centre party the Social Democrats lost thirty-six representatives and their representation was reduced to forty-three. Although the Social Democrats have to a certain point supported the policy of commercial expansion, their defeat here may be looked upon as the unconditioned triumph of imperialism.
On the night of February 5, when it was announced that the Social Democrats had been defeated, a crowd gathered about the palace, and when the Emperor returned at about midnight from the meeting of the Electrical Society, where he had delivered an address, he stepped out on his balcony and made the following speech to the crowd:
Gentlemen:
With my whole heart I thank you for the beautiful demonstration of homage which you have shown me. It arises from the feeling that you are proud to have done your duty toward the Fatherland; in the phrase of our Chancellor, you are able to ride, and you will ride down everything that opposes us if all conditions and creeds stand together in firm union. Do not allow this hour of celebration to end like a passing wave of patriotic enthusiasm, but stand firmly to the path on which you have started. I close with the words of the great poet Kleist in his “Prince von Homburg” when old Kottwitz speaks to the Great Elector somewhat as follows: “What do we care for the rules according to which the enemy fights if he is beaten in the fighting? We have now learned the art of conquering him and are filled with the desire to practise it further.”[42]
[42] The exact passage runs as follows, though the lines are separated in the play and do not occur in this order:
“What, I pray you, do you care for the rule
According to which the enemy fights, if only
He goes down before you with all his flags?
The rule that conquers him is the highest rule.”
Act V, Scene 5.
[THE NECESSITY OF FAITH]
Münster, August 31, 1907