Any number of projects were presented in the November debates of the Reichstag for changing the Constitution, to bring about co-operation between the Reichstag and the Emperor in the appointment and dismissal of Chancellors and declarations of war, and for introducing a law to bring about ministerial responsibility. Nothing came of these, however, and we shall see from the Königsberg speech (August 25, 1910) that the chastening which the Emperor had received on this occasion had no particularly lasting effect. Although both the interview and the telegram are undoubtedly authentic (the interview was published in official government organs in Germany, like the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, and by the Wolff Bureau), they are not included in any official collection of the Emperor’s utterances, and Penzler, of course, does not print them with the speeches. The interview as here given is taken from the account of the London Times, of October 29, 1908.
The Emperor, who is stated to have spoken with “impulsive and unusual frankness,” began by declaring that “Englishmen, in giving the rein to suspicions unworthy of a great nation,” were “mad as March hares.” “What more can I do,” he asked, “than I have done? I declared with all the emphasis at my command, in my speech at Guildhall, that my heart is set upon peace and that it is one of my dearest wishes to live on the best of terms with England.
“My task is not of the easiest. The prevailing sentiment among large sections of the middle and lower classes of my own people is not friendly to England. I am, therefore, so to speak, in a minority in my own land, but it is a minority of the best elements, just as it is in England with respect to Germany. That is another reason why I resent your refusal to accept my pledged word that I am the friend of England.”
The writer reminded his Majesty that “not England alone, but the whole of Europe, had viewed with disapproval the recent action of Germany in allowing the German consul to return from Tangier to Fez.” His Majesty replied, “with a gesture of impatience,” that German subjects in Fez were “crying for help and protection.”
“And why not send him? Are those who charge Germany with having stolen a march on the other powers aware that the French consular representative had already been in Fez for several months when Doctor Vassel set out?”
The Emperor then reverted to “the subject uppermost in his mind—his proved friendship for England.” It was commonly believed in England, he said, that during the South African War Germany had been consistently hostile to her. German opinion, he admitted, was hostile—“bitterly hostile”; but not so official Germany. In fact, while other European peoples had received and fêted the Boer delegates who came to solicit European intervention, he alone had refused to receive them at Berlin, “where the German people would have crowned them with flowers.” His Majesty continued:
“Again, when the struggle was at its height, the German Government was invited by the governments of France and Russia to join with them in calling upon England to put an end to the war. The moment had come, they said, not only to save the Boer republics, but also to humiliate England to the dust. What was my reply? I said that so far from Germany joining in any concerted European action to put pressure upon England and bring about her downfall, Germany would always keep aloof from politics that could bring her into complications with a sea power like England. Posterity will one day read the exact terms of the telegram—now in the archives of Windsor Castle—in which I informed the sovereign of England of the answer I had returned to the powers which then sought to compass her fall. Englishmen who now insult me by doubting my word should know what were my actions in the hour of their adversity.”
These were not the only proofs which his Majesty had given of sympathy with the British cause:
“Just at the time of your Black Week, in the December of 1899, when disasters followed one another in rapid succession, I received a letter from Queen Victoria, my revered grandmother, written in sorrow and affliction, and bearing manifest traces of the anxieties which were preying upon her mind and health. I at once returned a sympathetic reply. Nay, I did more. I bade one of my officers procure for me as exact an account as he could obtain of the number of combatants in South Africa on both sides, and of the actual position of the opposing forces. With the figures before me, I worked out what I considered to be the best plan of campaign under the circumstances, and submitted it to my General Staff for their criticism. Then I despatched it to England, and that document, likewise, is among the state papers at Windsor Castle, awaiting the serenely impartial verdict of history. And, as a matter of curious coincidence, let me add that the plan which I formulated ran very much on the same lines as that which was actually adopted by Lord Roberts and carried by him into successful operation.”
In conclusion, his Majesty dwelt upon the importance to Germany of a powerful fleet. Germany must be able to protect her growing commerce and manifold interests “in even the most distant seas.” “Germany,” he went on, “looks ahead. She must be prepared for any eventualities in the far East. Who can foresee what may take place in the Pacific in the days to come?” Looking to the accomplished rise of Japan and the possible national awakening of China, he urged that “only those powers which have great navies will be listened to with respect when the future of the Pacific comes to be solved,” and that even England herself may welcome the existence of a German fleet “when they speak together on the same side in the great debates of the future.”