Whereupon the Prince, piously casting up his eyes toward heaven, made the sign of the cross and said: "Oh, la guerre! quelle idée; qui y pense?—cela ne doit pas être" ("Oh, war! what an idea; who thinks of such a thing? it must not be"). To that I replied that I, in any event, was not thinking about it, but that an observer—and he need not be very keen eyed—must assuredly consider the constant celebrations and speeches, as well as the official and unofficial visits exchanged between Paris and St. Petersburg, as significant symptoms which could not be ignored, and which were calculated to arouse great dissatisfaction in Germany; that, should it come to war, against my own will and that of my people, I felt that, trusting in God and in my army and people, it would be possible for Germany to get the better of both opponents.
To this I added still another statement, reported to me from Paris, which had been made by a Russian officer who was in France as a member of an officers' deputation. Having been asked by a French comrade whether the Russians believed that they could beat the Germans, the gallant Slav replied: "Non, mon ami, nous serons battus à plate couture, mais qu'est-ce que ça fait? Nous aurons la République" ("No, my friend, we shall be thoroughly beaten, but what does that matter? We shall get a republic").
At first the Prince eyed me, speechless, then, shrugging his shoulders, he remarked: "Oh, la guerre, il ne faut pas même y penser" ("Oh, war, one must not even think about it"). The officer had merely expressed the general opinion of the Russian intelligentsia and social circles. As far back as my first visit to St. Petersburg, in the early 'eighties, a grand duchess said to me at dinner, quite calmly: "Here we sit all the time on a volcano. We expect the revolution any day! The Slavs are not faithful, they are not at all monarchical, all of them are republicans at heart; they disguise their sentiments, and they lie, every one of them, all the time."
Three important events, related to foreign politics, came within the period of Prince Hohenlohe's incumbency of the Chancellorship: the opening, in 1895, of the Emperor William Canal (North Sea-Baltic Canal), begun under Emperor William the Great, to which squadrons or individual ships representing countries all over the world were invited; the annexation, in 1897, of Tsing-tao; and, third, the much-discussed Kruger dispatch.
THE SEIZURE OF TSING-TAO
Prince Hohenlohe played an especially important rôle in the annexation of Tsing-tao. He, too, was of the opinion that Germany needed some coaling stations for her ships, and that the demands of commercial elements that the opportunity for opening up China to international trade be not allowed to pass were justified. It was resolved that, under unimpaired Chinese sovereignty and after payment of the likin (octroi, or internal revenue tax), a trading port, with a marine coaling station as protection, was to be founded, wherein it was contemplated to allow China to co-operate to the utmost possible extent.
The station was to serve the ends of commerce, before all else, the military measures being limited solely to the protection of the trading center as it developed; they did not constitute an end in themselves or a basis for further military enterprises.
Already several places had been considered, but these had proved, upon more careful investigation, to be unfitted, mostly because they had either bad connections or none at all with the interior regions, were not promising from a commercial-political standpoint, or were encumbered by privileges already granted to other foreign countries. Finally it was agreed—because of the reports of Admiral Tirpitz, who was, at that time, chief of the East Asiatic cruiser squadron, and because of the opinion of the geographical expert, Freiherr von Richthofen, who, having been questioned on the subject, had drawn a most promising picture of the possibilities of development in Shantung—to found a settlement on the bay of Kiao-Chau.
The Chancellor proceeded to collect data on the political questions which arose as a result of this and which must be taken into consideration. It was particularly necessary not to interfere with Russia's designs, nor to disturb her. Further information was obtained, some of it from our East Asiatic division; from this source favorable reports came in as to anchorages and the ice-free nature of the bay of Kiao-Chau, and as to the prospects, if a port were to be founded there. From conversations among the officers of the Russian China division, which had come to our ears in our intercourse with them, it was learned that the Russian Admiral, in accordance with orders from his Government, had anchored one winter in the bay, but had found it so desolate and so atrociously lonesome—there were no tea houses with Japanese geisha girls, which the Russians deemed absolutely indispensable to winter quarters—that the Russian squadron would never go back there any more.