Instinctively she turned to her English home for help. Although nearly two centuries have passed since George I entered upon his English inheritance, and more than half a century has gone by since the last signs of British dominion were removed from Hanover, the dynastic family politics of Windsor and Balmoral remain almost exclusively German. In all the confused and embittered squabbles which have kept the royal and princely houses of Germany by the ears since the close of the Napoleonic wars, the interference of the British Guelph has been steadily pitted against the influence of the Prussian Hohenzollern. Hardly one of the changes which, taken altogether, have whittled the reigning families of Germany from thirty down to a shadowy score since 1820, has been made without the active meddling of English royalty on one side or the other—most generally on the losing side. Hence, while it was natural that the Crown Princess should remember in her time of sore trial that she was also Princess Royal in England, it was equally to be expected that Germany should prepare itself to resent this fresh case of British intermeddling.
The scheme of battle which the Crown Princess, in counsel with her insular relatives, decided upon was at once ingenious and bold. It could not, unfortunately, be gainsaid that her husband, Frederic, had formally pledged himself to relinquish the crown if he proved to be afflicted with a mortal disease. Very well; the war must be waged upon that “if”.
A good many momentous letters had crossed the North Sea, heavily sealed and borne by trusted messengers, before the system of defence was disclosed by the first overt movement. On the 20th of May, 1887, Dr. Morell Mackenzie, the best known of London specialists in throat diseases, arrived in Berlin, and was immediately introduced to a conference of German physicians, heretofore in charge of the case, as a colleague who was to take henceforth the leading part. They told him that to the best of their belief they had to deal with a cancer, but were awaiting his diagnosis. On the following day, and a fortnight later, he performed operations upon the illustrious patient’s throat to serve as the basis for a microscopical examination. With his forceps he drew out bits of flesh, which were sent to Prof. Virchow for scientific scrutiny. Upon examining these Prof. Virchow reported he discovered nothing to “excite the suspicion of wider and graver disease,” * thus giving the most powerful support imaginable to Dr. Mackenzie’s diagnosis of “a benign growth.”
* Mackenzie’s “Frederic the Noble,” p. 34.
The German physicians allege that Dr. Mackenzie drew out pieces of the comparatively healthful right vocal cord. The London specialist denies this. Nothing could be further from the purpose of this work than to take sides upon any phase of the unhappy and undignified controversy which ensued. It is enough here to note the charge, as indicating the view which Prof. Gerhardt and his German colleagues took from the first of Mackenzie’s mission in Berlin.
This double declaration against the theory of cancer having been obtained, the next step was to secure the removal of Frederic. The celebration of the Queen’s jubilee afforded a most valuable occasion. He came to England on June 14th—and he never again stepped foot in Berlin until he returned as Kaiser the following year. Nearly three months were spent at Norwood, and in Scotland and the Isle of Wight. A brief stop in the Austrian Tyrol followed, and then the Crown Prince settled in his winter home at San Remo. On the day of his arrival there Mackenzie was telegraphed for, as very dangerous symptoms had presented themselves. He reached San Remo on November 5, 1887, and discovered so grave a situation that Prince William was immediately summoned from Berlin.
That the young Prince had been placed in a most trying position by the quarrel which now raged about his father’s sick-room, need not be pointed out. The physicians who stood highest in Berlin, and who were backed by the liking and confidence of William’s friends, were deeply indignant at having been superseded by two Englishmen like Mackenzie and Hovell. This national prejudice became easily confounded with partisan antagonisms. The Germans are not celebrated for calm, or for skill in conducting controversies with delicacy, and in this instance the worst side of everybody concerned was exhibited.
One recalls now with astonishment the boundless rancour and recklessness of accusation which characterized that bitter wrangle. Many good people of one party seriously believed that the German physicians wanted to gain access to Frederic in order to kill him. On the other hand, a great number insisted that Mackenzie was deceiving the public, and had subjected Frederic to the most terrible maimings and tortures in order to conceal from Germany the fact of the cancer. The basest motives were ascribed by either side to the other. The Court circle asked what they were doing, then, to the Crown Prince that they hid him away in Italy; the answering insinuation was that very good reasons existed for not allowing him to fall into the hands of the Berlin doctors, who were so openly devoted to his heir.
In a state of public mind where hints of assassination grow familiar to the ear, the mere charge of a lack of filial affection sounds very tame indeed.
That William deserved during this painful period the reproaches heaped upon him by the whole English-speaking world is by no means clear. Such fault as may be with fairness imputed to him, seems to have grown quite naturally out of the circumstances. He was on the side of the German physicians as against Mackenzie; but after all that has happened that can scarcely be regarded as a crime. He could not but range himself with those who resented the tone Dr. Mackenzie and his friends assumed toward what they called “the Court circles of Berlin.”