When Frederick the Great, the model and exemplar of all German royalties; died in 1786, he disposed of the Kingdom of Prussia in his will as if it had been one of his horses. "I bequeath unto my dear nephew, Frederick William, as unto my immediate successor, the Kingdom of Prussia, the provinces, towns, palaces, forts, fortresses, all ammunition and arsenals, all lands mine by inheritance or right of conquest, the crown jewels, gold and silver service of plate in Berlin, country houses, collections of coins, picture galleries, gardens, and so forth." Contrast this will with the utterances of Washington and Hamilton made at the same time!
In the Grand Duchies of Mecklenburg, serfdom was not abolished until 1819.
The spies and the influencers of American correspondents made their headquarters at a large Berlin hotel. A sketch of their activities is given by de Beaufort in his book, "Behind the German Veil."
Among the American correspondents in Berlin during the war great credit should be given to Carl W. Ackerman and Seymour B. Conger, correspondents of the United and Associated Presses respectively, who at all times and in spite of their surroundings and in the face of real difficulties preserved their Americanism unimpaired and refused to succumb to the alluring temptations held out to them. I do not mean to imply that the other correspondents were not loyal, but the pro-Germanism of many of them unfortunately gave the Imperial Foreign Office and the great general staff a wrong impression of Americans. It is the splendid patriotism under fire of Ackerman and Conger that deserves special mention.
CHAPTER XX
LAST
I was credited by the Germans with having hoodwinked and jollied the Foreign Office and the Government into refraining for two years from using illegally their most effective weapon.
This, of course, is not so. I always told the Foreign Office the plain simple truth and the event showed that I correctly predicted the attitude of America.