'And yet I know, at first hand, that the Pan-German hates Bernstorff. If anything approaching to a Liberal Government came in Germany, Bernstorff will be Minister of Foreign Affairs.'
My Russian friend smiled sardonically. 'We Russians feel that our one salvation is to oust the Turk and get to the Mediterranean. My party would provoke a war with Germany to-morrow, if we could afford it, and Germany knows it. Count Bernstorff, the most sympathetic of all German diplomatists, knows this, too, and you may be sure that he will persuade your Government that he loves you, give the Russian programme a nasty stroke when he can, and keep the price of potash high. I, desirous as I am of being an Excellency, would refuse to go to Berlin to-morrow, if I had Bernstorff against me on the other side. See what will happen to Hill! Germany may offend you, but Bernstorff will persuade you that it is the simple gaucherie of a rustic youth who assumes the antics of a playful bear[5]—a hug or two; it may hurt, but the jovial bear means well! If Hill should leave Berlin, you will need a clever man who has political power with your Government. Bernstorff will contrive to put any other kind of man in the wrong—I tell you that.'
The Russian who predicted this is in exile, penniless, a man sans patrie, as he says himself. When I took these notes he seemed to be above the blows of fate!
If the hand of Germany was everywhere, everybody was watching the movements of the fingers. Among the English there were two parties: One that could tolerate nothing German, the other that hated everything Russian, but both united in one belief, that the alliance with Japan would not hold under the influence of German intrigue and that Italy could not long remain a member of the Triple Alliance.
The gossip from Berlin was always full of pleasant things for an American to hear. The Kaiser treated our compatriots with unusual courtesy.
In Copenhagen we were deluged with letters announcing that Count Bernstorff's coming meant a new era; he even excelled 'Speck' in his charm, sympathy, and everything that ought to endear him to us; in him showed that true desire for peace of which his august master was, of all the world, the best representative. It was even rumoured that the German Foreign Office had begun to coquette with the Danish Social Democrats.
The exchange of professors between the United States and Germany was becoming an institution. Sometimes the American professors found themselves in awkward positions; they did not 'rank'; they had no fixed position from the German point of view. As mere American commoners, unrecognised by their Government, undecorated, they could not expect attentions from the court as a right. However, the Germans studied them and rather liked some of them, but, not being raths, they were poor creatures without standing. Even if they should make reputations approved by the great German universities, they had no future. How green were the lawns and how pleasant the sweet waters in the enclosed gardens of autocracy, of which the Emperor, Fountain of Honours, kept the key!
It was amusing to note the German attitude toward democracy, in spite of all the pleasant things said by the High, Well-Born citizens of the Fatherland in favour of the American brand. At the same time, one could not help seeing that the children of the Kaiser were wiser than the children of—let us say modestly—Light. 'If the President asked me,' said one of the most distinguished of lawyers and the most loyal of Philadelphians to me, 'I should be willing to live all my life in Germany.' This was the result of the impression the charm of the Kaiser made on the best of us.
He has changed his opinion now; he swears by the works of his compatriot, Mr. Beck. Even then, in 1908-9, my distinguished Philadelphia friend could not have endured life in Germany. He forgot that even the emperor could not give him rank, and that no matter how cosmopolitan, how learned, how tactful he was, he would at once be a commoner, and very much of a commoner on the day he settled there as a resident.
A Prussian Serene Highness, who came with letters from an Irish relative in Hungary dropped in; he was mostly Bavarian in blood; he had cousins in England and Italy. He liked a good luncheon, and, as Miss Knollys always said (I quote this without shame), 'The best food in Europe is at the American Legation!' He smoked, too, and Rafael Estrada, of Havana, had chosen the cigars.