Ten Years Near the German Frontier: A Retrospect and a Warning

by Maurice Francis Egan

'But, if Germany goes to war?' I asked.

'For a short war, we will be as one people; but after——' and he shook his head gravely.

In the [meantime], we were told constantly of the Kaiser's charm. 'You once said,' remarked a débutante at the German court, who had been presented under the wing of our ambassadress, 'that if one wanted to dislike Mr. Roosevelt, one must keep away from him! I assure you, it is the same with the Kaiser. He is charming. For instance, notice this: he presented a lovely cigarette case, with imperial monogram in diamonds or something of that kind, to Madame Hegermann-Lindencrone, the wife of the Danish Minister, when her husband was leaving. "But my husband does not smoke," said Madame Hegermann-Lindencrone, later in the day. "That is the reason I gave it to him," said the Kaiser; "I knew that you like a cigarette, Madame!" Isn't he charming?'

We were told that the Kaiser loved Mark Twain. To love Mark Twain was to be American. To be sure he turned his back very pointedly on Mark on one occasion because Mark had dared to criticise the pension system of the United States. Pensions for the army should not be criticised, even if their administration were defective. All soldiers must be taken care of. This was the first duty of a nation, and Mark Twain forgot himself when he censured any system that put money into the pockets of the old soldiers, even of the wives of the soldiers of 1812! And this to the War Lord, the emperor of more than a Prætorian Guard! And as for President Roosevelt, if the Kaiser could only see this first of republicans! This meeting had been the great joy of his brother Prince Henry of Prussia's life.

The Kaiser had learned much from Americans—our great capitalists, for example. No American who was doing things was alien to him. Other monarchs might pretend to have an interest in the United States; his was genuine, for Germany, youngest among the nations, had so much to learn from the giant Republic of the West which possessed everything, except potash, the science of making use of by-products, and German Kultur!

President Roosevelt had just gone out of office, and President Taft was in. He wrote to me: 'You shall remain in your post as long as I remain in mine.'

I was pleased and grateful. The chance that President Roosevelt had given me, President Taft continued to give me. I was the slave of a fixed idea, that the validity not the legality, of the Monroe Doctrine was somewhat dependent on our acquiring by fair bargains all the territory we needed to interpret it!

As to Denmark in 1910, it was much more French than anything else. And, whatever might be done in the way of propaganda by Germany, France always remained beloved; while the English way of living might be imitated, nobody ever thought of imitating Germany's ways. Besides, the Danes are not good at keeping secrets, and the whisperings of German intentions, desires, likes, and dislikes disseminated in that city were generally supposed to be heart-to-heart talks with the world and received by the Danes with shrewd annotations. This the Kaiser did not approve of. It was curious that neither he nor his uncle, the King of England, liked Copenhagen—for different reasons!

It was understood that the King of England disliked it because he found it dull—the simplicity of Hvidhöre had no charms for him. He could not join in the liking of his Queen for everything Danish, from the ballets of De Bournonville to the red-coloured herring salad. Napoli, a ballet which Queen Alexandra especially recommended to my wife and myself, frankly bored him, and the mise-en-scène of the Royal Theatre was not equal to Covent Garden.

The Kaiser disliked Copenhagen because he had no regard for his Danish relatives, who took no trouble to bring out those charming boyish qualities he could display at times: the influence of the Princess Valdemar in Denmark displeased him; she was too French, too democratic, and too popular, and she had something of the quality for command of her late mother-in-law, Queen Louise. Altogether, the Danes were not amenable to German Kultur, or subservient to the continual threat of being absorbed in it, as the good Buddhist is absorbed in the golden lotus!