My Own Affairs

by Princess of Belgium Louise

The intimate opinion of him expressed by my father has often recurred to me, but this would entail a separate chapter and it would lead us far. I will confine myself to stating that the King had always foreseen that Germany, intoxicated with the warlike perorations of William II, who was a preacher of the old Prussian regime, would end by throwing herself upon Belgium, upon France and upon the whole world.

The defences of the Meuse were a convincing indication of the King's forethought. But we shall never know all that the King said, what he did, and what he desired to do in this matter.

Unfortunately certain parties and certain influential men in Belgium wrongly countered his plans instead of acting upon them. The country has suffered cruelly for this mistake.

By what means did William II arrive at those false conclusions which swept away the thrones of Central Europe and which have caused so many calamities? It was not, as has been thought by the Entente, the result of a fatal environment created alike by the ambitions of Germany and her barbaric instincts. The German Emperor wielded immense power. He was in truth an absolute monarch, and in consequence the Reichstag, the Bundesrath, or the various State Parliaments never interfered with him. The Emperor's Cabinet ruled the army, which in its turn ruled the nation. Thus everything was centred in the person of the Emperor, this magnificent fruit of Prussian discipline and force.

But in this fruit which made such an impression when seen on its wall, there was a hidden worm. William II was a liar; he lied to others and to himself without knowing that he was a liar. He lived continually in a world of fiction. In short, he was an actor.

But he was the worst of actors; he was the amateur, the man of the world who plays comedy—and drama—who is so taken up with his own small talent that he becomes more of an actor than an actor, and in consequence is always acting in everything and everywhere.

This passion for the theatre is alike William II's excuse and his condemnation. It is his excuse because he entered so well into the "skin" of the various characters which he played, that in each of them he was sincere. It is his condemnation, because a king and an emperor should be a Reality, a Will, a Wisdom; but he was none of these.

Personally he was hollow and sonorous. He did not know much. He did not at close quarters, like Francis Joseph, give one the impression of being the concièrge at an embassy, but he always gave one the impression that is best illustrated by a saying which I remember having seen in the Figaro: "Have you seen me in the part of Charlemagne, or as a Lutheran bishop?"—(for he was summus episcopus)—"or as an admiral, or as the leader of an orchestra?" His many talents have been recounted. They may all be reduced to one—the art of self-deception in order to deceive others. Under this veneer of self-deception there existed an empty soul, without a standard of honour, without poise, at the mercy of any kind of flattery, impressions, or circumstances. No sooner did he hear a speech than he gave his opinion, and assumed an attitude according to the rôle of the character to be represented.

He may be described as the best son in the world, for he was not wicked; he was worse—he was weak. It was Chamfort, if my memory serve me rightly, who wrote: "The weak are the advance guard of the army of the wicked." William II was the scout of the advance guard; his Staff was the army. He who was so afraid of thunder usurped the place of Jupiter, the Thunderer, but this amateur soldier was far too nervous to endure even the noise of battle. When his officers for their own advancement persuaded him that he possessed military and naval talent, he dreamt of the rôle of "Welt Kaiser," and prepared for the conquest of the earth.

Caught in their own trap, his faithful adherents were intoxicated by the intoxication which they had provoked. The Emperor's Cabinet was the theatre of a continuous orgy of gigantic schemes. At Vienna men's imaginations were inflamed. The Berlin-Bagdad Railway of Central Europe revived the earlier Near-East scheme. And a whole camarilla interested in the advantages to be derived from these splendid enterprises praised them extravagantly.