Other visitors, temporarily lodging on board the Royal Yacht, were Admiral of the Fleet Sir Geoffrey Hornby, who was in attendance on the young Kaiser during his visit, Sir Henry Keppel and Captain Stephenson, both of whom were in attendance on the Prince of Wales.
The whole visit was not only an interesting one, but made a very picturesque show from a naval point of view. The Emperor arrived in his yacht with an escorting squadron of the German Fleet (then very much in its infancy), one of the squadron, a cruiser named the Irene, being commanded by his brother, Prince Henry. There was a huge Fleet at Spithead, and Cowes was, if possible, more full of yachts than ever, and in addition there were anchored in the roads a few British battleships and torpedo-boats, one of these small craft being commanded by H.R.H. Prince George of Wales. The Prince and Princess of Wales were, of course, on board the Royal Yacht at Osborne, at the usual moorings just inshore of the Victoria and Albert.
The Prince of Wales went out in the Osborne to meet the Emperor and his squadron, and, on his way, his yacht was most shamefully mobbed by a horde of excursion steamers that had been hired for the occasion by the holiday folk who very naturally infest the Isle of Wight and South Coast at that season. The Commander of the Osborne only succeeded in keeping them off at a less dangerous distance by threatening to pump water over them with the steam fire hose.
The Prince went on board the Kaiser’s yacht as soon as she arrived, and later landed at Osborne to be with the Queen when the Emperor arrived at Osborne House. The usual Cowes Regatta was in full swing during the week or so that the visit lasted, and such crowds filled the streets that there literally was barely standing room in the queer little town. The only functions I remember were a parade review of the German seamen that was held in the grounds at Osborne, a dinner party that was given by the Queen to the officers of the German Fleet on board the Victoria and Albert, and a review of the Fleet by the Emperor. As concerns the review, the Kaiser and his brother, Prince Henry of Prussia, came on board the Victoria and Albert, where the Prince and Princess of Wales and all the members of the Royal Family at Osborne had already established themselves, and the yachts then proceeded to pass through the lines of the Fleet at Spithead. The ships were “manned” in the usual way and salutes were fired. The Royal Yacht then anchored in the vicinity of the Howe, which battleship was flying the flag of the Commander-in-Chief, Sir J. Edmund Commerell, to enable the Admirals and Captains to come on board and be presented to the Emperor. It was a fine show for those days, and the Fleet, including, as it did, thirty-eight First Class Torpedo-boats, was flying altogether one hundred and twelve pennants. I remember well the ill-concealed envy exhibited by the Kaiser, his brother, and their surroundings, for in those days the German Navy was a very small affair. Meanwhile, Queen Victoria, on the little Alberta, steamed through the lines of the German Fleet, an operation which did not take long, as they numbered just under a dozen, great and small.
The dinner on board was beautifully done by the servants who were sent from Osborne for the purpose, and during its progress I, as one of the least important of the hosts, found myself seated between two German officers, more or less of the same insignificant rank as myself. In the process of making conversation during the long dinner and evening, I did glean one piece of information that delighted me. Somehow, the topic of Marryat and his naval novels cropped up, and to my great astonishment I discovered that these Germans could have passed a very searching examination in Marryat, and had Mr. Midshipman Easy, and the immortal Boatswain, Mr. Chucks, at their finger-ends. When I expressed surprise at this, they confessed that, having no naval literature of their own, they had to fall back on ours. There was yet another surprise in store for me later on, when I was to see these perfect examples of officers and gentlemen (?) filling their pockets with the cigars that were handed to them to smoke! However, all these little incidents are specimens, I suppose, of what their admirers call “German thoroughness.”
After the German Invasion had come to an end, Cowes began to empty itself, and the Royal Yachts and the guardship (there was always a guardship in the roads when the Queen was at Osborne), were left in almost solitary grandeur, and now that there was room to move about freely, Cowes became quite a pleasant place. Our duties were not very exacting. There were occasional return trips to Southampton and Portsmouth to bring over or take back the Queen’s visitors in one of the tenders, and every other day it was my duty to walk up to Osborne, take luncheon with the household and ascertain whether her Majesty had any commands.
About the middle of September the Court moved to Balmoral, the Queen crossing as usual in the Alberta, and we officers took up our quarters again on board the Royal George, the great bulk of the ship’s company, as usual, going back to the dockyard to work as riggers. And so ended my first season at Cowes as a Lieutenant of Her Majesty’s Yacht.
In December, when the Court as usual moved to Osborne, leave came to an end, and the constant trips across the Solent conveying Her Majesty’s numerous royal guests,—including, amongst many others, the Empress Eugenie,—kept us busy until the return of the Court to Windsor in the middle of January. A month later the Royal Yacht embarked Her Majesty for her usual spring visit to the Continent, and at the end of April we were at Flushing again to embark the Queen on her return to Windsor.
Our next trip was on a rather more extended scale, as in the middle of July we were ordered to embark the Empress Frederick, and her two (then) unmarried daughters, Princesses Victoria and Margaret, and convey them to Gibraltar, where they proposed being transported to the Surprise for conveyance to Athens, the reason for the visit being, I believe, the expected accouchement of the other daughter, the Duchess of Sparta, a lady of whom, as Queen of the Hellenes, the British public has heard a good deal since. By the 2nd of August we were back at Cowes again for the usual summer season, and two days later the Kaiser arrived in the Hohenzollern, accompanied by the inevitable Prince Henry. This visit was of a more private nature than the one of the year before, and, I expect greatly to the relief of all concerned on this side of the North Sea, only lasted for four days. During a part of the season there was an Austrian squadron lying at Spithead, commanded by an Admiral Hincke, the Archduke Karl Stephan being in command of one of the ships of the squadron, the Kaiser Franz Josef. While this squadron was in the vicinity of Cowes, Queen Victoria inspected it by steaming between the lines in the Alberta.
About the middle of August the Empress Eugenie arrived at Osborne on a visit to the Queen, and thereby hangs a tale: