William of Germany

by Stanley Shaw

But absolutism had to go with the changes in human thought under the influence of Rationalism, which brought with it the idea of the State, not the absolute prince, as ruler. This idea was embodied in the Rechtstaat, or State based on law, which was introduced by Frederick the Great, the "first servant of the State." The State, he said, exists for the sake of the citizens. "One must be insane," he wrote,

"to imagine that men should have said to one of their equals, 'We will raise you so that we may be your slaves, we will give you the power to guide our thoughts according to yours.' They rather said: 'We need you in order to execute our laws, that you show us the way, and defend us. But we understand that you will respect our liberties.'"

The Rechtstaat exists in Germany to the present day, the Emperor is at the head of it, and the people are content to live within its confines. It is not, as has been seen, coterminous with the whole liberty of the subject, but is yet a vast bundle of rights and obligations which in public, and much of private, life leaves as little as possible to the unaided or undirected intelligence or goodwill of the citizen. It is an exaggeration, but still expresses a popular feeling even in Germany itself—and certainly describes an impression made on the Anglo-Saxon—to say that outside this bundle of laws and regulations, which, clearly and logically paragraphed, orders to a nicety all the public, and many of the private, relations of the citizens, everything is forbidden or discouraged by authority. Yet, as has been said, the people are satisfied with it, and it must be admitted that if it confines individual liberty within what to the Anglo-Saxon seem narrow limits, still, by directing the individual to common ends, it works great public advantage. It is in truth a very intelligent and practical form of Socialism, infinitely less oppressive to the people than would be the socialism of the professed Socialist.

It left, however, the German caste system of Frederick's day undisturbed; as Professor Richard says:

"The nobility retained its privileged position. It was considered a law of nature that the noblemen should assist the monarch in the administration of the State and as leaders of the army; the peasant should cultivate the fields and provide food; the commoner should provide money through industry and commerce."

To the Anglo-Saxon, of course, brought up with individualistic views of life and demanding complete personal freedom, the German Rechtstaat would be galling, not to say intolerable. The Englishman, however, has his Rechtstaat too, but the limits it places on his liberty are not nearly so restrictive in regard to public meeting, public talking, public writing, in short, public action of all sorts, as in Germany. Besides, the spirit of laws in England, as naturally follows from the Englishman's political history, is a much more liberal one than the German spirit, which is still to some extent under the influence of the age of absolutism.

The German conception of the Rechtstaat entails, as one of its consequences, a sharp contrast between the rights and privileges of the Crown and the rights and privileges of the people; and therefore, while the Emperor is never without apprehension that the people may try to increase their rights and privileges at the expense of those of the Crown, the people are not without apprehension that the Crown may try to increase its rights and privileges at the expense of the political liberties of the people. To this apprehension on the part of the people is to be attributed their widespread dissatisfaction with the Emperor's so-called "personal regiment," which, until recently, was the chief hindrance to his popularity. In truth the Emperor is in a difficult position. To be popular with the people he must be popular with the Parliament, but if he were to seek popularity with the Parliament he would lose popularity and prestige with the aristocracy and large landowners, who have still a good deal of the old-time contempt for the mere "folk," the burgher, and he would lose it with the military officer class, which is aristocratic in spirit, and is, as the Emperor is constantly assuring it, the sole support of throne and Empire. In addition to this it has to be remembered that a large majority of South Germany is Catholic, and, generally speaking, no great lover of Prussia, its people, and their airs of stiff superiority.

The personal relations of the Emperor to his people, and in especial to the vast burghertum, are precisely those to be expected from his traditional and constitutional relations. He is not popular, but he is widely and sincerely respected. His preference for the army, intelligible though it is, and the cleavage that separates Government and people, explain to some extent the want of popularity, using that word in its "popular" sense; while the consciousness of all the nation owes to his "goodwill," his initiative and energy, his conscientiousness in all directions, is quite sufficient to account for the respect. It is, in truth, in part at least, the respect which excludes the popularity. No one is ever likely to be popular, anywhere, who is constantly endeavouring to teach people how to live and what to think, and at the same time seems to have no social weaknesses to reconcile him with those—no small number—who are fond of cakes and ale. Some of the Emperor's acts and speeches have postponed, if not precluded, eventual popularity—his breach with Bismarck, for example, the whole "personal regiment," and speeches like that at Potsdam in 1891, when he told his recruits that if he had to order them to shoot down their brothers, or even their parents, they must obey without a murmur. Speeches of this last kind live long in public memory. In his dealings with his people the Emperor is neither arrogant—"high-nosed" is the elegant German expression: "arrogant" is no German word, Prince Bülow would doubtless say— towards his subjects, nor are they cringing towards him, though this statement does not exclude the excusable embarrassment an ordinary mortal may be expected to feel in the presence of a monarch. The Emperor himself desires no "tail-wagging" from his subjects, and though there is something of the autocrat in him, there is nothing of the despot.

Certainly for the present, Germans, with rare exceptions, are satisfied with him. They are prospering under him. The shoe pinches here and there, and if it pinches too hard they will cry out and perhaps do more than cry out. They do not consider the Emperor perfect, but they forgive his errors, and particularly the errors of his impetuous youth, even though on three or four occasions they brought the country into danger. Monarchy has been defined as a State in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting things: a republic, as a State in which the attention is divided between many who are all doing uninteresting things: Germans find their Emperor interesting, and that is a stage on the road to popularity.

The imperial ego, which is quite consistent with the German view of monarchical rule and conformity with the Rechtstaat, is specially advertised by the pictures and statues of the Emperor which are to be found all over Germany, to the apparent exclusion of the pictures and statues of national and local men of distinction. The Emperor's picture almost monopolizes the walls of every public and municipal office, every railway-station refreshment-room, every shop, every restaurant throughout the Empire. Wherever it turns the eye is confronted by the portrait or bust of the Emperor, and if it is not his portrait or bust, it is the portrait or bust of one or other of his ancestors. An exception should be made in the case of Bismarck, the reproduction of whose rugged features, shaggy eyebrows, and bulky frame are not infrequent; statues and portraits, too, of Moltke and Roon, though much more rarely met with than those of Bismarck, are to be seen, while those of Goethe, Schiller, Kant, Lessing, Wagner, or other German "Immortal," are still rarer. Only once, or perhaps twice, in all Germany is there to be found a public statue of Heine—for Heine was a Jew and said many unpleasant, because true, things about his country. The travelling foreigner in Germany after a while begins to wonder if he is not in some far Eastern country where ancestor-worship obtains, and where one tremendous personality overshadows, obscures, and obliterates all the rest. In truth, however, this is not the lesson of the imperial images for the foreigner. They teach him that he is in a country with a system of government and views of the State different from his own, that the Empire is ruled in a military, not a civic spirit, and that the counterfeit presentment of the Emperor, always in dazzling uniform, is the sign of the national acceptance of system, views, and spirit.