"What disposition? What do you mean? How do you know?" questioned the
Emperor quickly.
"From confidential letters I am in the habit of receiving from St.
Petersburg, in addition to official reports," replied the Chancellor.
The Emperor expressed a wish to see the letters, but Bismarck gave an evasive answer. The result was a temporary coolness between Emperor and Chancellor.
From a memorandum of Prince Hohenlohe's we get a glimpse of one of the political currents and anti-currents just now running high. Prince Hohenlohe writes under date, June 27, 1888, when the Emperor was hardly a fortnight on the throne:—
"Last evening at 8 left Berlin with Thaden after supping with Victor and Franz (son and nephew) in the Kaiserhof Hotel. Paid several visits during the day. I found Friedberg somewhat depressed. He is no longer the big man he was in the Emperor Frederick's time, when everybody courted him. He knows that the Emperor does not favour Jews. Then I visited the new chief of the Cabinet (civil), Lucanus, a courtly, polished, obliging man, who looks more like an elegant Austrian privy councillor. Wilmoski inspires me with more confidence. At 5 to Bleichroeder's (Bleichroeder was the great Jew banker). We spoke, or rather he spoke first, about the political situation. He is satisfied, and says Bismarck is too. Only the Emperor must take care to keep out of the hands of the Orthodox. People in the country wouldn't stand that. (He is right there, comments Hohenlohe.) Waldersee and his followers, he said, was another danger. Waldersee was a foe of Bismarck's and thought himself fit for anything and everything. Who knows but that these gentlemen wouldn't begin the old game and say to the Emperor, 'You are simply nothing but a doll. Bismarck is the real ruler.' On the old Emperor this would have made no impression, but the young one would be more sensitive. Bismarck, therefore, wanted Waldersee's banishment, and would, if he could, send him to Strasburg (where Hohenlohe was Statthalter) as commanding general. Perhaps he was only aiming at making me (Hohenlohe) sick of my post and so get rid of Waldersee, his enemy, when I cleared out. Bleichroeder said Bismarck only introduced the compulsory pass system to show the Emperor that he too could act sharply against the French, and so as to take the wind out of the sails of the military party. Bismarck was thinking above all about seating his son Herbert firmly in the saddle (Herbert was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs). That is the sole motive of his action and thought. There was therefore no prospect of matters in the Rhineland improving. As to Russia, Bleichroeder expected some occurrence, something out of the way (exotisches) by which Russia might be won, either the withdrawal of troops from the frontier or a meeting of Emperors. The Emperor, Bismarck said, would not begin a war. If it came, however, it would not be unwelcome to him."
Prince Hohenlohe also tells of a visit he paid in the month of the accession to the widowed Empress Frederick. "She is much bowed down," he said,
"very harassed-looking, and I feel sure that all this recent time, all the last year in fact, she has been displaying an artificial good-humour, for now I find her in deep distress. At first she could not speak for weeping. We spoke of the Emperor Frederick's last days, then she recovered herself a little and complained of the wickedness and meanness of men, by which she meant to allude to certain people…. Herbert Bismarck had had the impudence to tell the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) that an Emperor who could not talk and discuss things should not be allowed to reign, and so on. The Prince of Wales, the Empress said, told Herbert that if it were not that he valued good relations between England and Germany, he would have thrown him out of the door…. Waldersee was a false, unprincipled wretch, who would think nothing of ruining his country if he could only satisfy his own personal ambition."
Prince Hohenlohe finally called on the Prince of Wales, who "spoke prudently, but showed his disgust at the roughness of the Bismarcks, and could not understand their policy of irritating France."
The particular question concerning France that was agitating Germany at the time of the accession was the state of affairs in Alsace-Lorraine, and particularly Bismarck's measure requiring French citizens entering the provinces to provide themselves with a pass from the German Ambassador in Paris. The amiable and conciliatory Statthalter, Prince Hohenlohe, had to make a reluctant journey to Berlin in connexion with this question. There was another question also weighing on his mind—the question whether or not he should have a sentry guard before his official residence in Strasburg. The military authorities, whose rivalry with the civil authorities everywhere in Germany for influence and power still continues, wanted to have the sentries abolished, but the Prince eventually had his way. He showed Bismarck that they were necessary for his reputation with the population, which had already begun to think less of his influence as Statthalter owing to his one day at a review having incautiously and gallantly taken a back seat in his carriage in favour of some lady guests.
In normal times the composers of speeches from the throne are accustomed to describe the relations between their own and foreign countries as "friendly." When the relations are not friendly, yet not the opposite, they are usually registered on the political barometer as "correct." The attitude on both sides is formal, rigorously polite, reserved; such as would become a pair of people who had once been at feud and after their quarrel had been fought out agreed, if only for the sake of appearances, to show no outward animosity, but on the other hand not give an inch of way. The position of France and Germany is "correct"; it has never been friendly since 1870; and it must be many a long year before it can be friendly again. Apart from the difference between the Latin and Teutonic temperaments, apart from the legacy of hate left in Germany against France by the sufferings and humiliations the great Napoleon caused her, apart from the fact that one people is republican and the other monarchical, there is always one thing that will prevent reconciliation—the loss by France of the fair provinces Alsace and Lorraine. It is of no use for Germany to remind France that up to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 this territory belonged to Germany, or rather to what then was known by that name. It was useless as well as ungracious for Bismarck to tell France to seek compensation in Africa for what she had lost in Europe. Like Rachel mourning for her children, France will not be comforted; and now, as from the heavy hour in which she lost the provinces, she grieves over the memory of them and nurses the hope, still mingled with hate, of one glorious day regaining them. There are sanguine spirits who assert that the old feeling is dying out, and the German Government studiously encourages that view. It may be so; time is having its obliterating effects; and in externals at least the Germanization of the provinces is slowly making progress. Still the wound is deep, and there seems no prospect of its healing.