The Englishman who reads what German writers say about the journey gets the impression that the criticism was an expression of jealousy—jealousy, as we know from Bismarck and Prince Bülow, being a national German failing. Every German ardently desires to see Italy and the Orient, but until of late years few Germans had the means of gratifying the wish. In one point, however, the critics were right. The Emperor, when in Damascus, after saying that he felt "deeply moved at standing on the spot where one of the most knightly sovereigns of all times, the great Sultan Saladin, stood," went on to say that Sultan Abdul "and the three hundred million Mohammedans who, scattered over the earth, venerated him as their Caliph, might be assured that at all times the German Emperor would be their friend." It was a harmless and vague remark enough, one would think, but political writers in all countries have made great capital out of it ever since whenever Germany's Oriental policy is discussed. At the risk of repetition it may be said that that policy is, in the East as elsewhere, a purely economic one. The Emperor's mistake perhaps chiefly lay in raising hopes in Turkish minds which were very unlikely to be realized.
The Emperor's allusion to Saladin as the most knightly sovereign of all times was a bad blunder. He was doubtless carried away by a combination, in his probably at this time somewhat excited imagination, of the chivalrous figures of the crusading times with thoughts of the German Knight Templars and other soldierly characters. Saladin was a brave man physically, and fond of imperial magnificence, as is only natural and necessary for an Oriental potentate to be; and a good deal of Eastern legend grew up about him on that account. Legend was enough for the Emperor in his then romantic mood. He forgot, or did not know, that Saladin, from the point of view of a modern and in reality far more knightly age, was a sanguinary and fanatic ruffian, who showed no mercy to his Christian prisoners—killed, in fact, one of them, Rainald de Chatillon, with his own hand, sacked Jerusalem, turned the Temple of Solomon into a mosque, after having it "disinfected" with rose-water, and killed Pope Urban III, who died, the chronicles tell, of sorrow at the news.
The journey was, as has been said, a delightful and picturesque experience for the Emperor and the Empress. They passed through Venice with its marble palaces, sailed over the sapphire waters of the Adriatic, and were received with great demonstrations of welcome by the Sultan in Constantinople. When they were leaving, the Sultan gave the Emperor a gigantic carpet, and the Emperor gave the Sultan a gold walking-stick, an exact imitation of the stick Frederick the Great used to lean on, and sometimes, very likely, apply to the backs of his trusty but stupid lieges.
Before disposing of the events of this period of the Emperor's life mention may be made of two or three occurrences which must have been a source of political interest or social entertainment to him. From among them we select the Dreyfus case and the historic scene arranged for the painter, Adolf Menzel, in Sans Souci.
The Dreyfus case, though its investigation brought to light no fact implicating the German authorities, naturally aroused interest throughout Germany. The interest was felt equally in the army, notwithstanding that it contains no Jewish officer, and among the civil population. In France, it will be remembered, the case acquired its importance from the charge, made by the anti-Semite Drumont and his journal La Libre Parole, that the Jews were exploiting the Government and the country. There is an anti-Semite party in Germany, founded by the Court preacher Stoecker in 1878, but possibly owing to the prudence and good citizenship of the Jews in Germany, it has gained little weight or momentum since.
The "affaire," as it was universally known, was only once referred to in the German Parliament, in January, 1898, when Chancellor von Bülow declared "in the most positive way possible" that there had "never been any traffic or relations of any kind whatsoever between Dreyfus and any German authority," adding that the alleged finding of an official German communication in the wastepaper basket of the German Embassy in Paris was a fiction. The Chancellor concluded by saying that the case had in no respect ever troubled relations between Germany and France.
The incident most often cited as evidence of the Emperor's love of recalling the days of his great ancestor, Frederick the Great, is the concert he arranged at Sans Souci on June 13, 1895, to gratify, we may be sure, as well as surprise, the famous painter. The incident and its origin are described in a work already mentioned, the "Private Lives of William II and His Consort," by a lady of the Court. The account given below is illustrative of the unfriendly sentiments which are evident throughout the work, but the lady is probably fairly accurate as regards the incident, and in any case her gossip will give the reader some notion, though by no means an entirely faithful one, of the Court atmosphere at the time. Talk at the palace during afternoon tea having turned on the fact that Adolf Menzel, the painter, would shortly celebrate his eightieth birthday, some one remarked on the refusal by the Court marshal in the previous reign to allow him to see the scene of his celebrated "Flute Concert at Sans Souci," which he was then composing, lighted up. The conversation, according to the lady writer, continued thus:—
"'Maybe he was frightened at the prospect of furnishing a
couple of dozen wax candles,' sneered the Duke of Schleswig.
"'More likely he knew nothing of Menzel's growing
reputation,' suggested Begas, the sculptor.
"The Emperor overheard the last words. 'Are you prepared to say that my grand-uncle's chief marshal failed to recognize the genius of the foremost Hohenzollern painter?' he asked sharply.