The Kaiser

by Virginia Cowles

  Queen Victoria stood firmly for neutrality and in the end British interference went no further than speeches in the House and articles in The Times. But even this annoyed the Crown Princess. “The continual meddling and interfering in other people’s affairs has become so ridiculous abroad that it almost ceases to annoy,” she wrote angrily to her mother. Although the conflict was soon over it had opened a breach between the Crown Princess and the Prince and Princess of Wales that did not heal quickly. Queen Victoria begged Bertie and Alix to stop off in Germany on their way home from Denmark and patch things up, but the brief visit was not a success. The Prince of Wales wrote Lord Spencer that it was not pleasant to see his brother-in-law in a Prussian uniform “flaunting before our eyes a most objectionable ribbon which he received for his deeds of valour??? against the unhappy Danes.”

  Once peace was established Vicky resumed her hostile attitude towards Bismarck. Two years later, in the spring of 1866, she saw that he was bent on a clash with Austria in order to settle the leadership of the German states. She complained to Queen Victoria: “Not a day passes when the wicked man does not with the greatest ability counteract and thwart what is good, and drive on towards war.” The conflict broke out a month later and ended seven weeks later with a smashing Prussian victory at Sadowa. This time Fritz led his troops into action and emerged as a hero so once again Vicky changed her views. “I assure you that if the rest of Europe did but know the details of this war — the light in which our officers and men and our public at large have shown themselves — the Prussian people would stand high in the eyes of everyone, and I feel that I am now every bit as proud of being a Prussian as I am of being an English woman and that is saying a very great deal, as you know what a ‘John Bull’ I am and how enthusiastic about my home. I must say the Prussians are a superior race, as regards intelligence and humanity, education and kind-heartedness…”[28] Queen Victoria was upset to hear that Prussia was annexing the Kingdom of Hanover and part of Hesse-Darmstadt, both of which were ruled by her near relations, but Vicky was unsympathetic. “Those who are now in such precarious positions might have quite well foreseen what danger they were running into… they chose to go with Austria and they now share the sad fate she confers upon her Allies… I know it is difficult to make you or any other non-German see how our case lies. We have made enormous sacrifices, and the nation expects them not to be in vain.”[29]

  They were not in vain. Only one more obstacle blocked Bismarck’s way to real power: France. When he launched his third and last war, Vicky for once did not have to argue with her mother. Queen Victoria remembered that dear Albert had always considered France “vainglorious and immoral;” and since Bismarck had managed to trap Napoleon ÜI into the role of aggressor, she became highly partisan and told Sir Theodore Martin: “It was merciful that the beloved Prince was taken, for had he lived I could never have prevented him from joining the German armies.” Only the Prince and Princess of Wales remained steadfastly anti-Prussian. Vicky was so annoyed by her brother’s sentiments that she tried to make trouble for him by telling her mother that he was reported to have “loudly expressed at a dinner at the French ambassador’s… his hope that we should fare ill.”

  In the beginning everyone trembled for poor Prussia. How could this little nation hope to vanquish mighty France? But after a few weeks it became apparent that France was no longer mighty — only disorganised and demoralised. On September 1, 1870, less than two months after the opening of hostilities, the Prussians scored a decisive victory at Sedan. “What will Bertie and Alix say to all these marvellous things!” crowed Vicky. “May we all learn what frivolity, conceit and immorality lead to! The French people have trusted in their own excellence, have completely deceived themselves… They despised and hated the Germans whom they considered it quite lawful to insult. How they have been punished!” She could not resist taking a cut at her brother. “I am sure dear Bertie must envy Fritz who has such a trying, but useful life.”[30]

  The war lasted another five months. The Parisians refused to surrender their city and held on doggedly despite famine and bombardment. A few weeks before the capitulation of the invested capital, the Prussians held an imposing ceremony in the Palace of Versailles where King William was proclaimed German Emperor. When peace was finally signed, the terms were so hard that the Crown Princess refused to believe them: France was to pay a huge indemnity and surrender the province of Alsace and a large part of Lorraine. The report, she informed her mother, “was invented by a German newspaper correspondent, I never believed it for a moment.” But it was true; she wrote again, this time explaining that it was necessary to have Alsace and Lorraine for defensive purposes — in case France ever launched another attack.

  Now that Germany was a great power the Crown Princess hated Bismarck more than ever. She saw nothing illogical in the fact that she had supported him at each crucial step, for her hatred was swollen by personal grievances and jealousy. He had usurped the position that the Prince Consort had intended for Fritz and herself, for his views and his views alone prevailed. The Emperor had rewarded him with vast estates in Prussia and the rank and style of Prince and, even more galling, he was recognised universally as the greatest statesman in Europe. He certainly was the most devious and the most difficult to fathom, for everything about him was contradictory. A physical giant with the intuition of a woman; a passionate Prussian with the subtlety of a Latin; a man who made no pretensions to being an intellectual and never read a book, but expressed himself in such provocative, piquant, and droll language that he created a new literature often compared to Goethe. He had no knowledge of the arts, furnished his house in abominable style, ate Gargantuan meals, and shocked the connoisseurs by pouring beer and champagne together and calling it a “Black Velvet.” He took long walks and spent hours in solitary reflection. He believed that he was serving God when he was serving his King; and that he was serving his King when he followed his own inclinations. Thus he was free of all scruples and restraints.

  Bismarck now adopted as his daily garb the Prussian military uniform (explaining to friends that it was cheaper than civilian dress), while his curious, rough, almost benign countenance hid a spirit more cunning, more vindictive, more tyrannical than ever. He not only continued to persecute the Crown Prince and Princess but manifested an attitude of scorn which made Vicky boil with indignation. Her gentle, high-minded husband, however, refused to be agitated by personal resentment and clung to principles. He loathed Bismarck’s use of force. During the Franco-Prussian war he had shocked a well-known German writer, Herr Freytag, by declaring: “I hate this slaughter. I never desired the honours of war, and would gladly have left such glory to others. Nevertheless, it is my hard fate to go from battlefield to battlefield, from one war to another, before ascending the throne of my ancestors.”[31] He had tried to dissuade Bismarck from subjecting Paris to bombardment, warning him that European opinion would veer away from Prussia and range itself with France. His advice was not heeded and he was proved right. “Bismarck has made us great and powerful,” he wrote in his diary, “but he has robbed us of our friends, the sympathies of the world and — our conscience.”

  When the Crown Prince and Princess visited England shortly after the end of the war, they made no secret of their detestation of the “Iron Chancellor.” Needless to say, their sentiments found favour with the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the long-standing breach between the two couples was closed. “Fritz is so fair, kind and good,” wrote Queen Victoria, “and has the intensest horror of Bismarck, says he is no doubt energetic and clever, but bad, unprincipled and all-powerful; he is, in fact, Emperor which Fritz’ father does not like, but still cannot help.”[32]

  Prussia’s three victories and the emergence of united Germany took place in the seven years which fell between Prince William’s fifth and twelfth birthdays; and what a glorious contrast these stirring events offered to the child’s own dull, unhappy existence! It provided him with his only channel of es
cape, and he lived in a vicarious haze of great deeds and imperial pomp.

  Of course the Prussians had always been a martial race. “The memory of any child born in Berlin must be tinged with military colour,” wrote William. “It was impossible to think of the capital of Prussia without soldiers and regimental bands.” With the advent of Bismarck, however, the soldiers had taken on a more menacing character, and no one rejoiced more than the young Prince. He put up maps in the schoolroom; pored over books and magazines, and was thrilled to see pictures of his father on a prancing steed, leading his army at the front. How he revelled in the victory parades that passed with such precision through the Brandenburger Tor! How he exulted in the news that an Emperor’s laurels had been accorded to his grandfather in the Palace of Versailles! And what a day it was when grandfather and father returned from France! The Prince was twelve years old and he drove with his family to Wildpark Station in Potsdam “to meet the conquerors.” “With what an ecstasy I flung myself into my father’s arms and saw my much respected grandfather for the first time as German Emperor!”

  Yet there were things that troubled William. Why were the relations between his parents and his grandfather so cool? They never met in cosy family gatherings, only on formal state occasions. It could not be his grandfather’s fault for the Emperor seemed to William a benign kindly old man. He often invited the boy to dine alone with him. “On such occasions,” wrote William, “the meal was served in the drawing-room, which led into his study, at a small, green card-table, that was very shaky and needed extremely careful handling. With the joint, a bottle of champagne was put on the table, which the Emperor himself uncorked and with his own hands filled two glasses for himself and for me. After the second glass he would hold the bottle up to the light, and make a pencil mark on the label at the height of the contents; in this way, for he was very economical, he could prove whether the servants kept the bottle for further use or, somewhat against his order, set a fresh one before him the next day.”[33]

  But even more disturbing than the coolness of his parents towards the Emperor was their attitude towards the Imperial Chancellor. While all Germany bowed to Bismarck, William’s father and mother could not bear to hear a word in his favour. They even criticised his new constitution. The boy studied it with Hintzpeter and could find nothing wrong with it; indeed, he marvelled at its ingenuity. Federal Germany had been given an assembly consisting of two houses. The upper house was composed of princes and controlled by the Emperor, while the lower house was elected by universal male suffrage, a “democratic” innovation created to silence the liberals. But the truth was that its members had very little say. The Chancellor governed the nation in the Sovereign’s name and was not responsible to the assembly, only to the Emperor. He controlled all the civil departments of state including the Foreign Office. The lower house was not allowed to introduce legislation but its assent was necessary before bills became law. However, if it proved obstinate in providing a rubber stamp the Emperor could always dissolve the chamber and hold new elections. Prince William saw that Bismarck had designed the edifice to give himself the mastery of Germany; he also saw that he wielded his authority by permission of the Emperor. The Sovereign could appoint and dismiss his chancellors as he liked. Although his grandfather relied on Bismarck, the day might come when another emperor would choose to rule himself.

  William could not help thinking his mother rather foolish to object to the splendid gift of unchallenged autocracy that Bismarck had bestowed upon the House of Hohenzollern. He did not understand his mother. Although he saw far more of her than most royal children he always felt uneasy with her. He and his brother Henry had breakfast with their parents every morning and during the holidays they were taken on many “worth-while” sight-seeing expeditions; frequently William accompanied his mother on visits to England — and once on a long trip to the South of France. Yet she often was so stern and critical that he felt she was disappointed in him, and at times had a despairing sense of inadequacy. He vividly remembered her grief at the death of his two-year-old brother, Sigismund. He was only seven at the time and his father was away, fighting in the Austrian war, but all his life he remembered how wildly distraught she had been; and although he could not analyse his feelings then, realised later with a bitter pang that she was capable of the deepest love — but not for him. He was not wrong in his intuition, for she lamented to Queen Victoria that she had lost her favourite child. “Oh how I loved that little thing, from the first moments of its birth, it was more to me than its brothers and sisters… so wonderfully forward and intelligent, so clever, much more than either of the others, and I thought he was going to be like Papa.”[34] She wrote a poem about Sigismund which William was obliged to memorise and recite to his father when the Prince returned from the war. Meanwhile she had erected a shrine in the dead child’s room, and nailed a cross upon the wall. No one was allowed to enter. Years later Lady Macdonald, the wife of a British diplomat, was taken by the Crown Princess along a corridor in the New Palace, and a locked door was opened. “I saw a cradle, and in it a baby boy, beautiful to look upon, but it was only the waxen image of the former occupant, Prince Sigismund, who had died when the Crown Prince went to the war in 1866. How pathetic it was to note the silver rattle and ball lying as though flung aside by the little hand, the toys which had amused his baby mind arranged all about the cradle, his little shoes waiting, always waiting — at the side.”[35]

  It was not until William was eleven that his mother turned her full gaze upon him. The time had arrived, she decided, to supervise his development herself. What a pity that he had a crippled arm! Why had it had to happen to her eldest son! Sometimes she felt that Providence singled her out for misfortune. She often had moments of depression, and the only antidote was to pour out her feelings on paper. In such a mood she wrote to her mother: “The poor arm is no better, and William begins to feel being behind much smaller boys in every exercise of the body — he cannot run fast, because he has no balance, nor ride, nor climb, nor cut his food etc… I wonder he is so good-tempered about it. His tutor thinks he will feel it much more, and be much unhappier about it as he grows older, and feels himself debarred from everything which others enjoy, and particularly since he is so strong and lively and healthy. It is a hard trial for him and for us. Nothing is neglected that can be done for it, but there is so little to be done…”[36] It was a curiously distorted letter for, in fact, William's tutor testifies that this pupil could ride “with skill and delight.” He could also swim, fence, skate, and even handle a gun. “I shot my first game in the year 1872; it was a pheasant,” wrote the Prince. “Soon after I brought down my first hare. I shot my first stag in Wildpark in the autumn of 1876.”

  William was not enthusiastic about his mother’s supervision for she possessed her father’s thoroughness. Even Queen Victoria was apprehensive, for she knew how seriously Vicky regarded the task of moulding the character of a future emperor and was afraid of her intensity. When Vicky wrote her proudly in 1871, “I watch over him myself, over every detail, even the minutest, of his education…,” the Queen replied warningly: “I am sure you watch over your dear boy with the greatest care, but I often think too great care, too much constant watching, leads to the very dangers hereafter which one wishes to avoid.” However, the Princess did not heed her mother’s advice for she believed that there was much to teach William that only she could give him. She prided herself on a knowledge of music, literature, painting, architecture, and even archaeology, and was determined that William should also acquaint himself with these subjects. He was well versed in Greek, Latin, French, and English, and had read widely in his own language. Now more tutors were engaged and more professors bidden to enlighten him. His school hours were lengthened and his relaxations curtailed. Every moment had to be utilised. On Sundays, after church, his mother took him to visit artists in their studios, and in the afternoons his father accompanied him to museums. His treats were Shakespearean plays or the opera
. Even when he went riding with Hintzpeter the time was not allowed to be wasted. As he cantered along, he was compelled to recount the Greek epics in order to acquire fluency of expression. His instructors were told to report personally to the Crown Princess and in the spring of 1870 his English tutor, Mr. Dealtry, wrote that he had read most of the works of Sir Walter Scott and a great deal of Tennyson and Macaulay. “His Royal Highness has, I think, advanced satisfactorily in his knowledge of the English language, and has evinced a real love for English literature. His interest in his studies has added much to the enjoyment of the hours I have passed with him. His pronunciation and accent still need cultivation. I have been greatly struck by his generous and manly instincts. Indeed both the princes are remarkable for their gentlemanly tone of thought and feeling”

  The Crown Princess was not so lenient in her judgement of William’s capacities. It was too bad that he did not have more of his grandfather in him. Thought and learning had been Albert’s delight whereas William seemed to regard them as a laborious duty. On the other hand he was often a pleasing companion, and she particularly enjoyed the hours he spent reading to her while she painted in her studio. In the spring of 1871 she wrote a letter to the Queen containing the warmest allusions to the boy she was ever to make. “I am sure you would be pleased with William if you were to see him — he has Bertie’s pleasant amiable ways — and can be very winning. He is not possessed of brilliant abilities, nor of any strength of character or talents, but he is a dear boy, and I hope and trust will grow up a useful man. He has an excellent tutor, I never saw or knew a better, and all the care that can be bestowed on mind and body is taken of him. I am happy to say that between him and me there is a bond of love and confidence, which I feel sure nothing can destroy. He has very strong health and would be a very pretty boy were it not for that wretched unhappy arm which shows more and more, spoils his face (for it is on one side), his carriage, walk and figure, makes him awkward in all his movements, and gives him a feeling of shyness, as he feels his complete dependence, not being able to do a single thing for himself. It is a great additional difficulty in his education, and is not without its effect on his character. To me it remains an inexpressible source of sorrow! I think he will be very good-looking when he grows up, and he is already a universal favourite, as he is so lively and generally intelligent. He is a mixture of all our brothers — there is very little of his Papa, or the family of Prussia, about him.”[37]