Nevertheless, England was in real difficulties and the Kaiser might well have taken advantage of it. She was reviled all over the continent, and particularly in Germany, as the oppressor of a small, gallant people, yet her conventional, unimaginative generals could not cope with the irregular warfare waged by the Boer farmers. Early in December, only two months after the outbreak of hostilities, she suffered a series of ignominious defeats which became known as Black Week, and set foreign statesmen speculating on whether the collapse of the British Empire had begun. At this point, in January 1900, the Russian Ambassador, Count Osten-Sacken, talked to the Kaiser and touched upon the idea of a continental combine against England. Several conversations took place and although Osten-Sacken wrote to his Foreign Secretary, Count Muravieff, that the Kaiser would not be sorry to see Russia take action against Britain in the East, William assured Count Bülow that he had offered the Ambassador no encouragement.
Instead, he wrote to the Prince of Wales and gave him advice on how to win the war. He dispatched two series of “notes” summarising, he said, the expert opinion of his Field Marshals. The second series, dated February 19th, contained startling recommendations. He urged the British Army to halt its offensive until more reinforcements were sent out from England. Of course, he added, this could only be done if England was certain that foreign powers would not seize the moment to attack her, “which in the situation of the world appears doubtful.” “If, therefore,” he concluded, “diplomacy cannot guarantee absolutely to secure the respite just referred to, it would certainly be better to bring matters to a settlement. Even the best football club, if it is beaten notwithstanding the most gallant defence, accepts finally its defeat with equanimity. Last year in the great cricket match of England v. Australia the former took the victory of the latter quietly, with chivalrous acknowledgement of her opponent.”[185]
The Kaiser’s letter was tactless, even spiteful, but it was not menacing and it is a pity that the Prince of Wales did not ignore it. Instead he replied with a marked lack of humour: “I am afraid I am unable to share your opinions expressed in the last paragraph of your Memo, in which you liken our conflict with the Boers to our Cricket Matches with the Australians, in which the latter were victorious and we accepted our defeat. The British Empire is now fighting for its very existence, as you full well know, and for our superiority in South Africa. We must, therefore, use every effort in our power to prove victorious in the end!”
The Kaiser commented cheerfully: “My last paragraph… seems to have given you some umbrage! But I think I can easily dispel your doubts about it! The allusion to Football and Cricket matches was meant to show that I do not belong to those people who, when the British Army suffers reverses, or is unable at a given time to master the enemy, then immediately cry out that British prestige is in danger or lost!… As long as you keep your fleet in good fighting trim, and as long as it is looked upon as the first and feared as invincible, I don’t care a fiddlestick for a few lost fights in Africa…”[186] William decided, however, that he might as well get some credit from his English relations for his neutral stand, so when he heard rumours of Russian and French plots he passed the information to his uncle, hinting at “surprises” and “intrigues” on the part of “Sundry People,” and asserting: “I want a strong, unhampered England. It is eminently necessary for the peace of the world.” On March 3rd he had something more concrete to communicate to the Prince of Wales. “My warnings have not been too soon. Yesterday evening I received a note from St. Petersburg in which Count Muravieff formally invites me to take part in a collective action with France and Russia against England for the enforcing of Peace and the help of the Boers! I have declined… Sir Frank has been informed by me of this preposterous step in a very confidential manner.”[187] He also let Queen Victoria know that he had saved her country “from a most dangerous situation in warding off a combination aiming a blow at England in a moment which was vital to her. May your Government see in my action a renewed proof of my firm friendship and a sign of my determination to see that you should have fair play. For I am sure that South Africa once under the British flag, order, thrift, life, commerce and peace, with goodwill towards all men, will be assured.”[188]
Meanwhile the Russian Foreign Secretary, Count Muravieff, had got wind of what the Kaiser was saying, and instructed his ambassador in London to put it about that the initiative for a coalition had come from Berlin, not St. Petersburg. Although the Prince of Wales thanked William warmly for his loyal support, Lord Salisbury was sceptical of the whole business and inclined to accept the version unfavourable to the Kaiser. He therefore did not endorse the idea that William had rendered England an “historic service.”[189]
William II derived little comfort from his family circle. In different ways, both his wife and mother seemed to exacerbate the nervous strain from which he suffered. His mother was dying of cancer. She confided her doom to him — the bitter climax of a bitter life — at the end of 1899, explaining that the doctors had given her only two years to live. Although she endured great pain throughout 1900 she managed to keep abreast of world affairs, and maintained a wide correspondence by the hand of one of her ladies. William called on her regularly and tried to fulfil the role of a dutiful son but he did not find it easy; despite their reconciliation and their mutual distaste for Bismarck’s memory, William still detected a note of criticism in his mother’s voice and felt uncomfortable in her company. She made an effort to cultivate an attitude of resignation (once she wrote to Queen Victoria that she felt like a hen who had hatched an ugly duckling) but every now and then she was stung to a protest. When her son declared in a public speech on July 3rd, 1900, that “in the future no great decisions in the world will be taken without Germany and the German Emperor,” she wrote her mother wearily: “Dear William has made a new speech with much fanfaronade. I wish the German Government would give up the policy of constant fireworks…”[190]
William’s consort had an equally disquieting effect on him. He respected the pious, loving, narrow-minded Empress Augusta Victoria, but found her company far from diverting, for she surrounded herself with ladies even more bigoted and sanctimonious than herself, which produced a deeply oppressive atmosphere. He was amused by his young daughter who, people said, was a replica of himself, but he took little interest in his six sons except to impose on them a pattern of harsh discipline, while they, in turn, looked upon him as a terrifying figure to be avoided as much as possible.
The Empress, on the other hand, adored her husband and clung to him with embarrassing tenacity. Bülow describes her as a German “through and through,” for despite her official duties her interest centred on her husband and children. She was uneducated, provincial, and professed the greatest disdain for foreigners; the Russians were barbarous, the French immoral, and the English selfish and hypocritical. She disliked the Prince of Wales because of his philandering. She was shocked by the stories she heard about him and tried to discourage the male members of her family from visiting Britain for fear they might fall under his pernicious influence.
The Empress hated to let William out of her sight. He never made scenes with her, indeed he tried to avoid her, but she had a deep streak of persistence and, no matter how abrupt or indifferent he appeared, insinuated herself into his presence whenever she could. Sometimes he found her solicitude and devotion irritating. One night when he sat up late reading, she remained at his side sewing. Suddenly he said: “Do you mean to spend the night here?” “No, William, but I did not want to disturb you as you have been so busy reading the whole evening.” “What else could I do?” replied William. “It is so incredibly dull here.”[191]
The Emperor’s entourage believed that much of his restlessness sprang from the uncongeniality of his family life. Many of his bachelor week-end parties, his cruises and trips abroad, were devised, they felt, purely to take him away from the Empress. “Every time he returns home,” wrote the Controller of the Imperial Household, “I notice
how the atmosphere oppresses him. He is always anxious to get away, but his wife’s one desire is to keep him in sight as much as possible… There is something really feminine and touching in the way she clings to him; but often I am inclined to think that it is not without its dangers for the surest way for a woman to make a man dislike her is to run after him too openly.”[192]
In September 1900 the Emperor travelled to Rominten, the imperial shooting lodge, for a short holiday. Prince Eulenburg joined him and on this occasion the Empress was permitted to come too. Soon after her arrival William told her that the time had arrived to send three of their boys to the military academy at Pion. The idea of the parting, particularly from the youngest Prince, appalled the Empress. For once she lost her composure and made a fearful scene, weeping, imploring, and reproaching, the whole night long. The Kaiser, so accustomed to making scenes himself, was at a loss for what to do, and asked Philip “to come into his compartment in the train and poured out his heart to me in the most wretched and painful manner.”[193] Eulenburg made a sensible suggestion; send the two eldest boys away and leave the youngest at home. Then he took his courage in his hands and advised His Majesty to surround the Empress with more educated ladies; and if she made any more scenes at night the Emperor must go into his own room, lock the door, and lie down. The Kaiser appeared to regard this simple recommendation as most ingenious. He nodded and said very thoughtfully: “The plan could be tried; it’s not a bad idea.”
Despite Eulenburg’s solution the Empress’s recriminations continued for some months. Respite for the Kaiser came sombrely. On January 18th, 1901, William received word from London that Queen Victoria was dying. He immediately departed for England, arriving at Osborne two days later. He was deeply moved, for his English grandmother not only was the symbol of majesty, the touchstone of all he revered, but had always treated him with dignity and consideration. Although the Boer war was still raging and anti-British feeling was at its height in Germany, William never hesitated. The respect due from one sovereign to another was an obligation he understood.
The Queen died on January 22nd. The scene, wrote Lord Esher, “was stately and dramatic. The Queen now and then recognised those about her, and spoke their names. Her difficulty in breathing was the only painful symptom. Reid — the doctor — passed his arm around her and supported her. The Prince of Wales knelt at the side of her bed. The German Emperor stood silently at the head, near the Queen. The other children and grandchildren were all there, all calling their names at intervals. She died quite peacefully. After the King left for London, the Emperor took charge of everything. His tenderness and firmness were quite extraordinary, so unlike what was expected of him. He refused to allow Banting’s men to measure the Queen for her shell. He turned them out of the room. He sent for Reid and took all the measurements himself. He and the King and the Duke of Connaught lifted the Queen into her coffin.”[194]
Queen Victoria’s funeral did not take place until two weeks after her death. The Kaiser was so pleased by the warmth of his reception that he decided to remain in England the whole fortnight. This not only alarmed his advisers who felt that “the British” were bound to take advantage of his gullibility, but it distressed the Empress who felt that he might be seduced. She wrote to Bülow to “try and dissuade him from staying.” “I think it is particularly dangerous the way everyone — especially the ladies — tries to besiege his warm, friendly nature, and turn his head (they all, of course, want to win him over for their own ends).”[195]
But William refused to budge, insisting to his consort that his aunts needed him. “I must help them with many things, I must give them my advice… They are so kind to me, they treat me like a brother and a friend instead of like a nephew.” He also spoke delightedly of how Baron Eckardstein had told him that “when it became known in London in the evening that I was coming to be with Grandmama, the people wept for joy and… my action would never be forgotten by the English people.”
Meanwhile, in Berlin, jealous pens were busy prophesying disaster. Anglophobia was a national pastime and spread right to the top; it was too much to see the Kaiser, unprotected by advisers, expanding under the hypocritical kindliness of the sinister British. Even Philip Eulenburg was infected by the wave of jealousy and irritation, and wrote the most malicious letter of all — a letter which Bülow described as showing “real flair.” “I am anxious when I think of the beloved Master in Osborne: I think of all the things he will say! He will be like a child amidst these people who are crude despite their mourning. Amongst them he forgets all his ‘shrewdness.’ A sort of trustful embarrassment takes possession of him and any one of them could easily get at the secrets of his soul (and our state secrets). At the same time he is really in the way. The family scold him behind his back, and his own adjutants wring their hands and wish they could go home. Despite the seriousness of the situation and the real grief which he feels, I must smile when I think of the way in which he is ‘exploiting’ his deceased grandmother, so that he can avoid seeing ‘mother’ [Empress Augusta Victoria] as long as possible…”[196]
Meanwhile “mother,” as Eulenburg called her, was distracted. When she heard that the new king, Edward VII, had made his nephew an honorary “Field Marshal” she wrote Bülow indignantly that her fears had been justified. “It is supposed to be a gracious act, but I consider it tactless.” She was even more annoyed when her son the Crown Prince was awarded the Garter, and the Kaiser’s brother, Prince Henry, made an honorary “Vice-Admiral of the British Fleet.” However, whatever the British did was bound to be wrong, for all the royalties attending the funeral were given a distinction and if the Germans had not been shown greater favour than the others even more of a storm would have arisen.
General von Plessen, the head of the Kaiser’s suite, made matters worse. He sensed the apprehension in Berlin and was quick to capitalize on it, writing that “the English are unspeakably gratified by our coming and by the Kaiser’s expressions of friendship at a time when they are suffering such calamities… and when they are so generally hated that they talk about it themselves. At the moment they are feeling so small that it will be a long time before they feel as small as this again. Our Master had given them self-assurance and they will certainly recover their historic insolence.”[197]
The Kaiser was genuinely moved by the friendliness he met on all sides; yet his amiable mood did not spring only from sentiment. The moment the Dutch mailboat, which carried him and his suite across the North Sea, reached England he became involved in exciting new political developments. Baron von Eckardstein, the Charge d’Affaires of the German Embassy, awaited His Majesty at the harbour and told him that Mr. Joseph Chamberlain once again was pressing the idea of an alliance with Germany. On the train to London he gave the Kaiser a detailed account of his conversations with Chamberlain which had taken place at a week-end party arranged by the Duchess of Devonshire. William II was so enthusiastic that he wired Bülow elatedly: “So ‘they come’ it seems, just as we expected. This is what we have waited for.” In the same telegram, sent on January 20th, 1901, he emphasised that Chamberlain had warned Eckardstein that if Britain could not reach an understanding with Germany she would have to look elsewhere. “Baron von Eckardstein tells me of Chamberlain’s confidential intimation that it is all over with splendid isolation; England must choose between Triple Alliance and France-Russia. He is a tout prix for the former, part of the Cabinet for the latter. Foreign Office for the former. Only if we are not willing, then the swing to the Dual Alliance. The understanding about Morocco again desired by him [Chamberlain] can come about as soon as Lord Salisbury goes to Cannes.”[198]
It was perfectly clear to Holstein why Chamberlain again was seeking an alliance with Germany. Although it now was obvious that Britain would emerge victorious from South Africa, no one could pretend that her military performance had been impressive. The continent of Europe was still fiercely pro-Boer and France and Russia, encouraged by England’s preoccupations, wer
e looking about with greedy eyes. Indeed, Russia was doing more than looking. She had begun to penetrate Persia, and early in January rumours began to spread — which soon proved true — that the Czar had made a pact with China which virtually meant the annexation of Manchuria. Four months earlier, on September 10th, 1900, Chamberlain had written a memorandum for the Cabinet: “Both in China and elsewhere it is in our interest that Germany should throw herself across the path of Russia. An alliance between Germany and Russia, entailing, as it would, the co-operation of France, is the one thing we have to dread, and the clash of German and Russian interests, whether in China or Asia Minor, would be the greatest guarantee for our safety. I think, then, our policy clearly is to encourage good relations between ourselves and Germany, as well as between ourselves and Japan and the United States, and we should endeavour to emphasise the breach between Germany and Russia, and Russia and Japan…”[199]
Chamberlain’s memorandum was written to impress his Cabinet colleagues and naturally did not present the whole picture. As Chamberlain told Hadzfeldt, he recognised the risk involved for Germany, and was prepared to pay handsomely for her support. He was not thinking in military terms; he believed that a political entente between the greatest sea-power and the greatest land-power would prove sufficiently formidable to hold Russia and France at bay without coming to blows. His idea was to start slowly. As a beginning Britain would support Germany diplomatically in the penetration of western Morocco, balking French designs and satisfying Germany’s claims to “a place in the sun” by adding thousands of square miles to the Kaiser’s Empire.[200] As confidence grew between Britain and Germany co-operation would be extended to other spheres; the ultimate goal would be Britain’s accession to the Triple Alliance, which, in Chamberlain’s view, might include Japan and perhaps, one day, the United States.
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