The Kaiser

by Virginia Cowles

  Bülow thought no more about the matter until October 29th when he received a press telegram from London summarising the Kaiser’s remarks. “You English,” the article began, “are mad, mad as march hares. What on earth has come over you that you should harbour such suspicions against us, suspicions so unworthy of a great nation?” The German Fleet, he continued, was not being built against England; its sole aim was to protect Germany’s steadily increasing trade and her interests in the Far East; indeed, in the face of growing Japanese power the British one day might welcome the existence of the German Fleet. The Emperor took “as a personal insult” the “distortions and misinterpretations” of the British press on his “repeated offers of friendship to England.” Such an attitude made his task as a ruler — not an easy role — almost unspeakably difficult, for the great majority of people in both countries were inclined to be hostile to each other and in Germany his liking for Britain put him in a distinct minority.

  He then harped back to the Boer war. At that time Russia and France had urged him to save the Boer Republics by joining a coalition which would “humiliate England to the dust;” but he had replied that “Germany would always keep aloof from politics that could bring her into complications with a sea-power like England;” and he had sent the text of the Russian and French notes, and his answers, to Queen Victoria, who had deposited them in the archives at Windsor Castle. Furthermore, in December 1899, when British arms were suffering severe defeats at the hands of the Boer farmers, he had tried to help his august grandmother. He had bidden one of his officers “to procure for me as exact an account as he could obtain of the numbers of combatants in South Africa on both sides, and of the actual position of the opposing forces.” “With the figures before him,” he had worked out what he considered to be the best plan of campaign and had submitted it for criticism to his General Staff. Then he had sent it to England, and that, too, now lay in the Windsor archives, “awaiting the serenely impartial verdict of history.” It was, he continued, “a matter of curious coincidence” that the plan he had drawn up was very much the same as the one adopted by Lord Roberts which finally led him to victory. He hoped this would prove what a staunch admirer and a firm champion of Britain he was. “What more can I do? I have always stood forth as a friend of England… but you make it uncommonly difficult for a man to remain friendly.”

  The outcry was immense. The Japanese asked angrily why Germany was threatening them, and the French and Russians denied hotly, and uneasily, that they had ever proposed a coalition against England. When the British Ambassador to Russia, Sir Arthur Nicolson, called on the Czar the latter launched into a diatribe against William II. “Upon the writing table in the bow window lay a copy of the Daily Telegraph of October 28th heavily scored with a blue pencil… The Czar was enraged by this breach of faith. He informed Nicolson that it was the Emperor William who had proposed intervention and that all that Russia had proposed was the most friendly form of mediation.”[285]

  The reaction in England, however, was much more devastating, for instead of being angry it was simply hilarious. It was true that the Kaiser had informed his English relations (not Queen Victoria but the Prince of Wales) that Russia was seeking a coalition against Britain, but as the reader will remember, Lord Salisbury viewed the information with scepticism; he believed that it was Germany, not Russia, who had taken the initiative against Britain and that when it failed, Berlin had the happy idea of gaining good marks at the expense of the others.

  As far as the “plan of campaign” was concerned, it was also true that William had sent the Prince (not Queen Victoria) a few “aphorisms” on the Boer war, but they could scarcely be described as a plan of campaign. William had infuriated his uncle by suggesting that the best thing Britain could do was to suspend operations until reinforcements arrived from England, although of course the respite might allow time for a continental combine to form. He had ended on a cheerful note pointing out that when England lost the Test Match against Australia she had taken the latter’s victory quietly “with chivalrous acknowledgement of her opponent.”

  Mr. Haldane, the Minister of War, was asked questions in the House of Commons about the Kaiser’s “plan of campaign” and whether he intended to make it public. He replied that no such document could be found in the War Office archives or any other department. “Consequently,” he said, “I am not in a position to fulfil the wish of those who want the document published.” (Loud laughter from all parts of the House.)

  William II had made a complete fool of himself. How could he have allowed himself to exaggerate so wildly, when it was only too easy to disprove what he said? Eulenburg had once written Bülow that the Emperor was becoming careless about telling the truth. William did not lie intentionally, but he could not resist dressing up happenings to his own liking, altering and exaggerating them to satisfy his impulses. The more he repeated a falsified version, the more he came to believe it. For years he had been telling people about the aid he had given England during the Boer war. No one had challenged him, but even if they had, he would have sworn he was telling the truth. Indeed, only two months earlier, in the course of his famous exchange over naval plans with Sir Charles Hardinge at Cronberg, he had trotted out the same assertions. “The Emperor,” Hardinge wired to London on August 16th, “…endeavoured to show what a good friend he had been to England in the past. Thus he repeated the statement previously made (I think) to His Majesty’s Ambassador at Berlin that, during the Boer War, he had been approached by the French and Russian Governments to make a coalition against England, but that he had absolutely declined to do so, and had threatened to make war on any Power that dared to make an unprovoked attack on England at that time. I did not think it worth while to mention that this account does not tally at all with that given by M. Delcasse and the Russian Government of the transaction. So also His Majesty told me that, after our early reverses in the Boer War, he had received a letter from the late Queen Victoria, full of grief at the losses suffered by the British troops, which had touched him deeply. He had at once instructed his General Staff to draw up a plan of campaign, which he had sent to the Queen, and this plan had been followed by Lord Roberts in all its details. ‘And yet,’ His Majesty added, ‘I am said to be the enemy of England!’”[286] The reaction of the German press was far more violent than anything abroad. Most Germans had hotly espoused the cause of the Boers during the South African war, and were incensed to learn that the Kaiser had drawn up a “plan of campaign” for the British. Furthermore, the tactlessness of the interview had now become apparent to the most unenlightened intelligence. Why tell the Japanese that the German Fleet was being built for “eventualities” in the Far East; why tell the Russians and the French that their confidential notes had been sent to London; why tell the British that most of the Germans hated them? Each newspaper picked on the observation that it regarded as most offensive, and all of them combined in a general attack on the Emperor’s “personal rule.” The Deutsche Tageszeitung said it was time His Majesty stopped putting his fingers in the Foreign Office pie and making the nation look ridiculous; the Borsenkurier said the interview revealed the impossibility of controlling the Sovereign’s interference and called for a constitutional change; and even the monarchical papers admitted sadly that the whole thing was “a regrettable blunder.”

  The cartoonists were most merciless of all. One showed the Emperor as “Little Willy” sitting at a writing table covered with ink, while Father Bülow and Mother Germania were saying: “Didn’t we tell you you weren’t to play at writing letters any more?” Another showed the old Emperor pleading for God’s mercy on behalf of his grandson. After all he is “by the Grace of God;” and God replying: “Now you want to put the blame on me.” A third showed a Court Chamberlain clasping a Bible and crying: “Oh that I could put a lock to my mouth and a seal to my lip.” All sorts of jingles were put into circulation; one even arrived from England, addressed to Bülow, to be passed on to the Kaiser.

&nb
sp; If your lips you’d keep from slips Five things observe with care:

  Of whom you speak, to whom you speak And how, and when, and where.

  Bülow’s immediate reaction, when he received the Wolff telegram from London on the 29th, and the sickening realisation dawned upon him that the interview alluded to was the same that had passed through his own hands, was fear for his own position. He hurried from Nordeney to Berlin, stormed into the Foreign Office, and summoned the officials who had approved the original draft. The Secretary of State, von Schoen, was not about. Instead, there was a letter from Frau von Schoen saying that her husband was ill in bed after a heart attack. Bülow claims that he immediately sent his doctor to see von Schoen, who returned smiling in half an hour. The illness of the Secretary of State was nothing graver than “nerves” brought on by fright at the difficulties his carelessness had caused. Meanwhile the other subordinates had gathered shamefacedly in Bülow’s room; and when the Chancellor asked them how they possibly could have approved the manuscript, the Councillor, Herr Klehmet, replied for them all: “Because we thought the Emperor wished it.” “Haven’t you learned by now,” rasped Prince Bülow, “that the Emperor’s wishes are often sheer nonsense?”

  Bülow had no alternative but to write an abject letter to the Kaiser, telling him of the unfavourable comment the interview was provoking and explaining how it had slipped through his hands. “If Your Majesty is displeased,” he ended, “with my having failed under pressure of business to go through the English manuscript in person, and blames me for the carelessness shown by the Foreign Office, I humbly beg to be relieved of my Chancellorship. But if I have not lost Your Majesty’s confidence, my sole object in remaining will be to counter, publicly and emphatically, to the utmost of my ability, the unjust attacks on my Imperial Master.”[287]

  Bülow’s nickname “the eel” was never more applicable than to the way he managed to slip and slither through the stormy, reef-ridden waters, now referred to as “the Kaiser-crisis.”[288] He issued a short statement to the press in which he cleverly managed to shift the blame on to other shoulders by neglecting to say that the article had been sent to him for his personal approval, yet at the same time declaring his willingness to accept responsibility. “His Majesty forwarded the article to the Chancellor, who submitted it to the Foreign Office with the request that it should be carefully read through. Since no objection was raised and the report returned to the Foreign Office, permission to publish was given, and it appeared in the Daily Telegraph. When the Imperial Chancellor learned of its publication and contents he informed His Majesty that he personally had never seen the draft of the article, and that, had he seen it, he would have advised against publication, but that he considered himself solely responsible for what had occurred and absolved the officials and departments under him.” However, his method of “absolving his subordinates” was original, for it was announced ten days later that the Chancellor had accepted the resignation of Herr Klehmet, and that Secretary of State Schoen had been granted leave of absence because of illness, and was being replaced, temporarily, by Herr von Kiderlen-Wachter, the German Minister at Bucharest.

  Nevertheless, the statement failed to draw away the fire from the Kaiser. At first, in north Germany, where people prided themselves on the efficiency of their civil service, they were shocked by the ineptitude of the Wilhelmstrasse; but this proved to be a passing phase as it soon began to be whispered that William II had insisted on publication, and Bülow was only trying to defend him.[289] One thing was clear: Bülow himself had managed to escape untarnished. He sensed this the day after his explanation was published; and when, that same afternoon, he saw the Kaiser, who had returned to Potsdam from Rominten, he already had begun to adopt a superior air. William was completely humbled; he was so shocked and upset by the criticism that he presented a pitiable figure. For once he did not attempt to defend himself. He did not reproach Bülow for his neglect, or even refer to the Foreign Office, but simply said brokenly that the Chancellor must do or say anything necessary to mend matters. “But whatever you do, get us out of this; bring us through!” he implored. Bülow told him that everything would depend on the Chancellor’s speech in the Reichstag debate, scheduled for November 10th, and that he was confident he would silence the critics.

  Then the Chancellor committed another blunder. He advised the Kaiser to continue with his pre-arranged plan for a visit to the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, followed by a stay at Donaueschingen with Prince Max Fürstenburg, the rich Austrian nobleman who had taken Philip Eulenburg’s place as the Emperor’s close friend. William II was only too glad to quit the storm and set forth next day. The Chancellor tells us that he proffered this advice because he felt that “the burdens I would have to shoulder would be easier if I were not forced to make a daily journey from Berlin to the New Palace at Potsdam”!

  This caused the tension to increase rather than slacken, for the Kaiser was bitterly criticized for departing on a pleasure trip when the Reichstag debate was pending. Maximilian Harden, the man who had hounded Eulenburg to his doom, led a campaign in Zukunft (again believed to be inspired by Baron Holstein) which not only dwelt on the Sovereign’s fecklessness but almost accused him of treachery in secretly assisting the English “enemy” while the German nation prayed for a Boer victory. Although the paper was confiscated and taken out of circulation the accusations were repeated by other papers in a veiled form. A new British Ambassador, Sir Edward Goschen, had just arrived in the capital and was amazed by the outpourings. “To a newcomer like myself,” he wrote to London, “imbued with the idea that His Majesty was more or less outside public criticism, this onslaught upon him comes as a most striking surprise.”[290]

  The Kaiser did his best to put the affair out of his mind and to enjoy his stay abroad, but every now and then someone in his entourage showed him a selection of press cuttings which made him very unhappy. He placed all his reliance on Bülow to extricate him from the mess. “The two days here,” he wired the Chancellor from Vienna, “have gone off very harmoniously and gaily… The shoot went off splendidly; I brought down sixty-five stags… I remember you in all my prayers morning and evening. When has He ever failed to help us, though hate and envy might pursue! There is a silver lining in every cloud. God be with you! Your old friend, William I.R.”[291]

  William II was at the Castle Fürstenburg at Donaueschingen when he read the breathlessly awaited reports of the Reichstag debate. To everyone’s astonishment the proceedings turned out to be a damp squib. The deputies made it plain that they did not want any fundamental alterations. The German people were angry and humiliated but at heart intensely monarchical. They wished to let off steam but that was all. Speaker after speaker rose to attack the incompetence of the Foreign Office or the impetuousness of the Kaiser but practically no one had anything constructive to propose. One or two deputies suggested constitutional changes which would curtail the authority of the Emperor but they received no support; the Conservative Party felt “obliged to express (though most respectfully) the wish that in future the Emperor will maintain greater reserve in his conversation,”[292] but a motion by the Socialists to present an address to the Kaiser — a form of censure — was not carried, and the word “abdication” was not so much as whispered. However, they all agreed that it was wrong of the Emperor to have absented himself from Berlin at such a critical time!

  But the most severe indictment of His Majesty, veiled in the faint praise so proverbially damning, came from Prince Bülow. The Prince made his master out a complete fool. He told the assembly how hard the Emperor worked for his country and how eager he was to improve relations with Britain. Then he took the interview, point by point, disowning each clause with the admission that “the colours had been laid on too thick.” Finally, he came to his peroration. “Gentlemen, the knowledge that the publication of his conversations has not produced the effect which the Emperor intended in England, and has aroused deep excitement and painful regret in our c
ountry, will — and this is the firm conviction which I have gained during these days of stress — will induce His Majesty in future to observe that reserve, even in private conversations, which is equally indispensable in the interest of a uniform policy for the authority of the Crown [cheers on the right]. Were that not so, neither I nor any successor of mine could bear the responsibility… [prolonged cheers on the right and amongst the National Liberals]. For the mistake which was made in dealing with the manuscript I take the entire responsibility… It is repugnant to my personal feelings to brand as scapegoats officials who have done a life-long duty, because in a single case they relied too implicitly on the fact that I read and decide almost everything myself… When the article, as to whose sinister effect there could not for a moment have been any doubts, was published, I tendered my resignation. The decision was inevitable and was not hard for me. The gravest and hardest decision I have ever taken in my political life was to remain in office, in compliance with the wish of the Emperor. I only resolved to do so because I regarded it as a behest of political duty to continue to serve Emperor and country at this time of stress.” (Loud cheers.)

  The Kaiser was dumbfounded. He had expected Bülow to defend him, not to apologise for him, and instead his Chancellor had chosen to save himself. Even his pretence of protecting his colleagues was nothing but a puff for his own hard work. He had told the chamber (in so many words) that any child (except the Emperor) could see that the article was bound to create a storm and that unless William II kept quiet in the future Bülow would not remain with him. There was no indication that it had been abjectly proffered as the price of his own negligence; it was presented as a protest against the Kaiser’s waywardness.

  What nettled the Kaiser most was the fact that Bülow had ignored and disowned his attempts to induce friendliness in the English people. He burst into tears in the forest with Prince Fürstenburg and told him that he had sent long reports from Highcliffe in which he had informed Bülow of the line he was taking, that the latter had praised his adroitness. This probably was true, for, as the reader has seen, he had recounted the services he had rendered England during the Boer war many times. What William II could not seem to understand was that there was a great difference between private remarks and those that must stand the test of public scrutiny.