The Kaiser gave no indication of the strain he was undergoing. His uncle’s presence always seemed to excite him and he was more voluble than he had been for weeks. “He had great fascination as a conversationalist,” wrote Sir Frederick Ponsonby, one of King Edward’s equerries, “as he was always so keen and interested. He practically stood on one’s feet glaring into one’s eyes and giving grunts of approval, which acted as a spur… His sense of humour was of the blatant type and he was unable to appreciate any subtle witticism, but I have heard him tell stories which were quite funny.” William II seized every opportunity to impress his visitors with his own superior knowledge of England. Ponsonby suspected that he “anticipated what subjects of conversation would crop up, then got his staff to look up statistics.” The Emperor asked him across the dinner table how many people sat on the London County Council, who was qualified to vote, and how many years elapsed between elections. “I had very vague ideas on all these questions,” wrote Sir Frederick, “but I bravely answered all of them, making shots at the numbers. ‘1 don’t think you’re right,’ replied the Emperor, and then proceeded to give chapter and verse. I must say it was very effective and everyone present marvelled at his knowledge.”[302]
At the state ball the King had such a coughing fit that the Princess of Pless thought he might pass out. He recovered himself with much difficulty, but this was proved to be the last meeting between uncle and nephew. The King died the following year.
Throughout the winter the Kaiser refused to receive Bülow in private audience. It was almost impossible to conduct the business of the nation under these circumstances, and the Chancellor pleaded repeatedly to be seen and heard. Finally, on March 11th the Kaiser agreed to receive him. The conversation took place in the Picture Gallery of the Berlin Palace. After giving William a report on foreign affairs Bülow begged to be allowed to raise a personal matter. “I walked up and down with him,” wrote William II, “…between portraits of my ancestors and the paintings of the battles of the Seven Years War, of the proclamation of the empire at Versailles, and was amazed when the Chancellor harked back to the events of the autumn of 1908 and undertook to explain his attitude.” The Kaiser told Bülow bluntly that he did not think he had defended him adequately. “Froben,” he said, “would not have spoken as you did at the Reichstag debate on November 10th.” He paused before the picture of Froben, the royal equerry who had mounted the piebald horse of the Great Elector at Fehrbellin, to attract bullets away from his master. If Froben had been Chancellor instead of Bülow, said William, he would have declared that it was he who had advised the Emperor to speak in England as he had done. Bülow was so taken aback he could not speak. He claims in his memoirs (although it is scarcely credible) that he replied that the truth was the only possible course as no one in England or Germany could possibly believe that he was capable of advising the Kaiser to talk as he had. “Which simply means,” rejoined the Emperor, “that you consider me a donkey capable of blunders that you yourself could never have committed.” This exchange is most unlikely, considering the circumstances. The Kaiser’s version probably comes nearer the truth. After the interview he wired his brother, Prince Henry: “Have just forgiven Bülow who begged my pardon in a flood of tears.”
The Kaiser and Kaiserin dined with Prince and Princess Bülow the following night; everyone was on affectionate, almost emotional, terms, and the affair seemed patched up for good. “What a terrible winter it has been,” William sighed. “But now everything is perfect again!” However, as soon as he was separated from the spell of his Chancellor’s personality the old grievances overtook him. A man named Rudolph Martin published a pamphlet in which he “unmasked Prince Bülow’s baseness.” The Chancellor, he asserted, had deliberately encouraged the Emperor to make his “pro-English” remarks at Bournemouth, and welcomed their publication in the Daily Telegraph. His purpose had been to compromise the Sovereign and force him to abdicate, so that he could proclaim a republic with himself at the head. The Emperor described Martin’s work as “a very good book” and loudly recommended it to everyone he met.
It was now obvious that William II would seize the first opportunity to rid himself of his Chancellor; and the opportunity was not long in coming. The Chancellor had the task of guiding the Finance Reform Bill through the Reichstag, introducing death duties for the first time. The Conservatives hotly opposed the Bill, and by May had acquired such support that Bülow’s chances of success were slim. Since the Imperial Chancellor was not responsible to the Reichstag, only to the Emperor, an adverse vote would not be fatal to him if the Sovereign stood behind him. Bülow knew, however, that William would not support him if he failed; so he had no alternative but to couple the vote with his resignation. The decisive day was June 24th. Just as Bülow feared, the Chamber rejected his Bill by 195 to 187 votes. And just as he had prophesied, William II accepted his retirement.
The Kaiser dismissed Prince Bülow almost as unpleasantly as he had parted with Bismarck. After a short interview on board the Hohenzollern, in which he escaped from any serious talk by dragging the unhappy Chancellor along with him to a lunch on board the Prince of Monaco’s yacht, he kept him in suspense by not announcing the resignation for three weeks. Bülow bitterly minded leaving. He loved the work, the power, and prestige that went with the Chancellorship, and he had the lowest opinion of Herr Bethmann-Hollweg, the Secretary of the Interior, who the Emperor had told him would take his place. It was only natural, during those agonising weeks, that he should have hoped the Kaiser would change his mind.
But William stood firm. The resignation was published on July 14th, accompanied by a handsome letter of gratitude from the Kaiser, and the announcement that the Prince had been awarded the Order of the Black Eagle in brilliants. Bülow took his official leave in the garden of the Berlin Palace, when the Kaiser surprised him by inviting himself and the Kaiserin to a farewell dinner at the Bülow’s house the following night.
It was obvious that William II had an impulse to behave generously, but the darker side of his nature got the better of him. Soon he was telling his entourage, just as he had done after Bismarck’s departure, that he had been forced to let Bülow go because the Chancellor had lost his memory. He was becoming so confused, almost senile, that he could not remember what he had said the day before. He had even suggested appointing as ambassador a notorious gambler and drunkard. He attributed the impairment of Bülow’s faculties to overwork, and felt it his “duty as a Christian” not to oppose his return to private life.
Even the farewell dinner was marred by the Kaiser’s ungraciousness. Although he arrived with a bunch of roses for Princess Bülow, which he said he had picked with his own hands, and presented her with a gold bracelet, from which dangled a portrait of himself on enamel, surrounded with brilliants, he enraged her with his conversation. When she remarked sadly that it was a pity the Death Duties had proved such a stumbling block, the Kaiser could not contain himself. 44 You mustn’t think,“he protested, 44 that the Bloc or the Death Duties are what made Bernard retire. The real reason was the events of last November. You see, those fellows let me know privately that they didn’t really mind the Death Duties. They overthrew him because they didn’t think he showed enough zeal in defending me His Imperial Master.”1
Princess Bülow tried to argue with the Emperor, and finally said: “Your Majesty, I know nothing about politics, but I can assure you of one thing at least; that Bernard is devoted, body and soul, to Your Majesty. For twelve years he has had no other thought than the thought of serving you faithfully. He suffered very much in November and, day and night, he could think of nothing, except how to save Your Majesty, and restore your good relationship with the nation. And he succeeded. Your Majesty is as respected as ever.”[303] “Yes,” interrupted the Kaiser. “Now that they see they did me an injustice.” “But what did Your Majesty expect Bernard to do?” “He ought to have declared in the Reichstag: ‘I won’t have any more of this insolent speech about the Emperor
. How dare you speak like this? Quick march! Get out!’ Bernard should have declared that he stood shoulder to shoulder to me. He knew perfectly well what the article in the Daily Telegraph contained; I had written from Highcliffe to tell him.” “But Bernard got no such letter.” “Well, if I didn’t write, I said it to him. I can show you the very tree in your garden under which I talked to him about it. “The conversation finally ended with the Emperor advising Princess Bülow to read Rudolph Martin’s book if she really wanted to know “the ins and outs” of the story!
Prince Bülow relinquished his office with a smouldering fury that became apparent when his memoirs were published after his death. Every page is studded with malice, and every chapter is designed to illumine his own genius and prove his infallibility. He claims to have brought Germany to the pinnacle of fame and power, and declares that if he had remained in charge the world war would have been avoided. Yet the truth is that his twelve years as Chancellor had been disastrous. His diplomatic moves had conjured into being the Triple Entente, and had left Germany and Austria-Hungary friendless and isolated. His belated agreement with France, instigated by the Kaiser, had not succeeded in erasing the hostility aroused by his repeated threats of war over Morocco. Not only was France deeply estranged, but his stinging rebuff to the Czar over Bosnia had angered Russia, and his enthusiastic support for the Kaiser’s great navy, which only began to falter in the last months of his office, had alienated Britain. His public performance was unparalleled for bad relations, and his personal record was not much better. He had betrayed Holstein, Eulenburg, and the Kaiser. And now that he finally had fallen himself, accused everyone of malevolence and treachery.
He received many letters upon his resignation, among them a lone voice calling forth memories from the past — a letter of sympathy from Prince Eulenburg. Underneath the silky flattery, however, it contained such a bitter accusation that it scarcely can have been consoling. After deploring Bülow’s retirement and declaring that Max Fürstenburg was “the person responsible” Philip continued with deadly innocence: “You can imagine how, in letter after letter, people have done their best to persuade me to see in you the origin and the source of all my misfortunes — all this disaster to me and mine! Many people are really annoyed by the sight of a firm and constant loyalty which will allow nothing to shake it… Only one thing seemed difficult to explain: the fact that neither the official, nor even the semi-official, press cared to take up the cudgels on behalf of one of the highest German functionaries, and fight scandals and scandal-mongering newspapers.”[304]
Chapter 13. Repeat Performance
“Everything,” remarked Count Zedlitz gloomily, in February 1910, “is moving in the same groove as before.” Once again the Kaiser was his old, ebullient self; once again he was taking the salute at reviews, making explosive speeches and whirling around Germany on the imperial train. Historians sometimes assert that the Daily Telegraph incident marked the close of an epoch by bringing to an end the Kaiser’s “personal rule,” but there is no evidence to support this. On the contrary, after Bülow’s departure in July 1909, William II asserted himself more forcibly than he had done for a decade. This was mainly due to the fact that the new Chancellor, Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg, knew nothing about foreign affairs. He was not a clever man. A jurist by profession, he was painstaking and ponderous but slow to grasp the implications of a situation. The Kaiser did not lay down a policy, for he was incapable of working out a policy. Never once, during any of the many crises which Germany had passed through, had he contributed a serious state paper, explaining, arguing, or even outlining a consistent course of action. Instead, he contented himself by showering the Wilhelmstrasse with opinion and comment.
The Kaiser was not a statesman, but a brilliant dilettante. He was much more like his mother than people imagined, for he had the temperament of an artist rather than that of a Prussian prince. He painted, arranged ballets, occasionally wrote poetry, and was an expert on archaeology. In March he always went to Corfu, where he had bought the palace Achillcion, built by the Empress of Austria, and where he occupied himself exploring and excavating.
What the Emperor liked best was to talk and to travel. Count Zedlitz complained that he was only in Berlin (or Potsdam) two months of the year; the rest of the time he was abroad paying calls on foreign monarchs, cruising on the Hohenzollern, or moving around his own kingdom, visiting the imperial establishments or gracing the houses of rich noblemen who could provide suitable entertainment. One of his favourite places was the Castle Fursten-stein, the seat of the Prince of Pless. The English-born Princess found the etiquette oppressive for “every time the Emperor spoke to anyone, or even entered the room, everyone jumped up, the women curtseying and the men clicking.” Furthermore there was always a martial atmosphere for the gentlemen never appeared in civilian clothes. During the day they wore the “imperial hunting costume” designed by the Emperor, and at night military regalia glittering with orders and decorations. The Emperor’s delight in uniforms was a joke of long standing. The Berliners said that he would not visit an aquarium without putting on admiral’s attire, and had been known to climb into the uniform of a British Field Marshal to eat a plum pudding. The Princess of Pless wondered if anyone, except the Empress in the privacy of the boudoir, had ever seen the Sovereign in mufti, and someone retorted that he obviously climbed into undress uniform for bed.
Despite the formalities, the Emperor allowed the company to relax after dinner, when he settled down to his favourite pastime. “In the evenings we talked — or rather the Emperor did,” wrote the Princess in her diary. “I never met a man who can remember such millions of things at the same time, even Irish stories which I suppose he heard in England — he repeated them in German — I nearly died with laughter. And then he half acts when he tells the stories; one evening he went on from eleven until a quarter to one. And then at tea-time he keeps on till nearly dinner time…”[305] The Kaiser always travelled with a large suite. Several members of the Foreign Office were attached permanently to him, cabinet ministers journeyed from Berlin to consult him, and every day a messenger arrived with state papers. In February 1910 he was delighted to learn that ex-President Theodore Roosevelt was planning a visit to Berlin, and astonished his suite by announcing that he would meet Mr. Roosevelt at the station in person. It was unheard of for an Emperor to pay such a mark of respect to a commoner, much less a commoner who no longer held office. “It seems to be the Emperor’s intention to meet Roosevelt at the station on his arrival,” wrote Sir Edward Goschen on April 23rd. “I can hardly believe it, but Stemrich says it is so. I know that His Majesty wished to do so, but I had heard that his entourage were so much against it that he had given it up. If His Majesty really does this it will be going rather far… I still cannot believe it.”[306]
In the end William II was dissuaded from his plan, but he gave a large dinner for Mr. Roosevelt at the New Palace in Potsdam. Ever since Bjorko he had kept up a correspondence with the American President, who was impressed by William’s views, and talked about an American-German-British alliance. Like William, Mr. Roosevelt was swashbuckling, provocative, and indiscreet. He lacked real understanding of international power politics, and was unaware of what the struggle in Europe was about. As the reader has seen, he had sent Germany a telegram of congratulations after Algeciras, although Europe knew that it was one of Berlin’s worst failures. And now he declared loudly that it was most unlikely that Germany and Britain would go to war, for there was nothing to be gained from it; Germany could not hope to conquer Canada or India or Australia, and Britain would not be able to interrupt German trade for more than a year or two. Before he left the White House in 1909 he had disconcerted the British Ambassador in Washington, James Viscount Bryce, by telling him that “although the German Emperor was an erratic personage and had written to President Roosevelt some extraordinary letters full of alarms and wild suggestions, he did not believe he had any war-like designs, but was animated more by a s
ort of megalomania and by a desire to have the glory of possessing a splendid navy. So too he did not believe that the German nation was otherwise than pacific in its intentions.”
What really drew the President and the Kaiser together was their common belief in “the Yellow Peril.” This still remained one of William’s favourite themes and he was delighted to find someone who shared his apprehensions. Mr. Roosevelt, however, went further than the Kaiser. He felt that the quarrels and bickerings in Europe were ridiculous, and that all Christians should unite against the black and yellow races. He frequently talked to German Embassy officials in Washington and the reports on his views were carefully studied and minuted by the Kaiser. “If Japan invades America using powerful forces,” Roosevelt told the German Ambassador, “our army will first suffer a crushing blow. The lesson will produce a thorough military reorganisation. (The Emperor: That is no good in a war.) After this has been achieved, Japan’s army will be annihilated if she has left it in America, and America will take her revenge.” (The Emperor: Very optimistic.)[307]
It is obvious that if Roosevelt thought that some of the Kaiser’s ideas were a bit mad, the view was reciprocated. Nevertheless Roosevelt was useful to William and he made the most of him. When the ex-President stopped in London on his way to Berlin in 1910 he told British statesmen that Germany meant no harm to anyone and was only building her fleet to protect her growing trade; the British ought to grasp her hand and keep their attention on the Far East. As Britain had a treaty of alliance with Japan, this advice was not received very warmly. Apparently Lord Londonderry, an ex-Viceroy of Ireland, made it clear that he did not share Mr. Roosevelt’s views, for the latter expostulated angrily to Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg that Londonderry had “no more brains than a guinea pig, he was as obtuse as a lamp-post; I might as well have talked to the chair opposite us. If the hereditary legislators are in the average like him in the House of Lords, then the Lord have mercy on England!”[308] Naturally, these observations were grist to the Kaiser’s mill, and he was delighted that Roosevelt had defended the German Navy so strongly.
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