Dreadnought, Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War

by Robert K. Massie

  William, secure in the bosom of his regiment, the esteem of his wife, and the approbation of the Bismarcks, was almost completely estranged from his parents. He opposed the liberal opinions of his father and believed that the strong English sympathies of his mother were anti-Prussian and unpatriotic. He was bitter and contemptuous of what he saw as his father's dependence. "My father… has a soft heart and is so unable to stand on his own two feet that one might say he is even helpless in domestic affairs," William said to Herbert von Bismarck in 1886. "Now I cannot talk to my father at any time in an open and relaxed manner because the Crown Princess [William at this time always referred to his mother as "the Crown Princess"] never leaves us alone for even five minutes for fearjthat my father-having at last recognized how honest my intentions towards him are-would come under my influence."

  One formidable figure, beyond the reach of Kaiser William I and the Bismarcks, always supported the beleaguered Crown Prince and Crown Princess: Queen Victoria. The Queen could not intervene: in German political affairs, but she knew how to make her opinions known and her weight felt on matters affecting the family. In 1885, when William's sister Victoria wanted to marry Prince Alexander of Battenberg-a match endorsed by the Crown Prince and Crown Princess-the Kaiser, the Bismarcks, William, and Dona opposed it on the ground that the Battenbergs were a family of little significance. Queen Victoria found William's opposition especially insufferable as he had himself taken a wife of minor royal distinction. "The extraordinary impertinence and insolence and, I must add, unkindness of Willy and the foolish Dona force me to say I shall not write to either," the Queen wrote to her daughter. "As for Dona, poor little insignificant princess, raised entirely by your kindness to the position she is in-I have no words… As for Willy, that very foolish, undutiful and, I must add, unfeeling boy, I have no patience with him and I wish he could get a good 'skelping' as the Scotch say." The Queen added that William would not be welcome at Windsor, and an invitation to him was withdrawn. William's first reaction was vehement-he called his grandmother "the old hag"- then apologetic; he asked his mother to try to have the invitation reinstated. Vicky wrote to the Queen, attempting to explain her son's behavior: "William is always much surprised when he is thought unkind or rude… fancies that his opinions are quite infallible and that his conduct is always perfect-and cannot stand the smallest remark, though he criticizes and abuses his elders and his relations… This only finds encouragement from Dona and all around him. I trust the faults which make him so difficult to get on with will wear off as he gets older and wiser and associates more with people who are superior to him and can laugh at many of his foolish ideas."

  The relationship between mother and son did not improve. In 1886, Vicky wearily complained to her mother, "He did not condescend to remember that he had not seen me for two months, or that I had (been to England… or that his sisters had the measles. He never asked after them or you, or any of my relations in England, so that I felt hurt and disappointed… He is a curious creature. A little civility and kindness go a long way, but I never get them from him…" A year later, in 1887, Vicky seemed resigned: "The dream of my life was to have a son who should be something of what our beloved Papa was, a real grandson of his in soul and intellect, a grandson of yours… But one must guard against the fault of being annoyed with one's children for not being what one wished and hoped."

  In January 1887, the Crown Prince became hoarse and had trouble clearing his throat. At first, this was blamed on his frequent colds, but at the beginning of March, when the symptoms persisted, Dr. Gerhardt, a professor of medicine at Berlin University, was summoned. Gerhardt found on the Prince's left vocal cord a small growth, which he attempted to remove, first with tweezers, then by burning with a hot wire. By May, the growth had reappeared and the wound caused by the treatment had not healed. Dr. Gerhardt called in another specialist, an eminent surgeon, Dr. Ernst von Bergmann. The two doctors considered the possibility of cancer; whether the growth was malignant or not, they proposed surgical removal of the diseased area. King William I and Bismarck were consulted, although Frederick himself had not been told. "The doctors," Bismarck wrote, "determined to make the Crown Prince unconscious and to carry out the removal of the larynx without having informed him of their intentions. I raised objections and required that they should not proceed without the consent of the Crown Prince." The Kaiser agreed and "forbade them to carry out the operation without the consent of his son." Three additional doctors who were summoned diagnosed cancer; they suggested removal, not of the entire larynx, but of the affected area of the vocal cords. If successful, the operation would leave the Crown Prince permanently hoarse but with a voice. Bergmann predicted good prospects: the disease had been caught early; the patient was in good health; the operation should be "not more dangerous than an ordinary tracheotomy." He promised, according to Prince William, the "recovery of my father's voice 'so that he would be able to command an army corps at a review.' " To this course, the Crown Prince and Crown Princess agreed, although Vicky trembled at "the idea of a knife touching his dear throat." The operation was scheduled for the morning of May 21.

  Before proceeding, however, the German doctors unanimously recommended that one more laryngologist be consulted. The preeminent laryngologist in Europe, described as "the greatest living authority on diseases of the throat," was Dr. Morell Mackenzie, an Englishman. Dr. Mackenzie, urgently summoned to Berlin, arrived on the evening of May 20 and examined the patient. He insisted that unless it were proved that the growth was cancerous, the operation should be cancelled. In his opinion, the swelling was not cancerous; rather it was a "fibromatous swelling which could be removed without any operation in from six to eight weeks of treatment." The Crown Prince, "like any other mortal, must come to his clinic for treatment." The surgery scheduled for the following morning was cancelled. Dr. Mackenzie asked that a fragment of the larynx be removed and examined by Dr. Rudolf Virchow, the foremost pathologist in Germany, Director of the Pathological Institute of Berlin University and the creator of cellular pathology. Virchow examined the tissue and pronounced the growth benign. A second, larger fragment was taken a day later. Virchow again declared that he could find no evidence of malignancy. Dr. Gerhardt and Dr. Bergmann, protesting that pathology remained an unproved science, insisted that their original diagnosis was correct. They warned that the tumor was spreading to the other side of the throat and that if Dr. Mackenzie was wrong, valuable time was being lost. Mackenzie, relying in part on Virchow, remained emphatic. The final decision was left to the Crown Prince and Princess. The patient and his wife selected the hopeful English diagnosis over the gloomy German one.

  Mackenzie examined Frederick in London early in June and recommended that his patient go to the Isle of Wight, whose mild climate, he said, would promote a cure of the throat infection. The German doctors, declaring that climate had no effect on swellings of the larynx, malignant or not, opposed this treatment but were overruled- The Crown Prince's presence in England permitted him to ride on June 21 in Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee parade through London. None in the crowd cheering the tall, bearded figure in white uniform, silver breastplate, and eagle-crested helmet suspected that he could speak only in a tiny whisper. Fritz dutifully spent three months in Britain, dividing his time between the Isle of Wight and the Scottish Highlands. For a while, he seemed to be better. Queen Victoria acceded to her daughter's request and at Balmoral, in the present of Fritz and Vicky, knighted Morell Mackenzie for saving her son-in-law's life. In September the Crown Prince! and his wife moved on to Venice and Lake Maggiore, where, at the; end of October, his voice disappeared completely. Early in November, Vicky established him in a villa set in a grove of olive trees Overlooking the Mediterranean at San Remo.

  The growths steadily increased. The Crown Princess and Crown Prince; still believed in Mackenzie's diagnosis but, in Berlin, Kaiser William I, Prince Bismarck, and the sick man's son, Prince William, did not. William asked his grandfather's permissi
on to go to San Remo to verify his father's condition. The Kaiser agreed and assigned three new doctors, two Germans and an Austrian, to accompany him. William's sudden arrival at San Remo precipitated a clash. "My arrival gave little pleasure to my mother," Kaiser William II later recalled. "Standing at the foot of the stairs, I had to allow the flood of her reproaches to pass over me and to hear her decided refusal to allow me to see my father… My father's condition, in my mother's opinion, gave no cause whatever for alarm, but the stony expression of her face… gave the lie to what her lips uttered… Then I heard a rustling at the top of the stairs, looked up, and saw my father smiling a welcome to me. I rushed up the stairs and with infinite emotion we held each other embraced."

  Vicky described the same scene to her mother: "You ask how Willy was when he was here. He was as rude, disagreeable and as impertinent to me as possible when he arrived, but I pitched into him with, I am afraid, considerable violence… He began with saying… [that] he had to speak to the doctors. I said the doctors had to report to me and not to him, upon which he said that he had the 'Emperor's orders'… to report… about his Papa. I said it was not necessary, as we always reported to the Emperor ourselves… I said I would go and tell his father how he behaved and ask that he should be forbidden the house… Willy is of course much too young and inexperienced to understand this. He was merely put up to it at Berlin. He thought he was to save his Papa from my mismanagement. When he has not his head stuffed with rubbish from Berlin, he is quite nice and traitable and then we are pleased to have him; but I will not have him dictate to me-the head on my shoulders is every bit as good as his."

  Vicky did agree to have Fritz examined again. Mackenzie, who was present, dramatically reversed his diagnosis: the Crown Prince was suffering from cancer, and would be dead within eighteen months. The other doctors agreed, adding that now even a complete removal of the larynx would do no good. "My father took his sentence of death-for such it was-like a hero, standing upright and looking the doctors firmly in the face," William said. Alone together after the doctors had left, Fritz and Vicky wept and clung to each other. "To think that I have such a horrid, disgusting illness!" shuddered Fritz. "That I shall be an object of disgust to everyone and a burden to you all!" To her mother, Vicky wrote, "My darling has got such a fate before him which I hardly dare to think of."

  Through most of the winter the couple remained at San Remo while as many as fifty reporters, crowded into the Hotel Victoria, kept ja macabre watch. There were demands from Berlin that the Crown Prince return; Kaiser William I, approaching ninety-one, was ill and could not survive much longer. Vicky refused. The only thing that mattered was her husband's health: Berlin was freezing and damp;; if Fritz was to have any chance, it would be in the warm Mediterranean sun. Queen Victoria supported her daughter: "The more failing the Emperor becomes, the more Fritz must make sure of getting well."

  The Crown Prince, sucking all day on ice cubes and with a bag of crushed ice tied around his throat day and night, began to suffocate. On February 9, 1888, a tracheotomy was performed and a permanent silver tube was inserted through his throat into his windpipe. On March 2, Prince William returned to San Remo. "[My father's] figure showed in its emaciation and the yellow color of the face unmistakeable signs of the rapid progress of the disease. He was perpetually tormented by a tearing cough, and no word passed his lips for his mouth was already forever dumb. Notes rapidly scribbled on bits of paper had to take the place of speech when gesture and mimicry failed."

  A week later, Kaiser William I died in Berlin. In San Remo, the new Emperor, Frederick III, gathered his household in the drawing room. He invested his wife with the highest Prussian decoration, the Order of the Black Eagle, which only the sovereign could bestow. He wrote a note on a piece of paper and handed it to Sir Morell Mackenzie: "I thank you for having made me live long enough to reward the valiant courage of my wife." Finally, he sent a telegram to Queen Victoria: "At this moment of deep emotion and sorrow at the news of my father's death, my feelings of devoted affection to you prompt me, on succeeding to the throne, to repeat to you my sincere and earnest desire for a close and lasting friendship between our tvyo nations. Frederick."

  On March 11, the new German Emperor returned to his capital. He was too weak to attend his father's funeral and stood weeping at; a window as the funeral procession passed on its way to the Charlbttenburg mausoleum. At his first Crown Council meeting, he asked questions and issued instructions by writing slips of paper. He made it clear that Bismarck would remain as Chancellor and that he would make no attempt to alter the Chancellor's policies. "In my entire1 ministerial career," Bismarck wrote in his memoirs, "the conduct of business was never so pleasant or lacking in friction as it was during the ninety-nine days of the Emperor Frederick."

  When the long reign of Kaiser William I had come to an end, the Queen had written a congratulatory note to Vicky: "My own dear Empress Victoria, it does seem an impossible dream, may God bless her! You know how little I care for rank or titles-but I cannot deny that after all that has been done and said, I am thankful and proud that dear Fritz and you should have come to the throne." At the end of April, Queen Victoria decided to visit her dying son-in-law. She went straight from her train to the Charlottenburg Palace and walked into the Crown Prince's bedroom. Wordlessly, he raised up both hands in a gesture of pleasure, then turned and handed her a nosegay. During the Queen's visit, Vicky brought Bismarck to see her. The Chancellor awaited his audience ill at ease; repeatedly, he asked the Queen's equerry where in the room the Queen would be and whether she would be standing or seated. To their mutual surprise, Victoria and Bismarck charmed each other. She asked him to stand by her daughter; "he assured me he would." "What a woman!" the Chancellor said afterwards. "One could do business with her." Later, he described her to his family as "a jolly little body." After the audience, the Queen said to the British Ambassador, "I don't understand why my daughter could not get on with Prince Bismarck. I think him a very amiable man and we had a most charming conversation." The grim purpose of the Queen's visit was never forgotten, however. During the three-day visit, Vicky often broke down. When it was time for the Queen to leave and she already had entered her railway carriage, Vicky followed and clung to her mother. "It was terrible," the Queen wrote in her journal, "to see her standing there in tears while the train moved slowly off."

  On May 24, the dying Emperor appeared in the chapel of the Charlottenburg Palace at the wedding of his second son, Prince Henry, to Princess Irene of Hesse. He wore a uniform whose collar was cut high enough to cover the tube in his throat. Despite his feebleness and emaciation, he insisted on rising and standing during the exchange of rings. It was apparent to everyone that Frederick's reign would be short and that within a matter of weeks William would become Emperor. This tormented Vicky, not only because her husband was dying, but because, with Frederick's death, Prince Albert's dream of a liberalized Germany in partnership with England also would die. The Crown Princess tried to keep Frederick- and, it seemed to William, the Imperial crown-to herself for as long as possible. "I soon noticed that difficulties were being put in the way of my visits to my father," William wrote. "… Then I learned that spies were posted who gave timely notice of my arrival at the palace, whereupon I was either received by my mother or greeted at the house door with the information that the Emperor was asleep… When at last I succeeded, with the help of the valet… in slipping by the backstairs unnoticed into my father's bedroom,: he showed himself greatly pleased to see me… When he gave me to understand that I ought to visit him more often… and I answered that I had already called several times but had never been admitted, he was greatly astonished… he said that my presence was welcome to him at any time." Colonel Swaine, the British Military Attache in Berlin, wrote to the Prince of Wales: "We are living in sad times here in Berlin… Not sad alone because we have an Emperor at death's door… but… because almost all officials… are behaving in a way as if the last spark of honor and fa
ithful duty had gone-they are all trimming their sails. It seems as if a curse had come over this country, leaving but one bright spot and that is where stands a solitary woman doing her duty faithfully and tenderly by her sick husband against all odds."

  Frederick's illness and approaching death summoned up poisons from the vast reservoir of Prussian antagonism to England. Already in September 1887, when the Crown Prince was leaving England to recuperate in Italy, Friederich von Holstein, First Counselor of the German Foreign Ministry, was spewing venom at the sick man's wife: 'The Crown Princess's behavior is typical. Gay and carefree, with but one idea-never to return to Prussia. I persist in my view, which is now shared by others, namely that from the very beginning she accepted the idea that the worst would happen. Judging by all I have heard of her in recent months, I am tempted to call her a degenerate or corrupt character. Nature and pressure have combined to produce this effect. She came here thirty years ago, her father's spoiled darling, convinced she was a political prodigy. Far from acquiring influence here, she saw herself obliged to renounce any kind of open political activity and to conform to the restraint of the Prussian court which she hated. She has always despised her husband. She will greet his death as the moment of deliverance."