William II makes every effort to keep the Triple Alliance on its legs (it being as lame as himself) whilst he continues to give vent to his triple _hoch!_ and resumes once more his rushing to and fro, so wearisome to his faithful subjects, which compels the European Press to groan so loudly that his pennon (Imperial in Austria, or Royal in Bavaria) waves madly about his excited person. Meanwhile the Emperor Alexander III, calm in the serenity of his nature, takes his rest in the pleasant retreat of Fredensborg, where he finds contented virtues and the joys of family life.

It really looks as if a certain deviltry were at work against William II.

His splendid statecraft now revolves about questions of rye bread, Russian geese, and American pork; he struggles amidst a ma.s.s of difficulties more comic than sublime. He has imposed a system of rigid protection in order to entangle his allies in a net of tariffs favourable only to Germany, and now behold him, all of a sudden, removing the duties off diseased pork, all for the profit of the McKinley Bill, the scourge of Germany. Only the future can say what dangers await a policy of fierce protection and dangerous favouritism. How much simpler and cleverer it would have been to remove the duties on cereals! As far as the people are concerned, cheap pork will never appeal to them as cheap bread would have done. The progressive party had asked for both; the satisfaction they have received appeases them for the moment, but the socialists will still be able to say that William's Government takes off the duties on foodstuffs that poison the people, and leaves them on those which would afford them healthy nourishment.

September 27, 1891. [14]

William II has decidedly no luck when he puts the martial trumpet to his lips. It was at Erfurt that he learned that the tribes of the Wa Hehe had ma.s.sacred Zalewski's expedition into East Africa. It is said that, on hearing this news, the German Emperor, seized with one of those sudden outbursts of rage which throw him into convulsions, swore to avenge in torrents of blood the insult thus suffered by the ever-victorious banner of Prussia. Are we, then, to see the Reichstag in its turn, like the French and Italian Parliaments, wasting its millions and its men in colonial adventures?

At Munich, William II has declared that the wretched condition of the artillery in the Austrian army, the lack of cohesion in its infantry, and the inexperience, not to say incapacity, of its officers, render it unfit for war in the near future, and that no hope of its improvement is to be entertained, so long as it shall have as its head a man so completely worn out as Francis Joseph. Germany's armament is to be completely changed and renewed, and it is even said that William will go down in person to the Reichstag during the autumn session to demand the enormous credits which the situation requires. The _Neue Munchen Tageblatt_ has been seized at Munich for having published an attack upon "the mania for armaments and for military pomp which possesses William II, a mania which is exhausting Germany and will leave her completely ruined after the next war."

November 12, 1891. [15]

The unfortunate Const.i.tution of the German Empire, like the Emperor himself, doesn't know which way to turn. Legislation, administration, the army; the universities, the Church and the administration of justice: everything is being pa.s.sed through a sieve, and transformed, first in order that it may retransform itself and then become more readily accessible to the rising generation. Anything that savours of a ripe age is extremely displeasing to William II. Ripeness is a thing which he disdains to acquire. All that is youthful finds favour in his eyes, with the sole exception of a cla.s.s of youth with which he is disposed to deal severely, viz. the _souteneurs_. Against them the _summus episcopus_ is extremely wroth. Here the virtue of chaste Germany is at stake, and he proposes to cauterise the disease with a red-hot iron. For the future, the scandalous discussion of these things will be forbidden to the Press, and thus, even if private morals continue the same, public morality will not be offended. Hypocrisy, at least, will be saved.

There is much talk at Vienna of a plan whispered at headquarters in Berlin, which has to do with converting the capital of Austria into an entrenched camp, so that an army driven back from the Austro-Russian frontiers might there be re-formed. William means to throw Austria against Russia, and to take his precautions in case of defeat, precautions which would at the same time, safeguard the rear of the German Empire.

November 29, 1891.

Germany is becoming uneasy; she has heard the rustling of the wings of defeat. Accustomed to victory, she is suffering, as rich people suffer under the least of privations. Bankruptcies, one after another, are spreading ruin in Berlin. Bismarck and William, united in a very touching manner on this subject, conceived the idea of bringing about Russia's financial ruin, and of importing into the Prussian capital the vitality of the Paris market. The fall in Russian securities was unlucky for the German Bank, and all the scrip that the Berlin Bourse so greedily devoured, for the sole purpose of preventing Paris from getting it, does not seem to have been easily digested. The middle cla.s.s is suffering from the bad condition of the market, and the increase of taxation; the lower cla.s.ses are hungry.

Impa.s.sive in his majesty, the Emperor contemplates himself upon the throne. Now you will find him copying Louis XIV and writing in the golden book of the city of Munich _Regis volontas suprema lex_. And again he will imitate St. Louis, but not finding any oak tree within his reach, he administers justice on the public highway, as in the Skinkel-Platz. He is having his own statue made of marble, to be placed alongside of his throne. Great Heavens! If some day, this were to be for him the avenging Commander's statue! [16]

But no, it cannot be, for has he not been converted? Is he not the _summus episcopus_, who conducts the service in person? Has he not composed psalms? Could anybody be more pious, a more resolute foe of those vices which he pursues with such energy? Could any one be more determined to be a pillar of the Church? In his interviews with the delegates of the synod of the United Prussian Church, has not the _summus_ said that the Reformation drew its strength from the hearts of princes? True, you may say, that this does not sound very like a humble Christian; but then humility had never anything to do with William.

At the administration of the oath to new recruits, after having held forth to them on the subject of the hardships at the beginning of a soldier's life, he added, "It shall be your reward when you have learnt your trade, to manoeuvre before me."

December 13, 1891. [17]

The nations of Europe desire peace, and it has been so often proved to them that they also desire it, who have been accused of furbishing their weapons unceasingly, that it would be dangerous even for William II to seem to be preparing for war, or rather that, having made ready for it, he should be working to let it loose. And so it comes to pa.s.s that the fire-eating Emperor and King of Prussia himself is compelled to play the part of a bleating sheep "admiring his reflection in the crystal stream,"

and that he cannot even have recourse to the expedient, now exhausted, to make it appear that either France or Russia are ravening wolves in search of adventure. But the role of a sheep sits badly on William, and the _mot d'ordre_, which he dictates is so evidently opposed to the condition of affairs for which he is responsible, that Messrs. Kalnoky and Caprivi, in spite of their appearance of rotund good nature, have shown distinct signs of intractable irritation.

People have been asking what can be the meaning of all these pacific a.s.surances, so hopelessly at variance with everything that one sees and knows, at a moment when the Monarch of Berlin is furious at the visit of the Tzar to Kronstadt? Well, the truth is out, and it is M. de Kalnoky who, by proxy, shall reveal it to you.

"The reception at Kronstadt and its consequences have effected no change in the situation." There you have the secret. It is necessary to prove that the diplomacy of the Triple Alliance has not been checked at any point or in any way; that the "excellent impression," to quote the words of M. de Caprivi, left in Russia by the visit of William II did not allow the Tzar any alternative; he was compelled to show attention to some other country than Germany. Moreover, the appearance of Alexander III on the _Marengo_ was nothing more than a simple desire for a sea trip; France, going like Mohammed to the mountain, bore in her flanks nothing larger than a mouse. Finally, that Peace never having been threatened by the Loyal League of Peace, there could be no possible reason left to France and Russia for wanting to defend it, etc., etc.

William II is working hard to control and direct the diplomacy of the Triple Alliance. Nevertheless, all his scaffolding work is liable to sudden collapse, overthrown by the most insignificant of events.

Regarding his speech to the recruits, the German Press has pluckily voiced its condemnation by the public. It is impossible to deny that his observations on that occasion were a perfect masterpiece of self-glorification. This is what he said--

"You have just taken the oath of fidelity to myself. From this day forward there exists for you one order and one order only, that of my majesty. Henceforth you have only one enemy, mine, and should it be necessary for me some day (which G.o.d forbid) to order you to shoot your own parents, yes, to fire on your own brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, on that day remember your oath."

Those who wish to form an accurate idea of William's loquacity and self-conceit should read a few pa.s.sages, selected haphazard from "The Voice of the Lord upon the waters," a sermon by His Majesty, the Emperor-King, for use in polar voyages. There they will find a strange hotch-potch of all sorts of ideas, religious, political and heathen, all half digested. But the dominant note in the sermons preached by William II lies in his tendency to diminish the Infinite, to hold it within the measure of his own mind, to bring down G.o.d to his own stature. All his comparisons tend to show G.o.d as an Emperor, built in the image in which William sees himself. When he draws you a picture, in which he brings G.o.d face to face with himself, there is about him a certain splendour of pride, something in his utterance that suggests an Imperial Lucifer. But beyond these relations between G.o.d and the German Emperor, his utterances reveal nothing beyond commonplace self-conceit. In his perpetual and personal contact with the Divinity, William's morality becomes more exacting than even that of G.o.d Himself towards His saints, who have long enjoyed His sanction to sin seven times a day. William II will not allow of a single sin. Everywhere and in everything he must interfere. Well may his subjects say, who have just received their catechism: "He is on heaven, on earth, and within us."

January 1, 1892. [18]

I, who have so long been devoted to the Franco-Russian Alliance, have followed with acute distress the intrigues of Bismarck in Bulgaria (intrigues of which the _Nouvelle Revue_ revealed one proof in the letters of Prince Ferdinand of Coburg to the Countess of Flanders). I have known that William, in spite of his actual dislike for the proceedings of his ex-Chancellor, is pleased to approve the impertinences of a Stamboulof. Nevertheless, I confess I am seized with anxiety at seeing France enter into diplomatic proceedings with the so-called Government of Bulgaria. It is very often more dignified to despise and ignore the enterprises of certain people, then to endeavour to obtain satisfaction from them. There are certain complicated circ.u.mstances in which the manifestation of a sense of honour or loyalty becomes a weakness: at all costs one should avoid being led into it.

The Emperor of Germany possesses a special talent for adding new complications to a difficult situation, so as to render it impossible of solution. He has now so completely tangled up the parliamentary skein, that in a little while it will be impossible for Parliament to govern.

Can one conceive of a majority of the Chamber rallying around the Catholic centre, or the socialists, for the same reason, increasing in number at the bye-elections? In such a case William II, equally unable to surrender in favour of the clericals or to submit to the socialists, will find himself, as others have been before him, driven to adopt the ultimate remedy of war.

February 12, 1892. [19]

If the States of Germany, in joining themselves on to Prussia, have thereby increased in power, they have gained very little in humanity.

The circular, secretly issued by Prince George of Saxony, commanding the 12th Army Corps, reveals something of the brutalities and exquisite torture which German soldiers have to suffer. This circular was addressed to the commanders of regiments, and has been published by a socialist newspaper, the _Vorwarts_. This Prince of Saxony is indignant at these things, doubtless because he is a Saxon; Bavaria, we are told, declines to accept the application of the Prussian Military Code. By common consent, the House of Peers and the Chamber of Deputies at Munich have voted against subscribing to a condition of things which permits men to behave like real savages. Military Germany takes pleasure in cruelty, sentimental Germany is moved by the tortures inflicted on her children.

Brutality and sentiment rub elbows, and are so strangely intermingled amongst our neighbours that I, for one, abandon all attempts at understanding them.

It was Von Moltke who said one day that the army was the school of all the virtues. Next day the same Field-Marshal put into circulation certain formulas for the infliction of cruelty, intended for the use of commanding officers.

"If a superior officer should order an inferior to commit a crime, the inferior must commit it." Thus says William II, who in the very next breath expresses his sentimental concern over the unfortunate lot of a woman of loose life handed over to the tender mercies of a bully!

William's latest quarrel, it seems, is with liberty of conscience. The _summus episcopus_ of the evangelical religion becomes the protector of clericalism in Germany. He, the elect of G.o.d, has discovered the power of the Catholic Church. This was the power that broke Bismarck, but it will not break William II, for he intends to a.s.similate it. He dreams of establishing his Protectorate over Catholicism in Europe, America, Africa and in the East; his destiny lies in a world-wide mission, which only Catholicism can support. He will, therefore, dominate the papacy, and through it will govern the world.

February 26, 1892. [20]

The list of Emperor William's vagaries continues to grow. He, who was once the father of socialists, now pursues them with all manner of cruelty, in order to be revenged for their opposition to the scholastic law. This law is his dearest achievement. He produced it under the same conditions as his socialist rescripts, all by himself, without consulting his Minister. It seems that Von Sedlitz was instructed to bring it forward without discussing its terms. This is a reactionary _coup d'etat_ in the same way that the rescripts on socialism were a democratic stroke. Will this "new course" of Imperial policy, as they call it in Germany, last any longer than its predecessor? I presume so, for it corresponds more closely than the old one to the autocratic instincts of William II.

The National, Liberal and Progressive parties, and even the Socialists, who had turned full of hope towards their Liberal Emperor, now vie with each other in turning their backs on the Sovereign, who fulfils the policies of a Von Kardoff or a Baron von Stumm, the most determined Conservatives of the extreme party.

The Universities of Berlin and Halle, together with all the other educational inst.i.tutions, have addressed pet.i.tions to the Landtag, protesting against the re-organisation of the primary schools, which it is proposed to hand over to the Church. Sixty-nine professors out of eighty-three, six theologians out of eight, including amongst them certain members of the Faculty, have signed this protest. The greatest names of German science and literature have here joined forces. Liberals like Herr Harnack have made common cause with such anti-Semite Conservatives as Professor Treitschke. Mommsen, Virchow, Curtius Helmholtz, stand side by side in defence of the rights of liberty of thought. William is becoming irritated by the lessons thus administered to him and the opposition thus displayed, and his nervousness continues to a.s.sume an aggressive form.

Alsace-Lorraine is undisturbed, and all Europe bears witness to its pacific tendencies; nevertheless, the German Emperor is bringing forward a Bill before the Reichstag for declaring a state of siege in Alsace-Lorraine, which includes even a threat of war, and opens the door to every abusive power on the part of the civil authority. The speech which he addressed to the members of the Diet of Brandenburg is the most complete expression which the Emperor, King of Prussia, has yet given of his latest frame of mind.

How dare they criticise him, or discuss his policy! Let them all go to the devil! He, whose policy it is to block emigration, now wishes for nothing better than that all his opponents should leave Germany. But it is impossible to revoke public opinion wholesale, like an edict. If it is difficult now to expel all malcontents from Prussia, what will it be when their number is legion? William II has promised to his people a glorious destiny, happiness, and the protection of Heaven. Truly these Germans must be insatiable if they ask for more!

March 12, 1892. [21]

William II aims at concentrating all power, and, to organise the work of espionage, in the hands of the military authorities. If the Prussian law of 1851 is still effective, the Emperor in case of need will be able to dispense with a vote of the Reichstag. This law confers on every general and on his representative, who may be an officer of eighteen years of age, the right to declare a state of siege in the event of war threatening. On the other hand, the projected Bill against espionage meets with very general approval. Your German has got spies on the brain. He wishes to be able to indulge in spying in other countries, but to prevent it in Germany. The _Frankfurter Zeitung_ and the _Vorwarts_ a.s.sert that the proposed law against the revealing of military secrets was inspired by the publication of the report by Prince George of Saxony, containing revelations of a kind which the Emperor does not wish to occur again. One of the articles of this law against spying reveals the Prussian character in all its beauty. One has only to read it, in order to understand the inducements which the Government of William II holds out to informers. The end of this article runs as follows: "Every individual having knowledge of such an infringement, and who shall fail to notify the authorities, is liable to imprisonment."

To hear these Germans, one would think that France and Russia are flooding the Empire with spies, whilst Germany never sends a single one of them to France or Russia. In the first place, all these statements are purely cynical; and in the second Germany can very well afford to dispense with professionally selected spies, inasmuch as every German prides himself on being one at all times in the service of the Fatherland.

April 12, 1892. [22]