Impressions of the Kaiser

Front matter

SlONl

JAYNE HILL

Class.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I The Sources op the Kaiser's Power . . 1

II The Kaiser's Methods of Personal Control 30

Preface

As I send this book to the press I find that, although it has been written in a strictly judicial spirit, appealing only to facts that have been carefully verified, I have described the genesis of the greatest crime which history records.

The fifth year of the Great AVar reveals the enormity, but it does not yet disclose the denouement, of this crime ; which has filled with grief and smitten with poverty tens of millions of homes, swept from the earth in the vigor of youth the flower of the manhood of several great nations, and leaves vast spaces scorched and blasted by the fires of devastation to be again rendered habitable by the labors of old men, cripples, and half-famished children.

With such a scene spread out before the eyes of the civilized world, vituperation and invective are only signs of impotence. We cannot repair this calamity by denunciation. We cannot prevent its recurrence without suppressing its cause. The first necessity is to perceive wherein is to be found the root of this evil.

At first sight we seem to have discovered it in a single spontaneous personal act, but a little reflection should convince us that no human being alone

PREFACE

and unaided could perpetrate such a crime as has been committed. To render it possible there is necessary a contributory perversion of human institutions. Through such a perversion this catastrophe has come to pass.

It is, therefore, not merely with William II as a personality that we are here concerned, but with the whole process of seduction by which as German Emperor he has led the German people, at first distrustful of his purposes, to render themselves subservient to the Prussian conception of the state and the ambitions of the Hohenzollern dynasty. Under his tuition and guidance, from motives which he has been able to excite and call into action, they have built up a war-machine of perilous potency without providing means for its rational control. They have rendered the state omnipotent and irresponsible, and have placed its powers at the disposal of a single will that holds itself without accountability to men.

The first four chapters of this volume were printed in Harper's Magazine for May, June, July, and August of the present year. They constitute only the vestibule of the present record, which broadens into an outline of Imperial German diplomacy after Kaiser William II became the acknowledged master of Germany's destinies. It culminates in an answer to the primordial question upon which the future Peace Congress will be called upon to act, Who is to be held responsible for causing the Great War? and raises the collateral ques-

PREFACE

tion, What must be done to prevent a similar assault upon civilization in the future ?

The one blessing we may hope for as the outcome of this struggle is that out of the sorrow, desolation, and impoverishment which it will leave behind it enough courage and resolution may survive to render impossible a purpose to repeat it.

David Jayne Hill.

September, 1918.

Chapter I The Sources Of The Kaiser's Power

THE true lessons of a tragedy are not to be found in the supreme moment when the drama has reached the climax of passion, but in the errors of judgment or defiance of moral law that have made it a tragedy.

In attempting at this time an analysis of the sources of the Kaiser 's power and the methods employed for its further development, my purpose is to throw a new light, if possible, upon the present European situation by lifting a curtain, not upon the scene as it is set upon the stage of contemporary action, but upon the evolution of the chief character of the drama in the course of his preparation for the role which he has cast for himself.

This process of development is possibly more vivid to my mind, and certainly more impressive in my judgment, from the fact that it was my lot to be in Germany in the two most critical periods of the political evolution of the Empire. As a result, there is an inevitable concentration of thought, not merely upon the contrast between the two periods — which may be roughly designated as 1888-90 and 1908-14 — but upon the causes that have connected them and that explain the transition from the earlier to the later period.

In these two periods my points of view were different, and each had its peculiar advantage. In the first period I saw William II as his own people saw him, and intimacy with them disclosed the estimate they placed upon him. In the second period my personal contacts with the Kaiser himself during more than three years were more intimate and more varied than usually fall to the lot of a foreign ambassador at the Court of Berlin.

At the time of the accession of William II as King of Prussia and German Emperor, on June 15, 1888, after the brief reign of Frederick III, the German Empire had already taken on its definite form and was regarded as a firmly established great power, which might or might not become a menace to the rest of Europe according to the policies by which its future might be determined. The unity of the German states was secure, the power of Prussia was every^vhere felt among them, and the work of Bismarck was complete.

That the Empire was an achievement of superior military force on the part of Prussia, and in no sense a creation of the German people, was universally understood. No one familiar with the history of Prussia doubted that its influence would continue to be dominant in the Empire. The Prussian philosophy of the state had completely triumphed ; and to that philosophy, based on monarchical absolutism, the idea of parliamentary control was known to be repugnant. The King of Prussia was by heredity the German Emperor, and no King of Prussia had ever forgotten the traditions of the House of Hohenzollern, which had advanced from a Suabian lordship to the eminence of empire by centuries of conquest, annexation, and unscrupulous diplomacy, seeking alliances wherever additional power or prestige could be obtained, and renouncing them whenever they became a burden or ceased to oifer an advantage.

Every intelligent German understood this; but now that the strength and policies of Prussia were at the service of the Empire, the state that had long been the common menace and often the hated enemy had become the protector and potential organizer of all, and the primitive tribalism that had always characterized the Germans, that had attached them to their local princes, that had in its time effectively nullified the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, that had embroiled them in internecine Avars, and for centuries had made German territory a prey to foreign conquest and hopeless division, was now merged in a larger tribalism. Germany had at last become self-conscious as a nation, and the mutual hostility that had doomed the German tribes to separatism was now transformed into a general hostility to all that is not German. No longer a mere geographical expres-

2 3 sion, as for centuries it had been, Germany had become through blood and iron the victor over a common foe. Thenceforth, as throughout German history the stronger tribe had dominated over the ■weaker, so now Prussia, which had evoked the soul of Deutschtum, had imposed upon it a superior Avill, and there arose from a united people the cry, " DeutscJiland ilher Allesf

The economic advantages of the Empire had become evident and immense. A great realm for ages divided by a tangle of limited frontiers was now made one. Exchanges had been promoted by the Zollverein, which had afforded a foretaste of the advantages of unity ; but now the walls of separation were entirely swept away. Central authority was clearing the ground of local impediments to general industrial and commercial prosperity. But, above all, the provincial spirit of earlier times was vanishing, a universal emancipation of thitherto restricted energies was occurring. Germany, unified, victorious, prosperous, and aspiring, felt- a s.ense of mighty strength and a keen impulse toward wider expansion. Poverty was giving way to wealth, frugality to luxury, and humility to pride.

Before the Germany of 1888 two paths were open. Had Frederick III, surnamed the ''Noble," continued to reign a decade, instead of only ninety-nine days, the tendency in government would have been toward liberalism. More and more the Imperial Constitution would have been interpreted in a liberal spirit. Ministers would have been chosen with reference to the will of the people as expressed in the Reichstag. The Emperor would have reigned, but his Ministers would have governed. The highest ideals of self-government might not have been swiftly realized, and certainly not immediately; for, as all German statesmen and writers have agreed, the Germans have not been bred to self-government. They have always relied upon their princes as more or less paternal rulers, and they would think it presumptuous to dictate to their recognized superiors. But actual government always consists more in a spirit than in a form. Autocracy and democracy are theoretically antithetical ; but practically a ruler nominally absolute may listen to the voice of his people, while the head of a democracy may exercise the will and display the qualities of a Csesar.

For Germany strong central control seemed to be essential, and the character of the Prussian monarchy opened a path toward absolutism in the future development of the Empire. There was, it must not be forgotten, an Imperial Constitution. The whole future of Germany depended upon the interpretation of it. Without changing an article, it could be administered liberally or autocratically ; for in all constitutional governments it is the historic spirit that prevails.

The point of conspicuous interest here is the interpretation of the Imperial Constitution that was actually made and accepted, and to this must be added the tendency to confirm or to reject it that has been developed during the present war.

Whoever will take in hand the Constitution of the German Empire ^ and read it merely as a document will be surprised, if not already familiar with its contents, at the f agade of liberalism that presents itself.

First of all, it is a written constitution; which implies that it is, in effect, a definition and restriction of sovereign power so far as the prerogatives of government are concerned. It begins with a list of independent sovereigns — ^kings and grand dukes — the King of Prussia heading the list and acting in the name of the North German Confederation, who "conclude an eternal alliance for the protection of the territory of the Confederation and the rights of the same, as well as for the promotion of the welfare of the German people." It neither renounces nor abrogates the sovereign rights of the monarch s who form this new alliance. It confers a "common citizenship" upon all Germans and enumerates their rights. "Against foreign countries all Germans shall have an equal claim upon the protection of the Empire." The legislative power of the Empire is conferred upon the Bundesrat and the Reichstag, a majority of the votes of both bodies being necessary and sufficient for the passage of a law. The King of Prussia has merely the "presidency" of the Confederation, with the title of "German Emperor."

iDodd, Modern Constitutions, Chicago, 1912, I, pp. 325, 351.

Nothing in all this sounds in the least autocratic. On the contrary, all seems very liberal. The German Emperor is not a monarch, except in Prussia. All the other confederated sovereigns are equally monarchs in their own realms. He is only a * * president,'' primus inter pares. Whence, then, his autocratic power I

Ninety-nine one-hundredths of the Imperial Constitution could be transcribed into the constitution of the most democratic federal state mthout serious criticism. The absolute authority which the Imperial Constitution undoubtedly confers upon the King of Prussia is ingeniously concealed under the most plausible camouflage.

It is impossible here to enter upon a detailed exposition of this device, in which Bismarck believed he had triumphed over parliamentarism, which he bitterly opposed, and had rendered himself as Imperial Chancellor omnipotent in the Empire under a "president" whom he intended to be merely titular. The whole structure of government in the Empire pivots on the action of the Imperial Chancellor, as provided in Articles 15 to 17. The Chancellor is appointed by the Emperor, requires no confirmation, and cannot be removed except by the Emperor. The Imperial Chancellor alone can by his signature give validity to the decrees and ordinances of the Emperor, and "thereby assumes responsibility for them"; but only to the Emperor, who has the right of forcible execution in all the states.

It did not require very long for the alert intelligence of William II to perceive who, nnder this organic law, possessed all the power in the Empire. Armed with the prerogative of personally appointing and recalling every one of real importance nnder the Imperial Constitution, and with the authority to execute by force his owti decrees and ordinances, "this young man," as Bismarck rather contemptuously called him, at the age of twenty-nine, ascended what he understood to be, in effect, the imperial throne, regardless of the pretense that it was only the seat of a "presidency." As soon as the death of Frederick the Noble was announced, he promptly took possession of his entire heritage, in the full consciousness that as King in Prussia he could extend the prerogatives of kingship over the entire Empire.

As a youth he had aroused the deep concern of his father. On the twelfth anniversary of his son's birth, Frederick III wrote in his diary :

"It is an occasion for fear when one thinks of the hopes that rest from this time forward upon the head of that child, and what a great responsibility is incumbent upon us toward our* country for the direction of his education, since considerations of family and rank, the life of the Court of Berlin, and so many other things render his education difficult."

The condition of Germany in the years that followed in no way diminished the reasons for this solicitude. The return to Berlin of victorious armies, the coronation of his grandfather, William I, the universal exhilaration of newly unified Germany, the glory and the praise of Prussia, had all acted upon his sensitive nature like the excitement of a play, and yet it was palpable reality. All the prose of life seemed dull to him. As a young soldier he passed rapidly through the different grades up to that of general ; but it was never forgotten by his comrades when at school in Bonn, or in the army, that he was some day to be the head of that glorious Germany that had more than realized the dreams of the medieval time, when mailed knights led their armies over the Alps to be crowned at Rome ; and, most of all, the young prince himself never forgot it. All the realities with which he came in contact were veiled in the glamour of a time when it seemed that everything was possible, and that a new and marvelous era had just begun.

Of all those youthful impressions that had touched the imagination of the young Kaiser the deepest was that of the victorious army which in his boyhood had returned from France. Of the three rescripts with which he began his reign, the first, on the day of his accession to the throne, was addressed to the soldiers. ''The absolute and indestructible fidelity of the army,'* runs this first utterance of the young Emperor, "is the heritage transmitted from father to son from generation to generation. . . . We are inseparably united. . . . We are made for each other, I and the army, and we shall remain closely attached whether God gives us peace or storm/ ^^

This has been the keynote of the Emperor's entire reign. The army, that was his first thought, for it was that which had created his imperial heritage, it was that which could enable him to read into the Imperial Constitution the full meaning of the Hohenzollern traditions, and make the whole realm what his ancestors had made Prussia, a patrimonial estate to be transmitted by him to future generations of his House.

To "William II the army was a dynastic possession. Was it the "nation in arms," as Germans love to speak of it, that was in his mind ? Perhaps, but not the nation controlled by the people's will. The oath of its allegiance is not taken to the Constitution, but personally to the Emperor. The Prussian Constitution openly proclaims this, and explicitly declares, "A swearing-in upon the Constitution of the country does not take place." As King of Prussia and as Emperor the Kaiser is the head and chief of the Prussian and the Imperial army, to whom alone and without question they owe obedience. He has, therefore, the legal right

1 In quoting from the Kaiser's speeches, unless otherwise stated, the text has been taken from one of the following authorities : Wilhehn II, die Reden Kaiser Wilhehn II (Reclams Universal Bibliothek, 4 vols.) down to 1912; The Kaiser's Speeches, translated and edited by Wolf von Schierbrand, New York, IQ03 ; The German Emperor as Shown in His Public Utterances, by Christian Gault, New York, 1915 ; and Arren, Guillatime II, ce qu'il dit ce qu'il pense, Paris, 1912. To avoid multiplying foot-notes, the date and place of utterances are mentioned in the text, which renders easy reference for verification.

to say, as he has said, ''The more people shelter themselves behind catchwords and party considerations the more firmly and securely do I count upon my army, and the more confidently do I hope that my army, either without or within my realms, will wait upon my mshes and my behests.'' Not only this, but he felt it necessary to say to the new recruits: "You have sworn loyalty to me; that means that you are now my soldiers, you have given yourselves up to me body and soul ; there is for you but one enemy, and that is my enemy. In view of the present agitations it may come to pass that I shall command you to shoot your own relatives, brothers, yes, parents — which God forbid — but even then you must follow my command without a murmur." And, in saying tliis, he knew that he was appealing to an instinct of personal fealty nowhere in the world so strong as that bred into the nature of Germans through the many centuries of obedience when existence depended upon the feudal consecration of a vassal to his lord, who alone could afford protection to his life.

Such an army cannot inquire into the causes, the laws, or the moralities of war. Mute and obedient, it marches where it is ordered to march, stands where it is ordered to stand, and falls, when it must fall, in the faith that God will reward its fidelity with eternal blessedness.

The second thought of the new Emperor on the day of his accession was of the neglected little navy. Already his fancy had taken wings beyond the frontiers of the Empire, and led him to dream of its extension beyond the sea. No German Emperor had ever thought it worth while to address a rescript to the navy, but it was William's second act. "Whoever knows the navy," he wrote, ''is aware that every man is ready to sacrifice his life for the German flag. ... In grave moments we shall certainly be united, and in fair or cloudy days we shall always be ready to shed our blood to safeguard the honor of the German flag and the glory of our German Fatherland."

Having thus identified the army and the navy with himself as the two most powerful instruments of his purposes, it was not until the fourth day that he issued a rescript to the people.

The eagerness with which the new Emperor had addressed himself to the army and navy before issuing a general proclamation to the nation as a whole, joined mth his reputation for impulsiveness, his inexperience, and his independence of character, awakened in serious minds much apprehension.

In his proclamation of June 18, 1888, to the people, William II apparently endeavored in some degree to mollify this feeling of popular distrust. His filial references to his father, whose noble qualities had won for him the love and trust of the people, aided, perhaps, to dissipate the rumor that they had not been in close accord. "Looking to the King of all kings," he said, "I have vowed to God, following the example of my father, to be a righteous and gentle prince, to foster piety and the fear of God, to maintain peace, to be a help to the poor and oppressed, and to be a righteous man, a true protector."

Notwithstanding this effusion of lofty sentiments, and the formal declaration of public policies, on June 25th, before the Reichstag — in which the hand of Bismarck is plainly visible — there remained for some time in the minds of thoughtful Germans a deep solicitude for the future of the Empire, and a fear, often freely expressed in private conversation, that the impetuosity of the young Emperor might involve the country in serious complications, especially in relation to foreign powers.

Conscious of this, and determined not to be influenced by it, William II took his owm counsel, but not without resentment toward his critics. Years afterward he said, referring to this period of doubt : *'I assumed the crown with a heavy heart ; my capacity was everywhere doubted, and everywhere I was wrongly judged. Only one had confidence in me, only one believed in me, and that was the army; and, mth its support, and trusting in our old God, I undertook my responsible office, knowing full well that the army is the mainstay of my country and the chief pillar of the Prussian throne, to which God in His wisdom has summoned me."

This passage reveals not only Kaiser William's original and persistent basis of self-confidence, but the ground of the public anxiety regarding his want of discretion. In a sense, all Germany was military, and relied upon the army for its protection ; but many a shoulder was significantly shrugged at the thought of what this imaginative, spontaneous, and as yet undisciplined potentate might rashly undertake to say or do that would involve danger to his country.

With violently militaristic inclinations the Emperor combined a disposition to introduce the practice of personal government and personal diplomacy. The first public acts of the new reign were hardly over before William II, to the dread of the conservatively minded, started out upon a round of personal visits to the neighboring courts. On July 14th he reviewed the fleet at Kiel in the uniform of a Prussian admiral, which no King of Prussia had ever worn. The next fortnight was consumed in calls upon his Baltic neighbors. Cruising from port to port on the Hohenzollern, he spent five days at Cronstadt with the Czar of Russia, and followed this mth personal visits to the King of Sweden and the King of Denmark. A little later Stuttgart, Munich, Vienna, and Rome were visited ; and the year ended with the laying of the first stone of the free port of Hamburg and an inspection of the shipyards of the Vulkan Gesellschaft at Stettin. Already the thought was plainly in the Kaiser's active mind which he afterward expressed in the sentence, *' Germany's future lies on the water. '*

Germany was not at that time quite ready for so great a widening of its horizon, but William II evidently intended to make it so. The staid conservatism of Bismarck, tempered with the moderate liberalism of **Unser Fritz," as the Germans affectionately called Frederick III, wonld have been far more acceptable to those who had played a great role in the founding of the Empire ; but, so far as sounding the depths of the German soul is concerned, William II was a better psychologist than either of them. The people might distrust the Kaiser's personal diplomacy, but they were inspired by his imagination. He was bent on creating a new age; and Germany, especially Young Germany, was ready to welcome it.

What the new Kaiser most completely represented was that vague entity knoA\Ti as Deutschtum. From myth and saga and song, from the clash and rattle of arms and the blare of trumpets, he knew how to evoke it. What Richard Wagner caught and put into music that William II caught and put into government. All that lingered about the Rhine was laid on German lips to sing again. All that was heroic in chivalrous adventure was once more recalled, and it was all made to seem German — only German.

Running through all this was the legend of the Kaiseridee — the religious sanctity of God's anointed shepherd of the people. Barbarossa had at last awakened from his long sleep and come forth from the mountain fastnesses which had hidden and guarded his tomb until the day of his deliverance, and his spirit had become reincarnated in the new Emperor.

It is difficult for strangers to realize the forces wrapped up in the revival of a national culture restored from the mold of ages. As a German writer has phrased it:

**It was as if the golden lute of Walther von der Vogelweide sang again softly through the ruined castles ; as if unseen hands touched the bells in the weatherbeaten cathedral, and a glint of the morning rose over consecrated cities. There was a rushing in the deep, as if the treasure of the Nibelungen mov-ed in the green house of the water ; there was a thrill in the air, as if Siegfried's horn sounded in the distance."^

If the dim remembrance of an old, almost dead, national culture worked such wonders, how much more would a new, living culture be the sanctuary around which in the future the Germans should gather from near and far? German power and German beauty — these should be the goals of the new Germany! As the fathers had made the Ehine a German river, so the sons should make the ocean a German lake! ^'Noch lebt der alte Qott in unserem Blut!"

Frankly, this is a revival of primitive paganism. ''The old German God" is not the sorrow-burdened Saviour of the world. He is a god of battles, made

1 Fuchs, Der Kaiser, die Kultitr, imd die Kimst, Munich and Leipzig, 1904.

potent through the swing and blows of his hammer. He is not the All-Holy, or even the Creator of the universe, the All-Father. He is a purely tribal divinity, the apotheosis of tribal power and tribal hate, whose plans and protection are for Germans only. How otherwise can he with any sense always be referred to as *'the old German God"? Only thus can he be spoken of as *'onr unconditional and avowed ally." ''Unconditional," because whatever Germans do is right; and "avowed" because success in arms is the sufficient evidence of his alliance.

What made William II the master of German destinies was the fact that he, more than any other, was the embodiment of these tribal rhapsodies.

And, in spite of all opposition, he became the master. His idealism, his impetuosity, his self-confidence, to Bismarck appeared positively dangerous. To many the venerable Chancellor, the virtual creator of the Empire, seemed the essential counterpoise and balance-Avheel to the young Emperor's spontaneity; and this was the opinion of Prince Bismarck himself, who intended to keep "this young man" within proper bounds.

It is unnecessary here to repeat the story, so often told, of the "dropping of the pilot. "^ Bismarck himself believed it to be impossible. When

1 A very circumstantial account, and the most recent, is given in Germany Under Three Emperors, by Princess Catherine Radziwill (Catherine Kolb-Danvin), London, etc., 1917, to which I am indebted particularly for the quotations from Holstein, Bismarck's confidential clerk in the Foreign Office, and other quotations.

they appeared upon the streets of Berlin, where I often saw them pass in open carriages, the Chancellor received as many signs of deference and devotion as the Emperor. In truth, to all observers, in 1888-89, Bismarck seemed to be the cornerstone of the whole imperial structure. The best asset of the young Emperor was the fact that this seasoned statesman was by his side as friend and counselor.

In the Emperor's eyes the country squire, whom his grandfather had made a prince, was, notwithstanding his ability and his services, merely the creature and the temporary instrument of the Hohenzollern dynasty, for that alone possessed true authority, which God had directly bestowed upon it. The difference, he thought, must be understood.

Personally, William, as CroM^n Prince, had learned much from the astute statesman, and Bismarck's great services to the House of Hohenzollern were distinctly recognized by him ; but from the moment of his accession the Emperor felt that he was overshadowed in the world's esteem and made distinctly secondary — he who should be first.

For the break, which in the Emperor's mind was inevitable, there were many reasons. Not only was the Prince too conscious of his importance, but he was scheming to cast the mantle of succession to the chancellorship upon the shoulders of his unprincipled son. Count Herbert, for whom he had an inordinate affection. The Prince had aimed to stamp out Socialism; but William intended, to the

Chancellor's disgust, to destroy it as a party by winning it as a beneiiciary. Bismarck, after forming tlie Triple Alliance with Austria and Italy, believed he had a reinsurance for peace in a close friendship with Russia; but William, who had seen with indignation the grim fortifications at Brest-Litovsk — a name recently made famous by almost farcical peace negotiations — had conceived a profound distrust of the Czar's purposes, and was disposed to cultivate the good-will of France and hold firmly to the Austrian alliance.