THE EMPEROR WILLIAM.

Evening Star, Issue 11453, 22 January 1901, Page 8

THE EMPEROR WILLIAM.

AS SEEN THROUGH GERMAN SPECTACLES. So grave an. offence is lese majeste held to be in Germany that we rarelyget an opportunity of learning what is -the view which the average subject of the Emperor William entertains in regard to His Majesty. All the nior.e welcome, therefore, is the appreciat'en of the German Emperor which Herr Ludwtg Klausner-Da-woc gives in the new i>,imber of the 'Fortnightly Review.' The wr.tcr is a frank and fearless critic as well a? a keen observer of character. He has much to say in. praise of his Imperial master, but at the same time ho is not negligent of his faults. LIKE A RING SET WITH JEWELS. Liko most of us, Herr Klausner-Dawoc is impressed by the kaleidoscopic and varied features of the Emperors personality:— He is not a " Koh-i-noor," a " Regent" ; ho is more liko a ring set with dilferent jewels, varying in value, size, color, and fire, which, combined, make a more dazzling ipipression than the rarest single diamond. From his father he has inherited his good temper, his love of arts, and magnificent display ; from his mother, the Princess Royal of Great Britain, he has his love of the navy, and all sorts of out-door sport, as well as for adventuring himself in the liberal arts ; from his grandfather, William L, ho has the instinct of the soldier in the good, businesslike sense, who may in due time be a good general, but need not turn out to be a great captain, a Napoleon, a Frederick, a Marlborough. And there are still more influences which moulded his character. He was the first of the Hohenzollerns who visited a public school and made friends tltere with sons of simple citizens—even with a Jew. Add to this that, after losing in about a quarter of a, year his two predecessors, he succeeded to the throne both rather young and almost unprepared. THE DISMISSAL OF BISMARCK. One of the greatest merits of William. 11. in the eyes of the writer of this character sketch is that he preferred peace rather than ■war. "The temptation to make use of the most perfect war machine in Europe, at that time still guided by a goodly number of celebrated generals, Bismarck and Moltke still fclive, must have been very great for an ambitious young man." His second merit was that he dismissed Bismarck : This may seem strange, considering that a young monarch needs nothing more than an old, wise, and strong Minister, more especially a Minister of thfi world-wide fame and influence of a Prince Bismarck. But jt was exceedingly good luck for Germany that Prince Bismarck was not permitted to die in harness, as he often wished. If he had died as Chancellor, without the world having had an opportunity of seeing William H and Germany getting on without Prince Bismarck, his death would no doubt have meant war, very likely a European war. Alive and not ruling, Prince Bismarck served as it were as a buffer State. As it ■happened, both France and Russia bad to fear the reappearance of Cincinnatus. Meantime, the world had seen that all was right in Germany without the great founder of /.ie Empire. But it may be granted that tliis high political motive was not the only cause of the overthrow of the first Chancellor. Long before this catastrophe there have been politicians who prophpsied that *ra young Emperor and the old Chancellor *,-ould not be in accord for long. Prince himself was sagacious enough to forestall his own fate, for he used to say the Emperor would be liis own Chancellor. Yet he was not wise enough to take the consequences. Maybe gratitude, the popularity of the Chancellor, and the advantage of having such a man as first Chancellor would have made the Emperor delay from day to day and from year to year the catastrophe, were not his over-ruling desire to let the world, especially his own people, know that in Germany, in Prussia, the monarch is the real ruler. William 11. was jealous not as ft man, but as a sovereign. One should 1-e master, and that one was not to be tl.j Chancellor. It was a question of principle. Tt was a point of honor with the young Emperor to shr>w the world in our more or less republican age that monarchs are not necessarily superfluous ornaments, but ought to and could do good work for their civil list. OVERDOING IT. The Emperor, although -perhaps the most modern monarch alive, was anxious to revive inonasrcnical feeling just as the Roman Emperor Julian 11. (Apostata), in spite of having besn a Christian, wanted to revive Paganism. Herr Klausner-Dawoc does not hesitate to say, however, that, in his zeal, William 11. Werdoes it sometimes : To have brought before the public one of £is musical compositions, "to circulate his drawings and pictures, did not exactly further the Emperor's ends, at least in the opinion of the educated classes. They know very well that to distinguish oneself nowadays in music or painting requires thorough and lifelong application, such as an emperor could not afford, even if he was less of a soldier, a politician, .traveller, hunter, and, above all, of a conscientious ruler. Thus Fuspicion arose here and there, that vanity was at the bottom of it, or something of a Neronian desire to force people even against their better judgment to applaud and exclaim : " Quafis artifex!" Educated classes, too, know full well that the time for universal geniuses has gone, and that one has plenty to do to excel in a special art. Altogether the Emperor made the greatest of mistakes when h<j meddled with art. The way he is encouraging authors of patriotic plays :s more hurtful than beneficial, both to the jnthors and to that sort of poetry. People .somehow turned the old adage "Quod licet Jovi nou licet bovi" into " Qnod licet bovi non hcet Jovi." An Emperor should not be jtboye composing and painting, but above pubtishmg. HIS SPEECHES. According to this exceedingly frank critic, the Greatest enemies of the Emperor are one of his virtues and one of his talents. The first is his genial, impulsive temper, and thelecond his power of speech. With regard to . the latter, Herr Klausner-Dawoc expresses the opinion that His Majesty is more ruled by it than he rules it. "He gets, as it were, intoxicated by his own srords, and is carried away by his rhetorical phrases." The Emperor, we are told, speaks «s a poet who is under the influence of his inspiration and is carried away by it, and by his rhymes and his ihythms: In former years, when the Emperor made use of extravagant expressions, thev were excused by reason of his youth and'his inexperience. That is now no more possible, ninco he is in Ids prime, and has sat thirteen ;*?ars on the throne. A German Byron may perhaps, " mutatis mutandis," some day say ©f him what Lord Byron said of Napoleon : An Empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild, But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor, Jiowever deeply in men's spirits skilled, Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war, Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star. The world at large, generally, does not think bf William 11. as orator or poet, but as Emperor, and attaches to his speeches more political importance than they are meant to Lave. The Saalburg speech of the Emjieror the other day, for instance, which the London Press took as a startling programme of a. monarch aspiring to the empire of the world, made no such impression upon Germans, who have moro accustomed themselves to the Emperor's rhetoric. William il. seems to be conscious now of his weakJiess. At least, he did not take it amiss nvhen Count Bulow suppressed some of the jnost ferocious passages of his Hunnen speech, else he-would not have nominated "him successor to Prince Hohenlohe, whose greatest merit during his six years' chancellorship was that he knew how to be the aether millstone. Such, merits are not to the taste of everybody, certainly not of'the multitude. Psychologists, however, and historians can estimate the real value of Itatesmen. who, for the benefit of the whole, Jfcnitonin.tlifedarJsand.appear^weak..