THE KAISER AT HOME. (M.A.P.)

Otago Witness, Issue 2653, 18 January 1905, Page 70

THE KAISER AT HOME. (M.A.P.)

— A Subordinate's Revenge. —

I have long since given up the. theory — if, indeed, I ever held it — that difference of social position involves and implies difference in happiness. Many years ago Professor D'Arcy Thompson — one of the teachers of my youth — told me how he had seen a few ragged boys jumping over a small pool again and again ; that when he passed them it was early in the day, aiul he was just going to his college to deliver his lectures ; that when' he came back late in the afternoon he found the boys still there, and they were still jumping over the pool of water, and still laughing hilariously and whole-heartedly over the performance. And that he gave as his proof that poverty did not mean misery, nor wealth happiness.

— Behind the Scenes. —

If anybody, however, were inclined not to accept this gospel, he had better read the books which profess to give an inside view of continental royalties. I have just been reading one of these books : it is called, "The Private Lives of William II and his Consort" (Mr Heinemann is the publisher), and it professes to be written by on© who 'Was aoi official of the Court — presumably a maid of honour, or, perhaps, a governess. Whoever the person was, she had her grievances, for her verdict on her treatment is given in these words : —

"Let me say that in all that period. I was but used as a beast of burden by the great personages, my masters, whom Providence sent into the world 'ready booted and spurred to ride' — no better, no worse."

Well, whatever the lady's wrongs, she lias attempted to avenge them in this publication. I have never read a more malignant work : indeed, its malignity makes it almost harmless. Like most people who write under the impulse of hatred, she defeats her own ends by the exaggeration of her indictment. Nobody could be so selfish, so insensate, so childish as the German Emperor is represented to be in these pages. One has simply to take everything the writer says for what it is worth, and to make a very liberal deduction from its statements. By such means one can get perhaps .something like a correct picture of the very remarkable and somewhat disturbing young man who weilds all the mighty forces of the German Empire. It is not altogether a pleasant picture. But when one leads such, a book as this and some of the' details as to the attacks on the private life of the Emperor and his consort, one begins to understand iSihy it is that the throne of a German emperor is but too well calculated to bring out the harder and more self-assertive .side of a man's character

—The Egotist.—

The main thesis of the book is the boundless egotism of the German Emperor; his craze to represent himself a master of every subject, and to take to himself all the eulogies which are really due to other people. Not satisfied, for instance, with being the head of the army, the head of the navy, the Emperor wished to figure as a composer and as a dramatist. Everybody may remember how at one time every band in every German regiment was engaged in playing the "Song to Aegir," which, it was said, had come from the uninspired bi-ain of the Emperor, and there are descriptions in Ihis- book of how adulations for his feat were poured upon his head with the most^ lavish hand, and even by his own relatives. Here is one such scene :

"On October 24, 1894, the Kaiser's 'Son? to Aegir' was performed at a matinee in the Royal OpeVa House, which the Prince and Prineess^of Wied attended, together with their Majesties. The Prince is a man in ihe fifties, belongs to one of the proudest families in Europe, and, besides, is the brother of the Queen of Roumania, and an uncle to the Queen of Holland 1 : yet every time that the big audience waxed enthusiastic over his Majesty's alleged masterpiece, this old man, with silvery hair, rose respectfully from his seat and bowed low before, his nephew, keeping up the farce all through, the performance without William in any wav restraining him."

— Who Wrote It?—

And yet the author maintains that the Emperor had little or nothing to do with, the masterpiece which obtained for him such tremendous applause. Here is the story of the composition as told by one of the princes of the Court to AdjutantGeneral Moltke, one of the high officials round the Emperor: —

"The Emperor was strumming the piano with one finger, when a certain blonde giant about your size stepped behind him, and, striking the keys, gave life to a musical composition he, the giant, had half perfected in his head. The air pleased his Majesty, and he added a note here and there. And as the thing progressed my big brother said : 'Tliis would be an excellent accompaniment to Eulenburg's northern legend. Call him at once.' When the troubadour appeared, all three of you set to work on this frightful piece of clap-trap, and, as you correctly reported, the honour of putting the composition on paper fell to you as the only capable musician of the trio — the most capable, I said, not the allhighest one." "*

— Playwright . —

The writer makes equally meiry with the Emperor's pretence of being able to lead an orchestra. It is true that "on one occasion he did take the baton, and he did lead an orchestra, but, says the writer, it was when the band, took up pieces which it "could have played in the dark, and with eyes closed." On another occasion the Emperor got np — says our writer — before a highly artistic audience, and, accompanied by one of his officers, sang "a ballad abounding in difficult passages." He has tried his hand at playwriting, too, but again, the chronicler pursues with her sleuth-hound \enonij, and she nxiblisheg an anonymous

letter -which gives the popular opinion with regard to "this performance : "Caligvila used to call his senators up from bed that they might see him dance. 'Loloki' keeps us all night at the Opera House to hear him declaim about his grandfather's impossible virtues and about the superlative statesmanship of Bismarck's empUyer, charging us a fat entrance fee in addition."

Caligula, the mad Roman Emperor of old, I should say, is a favourite comparison for the German Emperor. A pamphlet by a professor, which made a lengthened and elaborate parallel between the two rulers, sold by the hundred thousand. For none of his performances does the Kaiser get credit for originality by this critic. "As," she writes,, "Herren yon Moltke and Philip Eulenburg are the real authors of 'his' 'Song to Aegir,' so Professor Knackfuss in Casel composed his cartoons, though being credited only with their technical execution. The late Court chaplin, Frommel, tis°d to wiite the Imperial sermons delivered with so much eclat on the deck of the ya cht Hohenzollern ; officers of the military household prepare William's lectures, and the artist Karl Saltann paints his landscapes and. marine views."

—Jack of all Trades.—

But, unfortunately for her case, the writer proceeds afterwards to give the Kaiser credit for composing the speeches of Prince Henry, his brother, this she does only to make another point against him. Here is what she has to say on this point:

"While in his family circle the Kaiser is generally spoken of as T>ig brother,' 'big cousin,' and so forth, Heinrich never fails to designate and address him as 'Lord of the Sea,' or 'High Admiral.' He consults him about the merest details concerning his command, and professes to be thoroughly happy only wheu his Majesty approves of his conduct as a, mariner. Twice, or oftener, I heard him say to William during his occasional visits to Berlin and Potsdam, 'Do not forget about that speech of mine for the Marine Club Dinner,' or 'If you cannot come to this or that opening or naval exercise, be sure to send me the speech. You can talk it over the telephone, and I will h/ite a stenographer ready at the other end to take it down, word for word.' "

This looks as if the Emperor had 1 more originality than the author gives him credit for elsewhere, but she immediately proceeds to build upon it a further count in the indictment of mad vanity which s>he makes against the Emperor. As thus:

"There lives not a man or woman at court who does not intuitively feel that Prince Henry's speech of December 15 was conceived and dictated by the person addressod, from the opening words:' 'Exalted Emperor, Puissant King and Master, Illustrious Brother,' to the closing phrase: 'Our sublime, mighty, beloved Kaiser King, the lord of all times for ever and ever. Hurrah,! hurrah ! hurrah?!' William wrote it word for word, as he did a dozen other tirades inflicted by his brother upon festive and official gatherings."

— Son of Mars. —

The assailant of the Emperor is on surer ground when she attacks him for that terrible address he once gave to some young recruits, an address which sent, I think, a shudder pretty well all through Europe. The biographer of the Emperor is not ashamed to confess that she took a copy of the address from the manuscript, which she found 1 on the Kaiser's desk, in his 'tall, forcibly-rounded hand'; and here is this portentous pronouncement : " 'Eecruits ! Remember that the German Army must be as ready to fight enemies that may rise in our midfet as foreign foes. To-day disbelief and malcontent are rampant in the Fatherland to a heretofore unheard' of degree; consequently, I may call upon you at any time to shoot down and strike to the ground (neidersteehien) your own relatives — father and mother, sisters and brothers. My orders in that respect mus,t be executed cheerfully and without grumbling, like any other command I may issue. You must do your duty, no matter what your hearts' dictates are. And now go home and attend to your new duties.' " The Emperor may not be half as illbalanced as the biographer tries to make out. but assuredly this is militarism gone mad!

—Imperial Father. —

There is something almost equally grotesque in an alleged interview between "the Emperor and one of his children. Young Prince Adalbert, hearing such talk about a coming expedition o-f his uncle, Prince Henry, innocently askvrl his father: "Will you let uncle have the Hohenzollern.?" — the Hohenzollern, as mv readers know, being the private yacht of the Emperor. Whereupon this strange scene was enacted — at least, so our author sayS:

'The Kaiser, who had been very pleasant at luncheon, and whose humour* had continued in a hanpy mood while we were sipping our coffee, suddenly changed his tone. Assuming the style of a severe preceptor, he made the frightened boy leave his mother's knpe and 'stand at attention.' 'Under which title does the Hohenzollern rank in the marine list?' he demanded. 'His Majesty's, the Aviso, yacht Hohenzollern, at his Majesty's exclusive disposal,' reported the tiny lieutenant. 'Well, then,' said the Emperor, 'understand, sir, no subject shall assume the Kaiser's privileges.' His Majesty had spoken so severely and with such excessive emphasis that the little Prince became frightened and had to be conducted from the room, while the small assemblage of officials and guests sat about dispirited, a feeling of unrest having displaced the previous joviality."

— The Empress. —

There is one other figure that stands cut in relief in this scurrilous book; and, notwithstanding all the attempts of the author to besmirch it, that figure remains tender, womanly, sympathetic. It is true that the author always represents her as an almost trembling wife ; as paralysed or sobbing in the presence of her lord whenever he happens to be out of temper. "The Kaiser left the dining room without offering hi,s arm to the Empress, agd her Majesty

followed him to inquire the meaning-pf tha scene. Her eyes were red and she was evidently labouring under great agitation" — these are specimens of the records scattered over this volume — all calculated, as will be seen, to show up the Emperor as an exacting husband and the Empress as a somewhat poor-spirited wife. Here is an amusing story in which the Empress is represented as telling of herself by way of preparing a pleasant surprise for the Emperbi\ She had painted some chairs a bright lilac. The Kaiser was inveigled into one of the chairs ; and the lights being rather low, nobody at first saw the result. But here is what followed:

" 'No sooner were the lights turned on,' reported Auguste Victoria to her first lady, Countess Brockdorff, the following day, 'and while I myself was settling down in the second chair, when I saw the Emperor start up half surprised, half angry, with his hands and other portions of his body thickly besmeared with pigmeinl, that I felt, to my hiorror, also adhered to my body. With the Kaiser, you know, cleanliness is almost a passion, and his repugnance to coming into contact with anything like wet paint is so great that he cannot help losing his temper. My dear," he said, "this is a sorry joke." And neither explanations nor excuses were, of the slightest avail. '• ' "Ring for turpentine I" That is all he -would say.

"'I awakened Haake, and told her to order Madame A r on Larisoh to send up a bottle of the stuff; but, needless to say, she had none on hand Then the Emperor dpmanded that one of the body gendarmes ride into town and fetch a bottle. Like a simpleton, he awakened the apothecary, enly to be told that he must go to a drug store. Drug stores, as you know, have no night bells, and are not obliged to serve customers after the ordinary closing time. It took the gendarme a full hour to get what he wanted, and 1 even then he was obliged to invoke aid from a military patrol.

" 'The next 30 or 40 minutes I spent in cleansing my lord's legs, arms, and hands, and afterwards poor Haake had to do the same for me. It was the most miserable night I ever experienced.' "

— Simple Tastes. —

There are several other touches that 1 go to make up the picture of the Empress. She is asked by her husband to use her influence to get the wife of the late Prince Hohenloe to -nduce him to come to Berlin for Chancellorship, and she writes a despatch accordingly. "The Emperor's commission, his confidence, made her Majesty unspeakably happy. s '' "It is one thing to be a Queen, and another to reign," she said proudly, when William had left, after correcting and. partly rewriting her despatch. "She is now obliged,*' says the writer in another passage, "to make her own fire in the grate on chilly mornings" ; and, finally, her favourite dish, especially for supper, is cold park and potatoes. From all of which I deduce the opinion that she is a thoroughly domesticated, sweet, devoted woman, and that these shafts of ridicxile which are thrown at her by the writer of this book fail to reach her. She emerges only the brighter from this fierce light that beats upon her throne.

— Palaces of Glass. —

There is one chapter in this book which has made a more disagreeable impression upon me than any other: it is that which ttlls the stories of the anonymous letters. For months every gentleman and lady in the Court, from lh<T Emperor and Empress downwards, were in the receipt of anonymous letters, decorated often with caricatures, sometimes of loathsome indecency ; and in these letters every ioul charge that fiendish ingenuity could invent were made 1 . It requires little imagination, to realise ■what suffering and even terror such a system must have produced. I have known, as I think, some of the -worst horrors of the inside of political life — its treacheries, its assassinations by the malignant pen or the venomous tongue ; but I stagger before the infinitely greater horrors of the inside of a Court. Just fancy what the life of this man or woman must be? Amid all their claims of omnipotence, they are surrounded by vigilant, relentless enemies. One of them has written this book. Theze is not an act — there is not a word — there isn't even a look from the rise of the sun to its setting which is coi watched, criticised, recorded against them. A palace — especially in an autocratic Court — seems to be something between a prison and a dunghill. — T. P.