THE KAISER AS I KNEW HIM.

Otago Witness, Issue 3168, 2 December 1914, Page 79

THE KAISER AS I KNEW HIM.

(By Anno Topham in the Daily Mail.) “ I suppose he really is almost like an Englishman, isn’t ho?” How often, in speaking of the present German Emperor, have I been asked that question and returned the same reply : “ No, indeed; he is intensely Gorman —nothing of the Englishman about him,” —an answer always received with some slight incredulity, for England was always anxious to believe the flattering thought that the powerful head of the great German race was English in ideas and feeling. Because when he came to our country he appeared to identify himself with English life, to study English conditions, to speak our language with ease, though in truth not so well as many others of his nationalitymore than all, because he had an English mother of well-known liberal ideas,—it was too easily assumed by this nation that the Kaiser was an Englishman in soul who, by the accident of birth, ruled Germany instead of England. They relied on the supposed Anglophile leanings of his spirit, looked on him as a buffer between themselves and German aggression. Even his constant “ indiscretions,” his many warlike speeches, failed to convince us; we felt vaguely that they were “ to please the Germans,” that at heart the grandson of Queen Victoria, the man who hurried to her side when she wai dying, must have in him the same mental fibre as ourselves. "DUPES RATHER THAN FRIENDS.” “ When one occupies certain positions in the world, one ought to try to make dupes rather than friends.” This frank confession \of faith made by the Kaiser to Princess Had/.iwill when he was as yet only Prince William of Prussia, and related by her in her merno.it- published in 1904, accords perfectly with an - intimate personal knowledge of this monarch. He has duped, or tried to dupe, many people, and been in his turn, consciously or unconsciously, the dupe and tool of the unscrupulous, but infinitely cleverer,, men than himself, who have been the real force behind the throne. He it was who introduced into the German newspapers the word “humbug/’ The thing itself has always been accepted in Germany as a necessary ingredient of international politics, but no monarch of modern times has sc unbluehingiy adopted the doctrine of unscrupulousness as has William li. In this respect his own personality has aiways greatly assisted him. He has known how to charm, to dazzle, to put people in a good humour with themselves. He is tire most constantly humorous monarch in exister cc—a trait which endears him intensely to tho German people. We in England imagine him to bo a grim-visaged man, with a mind concentrated inflexibly on armaments and naval extension. But that side of h's character has aiways been cleverly hidden under a mask of hilarity. Impossible to imagine that a man who is constantly cracking jokes of the baser sort, who loves to relate anecdotes of a somewhat submerged humour, can at the same time be lending himself to a plot against the peace ot nations and the righto of humanity ! He is not clever enough to plot himself, but he a'lows others to weave the snare, and then himself takes the cred.t. The paramount quality of his cleverness is the exploitation of otiicr people’s cleverness. UNGUARDED REMARKS. It is a good many years since I first cams to know something of the Kaiser. Be.ng myself a person of no importance whatever, it was perhaps natural that his remarks before mo should often be astonishingly unguarded, and it needed but a short acquaintance to discover that the benevolence of his intentions towards England was imaginary rather than real, and that our estimate of his character was woefully wrong. A certain perverted frankness of temperament made him blurt our ins real feelings one moment, only to regret hi ving done so the next —hence he was under tho constant necessity of trying to efface a previous impression. Certainly ho was not the strong, benevolent despot of the English imagination, but a man who was play ing his own game, and that game his own aggrandisement. An excessive, childishly exhibited vanity—a colossal belief in himself, a desire to figure personally in the forefront of affairs, has made him eager for the applause of the multitude. It has made him support with patience, even with enjoyment, the frequent tedious public ceremonies of his existence, and led him to colour them with an atmosphere of his own creation. His own personal ambitions have worked in admirably with those of the clever military clique of the Bernhardi school of thought who at present dominate Germany. They perceived that in their Emperor they had an admirable tool, that his natural bias was in the direction of their own strivings. He was for them tho man of “ powerful personality, who knows how to arouse the enthusiasm of the masses, to stir the German spirit to its depths, to vivify tho idea of nationality.” The same could not be said of the Crown Prince, popular though he is with a certain section of his father’s subjects, but who is selfindulgent, pleasure-seeking, and offends people whom he should conciliate. Neither has the young man yet learned to “ make dupes rather than friends.” PEOPLE’S BLIND ATTACHMENT. Tho Kaiser’s intelligence is shallow, his memory excellent, his knowledge superficial, his brilliance (sporadic. His mind has been moulded into clever imitations; ho has been supplied with passwords and shibboleths which he uses with the self-confidence and vainglory of men who depend for their intellectual superiority from without rather than within. He loves to skim off tho cream of other people’s conversations and reserve it for his own needs. His knowledge, if it were not frequently supplemented and corrected whore defective by exports, would frequently land him in difficulties. One thing he has learned well—to attach his people blindly to his cause. Ho now accepts tho Bernhardi doctrine, as exemplified by tho present war When —however it may end —it is over, ho will probably repudiate it with all his might, cry to the world his horror and grief at the sorrows of tho war-stricken, deplore the ruin of the people, the vandalism of his armies, and will bo exceedingly hurt if people doubt his sincerity. Ho is strangely incapable of foreseeing tho inevitable result of any lino of action ho takes, and is invariably surprised at consequences. To this fact more even than to his impetuous character have been due tho frequent blunders of his career—thoso blunders which infuriated the men who were so carefully building up tE* edifico of German domin-

ance and who feared a premature exposure of their plans. “ I wish our Emperor wouldn’t talk so wildly,” once sighed an annoyed German General to an Englishman who was lunching at Potsdam. “One never knows what ho is going to say r next. People don’t believe what he says in England, do they ?” he continued anxiously. This was in 1907, when his Majesty had announced that the German nation was “the block of granite upon which the Lord our God can build up and complete His work of civilising the world.” , “No,” was the answer; “we don’t believe that civilisation is going to be completed with just that particular block m granite; but, in case it is, we English hope, anyway, to get a good piece of frontage on the street. Eoundation-stones are chiefly underground.”