KAISER AT HOME

Otago Witness, Issue 3336, 20 February 1918, Page 58

KAISER AT HOME

DOMESTIC DETAILS FROM POTSDAM. Mr J. P. Slim, a well-known amateur English champion and Olympio finalist, lived in a Potsdam palace for 18 months, where ho taught boxing and other physical exorcises to Prince Oscar and Prince Joachim,. the two youngest sons of the Kaiser. He also instructed the Princess Friedrich Karl and Sigismund, the Kaiser's nephew, as well as many of the younger scions of the Prussian nobility. He has a remarkable scries of first-hand experiones to relate, and his uncoloured narrative is presented for the- valuable light it throws upon the characters and dispositions of the various members of the family of Hohcnzollern. My first interview with the Kaiser was brief; it was also rather overwhelming (writes Mr Slim in the Sunday Chronicle). It took place in the year 1910, in which year I was acting in the capacity of sports tutor to the two youngest sons of the Kaiser, the Princes Oscar and Joachim. An hour's tuition in boxing and other physical exercises was a part of the daily round of duty for Prince Oscar, and it usually took place between 'the hours x>f 11 and midday in a gymnasium that had been contrived in the Kabinettshaus, wliere I was in residence with the bachelor princes at Pctsdam. THE GOOSE STEP. On the morning in question I had walked out upon the drill ground to meet Prince Oscar. He was engaged on military duty with his regiment—he was a lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards —and was rather late. The drill ground was always an interesting v place for me, and on this particular morning it was rather more amusing than usual. Along the high stone wall stood 50 or more recruits to the Prussian Guards practising the goose-step. Each man balanced on a rigid left leg, supporting himself with his right hand against the wall. Then, in unison, they swung their rigid right legs backwards and forwards, stiffening their muscles for the unnatural parado step on which the Prussians so pride themselves. When I tired of their automaton movements I was able to turn my eyes to the spectacle of the Crown Prince. He was riding a very nice horse, a recent purchase of his; and with more force than real skill was driving the animal over half a doczn flights of hurdles, placed very close together. My attention was roughly withdrawn from these pleasing entertainments by a. harsh voice at my elbow, which said brusquely: " Are you the Englishman, Mr Slim, of whom I have heard?" " STERN LITTLE MAN." The Kaiser was in uniform, of course. My instant impression was of a well-set little man, pale and stern, with a commanding eye. One looks at men from the professional aspect, almost unconsciously; and I remember thinking at that first glance that here was a man who made the most of himself, and had acquired a great air by means of assiduous attention. _ That impression I afterwards confirmed in subsequent encounters. I had not much time for further observation at the moment, for he immediately said, with an air of profound displeasure: " Remember, please, that my sons are to be instructed in the accomplishments of a prince, not in those of a clown." Then he turned his back upon me and was gone. I stood there gasping with the suddenness of it. Before I had recovered my composure I saw Prince Oscar hastening across the drill ground with his clumsy, shambling gait—he was nearly 14st in weight, though not above medium height, and ill-built, standing over at the knee rather obviously. He wore marching uniform, with the heavy ugly marching boots that make the German look such a clumsy fellow. It occurred to me at the moment that, as far as appearances went, he was a good deal more clown than prince. "You have spoken to the Emperor?" ho asked, in evident consternation. " What did his Majesty say to you?" I repeated our short conservation —I had no difficulty in rembering it —and he grinned sheepishly. "A nice thing you did when vou taught me that straight fall," he grumbled "Come along inside and I will tell j'ou about it." ANNOYED THE KAISER, As he changed his uniform for boxing costume he explained. The fall to which he referred was a very simple acomplishment to anyone who knew how to do it. I first showed it to the Prince one day when wo were boxing, and he had landed', as he thought, a heavy blow. He was full of apologies, though I had not felt the blow, and as a joke I closed my eyes, made my body rigid, and with arms stif at my sides fell fiat forward on my face. With a shout of consternation he rushed forward to pick me up, and when he had done so I rewarded his solicitude with a burst of laughter. But I did not laugh as heartily as he; ho thought it was the funniest thing he had ever seen. It is no easy thing to make a Prussian prince laugh, but I thought he would never stop. Nothing would satisfy him but he must learn the trick, and he practised it assiduously every day, with his own wonderful thoroughness. Unfortunately, when he tried this on the family circlo as a surprise, he did it wrongly, and fell in a clumsy heap. The Crown Princess shrieked aloud, and the Kaiserin went near to hysterics. His brothers picked Princo Oscar up, rather dazed and incoherent, for in his excitement he had omitted one precaution I had tried to impress on him. I had told him to keep his chin well in, but he had forgotten to do so, and had taken some of the force of the impact upon the "point," and was pretty well knocked out. Consequently his fame explanations were received with Kaiserly fury; he was banished from the family party, which eventually dissolved in more than usual gloom. In German Imperial circles the forward fall was thenceforward known as a "silly English piece of buffoonery," and I was doomed to move about the., Imperial pre-

serves at .Potsdam conscious of the stern: disapproval of the Kaiser's eye '©very timo it feli upon me. I felt I was under suspicion of frivolity, and that feeling was not banished until Christmas Day of 1910, when, with Prince Oscar, I gave a boxing and sports entertainment before the wholo Imperial family at the Nouee Palais. The details of that very interesting experience I shall relate later, but it brought from the Kaiser himself an expression of commendation for the very marked improvement I had effected in the physical education of' tho Prince, which ho expressed in the most gracious terms. Thereafter he used frequently to stop me, and with a sort of unbending dignity discuss the progress of his two youngest sons, especially that of Prince Joachim, a weakdifference between myself,' in a humble way, and the court physicians. My experiences of the Kaiser at first hand were naturally confined to these littlo formal exchanges; but during: a residence at Kabinettshaus, which extended over 18 months, I learned a great deal from tho most reliable secondhand sources about tho Gorman Emperor. A ROYAL ENCOUNTER. One memorable experience was that of hearing him strike a resounding blow upon the face of his brother-in-law, Prince Leopold <of Prussia. This prince had married the Kaiser's sister, and was a typical Prussian Junker —brutal, drunken, and violent in his passion. He was the father the Prince Friedrich Karl, the German aviator prince who afterwards was wounded in an air light on the western front, and died a prisoner of war in the care- of the Australian forces. This prince was also a pupil of mine, as. was his brother, Prince Sigismund. Thrice a week I used to travel to Prince ■Leopold's Palace, the Jagd Schloss Gluenecke, at Neuo Babelsberg, four or five miles from Postdam, to givo them instruction. On one of my visits to this schloss I stood chatting in tho princes' reception room with Prince JTriedrich Karl and Prince Oscar; Prince Sigismundl was also present, I remember. Suddenly, from the next room, there rose the sound of loud, contentious voices; the loudest was easily identifiable as that of tho Kaiser himself. I noticed the disturbed countenances of the Princes, and we were about to move into some other compartment, when the ' dispute was ended by an unmistakable v sound, the sound of a heavy blow with the open hand), delivered upon unprotected skin. Prince Oscar dashed to the door and entered the room where tho quarrel was taking place; the other Princes stood stiffly and unbendingly at attention. Neither of them glanced 'at me. Presently Prince Oscar-Returned, with an elaborate air of unconcern. •"•"It is all over," he said, stolidly. "It was nothing. Papa'has just boxed Uncle Leopold's ears; that is all." The incident leaked out later, and was the gossip of Berlin. At the Potsdamer Schloss, a big, ugly palace near the Potsdam railway station, and adjoining the bachelor establishment of Kabinettshaus, where I resided wittr the young Princes, I could see all sorts of notabilities coming and going. The Kaiser had his business office there, and also a groat room where the Kriegspiel (the game of mimic warfare in which most Germany* take delight) went on from month tomon*ii. For the sake of clearness I would like to say that this Potsdsm Schloss must not be confused with the Berlin Schloss. the Kaiser's official place in the capital, nor with the Neues Palais, which is a magnifi-. cent palace three kilometres distant from Potsdam. Above this hall of the ; Kriegspiel was a room of corresponding dimensions which 'was fitted as a gymnasium, and here tho ,Princes ' used very often to take their lessons from me. I saw the notable folk coming and going from tho Kriegspiel room without _ paying much attention, until my notice was directed to what was going on there by a chance conversation with another of my pupils—a Count B'audessin. This Graf Baudessin, I understand, had a great reputation at the Kriegspiel; hewas clever at a great many things, and an enthusiast at sport. He excused himself from an appointment he had made with me for a lesson on the ground that he was under orders.to take part in the Kriegspiel with the Kaiser. "I am heartily sick of it," he grumbled. "We have been two months at it now, and again and again it .has proved utterly impossible. Yet the Emperor persists in continuing with his game of landing an army in England. . It was only natural, when I learned that tins was-the game they wore at, that I < should take a new interest in the gentlemen who were striving,to solve so interesting a problem. Among' all sorts of lesser notabilities, Generals Falkenhayn, Mackensen, Moltke, and Bernhardi certainly played a part. I do not think that either Hindenburg or Ludcndorff participated; I cannot remember having heard their names while I was in Germany.