"WELL I NEVER!”

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLV, Issue 12016, 4 March 1920, Page 7

"WELL I NEVER!”

KAISER’S SELF-PORTRAIT. “ FOOL BY THE GRACE OF GOD. (“Half witted” and “a loolhy the grace of God” are among the terms applied to the ex-Kaiser, now that his marginal notes on the history of the months before the war are published. Such epithets as “idiot” and “ass,” which Wilhelm then flung at the diplomats around him, are now being applied by his own people to himself.) “A fool by the Grace of God” “How William ruled.” These are the headings which Yorwaerts places over its comments on Herr Kautsky’s collection of official documents, edited and slightly extended by Count Max Montgelas and Professor Schuecking and now published in'Britain.

The four volumes in which the work is issued are described by Vorwaerts as “four stones on the grave of the German monarchy.” Otherwise they do not receive great attention from the German Quotations are brief, and comment is but scanty, Herr Helmnth von Cerlach, an exPrussian official turned Socialist, writes in the Neue Berliner that the most important things in the volumes are the Emperor William’s marginal notes. ‘ ‘lt was in the spirit of those marginal notes,” says von Gerlach. “that Germany before the war was ruled; those of one day contradict those of the next day. ‘ ‘Notes made between July sth and August Ist, 1914, vividly mirror the catastrophic policy which was then Germany’s. The more I consider them, the more I become persuaded that William the Second is a case for a mental specialist rather than for a pudge. WEAK-WITTED WAR-MAKER. It is to Emperor William's notes, too that Vorwaerts turns its attention. It saj’S r ‘ ‘Ho who reads these marginal notes cannot for a moment remain in doubt that Germany before the war was ruled by a halfwitted person. “It is quite clear that under such a person Germany was bound to rush into war—-and to lose that war!” Then the journal demonstrates what the Kaiser’s mentality was by pointing out the numerous contradictions in those notes, and how culpably ignorant the Emperor was at times.

Oh June 13th, it points out, he was declaring that everybody who was not convinced of Russia’s war like intentions ought to be thrown into a lunatic asylum ; while from that date onwards “Germany’s whole policy was built on the hope that Russia and Rnssia’s allies would withdraw it Austria, supported by Germany, went for Serbia as vigorously as possible. ” IMPERIAL IGNORANCE, With his “now or never” and such remarks, says Yorwaerts, “he could not have his squabble—as he called the approaching war—soon enough. “On the margin of a note speaking of Serbia’s annihilation, William writes, ‘That would be best!’ “But after the Serbian answer to the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum he makes his now well known statement”—about a great moral victory for Austria and the vanishing of ail reasons for war. “This Ruler of All the Germans, ” the Yorwaerts article proceeds, “did not even know what game was being played; he did not know that war was decided on, and that he himself was prancing towards it. “When the workers struck in Petrograd during Poincare’s visit—‘Bravo!’ exclaimed Williarq on the margin of the report; but when German workers demonstrated tor peace he wrote that the leaders would be locked up if it happened again, and that he would have no workers making Socialist propaganda I “The poor man did not dream that the peace for which the Berlin workers demonstrated would have saved him his throne.” WILHELM’S YOOABULARY. Yorwaerts comments scathingly on William’s epithets—the constant use of the words “rubbish.” “nonsense.” etc, how he called Sir Edward Grey “ass,” “idiot,” “deceiver,” “false hound,” etc; how he called an unnamed diplomat “swine,” King Victor a “knave,” and Signor Giolitti “an unheard of scoundrel. ” What lovely language for a monarch! 'With irony Yorwaerts points out how William wrote on the margin of the Tsar’s telegram proposing arbitration. “Well, I never!” It paints out how when his “squabble” broke loose at last he wrung his hands and had blame for everybody but himself, “Thus the history of the house of Hohenzollern, ” concludes Yorwaerts “ends in a fool’s tragedy.”