KAISER WILHELM II.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 166, 19 August 1914, Page 4

KAISER WILHELM 11.

[By JAMES EDMOND, Editor of the "Bulletin." J

THE OLD YOUNG-MAN-IN-A-HURRY.

J In the article -published below, which • j is reprinted from the "Bulletin," the i writer given one of the best reviews of the events lending up to the war which has yet appeared in any colonial newspaper. A man who deserves a lot of sympathy —which- he won't get —iti the present European upheaval is the J£aiser |of Germany. Jfe lias apparently missed | the 'bus, after waiting for the wretched j old vehicle or contyaption during a | reign of 26 years. He has fallen in, and | the gulf into which he has fallen looks jas if it had no bottom. Yet it must be I remembered to William's credit that for j26 years he kept the peace. During his j reign Britain—an allegedly harmless ! country—fought a long and desperate j and costly war in South Africa, and j smaller wars in other places. J scrapped with Turkey, and four of the | little Balkan States scrapped with • Turkey. Then the four little Bal- | ka,n States scrapped furiously among themselves. Russia and Japan fought but a war which, as regards the size of the legions involved, was the I biggest affair which any European ' Power had tackled for something like 14 centuries. Since the day when a mixed army of Romans, Visgoths, Franks, and sundries turned back the Asiatic invasion when it was almost in siQ-ht. of Paris there had been nothing like it. Spain had a campaign with the United States. Portugal enjoyed a revolution. The Scandinavian kingdom broke in two. The north-east-J ern atom of Ulster started to raise an j army with a view to* making civil war in the British Isles. Amid all these trou.bles the Kaiser of Germany remained peaceful. But his pose as the War Lord of Europe, his speeches, his military views, his helmet and cocked hat and "feathers, and his numerous uniforrtis created an impression tha,t he w T as- dangerous. There was always a feeling that he proposed to knock Slieol out of the .universe. And. the multitude of newspaper and magazine articles which arose out of- all this pose and cocked hat possibly weut to his head. He scurried around a gjood deal. At the age of 55 he was still j regarded as the Young-Man-in-a-Hurry. j

Away'back in 1877 and 1878 Russia, aided by Rumania, most justifiably kicked the feet from under tne Unspeakable .Turk.. The result was a considerable rearrangement of territory, in which Russia, Britain, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Greece all participated, either as people who gathered in the prices of war or as people who collected payment for services rendered. But as the tiurious side issue of the. case, Austria, which hadn't rendered any visible services or carried a rifle in the trouble, "occupied" Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Unspeakable Turk hung hie battered "fez on a nail when all the trouble was over, and said that his enemies were bad, but one of his friends' was a great deal worse. Germany got nothing out of the confusion.

Then things drifted along until Sultan Abdul . the Damned vva« dethroned, and the Yowng Turks and the new Sultan Mohammed who had been in a sort of prison fbr 30' years, and hadn't even been allowed to see the newspapers regularly, created a shocking muddle which they called """a" Parliament. At this juncture Turkey hinted that Austria should put its cards on the table, and explain whether it hTtd a full hand or a bob-tailed flush. If Bosnia -and Herzegovina—the '' Occupied Provinces" —were still Turkish territory, "they must be allowed to elect members to the new Parliament, and j Austria would be due to clear out. If they weren't Turkish territory then Austria must take its courage in both hands and annex them' a,s Britain annexed .Cyprus.' BaraHi Aerenthal, the Austrian statesman of the moment, sat up in the bed where lie was dying of kidney disease, and did the annexation. Britain complained, but it didn't complain very hard. Russia, in its capacity of protector of the Slav,'-"or semi-Slav races, grew really angry. But 'Russia hadn't recovered from the disasters of its last war, and was hardly in a position to make trouble on a large scale. Germany, personified by the Young-Man-in-a-Hurry, put on its spiked helmet and warned Russia to back down and be peaceful. Russia backed down, and made an entry in its diary that it would get square for the humiliation some day. Germany made nothing out of this deal either, except a certain amount of glory. Since the beginning of the reign of William, the Yoifng-Man-in-a-Hurvy, Germany has never made anything worth mentioning out of . its foreign complications.

A little while ago certain Servians, who had never got over the fact that Bosnia and Herzegovina had become Austrian instead of Servian terr-itory, killed the heir of the Austrian throne and his w,ife. Then Austria went into a r-old frenzy, and the Emperor, who is almost the oldest inhabitant of Europe, drifted with the tide. It was easier to declare war on Servia than to be shot by his own loyal subjects, so he made war. He is a futile old person —the remains of a man who was once really great —and the four winds of Circumstance blew him in front of them. Over the border the four winds of Circumstance blew on another ruler. No ever accused the present Tsar of posing needlessly as a War Eord, of issuing nny foolish ultimatum, or of wearing the spiked helmet of military display for the mere love of the thijig. Yet R\i«sia began to collect its army. Public opinion wouldn't permit the Muscovite's felJow-Slav in Servia to be trodden on without some semblance of aid. The treading-on business was being overdone. It is 1000 chances to one that the aged Austrian Emperor, who is long past the days of ambition, would have backed out of the Servian war as «oon as his dignity was satisfied. So many 4jf his relatives have died by violence that the death of two. more probably counted for less than might have been expected.' A man who came to the throne in 1848 couldn't have much desire to rush into Homeric conflict in 1914. And the Tsar would almost certainly have met him more than half-

way, if nobody had intervened. Unhappily, somebody is always liable to intervene.

The case was one which called for the services of the most brilliant and gentlemanly liars in the diplomatic services of Europe. But, unhappily, the Middle-Aged Young-Man-in-a-Hurry came on the scene. Possibly he felt that he is getting old —for he is older than his years—anil that he has really done nothing of importance except be in a hurry. He is a sort of citizen who, even if he only wanted a threepenny drink, and had all the evening before him to buy it in, would enter the bar in" such haste that he would bruise his stomach against the counter. For 26 years—26 peaceful but rather noisy years—the third German Emperor has been the large kitten of Europe—a kitten being defined as an animal that rushes at nothing and stops before it gets there. He has frequently been a peacemaker, but it is complained that the manner of his benevolence is too much like that of Dickens's famous Mrs Pardiggle, who insisted on reading the' Bible to an infuriated family of brick;makers. This brilliant but ill-ballastecl monarch took up-his usual attitude, and ordered Russia to disarm. "Unfortunately for the Hurried Person there are limits beyond which a great and'courageous nation . can't go. The Russian! Government stood firm. Probably the most stunned person in Europe was Germany's Middle-Aged Young-Man-in-a- ---■ Hurry when his bluff was called at last. He couldn't back out except by making [himself the laughing stock of Germany and Europe in general, and giving up his pose as a War Lord for the rest of his days. So he declared war, and probably wished he had not been so fresh—or else he wished that he was dead. " '■' • ' ?■ ■■ * . »■•.*>■ ;. r * .... ■' The theory that Germany blundered, into the Great. Trouble against its Sovereign 's intention—that it was a mere matter of pride and p6mp and froth, and bubble and cocked hat and feathers and misadventure —is based on the miserable lack of preparation. To begin with, it hadn't even been decided that Austria should declare war in due form, consequently Europe saw the amazing spectacle of Germany declaring war against Russia on behalf of Austria, long before Austria had made any formal declaration on behalf of itself. This was a strange and wonderful business. Further, no* attempt had been made in the scuffle to find out whether Italy would stand by its partners in the Triple Alliance or would take* the back track for home, yet the aid of the great Italian fleet was a matter of supreme importance. As it happened, Italy took the back 'track for home, and, as a disreputable warrior said in Scott's "Ivanhoe," "a great arm was lopped offjthe enterprise" —or words to that effect. Ruinania,whieh is a small Power but a very strong one for its size, is supposed to be in the . German-Austrian-Italian alliance, but iiot having been consulted about matters, it also lies low and plays its own game. Sweden might have been roped iii by reason of its long-standing dislike to. Russia, and its help would' have been invaluable in the Baltic, but no one had time to send a postcard to Sweden or ring it up on the long distance arrangement.- Amid a haze of doubt and a great dust of recrimination Germany committed itself to a struggle in a cause that wasn't its own. It went to battle with the strongest and least accessible of its possible enemies, and the -one from, whom it had the smallest possible hope of extracting a dividend either in land.or money;

The situation expounded the differI enee between. a professional War, Lord and ah amateur one. Bismarck would have died of old age and cold feet at i the telephone rather than plunge into strife without first locating all his possible friends and all his reliable enemies, When he dropped on Denmark in 1864 he had secured Austria as an ally, and had made reasonably certain that Denmark had no possible allies. Before he turned dog on Austria in 1866 he had secured Italy as an ally, and collected fairly solid assurances that neither Britain, Russia, nor the decayed French Emperor would make serious trouble. Whenhe fell on France in 1870 he had got all the smaller German States on his side, had secured Russia as a guardian injthe rear, and had assured himself, so far as it could be done, of the neutrality of the other great Powers. The man who made the present German Empire was ai> animal of large discourse, looking before and after.

Apparently, when the war with Russia really started, through a lamentable misconception of the possibilities of bluff, the Elderly Young-Man-in-a-Hurry lost his head. It is hard to believe that there was aujC-iH»nediate need to provoke a quarrel with France. The trouble might be inevitable, but at a time of great possibilities it seemed absurd to rush at the French fortresses instead of letting the French rush at the German fortresses. Also the demented policy by which Belgium and Britain were dragged into the complication was a case of looking for accumulated disaster. But there is a . theory that fortune belongs to the person who strikes hard and strikes first—which is reasonable, provided he doesn't strike anybody twice his size and doesn't strike too many people at once. No man should hit 12 policemen at the same moment. During 26 years the Kaiser had posed—probably with an honest belief in himself—as the'man of action, the arbiter, the dictator, the keeper of. the peace, the prompt, decisive soldier, and a lot of other things. He was the influence who made the fuss in Morocco; the sovereign who created the German Navy; the potentate who squashed the war that threatened to convulse Europe in 1909; the magnificent figure who went ou a visit to Jerusalem and had a section of the wall torn down to make room for his entry; the person who cabled to Paul Kruger—i for which attentiou plain old Paul had j no'reason to feel grateful. Yet wliei | he was called upon to live up to his ! pose, the result almost duplicated the ! record of Napoleon 111. in 1870. Then j it was France which stumbled into ruin j without making sure that ffts•-friends J were readv.

This writer is sincerely sorry tor the poer, misfortunate, Old Young-Man-in-a-Hurry. He ha.s been, all his life, a well-meaning mass of incongruous ambitions ami scattered ideals. The war is probably far from ended; still it is possible that the empire winch was built on Napoleon's incapacity may fall through exactly the same brand of* incapacity. William bids fair to undo Bismarck's great work. A prophet who once hung out in Germany foretold that the new Empire would go to pieces about this time, and a prophet of that sort is a- depressing creature to have on the premises. Nobody likes either his company or his prognostications. Meanwhile it is up to Australia to remember that, even if Britain 's enemies aTe scattered and Sydney isu 't shelled, and Melbourne isn't burned, and the Northern

Territory isn't annexed, the matter is one of pure luck. It may be the amazing fortune of the moment to have for our enemy an incompetent Old Young-Man-in-a-Hurry. But. no one eau feel certain that that sort of fortune will last.