Chapter 41
ON VICTORY NEAR METZ.
From Cabinet Order of Kaiser Wilhelm II., Published in Berlin Aug. 23.
The mobilization and concentration of the army is now complete, the German railways having carried out the enormous transport movements with unparalleled certainty and punctuality. With a heart filled with grat.i.tude my first thoughts turn to those who since 1870-71 have worked quietly upon the development of an organization which has emerged from its first serious test with such glorious success.
To all who have co-operated with them I wish to express my imperial thanks for their loyal devotion to duty in making possible in obedience to my call the transportation of armed ma.s.ses of German troops against my enemies. The present achievement [near Metz]
convinces me that the railways of the country will be equal to the heaviest demands that might be made upon them during the course of the gigantic struggle in which we are engaged for the future of the German Nation.
THE SPIRIT OF THE MEN.
Kaiser's Telegram from Dresden to the King of Saxony, Oct. 2.
I am very glad to be able to send you the best reports of the Nineteenth Army Corps and the Twelfth Reserve Corps. I visited yesterday the Third Army and greeted especially the brave 181st Regiment, to which I expressed my recognition. I found your third son and your brother Max as well as Laffert and Kirchbach in the best of health. The spirit among the men is splendid. With such an army we shall be able to complete victoriously the rest of our difficult task. To this end may the Almighty stand by us.
WILHELM.
HIS INDISCRETION WAS "CALCULATED."
Interview With Kaiser Wilhelm II., Oct. 28, 1908, and Its Consequences.
_An interview between the German Emperor and "a representative Englishman, who long since pa.s.sed from public to private life,"
appeared in The London Telegraph on Oct. 28, 1908, and was the next day authenticated by the German Foreign Office in Berlin with the comment that it was "intended as a message to the English people." This last expression of the Kaiser toward Great Britain--until his declarations on the eve of the present war--deeply stirred the German people in protest and resulted in the Kaiser's pledge to Chancellor von Buelow that henceforth the imperial views would be subject to the bridle of the Ministry and the Council of the Empire. The interview as recorded by the "representative Englishman" was as follows:_
Moments sometimes occur in the history of nations when a calculated indiscretion proves of the highest public service. It is for this reason that I have decided to make known the substance of a lengthy conversation which it was my recent privilege to have with the Emperor.
I do so in the hope that it will help to remove that obstinate misconception of the character of the Emperor's feelings toward England, which I fear is deeply rooted in the ordinary Englishman's breast. It is the Emperor's sincere wish that it should be eradicated. He has given repeated proofs of his desire by word and deed. But, to speak frankly, his patience is sorely tried now; he finds himself so continually misrepresented and has so often experienced the mortification of finding that any momentary improvement in relations is followed by renewed outbursts of prejudice and a prompt return to the old att.i.tude of suspicion.
His Majesty spoke with impulsive and unusual frankness, saying: "You English are as mad, mad, mad as March hares. What has come over you that you are completely given over to suspicions that are quite unworthy of a great nation? What more can I do than I have done? I declared with all the emphasis at my command in my speech at the Guildhall that my heart was set upon peace and that it was one of my dearest wishes to live on the best terms with England.
Have I ever been false to my word? Falsehood and prevarication are alien to my nature. My actions ought to speak for themselves, but you will not
Resents a Personal Insult.
"This is a personal insult which I resent; to be forever misjudged, to have my repeated offers of friends.h.i.+p weighed and scrutinized with jealous, mistrustful eyes taxes my patience severely. I have said time after time that I am a friend of England, and your press, or at least a considerable section of it, bids the people of England to refuse my proffered hand and insinuates that the other hand holds a dagger. How can I convince a nation against its will?"
Complaining again of the difficulty imposed on him by English distrust, his Majesty said: "The prevailing sentiment of large sections of the middle and lower cla.s.ses of my own people is not friendly to England. I am, therefore, so to speak, in the minority in my own land, but it is a minority of the best element, just as it is in England respecting Germany."
The Englishman reminded the Kaiser that not only England but the whole of Europe viewed with disapproval the recent sending of the German Consul at Algiers to Fez and forestalling France and Spain by suggesting the recognition of Sultan Mulai Hafid. The Kaiser made an impatient gesture and exclaimed: "Yes? that is an excellent example of the way German actions are misrepresented," and with vivid directness he defended the aforesaid incident, as the German Government has already done.
The interviewer reminded the Kaiser that an important and influential section of the German newspapers interpreted these acts very differently, and effusively approved of them because they indicated that Germany was bent upon shaping events in Morocco.
"There are mischief makers," replied the Emperor, "in both countries. I will not attempt to weigh their relative capacity for misrepresentation, but the facts are as I have stated. There has been nothing in Germany's recent action in regard to Morocco contrary to the explicit declaration of my love of peace made both at the Guildhall and in my latest speech at Stra.s.sburg."
Kaiser and the Boer War.
Reverting to his efforts to show his friends.h.i.+p for England, the Kaiser said they had not been confined to words. It was commonly believed that Germany was hostile to England throughout the Boer war. Undoubtedly the newspapers were hostile and public opinion was hostile. "But what," he asked, "of official Germany? What brought to a sudden stop, indeed, to an absolute collapse, the European tour of the Boer delegates, who were striving to obtain European intervention?"
"They were feted in Holland. France gave them a rapturous welcome.
They wished to come to Berlin, where the German people would have crowned them with flowers, but when they asked me to receive them I refused. The agitation immediately died away and the delegates returned empty handed. Was that the action of a secret enemy?
"Again, when the struggle was at its height, the German Government was invited by France and Russia to join them in calling upon England to end the war. The moment had come, they said, not only to save the Boer republics, but also to humiliate England to the dust.
What was my reply? I said so far from Germany joining in any concerted European action to bring pressure against England and bring about her downfall Germany would always keep aloof from politics that could bring her into complications with a sea power like England.
"Posterity will one day read the exact terms of a telegram, now in the archives of Windsor Castle, in which I informed the sovereign of England of the answer I returned to the powers which then sought to compa.s.s her fall. Englishmen who now insult me by doubting my word should know what my actions were in the hour of their adversity.
"Nor was that all. During your black week in December, 1899, when disasters followed one another in rapid succession, I received a letter from Queen Victoria, my revered grandmother, written in sorrow and affliction and bearing manifest traces of the anxieties which were preying upon her mind and health. I at once returned a sympathetic reply. I did more. I bade one of my officers to procure as exact an account as he could obtain of the number of combatants on both sides and the actual positions of the opposing forces.
"With the figures before me I worked out what I considered the best plan of campaign in the circ.u.mstances and submitted it to my General Staff for criticism. Then I dispatched it to England. That doc.u.ment likewise is among the State papers at Windsor awaiting the serenely impartial verdict of history.
"Let me add as a curious coincidence that the plan which I formulated ran very much on the same lines as that actually adopted by Gen. Roberts and carried by him into successful operation. Was that the act of one who wished England ill? Let Englishmen be just and say."
The German Navy.
Touching then upon the English conviction that Germany is increasing her navy for the purpose of attacking Great Britain, the Kaiser reiterated the explanation that Chancellor von Bulow and other Ministers have made familiar, dwelling upon Germany's worldwide commerce, her manifold interests in distant seas, and the necessity for being prepared to protect them. He said:
"Patriotic Germans refuse to a.s.sign any bounds to their legitimate commercial ambitions. They expect their interests to go on growing.
They must be able to champion them manfully in any quarter of the globe. Germany looks ahead. Her horizons stretch far away. She must be prepared for any eventualities in the Far East. Who can foresee what may take place in the Pacific in the days to come, days not so distant as some believe, but days, at any rate, for which all European powers with Far Eastern interests ought to steadily prepare?
"Look at the accomplished rise of j.a.pan. Think of a possible national awakening in China, and then judge of the vast problems of the Pacific. Only those powers which have great navies will be listened to with respect when the future of the Pacific comes to be solved, and if for that reason only Germany must have a powerful fleet. It may even be that England herself will be glad that Germany has a fleet when they speak together in the great debates of the future."
The interviewer concludes:
"The Emperor spoke with all that earnestness which marks his manner when speaking on deeply pondered subjects. I ask my fellow-countrymen who value the cause of peace to weigh what I have written and revise, if necessary, their estimate of the Kaiser and his friends.h.i.+p for England by his Majesty's own words. If they had enjoyed the privilege of hearing them spoken they would no longer doubt either his Majesty's firm desire to live on the best of terms with England or his growing impatience at the persistent mistrust with which his offer of friends.h.i.+p is too often received."
The Consequences.
On Nov. 17 following Prince von Bulow met the Kaiser at Kiel, taking with him evidence of the feeling in Germany regarding the Emperor's published interview and setting forth: