"All who have witnessed the imperial stage-manager at work agree that he has a remarkable flair for the dramatic. Very often one of his suggestions about the entrances or exits, a piece of 'business' or a pose, will be found on trial to enhance the effect of the scene. A story is told of the Emperor's insistence on accuracy and the minute attention he pays to detail at rehearsal. After his visit to Ofen-Pest some years ago for the Jubilee celebration, which had included a number of Hungarian national dances, the Emperor stopped a rehearsal of the ballet at the Berlin opera while a Czardas was in progress and pointed out to the balletteuses certain minor details which were not correct.
"In his attitude to the Court actors and actresses he displays the charm of manner which bewitches all with whom he comes in contact. He calls them 'meine Schauspieler,' which makes one think of 'His Majesty's Servants' of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. This practice sometimes has amusing results. Once when the Theatre Royal comedian, Dr. Max Pohl, was suddenly taken ill the Emperor said to an acquaintance, 'Fancy, my Pohl had a seizure yesterday;' and the acquaintance, thinking he was referring to a pet dog replied, commiseratingly: 'Ah, poor brute!' After rehearsal the Emperor often goes on to the stage and talks with the actors about their parts.
"A Hohenzollern must not be shown on the stage without the express permission of the Emperor, and in general, if politics are mixed up in an objectionable way with the action of the drama, the play will be forbidden. Above all the Emperor will not tolerate indecency, nor the mere suggestion of it, in the plays given at the royal theatres. An anecdote about Herr Josef Lauff's Court drama 'Frederick of the Iron Tooth,' dealing with an ancestor, an Elector of Brandenburg, and on which Leoncavallo, at the Emperor's request, wrote the opera 'Der Roland von Berlin,' shows the Emperor's strictness in this respect. Frederick of the Iron Tooth is a burgher of Berlin who leads a revolt against the Elector. In order to heighten Frederick's hate, Lauff wove in a love theme into the drama. The wife of Ryke, burgomaster of Berlin, figured as Frederick's mistress and egged on her lover against the Elector, because the latter had hanged her brothers, the Quitzows, notorious outlaws of the Mark Brandenburg. The Emperor cut out the whole episode when the play was submitted to him in manuscript. The marginal note in his big, bold handwriting ran: 'Eine Courtisane kommt in einem Hohenzollerstück nicht vor' (A courtesan has no place in a Hohenzollern drama)."
The Emperor's constant change of uniform is often said to be a sign of his liking for the theatrical, and writers have compared him on this account with lightning-change artists like the great Fregoli. Rather his respect for and reliance on the army, a sense of fitness with the occasion to be celebrated, a feeling of personal courtesy to the person to be received, are the motives for such changes. The Paris Temps published the following incident apropos of the Emperor's visit to England in November, 1902. When, on arriving at Port Victoria, the royal yacht Hohenzollern came in view, the members of the English Court sent to welcome the Emperor saw him through their glasses walking up and down the captain's bridge wearing a long cavalry cloak over a German military uniform. When they stepped on board they found him in the undress uniform of an English admiral. They lunched with him, and in the afternoon, when he left for London, he was wearing the uniform of an English colonel of dragoons. Arrived in London, he left for Sandringham, and must have changed his dress en route, for he left the train in a frock-coat and tall hat.
Perhaps the most notable theatrical event of the reign hitherto was the production at the Royal Opera in 1908 of the historic pantomime "Sardanapalus." The Emperor's idea, as he said himself, was to "make the Museums speak," to which a Berlin critic replied, "You can't dramatize a museum." The ballet, for it was that as well as a pantomime, engrossed the Emperor's time and attention for several weeks. He spent hours with the great authority on Assyriology, Professor Friedrich Delitzsch, going over reliefs and plans taken from the Kaiser Friedrich Museum or borrowed from museums in Paris, London, and Vienna, decided on the costumes and designed the war-chariots to be used in the ballet. The notion was to rehabilitate the reputation of Asurbanipal, the second-last King of Assyria, whom the Greeks called "Sardanapalus," who reigned in Nineveh six hundred years before Christ, over Ethiopia, Babylon and Egypt, and whom Lord Byron, accepting the Greek story, represented as the most effeminate and debauched monarch the world had ever known.
Professor Delitzsch, with a wealth of recondite learning, showed, on the contrary, that Sardanapalus was a wise and liberal-minded monarch, who, rather than fall into the hands of the Medes, built himself a pyre in a chamber of his palace and perished on it with his wives, his children, and his treasure. The whole four acts, with the various ballets, gave a perfectly faithful representation of the period as described by Diodorus and Herodotus, and as plastically shown on the reliefs discovered at Nineveh by Sir Henry Layard and subsequently by German excavators. Over £10,000 was spent upon the production, and the public were worked up to a great pitch of curiosity concerning it. But it was a complete failure as far as the public were concerned. "Heavens!" exclaimed one critic, "what a bore!" This, however, was not the fault of the Emperor, but was due to want of interest on the part of a public whose enthusiasm for the events and characters of times so remote could only be kindled by a genius, and a dramatic one. The Emperor is no such genius, nor had he one at command.
XI.
THE NEW CENTURY (continued)
1902-1904
King George V has hardly been sufficiently long on the English throne for a contemporary to judge of the personal relations that exist between his Majesty and the Emperor as chief representatives of their respective nations. The King of England was, until June, 1913, hindered by various circumstances from paying a visit to the Court of Berlin, and rumours were current that relations between the two rulers were not as friendly as they might and should be. There is now every indication that though the relations of people to people and Government to Government vary in degrees of coolness or warmth, the two monarchs are on perfectly good terms of cousinship and amity.
A visit paid by King George, when Prince of Wales, to the Emperor in Potsdam at the opening of 1902 testified to the goodwill that then subsisted between them. It was the evening before the Emperor's birthday, when the Emperor, at a dinner given by the officers of King Edward's German regiment, the 1st Dragoon Guards, addressed the English Heir Apparent in words of hearty welcome. The address was not a long one, but in it the Emperor characteristically seized on the motto of the Prince of Wales, "Ich dien" (I serve), to make it the text of a laudatory reference to his young guest's conduct and career. In its course the Emperor touched on the Prince's tour of forty thousand miles round the world, and the effect his "winning personality" had had in bringing together loyal British subjects everywhere, and helping to consolidate the Imperium Britannicum, "on the territories of which," as the Emperor said, doubtless with an imperial pang of envy, "the sun never sets." The Prince, in his reply, tendered his birthday congratulations, and expressed his "respect" for the Emperor, the appropriate word to use, considering the ages and royal ranks of the Emperor and his younger first cousin.
With 1902 may be said to have begun the Emperor's courtship (as it is often called in Germany) of America. His advances to the Dollar Princess since then have been unremitting and on the whole cordially, if somewhat coyly, received.
The growth of intercourse of all kinds between Germany and the United States is indeed one of the features of the reign. There are several reasons why it is natural that friendly relationship should exist. It has been said on good authority that thirty millions of American citizens have German blood in their veins. Frederick the Great was the first European monarch to recognize the independence of America. German men of learning go to school in America, and American men of learning go to school in Germany. A large proportion of the professors in American universities have studied at German universities. The two countries are thousands of miles apart, and are therefore less exposed to causes of international jealousy and quarrel between contiguous nations. On the other hand, the new place America has taken in the Old World, dating, it may be said roughly, from the time of her war with Spain (1898); the increase of her influence in the world, mainly through the efforts of brave, benevolent, and able statesmen; the expansion of her trade and commerce; the increase of the European tourist traffic;—these factors also to some extent account for the growth of friendly intercourse between the peoples.
Nor should the bond between the two countries created by intermarriage be overlooked. If the well-dowered republican maid is often ambitious of union with a scion of the old European nobility, the usually needy German aristocrat is at least equally desirous of mating with an American heiress notwithstanding the vast differences in race-character, political sentiment, manners, and views of life—and especially of the status and privileges of woman—that must fundamentally separate the parties. Great unhappiness is frequently the result of such marriages, perhaps it may be said of a large proportion of international marriages, but cases of great mutual happiness are also numerous, and help to bring the countries into sympathy and understanding. Prince Bülow, when Chancellor, reminded the Reichstag, which was discussing an objection raised to the late Freiherr Speck von Sternburg, when German Ambassador to America, that he had married an American lady, that though Bismarck had laid down the rule that German diplomatists ought not to marry foreigners, he was quite ready to make exceptions in special cases, and that America was one of them. The Emperor is well known to have no objection to his diplomatic representative at Washington being married to an American, but rather to prefer it, provided, of course, that the lady has plenty of money.
A difficulty between Germany and Venezuela arose in 1902 owing to the ill-treatment suffered by German merchants in Venezuela in the course of the civil war in that country from 1898 to 1900.
The merchants complained that loans had been exacted from them by President Castro and his Government, and that munitions of war and cattle had been taken for the use of the army and left unpaid for. The amount of the claim was 1,700,000 Bolivars (francs), a sum that included the damage suffered by the merchants' creditors in Germany. Similar complaints were made by English and Italian merchants. After several efforts on the part of Germany to obtain redress had failed, negotiations were broken off, the diplomatic representative of Germany was recalled, and finally the combined fleets of England, Germany, and Italy established a blockade of the Venezuelan coast. The difficulty was eventually referred to the Hague Court of Arbitration, which allowed the claims and directed payment of them on the security of the revenues of the customs ports of La Guayra and Puerto Cabella.
For a time the action of the Powers caused discussion of the Monroe doctrine on both sides of the Atlantic. On this side it was pointed out that American susceptibilities had been respected by the conduct of the Powers in not landing troops, while on the other side there were not wanting voices to exclaim that the naval demonstration went too near being a breach of the hallowed creed—"hands off" the Western Hemisphere. The Monroe doctrine, it may be recalled, was contained in a message of President James Monroe, issued on February 2, 1823. It was drawn up by John Quincey Adams, and declared that the United States "regarded not only every effort of the Holy Alliance to extend its system to the Western Hemisphere as dangerous to the peace and freedom of the United States, but also every interference with the object of subverting any independent American Government in the light of unfriendliness towards America"; and it went on to declare that "the Continents of America should no more be regarded as fields for European colonization."
The day, of course, may come when the American claim to the control, if not physical possession, of half the earth will be questioned by the Powers of Europe; but at present, as far as Germany is concerned, and notwithstanding the absurd idea that Germany plans the seizure one day of Brazil, the doctrine is of merely academic interest. For a few days four years later it became the subject of lively discussion in Germany and America owing to the first American Roosevelt professor, Professor Burgess, referring to it in his inaugural lecture before the Emperor and Empress as an "antiquated theory." As soon, however, as it became apparent that Professor Burgess was giving utterance to a purely personal opinion, and was not in any sense the bearer of a message on the subject from the President, the discussion dropped.
Another American episode of the year was the visit of Prince Henry, the Emperor's brother, to the United States. Prince Henry left for America in February. The visit was in reality made in pursuance of the Emperor's world-policy of economic expansion, but there were not a few politicians in England and America to assert that it was part of a deep scheme of the Emperor's to counteract too warm a development of Anglo-American friendship. However that may be, the visit was a striking one, even though it gave no great pleasure to Germans, who could not see any particular reason for it, nor any prospect of it yielding Germany immediate tangible return for trouble and expense. Prince Henry, it is said, though the most genial and democratic of Hohenzollerns, was a little taken back at the American freedom of manners, the wringing of hands, the slapping on the back, and other republican demonstrations of friendship; but he cannot have shown anything of such a feeling, for he was fêted on all sides, and soon developed into a popular hero.
One of the incidents of the visit, previously arranged, was the christening of the Emperor's new American-built yacht, Meteor III, by Miss Alice Roosevelt, the President's daughter. On February 25th the Emperor received a cablegram from Prince Henry: "Fine boat, baptized by the hand of Miss Alice Roosevelt, just launched amid brilliant assembly. Hearty congratulations;" and at the same time one from the President's daughter: "To his Majesty the Kaiser, Berlin—Meteor successfully launched. I congratulate you, thank you for the kindness shown me, and send you my best wishes. Alice Roosevelt."
During the visit the Emperor cabled to President Roosevelt his thanks and that of his people for the hospitable reception of his brother by all classes, adding:
"My outstretched hand was grasped by you with a strong, manly, and friendly grip. May Heaven bless the relations of the two nations with peace and goodwill! My best compliments and wishes to Alice Roosevelt."
Reference to this cordial electric correspondence may close with mention of a telegram sent in reply to a message from Mr. Melville Stone, of the American Associated Press:
"Accept my thanks for your message. I estimate the great and sympathetic reception (it was a banquet) given to my dear brother by the newspaper proprietors of the United States very highly."
Prince Henry returned to Germany on March 17th, a Doctor of Law of
Harvard University.
There have been moments when people in America were influenced by other sentiments than those of entirely respectful admiration for the Emperor. It was with mixed feelings that the American public heard the news of his telegraphed offer to President Roosevelt in May, 1902, when, as the telegram said, the Emperor was "under the deep impression made by the brilliant and cordial reception" given to his brother, Prince Henry, to present to the American nation a statue of—Frederick the Great, and coupled with the offer a proposal that the statue should be erected—of all places—in Washington! No one doubted the Emperor's sincere desire to pay the highest compliment he could think of to a people to whom he felt grateful for the honour done to Germany in the person of his brother, but nearly every one smiled at the simplicity, or, as some called it, the want of political tact shown by offering the statue of a ruler whose name, to the vast majority of Americans, is synonymous with absolute autocracy, to a republic which prides itself on its civic ways and love of personal freedom. The gift was accepted by the American Government in the spirit in which it was offered, the spirit of goodwill. And why not? To the Emperor his great ancestor's effigy is no symbol of autocracy, but the contrary, for to the Emperor and his subjects Frederick the Great is as much the Father of Prussia, the man who saved it and made it, as Washington was the Father of America. Besides, the spirit in which a gift is offered, not its value or appropriateness, is the thing to be considered.
Irritation in England was still strong against Germany on account of the latter's easily understood race-sympathy with the Boers during the war just over, but the fact did not prevent the Emperor from accepting King Edward's invitation to spend a few days at Sandringham with him in November this year on the occasion of his birthday. The Emperor took the Empress and two of his sons with him. The hostile temper of the time, both in England and Germany, was alluded to in a sermon preached in Sandringham Church by the then Bishop of London. It was notable for its insistence on the necessity of friendlier relations between England, Germany, and America, the three great branches of the Teutonic race. After the service the Emperor is reported to have exclaimed to the Bishop: "What you said was excellent, and is precisely what I try to make my people understand."
As a proof that this was no merely complimentary utterance, but the expression of a thought which is constantly in the Emperor's mind, an incident which happened at Kiel regatta in the month of June previously may be recalled. The American squadron, under the late Admiral Cotton, was paying an official visit to the Emperor during the Kiel "week" as a return honour for the visit of the Emperor's brother, Prince Henry of Prussia, to the United States the year before. There was a constant round of festivities, and among them a lunch to the Emperor on board the Admiral's flagship, the Kearsarge. Lunch over, the Emperor was standing in a group talking with his customary vivacity, but, as customary also, with his eyes taking in his surroundings like a well-trained journalist. Suddenly he noticed a set of flags, those of America, Germany, and England, twined together and mingling their colours in friendly harmony. He walked over, gathered the combined flags in his hand, and turning to the Admiral exclaimed in idiomatic American: "See here, Admiral; that is exactly as it should be, and is what I am trying for all the time."
While in England the Emperor, in company with Lord Roberts and Sir Evelyn Wood, inspected his English regiment, the 1st Royal Dragoons. A curious and amusing feature of the visit was a lecture before the Royal Family at Sandringham by a German engineer, for whom the Emperor acted as interpreter, on a novel adaptation of spirit for culinary, lighting, and laundry purposes. The Emperor's practical illustration of the use of the new heating system, as applied to the ordinary household flatiron, is said to have caused great merriment among his audience.
Germany's home atmosphere about this time was for a moment troubled by an exhibition of the Emperor's "personal regiment" in the form of a telegram to the Prince Regent of Bavaria, known in Germany as the "Swinemunde Despatch." The Bavarian Diet, in a fit of economy, had refused its annual grant of £5,000 for art purposes. The Emperor was violently angry, wired to the Prince Regent his indignation with the Diet and offered to pay the £5,000 out of his own pocket. It was not a very tactful offer, to be sure, though well intended; and as his telegram was not an act of State, "covered" by the Chancellor's signature, while the Bavarians in particular felt hurt at what they considered outside interference, Germans generally blamed it as a new demonstration of autocratic rule.
One or two other art incidents of the period may be noted. A domestic one was the gift to the Emperor by the Empress of a model of her hand in Carrara marble, life-sized, by the German sculptor, Rheinhold Begas. The Emperor, it is well known, has no special liking for the companionship of ladies, but he confesses to an admiration for pretty feminine hands. Another incident was the Emperor's order to the painter, Professor Rochling, to paint a picture representing the famous episode in the China campaign, when Admiral Seymour gave the order "Germans to the Front." It is to the present day a popular German engraving. The year was also remarkable for a visit to Berlin of Coquelin aîné, the great French actor. The Emperor saw him in "Cyrano de Bergerac," was, like all the rest of the play-going world, delighted with both play and player, and held a long and lively conversation with the artist. Lastly may be mentioned a telegram of the Emperor's to the once-famed tragic actress, Adelaide Ristori, in Rome, congratulating her on her eightieth birthday and expressing his regret that he had never met her. A basket of flowers simultaneously arrived from the German Embassy.
We are now in 1903. During the preceding years the Emperor's thoughts, as has been seen, were occupied with art as a means of educating his folk, purifying their sentiments, and, above all, making them faithful lieges of the House of Hohenzollern. By a natural association of ideas we find him this year thinking much and deeply about religion; for, though artists are not a species remarkable for the depth or orthodoxy of their views on religious matters, art and religion are close allies, and probably the greater the artist the more real religion he will be found to have.
In this year, accordingly, the Emperor made his remarkable confession of religious faith to his friend, Admiral Hollmann. He had just heard a lecture by Professor Delitzsch on "Babel und Bibel," and as he considered the Professor's views to some extent subversive of orthodox Christian belief, he took the opportunity to tell his people his own sentiments on the whole matter. In writing to Admiral Hollmann he instructed him to make the "confession" as public as possible, and it was published in the October number of the Grenzboten, a Saxon monthly, sometimes used for official pronouncements. The Emperor's letter to Admiral Hollmann contained what follows:—
"I distinguish between two different sorts of Revelation: a current, to a certain extent historical, and a purely religious, which was meant to prepare the way for the appearance of the Messiah. As to the first, I should say that I have not the slightest doubt that God eternally revealed Himself to the race of mankind He created. He breathed into man His breath, that is a portion of Himself, a soul. With fatherly love and interest He followed the development of humanity; in order to lead and encourage it further He 'revealed' Himself, now in the person of this, now of that great wise man, priest or king, whether pagan, Jew or Christian. Hammurabi was one of these, Moses, Abraham, Homer, Charlemagne, Luther, Shakespeare, Goethe, Kant, Kaiser William the Great—these He selected and honoured with His Grace, to achieve for their peoples, according to His will, things noble and imperishable. How often has not my grandfather explicitly declared that he was an instrument in the hand of the Lord! The works of great souls are the gifts of God to the people, that they may be able to build further on them as models, that they may be able to feel further through the confusion of the undiscovered here below. Doubtless God has 'revealed' Himself to different peoples in different ways according to their situation and the degree of their civilization. Then just as we are overborne most by the greatness and might of the lovely nature of the Creation when we regard it, and as we look are astonished at the greatness of God there displayed, even so can we of a surety thankfully and admiringly recognize, by whatever truly great or noble thing a man or a people does, the revelation of God. His influence acts on us and among us directly.
"The second sort of Revelation, the more religious sort, is that which led up to the appearance of the Lord. From Abraham onward it was introduced, slowly but foreseeingly, all-wisely and all-knowingly, for otherwise humanity were lost. And now commences the astonishing working of God's Revelation. The race of Abraham and the peoples that sprang from it regard, with an iron logic, as their holiest possession, the belief in a God. They must worship and cultivate Him. Broken up during the captivity in Egypt, the separated parts were brought together again for the second time by Moses, always striving to cling fast to monotheism. It was the direct intervention of God that caused this people to come to life again. And so it goes on through the centuries till the Messiah, announced and foreshadowed by the prophets and psalmists, at last appears, the greatest Revelation of God to the world. Then he appeared in the Son Himself; Christ is God; God in human form. He redeemed us, He spurs us on, He allures us to follow Him, we feel His fire burn in us, His sympathy strengthens us, His displeasure annihilates us, but also His care saves us. Confident of victory, building only on His word, we pass through labour, scorn, suffering, misery and death, for in His Word we have God's revealed Word, and He never lies.
"That is my view of the matter. The Word is especially for us evangelicals made the essential thing by Luther, and as good theologian surely Delitzsch must not forget that our great Luther taught us to sing and believe—'Thou shalt suffer, let the Word stand.' To me it goes without saying that the Old Testament contains a large number of fragments of a purely human historical kind and not 'God's revealed Word.' They are mere historical descriptions of events of all sorts which occurred in the political, religious, moral, and intellectual life of the people of Israel. For example, the act of legislation on Sinai may be regarded as only symbolically inspired by God, when Moses had recourse to the revival of perhaps some old-time law (possibly the codex, an offshoot of the codex of Hammurabi), to bring together and to bind together institutions of His people which were become shaky and incapable of resistance. Here the historian can, from the spirit or the text, perhaps construct a connexion with the Law of Hammurabi, the friend of Abraham, and perhaps logically enough; but that would no way lessen the importance of the fact that God suggested it to Moses and in so far revealed Himself to the Israelite people.
"Consequently it is my idea that for the future our good Professor would do well to avoid treating of religion as such, on the other hand continue to describe unmolested everything that connects the religion, manners, and custom of the Babylonians with the Old Testament. On the whole, I make the following deductions:—
"1. I believe in One God.
"2. We humans need, in order to teach Him, a Form, especially for our children.
"3. This Form has been to the present time the Old Testament in its existing tradition. This Form will certainly decidedly alter considerably with the discovery of inscriptions and excavations; there is nothing harmful in that, it is even no harm if the nimbus of the Chosen People loses much thereby. The kernel and substance remain always the same—God, namely, and His work.
"Never was religion a result of science, but a gushing out of the heart and being of mankind, springing from its intercourse with God."
It is anticipating by a few months, but part of a speech the Emperor made in Potsdam at the confirmation of his two sons, August Wilhelm and Oscar—two Hohenzollerns as yet not distinguished for anything in particular—may be quoted in this connexion. Naturally he began by comparing his sons' spiritual situation with that of a soldier on the day he takes the oath of allegiance: they were vorgemerkt, that is, predestined as "fighters for Christ." "What is demanded of you," the imperial father went on, "is that you shall be personalities. This is the point which, in my opinion, is the most important for the Christian in daily life. For there can be no doubt that we can say of the person of the Lord, that He is the most 'personal personality' who has ever wandered among the sons of men…. You will read of many great men—savants, statesmen, kings and princes, of poets also: but nevertheless no word of man has ever been uttered worthy of comparison with the words of Christ; and I say this to you so that you may be in a position to bear it out when you are in the midst of life's turmoil and hear people discussing religion, especially the personality of Christ. No word of man has ever succeeded in making people of all races and all people enthusiastic for the same cause, namely, to imitate Him, even to sacrifice their lives for Him. The wonder can only be explained by assuming that what He said were the words of the living God, which are the source of life, and continue to live thousands of years after the words of the wise have been forgotten. That is my personal experience and it will be yours.
"The pivot and turning-point," he continued,
"of our mortal life, especially of a life full of responsibility and labour—that is clearer and clearer to me every year I live—lies simply and solely in the attitude a man adopts towards his Lord and Saviour;"
and he concludes by exhorting his sons to disregard what people may say about the cult of Christ being irreconcilable with the tasks and responsibilities of "modern" life, but simply to do their best, whatever their occupation, to become a personality after Christ's example.
This is a sound and just statement of Christian faith, and it is quoted here to justify the view that the Emperor's soldiers and his Dreadnoughts, his mailed fist and shining armour, are built and put on in the spirit of precaution and defence. The attitude, it cannot of course be denied, is based on the un-Christlike assumption that all men (and particularly all peoples and their governments and diplomatists) are liars; but in his favour it may be urged that for that saying the Emperor could cite Biblical authority. And yet there is an inconsistency; for the saying is that of one of those same wise men whose words, the Emperor admits, are transitory and mortal.
It is possible that the Emperor had a presentiment of some kind that his life was now in danger, and that the presentiment may have attuned his thoughts to meditation on Christ's life and teaching; for it is a fact, well worthy of remark, that in the fear of death man's one and only relief and consolation is the knowledge that there was, and is, a mediator for him with his Creator. The address at his sons' confirmation was delivered on October 17th, and on Sunday morning, November 8th all the world, it is hardly too much to say, was astonished and pained to learn, by a publication in the Official Gazette, that the Emperor the day before had had to submit to a serious operation on his throat. The announcement spoke of a polypus, or fungoid growth, which had had to be removed; but all over the world the conclusion was come to that the mortal affliction of the father had fallen on the son and that the Emperor was a doomed man. Most providentially and happily it was nothing of the sort. On the 9th the Emperor was out of bed and signing official papers, on the 15th he was allowed to talk in whispers, and on the 17th it was declared by the physicians that all danger was over and that no more bulletins would be issued. On December 14th the Emperor received a congratulatory visit from the President of the Reichstag, who reported to Parliament his impression that "the Emperor had completely recovered his old vigour (great applause) and that his voice was again clear and strong."
The Emperor had passed through what one may suppose to have been the darkest hour of his life. He was naturally in high spirits, and a few days after went to Hannover, where he made a martial speech in which he toasted the German Legion for having "by its unforgettable heroism, in conjunction with Blücher and his Prussians, saved the English army from destruction at Waterloo," a view, of course, which to an Englishman has all the charm of novelty.
One or two further memorable incidents of 1903 may be recorded. Theodore Mommsen, the now aged historian of Rome, the greatest scholar of his time, died in November. He was in his day a Liberal parliamentarian of no mean ability; but for such men there is no career in Germany. However, as it turned out, the German people's loss proved to be all the world's gain. A son of the historian now represents a district of Berlin in the Reichstag. Two years before the historian's death an exchange of telegrams in Latin took place between him and the Emperor. The occasion was the Emperor's laying the foundation-stone of a museum on the plateau where the old Roman castle, known as the Saalburg, stands. The Emperor telegraphed:
"Theodoro Mommseno, antiquitatum romanarum investigatori incomparabili, praetorii Saalburgensis fundamenta jaciens salutem dicit et gratias agit Guilelmus Germanorum Imperator."
To which the historian, with a modesty equal to his courtesy, replied: "Germanorum principi, tam majestate quam humanitate, gratias agit antiquarius Lietzelburgensis."
Mention may also be made of a very characteristic speech of the Emperor's this year at Cüstrin, where he was unveiling a monument to a favourite Hohenzollern, the Great Elector. Cüstrin, it will be remembered, is the town where Frederick the Great, another of the Emperor's favourites, was imprisoned by an angry father, along with his friend Lieutenant Katte, when Frederick was trying to escape the parental cruelty and violence.
Referring to Frederick's declaration that he was the "first servant of the State," the Emperor said:—
"He could only learn to be so by subordination, by obedience, in a word by what we Prussians describe as discipline. And this discipline must have its roots in the King's house as in the house of the citizen, in the army as among the people. Respect for authority, obedience to the Crown, and obedience to parental and paternal influence—that is the lesson the memories of to-day should teach us. From these attributes spring those which we call patriotism, namely the subordination of the individual ego, of the individual subject, to the welfare of all. It is what is particularly needed at the present time."
The Emperor was, of course, thinking of the Social Democrats. Having finished his speech, he went and for a while stood thoughtfully at the historic window of Cüstrin Castle, from which Frederick watched the execution of his unfortunate companion, Katte.
Only the year 1904 separates us from the Emperor's Morocco adventure. The economic ideas which have been referred to as the basis of German foreign policy were germinating in his mind, and the plans for at least a partial realization of them were working in his head. Addressing the chief burgomaster of Karlsruhe in April, just a year before he started for Tangier, he spoke of Weltpolitik. "You are right," he told the burgomaster,
"in saying that the task of the German people is a hard one…. I hope our peace will not be disturbed, and that the events that are now happening will open our eyes, steel our courage, and find us united, if it should be necessary for us to intervene in world-policy."
The Emperor had, no doubt, specially in mind the birth of the Anglo-French Entente and the war between Russia and Japan, both events forming the dominant factors of the political situation at this time. The Russo-Japanese War arose primarily from the unwillingness of Russia to evacuate Manchuria after the Boxer troubles in China. The incidents of the war are still fresh in public memory.
It need only be recalled here that Germany was neutral throughout the conflict, that both President Roosevelt and the Emperor offered their services as mediators in its course, and that on the capture of Port Arthur by Admiral Nogi, in January, 1905, the Emperor telegraphed his bestowal of the Ordre pour le Mérile on General Stoessel, the Russian defender of Port Arthur, and on Admiral Nogi.
In the troubled history of Anglo-German relations is to be recorded the presence, in June of this year, of King Edward VII at Kiel with a squadron of battleships to pay an official visit to his nephew. The two fleets, those sunny days, formed a splendid spectacle—the two mightiest police forces, the Emperor would probably agree in saying, the world could produce. In fact, the Emperor had some such thought in mind, for he addressed King Edward as follows:—
"Your Majesty has been welcomed by the thunder of the guns of the German fleet. It is the youngest navy in the world and an expression of the reviving sea-power of the new German Empire, founded by the late great Emperor, designed for the protection of the Empire's trade and territory, and intended, equally with the German army, for the preservation of peace."
One or two other incidents of interest in the Emperor's life may close the record of this year. One of them was the arrival of the Italian composer, Leoncavallo, in Berlin, to hand the Emperor the text of the opera "Der Roland von Berlin," Leoncavallo had composed at the Emperor's express request. Roland was a "strong, valiant and pious" knight of Charlemagne's time—like the Emperor, let us say—who originally hailed from Brittany—that lone and lovely Cinderella of France—and afterwards, for some unexplained reason, came to be the type of municipal independence in Germany.
During the summer the Emperor and the Empress made an excursion, when on the Saalburg, to the statues of the Roman Emperors Hadrian and Severus. Did the Emperor recall, one wonders, as he stood before the figure of Hadrian, that pagan monarch's address to his soul:—
"Animula vagula, blandula,
Hospes, comesque corporis,
Quae nunc abibis in loca,
Pallidula, rigida, nudula,
Nee, ut soles, dabis jocos?"
It sounds a little gloomy as a quotation, but, fortunately for Germany and the Emperor, for "nunc" can be put, pace the poet, the indefinite, yet all too definite, "aliquando."
XII.
MOROCCO
1905
The Emperor started for Tangier towards the end of March, but before that he had got through imperial business of a miscellaneous kind which exemplifies the life he leads practically at all times.
In January he had exchanged telegrams with the Czar and the Mikado concerning his bestowal of the Order of Merit on Generals Stoessel and Nogi, asking permission to bestow the Order and receiving expressions of consent. Another telegram went to the composer Leoncavallo in Naples, congratulating him on the success there of his "Roland von Berlin." In February, the Emperor opened an international Automobile Exhibition in Berlin, received Prince Charles, Infanta of Spain, and the King of Bulgaria, unveiled a monument to his ancestor, Admiral Coligny, who was killed in the Bartholomew massacre, listened to a naval captain's lecture on Port Arthur, opened the new Lutheran Cathedral (the "Dom") in Berlin, telegraphed thanks to the University of Pennsylvania for its doctor's degree which the Emperor said he was proud to know George Washington once held, attended a lecture by Professor Delitzsch on "Assyria," and was present at a memorial service for the painter Adolf von Menzel, who died this month. In March he visited Heligoland, inspected the progress of some alterations at the Royal Opera in Berlin, and sent the Gold Medal for Science to Manuel Garcia, on the occasion of the latter's hundredth birthday, as recognition of his invention of the laryngoscope, or mirror for examining the throat.
Just before starting for Morocco the Emperor made the speech in which he claimed that Germans are the "salt of the earth." In the same speech he had previously declared that as the result of his reading of history he meant never to strive after world-conquest. "For what," he asked,
"has become of the so-called world-empires? Alexander the Great, Napoleon the First, all the great warrior heroes swam in blood and left behind them subjugated peoples, who at the first opportunity rose and brought their empires to ruin. The world-empire which I dream of will be, above all, the newly established German Empire, enjoying on every side the most absolute confidence as a peaceable, honest, and quiet neighbour, not founded on conquest by the sword, but on the mutual confidence of nations, striving for the same objects."
While on the way to Morocco the Emperor put in at Lisbon to pay a visit to the King of Portugal, and with the latter attended a meeting of the Geographical Society. From Lisbon he went to Gibraltar, and from thence, after a few hours' stay, he started for Tangier.
The Morocco incident, as it is often too lightly called, should rather be regarded as a phase in the world's economic history and an occurrence of moment for the future peace of all nations than the mere game on the diplomatic chess-board many writers appear to consider it. According to French critics, and they may be taken as representative of the feeling everywhere prevalent during the seven years the incident lasted, its origin was a matter of alliances and the balance of power. Germany, according to these writers, wanted to preserve the position of hegemony in Europe she had obtained under Bismarck, and consequently felt annoyed by the Triple Entente, which robbed her of her traditional friend Russia and set up an effective counterpoise to the Triple Alliance of which Germany was the leading Power, and on which she could, or believed she could, rely for support in case of war with France. In going, therefore, to Tangier, at the moment when her defeat by Japan rendered Russia for the time being of little or no account in the considerations of diplomacy, the Emperor, according to these writers, in reality was making a determined attempt to break the Entente combination and protect his Empire from political isolation or inferiority.
It is quite possible that such were the motives of the Emperor's action, but if so he was building better than he knew. The vicissitudes of the Moroccan episode are described briefly below, yet some remarks of a general nature as to the whole episode considered in its historical perspective may be permitted in advance. But first, what is historical perspective? It may perhaps be defined as that view of history which shows in its true proportions the relative importance of an event to other events which strongly and permanently leave their mark on the character and development of the period or generation in which they occur. Regarded from this standpoint the Morocco incident can claim an exceptional position, for it was the first occasion in modern diplomatic history on which a Great Power officially proclaimed urbi et orbi the doctrine of the "open door," the doctrine of equal economic treatment for all nations for the benefit of all nations, and was willing to go to war in support of it.
It was not, of course, the first time the demand for the open door had been made; loudly and bloodily, too; since most wars from those of Greece and Rome to the war between Russia and Japan of recent years were waged with the intention, or in the hope, of opening, by conquest or contract, territory of the enemy to the mercantile enterprise of the victors. But this was the open door in a very selfish and restricted sense, and though many isolated events had occurred of late years, the international agreements regarding China among them, proving that the idea of the open door was gaining strength as a right common to all nations, it was not until the Emperor went to Tangier that a Great Power risked a great war in order to exemplify and enforce it.
The Emperor and his advisers were probably not moved by any altruistic sentiments in the matter, and their sole reason for action may have been to see that German subjects should not be excluded from Moroccan markets. It may also be that Germany was resolved that if there was to be a seizure of Morocco she should get her share of the territory to be distributed, notwithstanding her refusal, revealed by the late Foreign Secretary, Kiderlen-Waechter, in the Reichstag's confidential committee, to accede to Mr. Chamberlain's proposal, made some time before the incident, for a partition of the Shereefian Empire. But the acquisition of territory does not seem to have been the mainspring of her policy, while from the beginning to the end of the incident, however theatrical and questionable her diplomatic conduct may have been at moments during the negotiations, she was throughout consistent and successful in her demand for economic equality all round. This is a great gain for the future, for, with the world nearly all parcelled out, economic considerations, which are almost in all cases adjustable, are now the most weighty factors in international relations.
Apart from this view of the incident, it is clear that Germany was pursuing her claim to a "place in the sun," and she did so to the unconcealed annoyance of nations which up to then had never thought of her in a rôle she appeared to be aspiring to, that of a Mediterranean Power. To these nations she seemed an intruder in a sphere to which she neither naturally nor rightfully belonged. Evidently she had no political or historical claims in Morocco, while her commercial interests were less than 10 per cent of Morocco trade.
A narration of the incident may, for the sake of convenience, though involving some anticipation of the future, be dealt with in three sections: from the Anglo-French Agreement of 1904, and the Emperor's visit to Tangier in March, 1905, to the Act of Algeciras a year subsequently; from the Act of Algeciras to the Franco-German Agreement of 1909; and from that to the—let it be hoped—final settlement by the Franco-German Agreement of November 5, 1911.
The Anglo-French Agreement of 1904 gave France a free hand in Morocco in consideration of France giving England a similar position in Egypt and the Nile Valley. The state of things in Morocco at this time was one of discord and rebellion. In the midst of it, the Sultan, El Hassan, died, and was succeeded by Abdul Aziz, a minor. On coming of age Abdul Aziz showed his inability to rule, the country fell again into disorder and Abdul turned for help to France. Meantime England and France had been negotiating without the knowledge of Germany, and in April, 1904, the Anglo-French Agreement was signed. It was accompanied by an official declaration that France had no intention of changing the political status of Morocco, but only contemplated a policy there of "pacific penetration and reforms." Thereupon Prince von Bülow, the German Chancellor, stated in the Reichstag that the German Government had no reason to assume that the Agreement was directed against any Power and that "it appeared to be an attempt by England and France to come to a friendly understanding respecting their colonial differences."
"From the standpoint of German interests," continued the Chancellor, "we have no objections to raise to it." No parliamentary reference was made to Morocco until March, 1905, when the Chancellor spoke of the approaching visit of the Emperor to Tangier, and it became evident that the Emperor and his advisers had come to the conclusion that, as France seemed about assuming a full protectorate over Morocco, as she had tried to do in Tunis, and that this, in accordance with French policy, would result in the exclusion of other nationals from commerce and the development of the country, Germany must take action. Prince von Bülow explained that "his Majesty had, in the previous year, declared to the King of Spain that Germany pursued no policy of territorial acquisition in Morocco." He continued:
"Independent of the visit, and independent of the territorial question, is the question whether we have economic interests to protect in Morocco. That we have certainly. We have in Morocco, as in China, a considerable interest in the maintenance of the open door, that is the equal treatment of all trading nations."
And he concluded by saying:
"So far as an attempt is being made to alter the international status of Morocco, or to control the open door in the economic development of the country, we must see more closely than before that our economical interests are not endangered. Our first step, accordingly, is to put ourselves into communication with the Sultan."
The visit came off as announced, and the Emperor, on arriving at Tangier, made a speech which caused a sensation in every diplomatic chancellery; indeed, in all parts of the world. The Emperor's speech, which was addressed to the German colonists on March 31, 1905, was as follows:—
"I rejoice to make acquaintance with the pioneers of Germany in Morocco and to be able to say to them that they have done their duty. Germany has great commercial interests there. I will promote and protect trade, which shows a gratifying development, and make it my care to secure full equality with all nations. This is only possible when the sovereignty of the Sultan and the independence of the country are preserved. Both are for Germany beyond question, and for that I am ready at all times to answer. I think my visit to Tangier announces this clearly and emphatically, and will doubtless produce the conviction that whatever Germany undertakes in Morocco will be negotiated exclusively with the Sultan."
The result of these unmistakable declarations was that the Sultan rejected proposals made to him by the French, and shortly afterwards, on the advice of Germany, came forward with suggestions for a European conference. M. Delcassé, the French Foreign Minister, opposed the proposal, and for a time war between France and Germany appeared inevitable; but France was not in a military position to ignore Germany's threatening language, M. Delcassé had to resign, the French Cabinet under M. Rouvier agreed to the conference, and it met at Algeciras in January, 1906. At the conference Great Britain, in consonance with the Entente, supported France; Austria adhered loyally to her Triplice engagements and proved the "brilliant second" to Germany the Emperor subsequently described her; Italy, on the other hand, gave her Teutonic ally only lukewarm support.
In fairness, however, should be quoted here the explanation of Italy's attitude given by Chancellor von Bülow when discussing the conference in Parliament next year. The impression is general, both in and out of Germany, that Italy is only a half-hearted political ally. It is based on the temperamental difference between the Latin and the Teutonic races, on the popular sympathy between the French and Italian peoples, and to the supposedly reluctant support lent by Italy to Germany during the critical time of the conference, the extra-tour, as Prince Bülow, using a metaphor of the ballroom, termed it, she took with France on that occasion. Prince Bülow now endeavoured to dissipate or correct the impression, at any rate, as regarded Algeciras. "Italy," he said,
"found herself in a difficult position there. Various agreements between Italy and France regarding Morocco had come into existence anterior to the conference, but Germany was satisfied that they were not inconsistent with Italy's Triplice engagements; in fact, Germany had, several years ago, officially told Italy she must use her own judgment and act on her own responsibility in dealing with her French neighbour in Africa and the Mediterranean."
When it was settled that a conference should be held, Italy, the Chancellor continued, "gave Germany timely information as to the extent to which her support of Germany could go, and as a matter of fact she supported Germany's views in the bank and police questions." So far the German official explanation, but the impression of Italian lukewarmness as a member of the Triplice has lost none of its universality thereby. How well or ill founded the impression is, it will be for the future to disclose.
The summoning of the conference had been a triumph for German diplomacy, but its results were disappointing to her; for while the proceedings showed that among all nations she could only fully rely on the sympathy and support of Austria, they ended in an acknowledgment by Germany of the special position of France in Morocco. The Act of Algeciras, which was dated April 7, 1906, stated that the signatory Powers recognized that "order, peace, and prosperity" could only be made to reign in Morocco
"by means of the introduction of reforms based upon the triple principle of the sovereignty and independence of his Majesty the Sultan, the integrity of his States, and economic liberty without any inequality."
Then followed six Declarations regarding the organization of the police, smuggling, the establishment of a State bank, the collection of taxes, and the finding of new sources of revenue, customs, and administrative services and public works. For the organization of the police, French and Spanish officers and non-commissioned officers were to be placed at the disposal of the Sultan by the French and Spanish Governments. Tenders for public works were to be adjudicated on impartially without regard to the nationality of the bidder. The effect of the Act was to give international recognition to the special position of France and Spain in Morocco, while safeguarding the economic interests of other Powers.
The attitude taken up by Germany relative to the conference was set forth in a speech delivered by Prince von Bülow in the Reichstag in December, 1905. It was based, he explained, on the provisions of the Madrid Convention of 1880, in which all the Great Powers and the United States had taken part. The Chancellor claimed that Germany sought no special privileges in Morocco, but favoured a peaceful and independent development of the Shereefian Empire. He denied that German rights could be abrogated by an Anglo-French Agreement, and pointing out that Morocco in 1880 had granted all the signatories to the Madrid Convention most-favoured-nation treatment, claimed that if France desired to make good her demand for special privileges, she ought to have the consent of the special signatories to the Madrid pact. Germany had a right to be heard in any new settlement of Moroccan conditions; she could not allow herself to be treated as a quantité négligeable, nor be left out of account when a country lying on two of the world's greatest commercial highways was being disposed of. She had a commercial treaty with Morocco, conferring most-favoured-nation rights, and it did not accord with her honour to give way.
The Act of Algeciras, however, proved to have brought only temporary relief to European tension. Disturbances continued in Morocco, French subjects were murdered at Marakesch in 1907, and France occupied the province of Udja with troops until satisfaction should be given. Owing to riots at Casablanca in 1908, in which French as well as Spanish and Italian labourers were killed, she decided to occupy the place, and sent a strong military and naval force thither. A French warship bombarded the town, and by June, 1908, the French army of occupation numbered 15,000 men. Meanwhile internal commotions and intrigues had led to the deposition of Abdul Aziz and his replacement on the throne by his brother, Muley Hafid, with the support of Germany. France and Spain refused to recognize the new ruler unless he gave guarantees that he would respect the Act of Algeciras. Muley gave the required guarantees, and in March, 1909, France "declared herself wholly attached to the integrity and independence of the Shereefian Empire and decided to safeguard economic equality in Morocco." Germany on her side declared she was pursuing in Morocco only economic interests and, "recognizing that the special political interests of France in Morocco are closely bound up in that country with the consolidation of order and of internal peace," was "resolved not to impede those interests."
The German idea of not impeding French special political interests in Morocco was disclosed little more than two years later by the dispatch of the German gunboat Panther (of "Well done, Panther!" fame) on July 3, 1911, to the "closed" port of Agadir on the south Moroccan coast.
It was as dramatic a coup as the Emperor's visit to Tangier and caused as much alarm. The fact is that the march of French troops to Fez, which had taken place a few months before, convinced the Emperor and his Government that France, relying on the support of her Entente friend England, was bent on the Tunisification of Morocco. The Emperor, Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg, and Foreign Secretary Kiderlen-Wæchter met at the Foreign Office on May 21st, and it was decided to send a ship of war, as at once a hint and a demonstration, to Agadir or other Moroccan port. Germany, of course, in accordance with diplomatic strategy, did not disclose the real springs of her action, though they must have been patent to all the world. She notified the Powers of the dispatch of her warship, explaining that the sending of the Panther, which "happened to be in the neighbourhood," was owing to the representations of German firms, as a temporary measure for the protection of German protégés in that region, and taken "in view of the possible spread of disorders prevailing in other parts of Morocco."
In France, on the other hand, it was asserted that the step was not in conformity with the spirit of the Franco-German Agreement of 1909, in which Germany resolved not to impede French special interests, that there were no Germans at Agadir, and that only nine months previously Germany had angrily protested at the calling of a French cruiser at the same port. The reference was to the visit of the French cruiser Du Chaylu in November, 1910, when the captain paid a visit to the local pasha. The German Foreign Secretary eventually said Germany had no objection to France using her police rights even in a closed port, and the admission was taken as a fresh renunciation on the part of Germany of any right to interference. Feeling ran high for a time both in France and Germany, while the German action added to the sentiment of hostility to Germany in England, and English political circles perceived in it a design on Germany's part of acquiring a port on the Moroccan coast. The word "compensation," which afterwards was to prove the solution of Franco-German differences was now first mentioned by Germany.
After England's determination to support France had been made plain by ministerial statements, the entire Morocco episode was closed by the Franco-German Agreement signed on November 5, 1911, as "explanatory and supplementary" to the Franco-German Agreement of 1909. The effect of the new Agreement was practically to give France as free a hand in Morocco as England has in Egypt, with the reservation that "the proceedings of France in Morocco leave untouched the economic equality of all nations." The Agreement further gives France "entire freedom of action" in Morocco, including measures of police. The rights and working area of the Morocco State bank were left as they stood under the Act of Algeciras. The sovereignty of the Sultan is assumed, but not explicitly declared. The compensation to Germany for her agreement to "put no hindrances in the way of French administration" and for the "protective rights" she recognizes as "belonging to France in the Shereefian Empire" was the cession by France to Germany of a large portion of her Congo territory in mid-Africa, with access to the Congo and its tributaries, the Sanga and Ubangi.
While the ground-idea of Germany's policy of economic expansion, and the source of all her trouble with England, is her insistence on her "place in the sun," the difficulty attending it for other nations is to determine the place's nature and extent, so that every one shall be comfortable and prosperous all round.
The alterations in conditions among civilized nations during the last half-century, more especially in all that relates to international intercourse—political, financial, commercial, social—makes it reasonable to suppose that changes must follow in the conduct of their foreign policies. The fact also, recognized by no country more clearly than by Germany, that the profitable regions of the earth are already appropriated makes an economic policy for her all the more advisable. An economic policy, moreover, is, notwithstanding her apparent militarism, most in harmony with the peaceful and industrious character of her people. Unfortunately, the stage in progress where the political and commercial interests of all nations have become defined and adjusted has not yet been reached, though the numerous agreements between the Great Powers of recent years go far towards clearing the way for so desirable a consummation. Unfortunately, too, it is in the very process of finding bases for such agreements that international jealousies and misunderstandings arise; and hence in securing peace, governments and peoples are at all times nowadays most in jeopardy of war. This consideration alone might very well be used to justify nations in keeping their military and naval forces strong and ready. Perhaps some day such forms of force will not be wanted, though admittedly the great majority of people still refuse to believe that the changes which have occurred have altered the fundamental attitude of countries to each other, and remain firmly convinced that to-day, as yesterday and the day before, great nations are moved by an irresistible desire to add to their territories and in every way aggrandize themselves, by diplomacy if possible, and if diplomacy fails, by force.
It is, of course, impossible to say with certainty what the real designs of the Emperor and his Government in this regard were during the Morocco episode, or are now. Some believe that their designs have always aimed, and still aim, at depriving Great Britain of her position of superiority in respect of territory, maritime dominion, and trade. Others hold that they seek and will have, coûte que coûte, new territory for Germany's increasing population, and look with greedy eyes towards South America and even Holland. Others yet again represent them as incessantly on the watch to seize a harbour here or there as a coaling station for warships and a basis of attack. But an unbiased survey of the annals of the Emperor's reign hitherto does not bear out any of these assertions. A policy of territorial expansion as such, mere earth-hunger, cannot be proved against him. Prince Bismarck was no colonial enthusiast, though he passes for being the founder of Germany's present colonial policy; and even to-day the colonial party in Germany, though a very noisy, is not a very large or influential one. Samoa—East Africa—Kiao-tschau—the Carolines—Heligoland—the Cameroons: how can the acquisition of comparatively insignificant and unprofitable places like these be used for proving that the might of Germany is or has been directed towards territorial conquest?
What, it may however be asked, of the Morocco adventure? Of the speech at Tangier? Of the sending of the Panther to Agadir? Of the demand for compensation in Central Africa? Until the Morocco question arose, all the quarrels amongst the Powers regarding territory were caused by the territorial ambition of France, or Russia, or Italy—not of Germany; and it was not until France showed openly, by sending her troops to Fez, and thus ignoring the Act of Algeciras, that Germany put forward claims for territorial compensation in connection with Morocco. The visit of the Emperor to Tangier in 1905, a year after the Anglo-French Agreement, was doubtless an unpleasant surprise for both England and France. And not without good cause; for England and France are naturally and historically Mediterranean Powers—the one as guardian of the route to her Eastern possessions, the other as the owners of a large extent of Mediterranean coast; while England, in addition, was justified in seeing with uneasiness the possibility of a German settlement at Tangier or elsewhere on the Morocco seaboard. But the Tangier visit and all that followed it was the consequence, not of an adventurous policy of territorial conquest, but of a legitimate, and not wholly selfish, desire for economic expansion.
Taken, then, as a whole, the Emperor's foreign policy has been, as it is to-day, almost entirely economic and commercial. The same might, no doubt, be said in a general way of all civilized Occidental governments, but there never has yet been a country of which the foreign policy was so completely directed by the economic and mercantile spirit as modern Germany. The foreign policy of England has also been commercial, but it has been influenced at times by noble sentiment and splendid imagination as well. The first question the German statesman, in whose vocabulary of state-craft the word imagination does not occur, asks himself and other nations when any event happens abroad to demand imperial attention is—how does it affect Germany's economic and commercial interests, future as well as present? What is Germany going to get out of it? The manner in which on various occasions during the reign the question has been propounded has excited criticism bordering on indignation abroad, but it should be recognized that it has invariably been answered in the long run by Germany in the spirit of compromise and conciliation.
However, all civilized nations nowadays see that war is the least satisfactory method of adjusting national quarrels, and the tendency is happily growing among them to pursue a commercial, an economic policy, a policy of peace. This is true Weltpolitik, true world-policy. Time was when wars were the unavoidable result of conditions then prevailing; but conditions have greatly altered, and war, as there is abundant evidence to show, is to-day, in almost every case, avoidable by all civilized peoples. Formerly war deranged and disturbed at any rate for the time being, the commerce and industries of the countries engaged in it; to-day, as Mr. Norman Angell demonstrates, it deranges and disturbs commerce and industry all over the world. The derangement and disturbance may, it is true, be only temporary; but there is, as always, the loss of life among the youth of the countries engaged in war to be remembered. Granted that it is pleasant and honourable to die for one's country. Let us hope the time is coming when it will be equally pleasant and honourable to live for it.
We have done with Morocco, but to round off the record for 1905 mention should be made of an incident in the Emperor's life which was a source of great pleasure to him after his return from his journey thither. The marriage of his eldest son, the Crown Prince, took place in the Chapel Royal of the Berlin palace on June 15, 1905, to the young Duchess Cecile of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, whose character has been alluded to elsewhere and whom all Germans look forward with pleasure to seeing one day their Empress. The marriage naturally was attended by rejoicings in Berlin similar to those shown when the Emperor was married in 1881. Their chief popular feature, now as then, was the formal entry into the capital, and its chief domestic feature a grand wedding breakfast at the Emperor's palace. On the occasion of the latter, the Emperor, rising from his seat and using the familiar Du and Dich (thou and thee), addressed his newly-made daughter-in-law as follows:—
"My dear daughter Cecilie,—Let me, on behalf of my wife and my whole House, heartily welcome you as a member of my House and my family circle. You have come to us like a Queen of Spring amid roses and garlands, and under endless acclamations of the people such as my Residence city has not known for long. A circle of noble guests has assembled to celebrate this high and joyful festival with us, but not only those present, but also those who are, alas, no more, are with us in spirit: your illustrious father and my parents.
"A hundred thousand beaming faces have enthusiastically greeted you; they have, however, not merely shone with pleasure, but whoever can look deeper into the heart of man could have seen in their eyes the question—a question which can only be answered by your whole life and conduct, the question, How will it turn out?
"You and your husband are about to found a home together. The people has its examples in the past to live up to. The examples which have preceded you, dear Cecilie, have been already eloquently mentioned—Queen Louise and other Princesses who have sat on the Prussian throne. They are the standards according to which the people will judge your life, while you, my dear son, will be judged according to the standard Providence set up in your illustrious great-grandfather.
"You, my daughter, have been received by us with open arms and will be honoured and cherished. To both of you I wish from my heart God's richest blessings. Let your home be founded on God and our Saviour. As He is the most impressive personality which has left its illuminating traces on the earth up to the present time, which finds an echo in the hearts of mankind and impels them to imitate it, so may your career imitate His, and thus will you also fulfil the laws and follow the traditions of our House.
"May your home be a happy one and an example for the younger generation, in accordance with the fine sentence which William the Great once wrote down as his confession of faith; 'My powers belong to the world and my country.' Accept my blessing for your lives. I drink to the health of the young married couple."
The record of this memorable year may be closed with mention of an institution which is not only a special care of the Emperor's, but is also a landmark in the relation of Germany and America which may prove to be the forerunner, if it has not already done so, of similar interchange of ideas and information between nations which only require mutually to understand each other in order to be the best of friends.
The system of an annual exchange of professors between America and
Germany was suggested, it is believed, to the Emperor in this year by
Herr Althoff, the Prussian Minister of Education. The Emperor took up
the idea with enthusiasm, and after discussing it with Dr. Nicholas
Murray Butler, President of Columbia University, who was invited to
Wilhelmshohe for the purpose, had it finally elaborated by the
Prussian Ministry of Education which now superintends its working.
The original idea of an exchange only between Harvard and Berlin University professors was, thanks to the liberality of an American citizen, Mr. Speyer, extended almost simultaneously by the establishment of what are known as "Roosevelt" professorships. The holders of these positions, unlike the original "exchange" professors between Harvard and Berlin only, may be chosen by the trustees of Columbia University from any American university and can exchange duties for two terms, instead of one in the place of the exchange professors, with the professors of any German University. Harvard professors have been succesively: Francis G. Peabody, Theodore W. Richards, William H. Scofield, William M. Davis, George F. Moore, H. Munsterberg, Theobald Smith, Charles S. Minog; and Roosevelt professors: J.W. Burgess, Arthur T. Hadley, Felix Adler, Benj. Ide Wheeler, C. Alphonso Smith, Paul S. Reinsch, and William H. Sloane.