Face to Face with Kaiserism Part 1

Face to Face with Kaiserism.

by James W. Gerard.

CHAPTER I

PERSONALITY OF THE KAISER AND SOMETHING OF THE KING BUSINESS

To the American mind the Kaiser is the personification of Germany. He is the arch enemy upon whom the world places the responsibility for this most terrible of all wars. I have sat face to face with him in the palace at Berlin where, as the personal representative and envoy of the President of the United States, I had the honor of expressing the viewpoint of a great nation. I have seen him in the field as the commanding general of mighty forces, but I also have seen him in the neutral countries through which I pa.s.sed on my return home and in my own beloved land--in the evidence of intrigue and plotting which this militaristic monarch has begotten and which is to-day "the Thing," as President Wilson calls it, which has brought the American people face to face with kaiserism in the greatest conflict of all history.

What manner of man is he? What is his character? How much was he responsible for what has happened--how much his General Staff?

What of the Crown Prince and what of the neutral peoples and their rulers whom Germany has intimidated and would fain subjugate if it suited her purpose? These are the questions I shall attempt to answer out of my experiences in Germany and my contacts with the rulers of other countries in my journeys to and from Berlin and Washington.

To ill.u.s.trate the craft of the Kaiser, I believe I can perform no better service to Americans than to reveal an incident which has not hitherto been published. It occurred at the New Year's reception of 1914 when the Amba.s.sadors of all the foreign countries represented at the German court, were ranged in a large room at the Palace. They stood about six feet apart in the order of their residence in Berlin. The Kaiser and his aides entered the room, and the Emperor spoke a few minutes to each envoy. He tarried longest with the Turkish Amba.s.sador and myself, thereby arousing the curiosity of the other diplomats who suspected that the Kaiser did more than merely exchange the greetings of the season. He did.

What the German Emperor said to me interests every American because it shows his subtlety of purpose. _The Kaiser talked at length to me about what he called j.a.pan's designs on the United States. He warned me that Mexico was full of j.a.panese spies and an army of j.a.panese colonels._ He also spoke about France, saying that he had made every effort to make up with France, that he had extended his hand to that country but that the French had refused to meet his overtures, that he was through and would not try again to heal the breach between France and Germany!

All this was in 1914, six months before the outbreak of the European War. Little did I know then what the purpose was back of that conversation, but it is clear now that the Emperor wished to have the government of the United States persuaded through me that he was really trying to keep Europe at peace and that the responsibility for what was going to happen would be on France.

The German is so skilful at intrigue that he seeks even in advance of an expected offensive to lay the foundation for self-justification.

But the reference to j.a.pan and alleged hostility against us on the part of fanciful hordes of j.a.panese in Mexico made me wonder at the time. There were many evidences subsequent to that New Year's Day reception of an attempt to alienate us from j.a.pan. As a climax to it all, as a clarification of what the Emperor had in mind, came the famous Zimmermann note, the instructions to the German Minister in Mexico to align both j.a.pan and Mexico against us when we entered the war against Germany!

Plotting and intriguing for power and mastery! Such is the business of absolute rulers.

I believe that had the old Austrian Kaiser lived a little while longer, the prolongation of his life would have been most disastrous both for Austria and Hungary. I believe after the death of Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo and after a year of war the German Emperor and autocracy were brooding over a plan according to which, on the death of Francis Joseph, the successor should be allowed to rule only as King or Grand-Duke of Austria, the t.i.tle of Emperor of Austria to disappear and German Princes to be placed upon the thrones of Hungary and of a new kingdom of Bohemia. These and the king or grand-duke of Austria were to be subject-monarchs under the German Kaiser, who was thus to revive an empire, if not greater, at least more powerful, than the empires of Charlemagne and of Charles the Fifth. Many public utterances of the German Kaiser show that trend of mind.

Emperor William deliberately wrote and published, for instance, such a statement as this: "From childhood I have been influenced by five men, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Theodoric II, Frederick the Great and Napoleon. Each of these men dreamed a dream of world empire. They failed. I have dreamed a dream of German world empire and my mailed fist shall succeed."

Could any declaration of a life's ambition be more explicit? It seems impossible for human ambition to stand still. Either a man loses all stimulus of self and becomes as spiritless as a f.a.gged animal or ambition drives him always on--he is never content with any success achieved. The millionaire to whom the first million, when he was a boy, seemed the extreme limit of human wealth and desire, presses on insatiably with the first million in his pocket, more restless, more dissatisfied, than the hungry farmer's boy who first carries his ambitions to the great city.

When these zealous, scheming men gain the power of kingship, they usually bring disaster to their country. Their subjects find no compensation in the personal ambitions which hurry a nation into the miseries of war. Better Charles II, dallying with his ringletted mistresses, than an Alexander the Great; better Henry the Fourth of France, the "ever-green gallant," than Frederick the Great, bathing his people in blood. "Happy nations have no history."

William the Second, the present German Emperor, might well be called the Restless Emperor. He is never satisfied to remain more than a few days in any place or in any occupation. He commands his armies in person. He has won distinction as a writer and a public speaker. He is an excellent shot. He has composed music, written verses, superintended the production of a ballet, painted a picture; the beautiful Byzantine chapel in the Castle of Posen shows his genius for architecture; and, clothed in a clergyman's surplice, he has preached a sermon in Jerusalem. What ruler in all history has exhibited such extraordinary versatility?

In my conversations with the Emperor I have been struck by his knowledge of other countries, lands which he had never visited.

He was familiar not only with their manners, customs, industries and public men, but with their commercial problems. Through his conversation one can see the keen eye of the Hanseatic trader looking with eager envy on the trade of a rival merchant. The Emperor, incidentally, while instinctively commercial, has an inborn contempt, if not for the law, at least for lawyers. In October, 1915, for instance, he remarked to me, "This is a lawyers' war, Asquith and Lloyd George in England, Poincare and Briand in France."

In appearance and conversation Emperor William is very manly. His voice is strong, with a ring in it. He is a good rider. Following the German custom, he puts on his nightshirt every afternoon after lunch and sleeps for two hours--for the German is more devoted to the siesta than the Spaniard or Mexican. The hours of the Berlin Foreign Office, for example, were from eleven to one and from four to eight. After a heavy lunch at one o'clock all the officials took a nap for an hour or two. Also, the hours of the bank where I did business were from ten to one and from four till six. This meant that after six o'clock the clerks had to sit until perhaps eight making up the books for the day.

In 1916, the Olympic games were to have taken place at Berlin, and in September, 1913, before sailing for Germany, I attended a luncheon at the New York Athletic Club, given by President Page, with the members of the German Commission who had come to America to study athletics and to see what could be done in Germany so that the Germans could make a good showing at the games in their own city.

After my arrival in Germany one of the members of this commission told me that it was impossible, he believed, to organise the Germans as athletes until German meal and business hours had been changed. He said that with us in America young men leaving business at four-thirty, five or five-thirty, had time in which to exercise before their evening meal, but that in Germany the young men ate so much at the midday meal that they required their siesta after it, and that they did not leave their offices until so late in the evening that exercise and practice were impossible.

On the Emperor's table his wine gla.s.ses or rather cups are of silver. Possibly this is because he has been forbidden by his physician to drink wine. The Germans maintain the old-fashioned custom of drinking healths at meals. Some one far down the table will lift his gla.s.s, look at you and smile. You are then expected to lift your gla.s.s and drink with him and then both bow and smile over the gla.s.ses. As the Emperor must reciprocate with every one present, his champagne and wine are put in silver cups in order that those drinking wine with him do not see that he consumes no appreciable quant.i.ty of alcoholic liquor on the occasion of each health drinking. Some people in America may have often wished for a similar device.

The Emperor is out of uniform only on rare occasions.

Occasionally, when in a foreign country, he has appeared in civilian dress, as shown in the accompanying photograph, taken in 1910 at the small town of Odde in Norway, where he had landed from his yacht. He appears to much better advantage in uniform than in civilian attire. Although uniformed while at sea as an Admiral, his favourite uniform is really that of the Hussars. In this picture he is accompanied by Baron von Treutler, Prussian Minister to Bavaria and Foreign Office representative with the Kaiser. Von Treutler is a German of the world. I met him at the Great General Headquarters, at the end of April, 1916, when the submarine question was being discussed. He came to dinner several times at the Chancellor's house, undoubtedly reporting back what was said to the Emperor, and I believe that his voice was against the resumption of ruthless submarine warfare and in favour of peace with America. Shortly after this period he fell into disfavour and went back to occupy his post of Minister in Munich.

In conversation, the Emperor reminds one very much of Roosevelt, talking with the same energy, the same violence of gesture and of voice so characteristic of our great ex-President. When the Emperor talks all his attention is given to you and all his mental energy is concentrated on the conversation. In this violence of manner and voice he seems not at all German. The average German is neither exuberant nor soft-spoken.

His favourite among his ancestors is William of Orange. Once he attended a fancy-dress ball in costume and make-up copied from the well-known picture of that Prince. The Emperor is strongly built and is about five feet nine inches tall. He sits well on his horse and walks, too, with head erect and shoulders thrown back--a picture of military precision.

A friend of mine who was present at Kiel with his yacht, in 1910, tells me that when all the yachts and warships had been a.s.sembled along the long narrow waterway which const.i.tutes that harbour, with the crews lined up on deck or manning the yards, with bands crashing and banners floating, the _Hohenzollern_ slowly steamed into the harbour and pa.s.sed lazily and majestically through the waiting ships. Alone on the upper bridge stood the Monarch, attired in full military uniform, with white coat and tight breeches, high top boots, shining silver breastplate and silver helmet, surmounted by an eagle, the dress of the Prussian Guard Regiment so dear to those who portray romantic and kingly roles upon the stage, a figure on whom all eyes were fixed, as splendid as that of Lohengrin, drawn by his fairy swan, coming to rescue the unjustly accused Princess. And, alas, the Germans like all this pomp and splendour. It appeals to something in the German heart and seems to create a feeling of affection and humility in the German breast.

When I talked at length one day with President Wilson on my visit to America in October, 1916, he remarked, half to himself, in surprise at my tale of war, "Why does all this horror come on the world? What causes it?" "Mr. President," I answered, "it is the king business."

I did not mean nominal kings as harmless as those of Spain and England. I was thinking of the powerful monarchs. A German republic would never have embarked on this war; a German Congress would have thought twice before sending their own sons to death in a deliberate effort to enslave other peoples. In a free Germany teachers, ministers and professors would not have taught the necessity of war. What German merchant in a free Germany would have thought that all the trade of the East, all the riches of Bagdad and Cairo and Mosul could compensate him for the death of his first-born or restore the blind eyes to the youngest son who now crouches, cowering, over the fire, awaiting death? For there was no trade necessity for this war. I know of no place in the world where German merchants were not free to trade. The disclosures of war have shown how German commerce had penetrated every land, to an extent unknown to the best informed. If the German merchants wanted this war in order to gain a German monopoly of the world's trade, then they are rightly suffering from the results of overweening covetousness.

Experts in insanity say that the Roman Emperors as soon as they attained the rule of the world were made mad by the possession of that stupendous power. The sceptre of Emperor William is mighty.

No more autocratic influence proceeds from any other monarch or ruler. But you will say how about our President in time of war?

Great power can safely be given to a president. Our presidents have all risen from the ranks. Usually they have gone through the school of hard knocks. And there are ways of keeping them abreast of the people.

It is told that hidden from public view, crouched down in the chariot in which the successful Roman pro-consul or general drove triumphantly through the crowded streets of Rome, was a slave celebrated for his impertinence, whose duty it was to make the one honoured feel that, after all, he was nothing more than an ordinary mortal blessed with a certain amount of good luck.

Probably as the chariot pa.s.sed by the forum the slave would say, after a thunderous burst of applause from the populace: "Do not take that applause too seriously. That is the T. Quintus Ca.s.sius a.s.sociation whose chief received a hundred sesterces from your brother-in-law yesterday, on account, with a promise of a hundred more in case the a.s.sociation's cheers seemed loud and sincere."

So in America the press, serious and comic, takes the place of the humble slave and throws enough cold water on the head of any temporarily successful American to reduce it to normal proportions.

Besides, the President knows that some day he must return to the ranks, live again with his neighbours, seek out the threads of a lost law practice or eke out a livelihood on the Chautauqua circuit in the discomfort of tiny hotels, travelling in upper berths instead of private cars and eating on lunch stools in small stations instead of in the sumptuous surroundings of presidential luxury. These are sobering prospects.

Kings, on the other hand, come to look on their subjects as toys.

A post-card popular in Austria and Germany showed the old Emperor, Francis Joseph, seated at a table with a little great-grand-nephew on his knee, teaching the child to move toy soldiers about on the boards; and it is unfortunately true that the same youngster--should the system of the Central Empires be perpetuated--will be able to move his subjects across the map of Europe just as he did the toy soldiers on his great-grand-uncle's table. He will be able to tear men from their work and their homes, to seize great scientists, great chemists, great inventors--men who may be on the eve of discoveries or remedies destined to rid the human race of the scourge of cancer or the white plague--and send them to death in the marshes of Macedonia or the fastnesses of the Carpathians because some fellow-king or emperor has deceived or outwitted him.

In a monarchy all subjects seem the personal property of the monarch and all expressions of power become personal. This extends throughout all countries ruled by royalty.

When, for example, a member of the royal family dies, even in another country, it must be lamented by the court circle of other lands. Here is the official notice sent to all diplomats and members of the Imperial German Court on the occasion of the death of the Queen of Sweden.

"The Court goes into mourning to-day for Her Majesty the Queen-Mother of Sweden for three weeks up to and including the 19th of January, 1914.

"Ladies wear black silk dresses, for the first fourteen days, including January 12th, with black hair ornaments, black gloves, black fans and black jewelry; the last eight days with white hair ornaments, grey gloves, white fans and pearls.

"Gentlemen wear the whole time a black band on the left sleeve. Civilians wear with the embroidered coat, during the first fourteen days, including January 12th, on occasions of Grand Gala, black buckles and swords with black sheathes. During the last eight days bright buckles; on occasions of 'Half Gala' gold or silver embroidered trousers of the color of the uniform and in the one as in the other case gold or silver embroidered hat with white plume; with the 'small' uniform, however, black trousers (or knee-breeches, black silk stockings, shoes with black bows and the 'three-cornered' hat with black plume). During the first fourteen days gentlemen wear black woolen vests and black gloves, in the last eight days black silk vests and grey gloves.

"Berlin, December 30, 1913.

"The Ober-Ceremonienmeister.

"GRAF A. EULENBURG.

"By command of His Majesty the Emperor, mourning will be suspended for New Year's Day and the 17th and 18th of January."

So, it is apparent what a close corporation all the royal families make and the peoples are simply viewed as the personal property of the ruling princes. In his telegram which the German Kaiser wrote to President Wilson on August tenth, observe that all is personal. The Kaiser says, "I telegraphed to His Majesty the King, _personally_, but that if, etc., I would employ _my_ troops elsewhere.... His Majesty answered that he thought _my_ offer...." He speaks of the King of the Belgians "having refused _my_ pet.i.tion for a free pa.s.sage." He refers to "_my_ Amba.s.sador in London."

This telegram shows, on the other hand, another thing,--the great ability of the Kaiser. Undoubtedly he knew why I was coming to see him--to present the offer of mediation of President Wilson--but from our conversation I do not think that he had even in his mind prepared the answer, which sets forth his position in entering the war.

He said, "Wait a moment, I shall write something for the President." Then taking the telegraph blanks lying on the table, he wrote rapidly and fluently. It was a message in a foreign language, and, whatever we may think of its content, at any rate it is clear, concise, consecutive and forceful.

The personal touch runs through that extraordinary series of telegrams in the famous "w.i.l.l.y-Nicky" correspondence between Kaiser Wilhelm and the last of the Romanoffs, discovered in Petrograd by Herman Bernstein. These reveal, moreover, the surpa.s.sing craft of the German Kaiser. He was the master schemer.

Touting for German trade, always for his advantage, he twists the poor half-wit of the Winter Palace like a piece of straw.