The Schemes of the Kaiser Part 18

Shall I be told that I repeat myself if, once a fortnight, I say to every good citizen, anxious about the many dangers that threaten his country, "Beware of this Germany, whose numbers and wealth and strength are ever-increasing and multiplying?"

Let each one of us do all that lies in his power not to a.s.sist in any way the industry and commerce of Germany, which devour and destroy our own. Let us enlighten those near to us who in their turn will enlighten their neighbours, and let us stimulate a movement of resistance to the invasion of German produce of every kind; let every one of us contribute his share to the strengthening of public opinion for the struggle against the spirit of Germanism, which is gradually undermining the national spirit of France. May the voter insist that his representative should not keep his eyes fixed within the narrow semi-circle of parliamentary affairs and that he should observe beyond it the continual retreat of our diplomacy before the advance of German predominance.

Even the most limited intelligence can now perceive that, even if we felt ourselves powerless to pursue our secular policy for the defence and protection of Christians in the East, nothing compelled us to witness the marriage contract between Germany and the Grand Turk, to overwhelm them both with good wishes for their perfect union, to lend them our aid in establishing their perfect understanding.

What need is there for us to seek to reconcile Germany and Russia in China? Germany could not have rendered any valuable a.s.sistance to our ally in the Middle Kingdom, for she brings to Asia nothing but her insatiable greed, and had it not been for her reconciliation with Russia, she would never have dared to gratify it. Once sure of the confidence of the young Tzar, with what haste and brutality did William II proceed to display his long teeth! So there he is, definitely in possession of Kiao-chao Bay, for only the utterly credulous will believe in any retrocession of this so-called leased territory, in recovering from Germany this admirable commercial harbour, this marvellous strategical position.

February 6, 1898. [2]

Lies, insolence, polite hypocrisy, underhand plotting, audacity, cynicism and cruelty, these are the ingredients that go to the making of Prussian statecraft.

It must be admitted that the Emperor-King of Prussia is growing.

Cutting himself clear from the timid souls who are still possessed of a sense of right, he a.s.sumes the proportions of a Machiavelli and a Mephistopheles combined. William the Incalculable, as his subjects call him, develops to his own advantage the influences and the power of evil. What new distress will he bring to Christian souls, this applauder of the Armenian ma.s.sacres, when, after having covered with his favour, supported by his strength, guided by his advice and encouraged by his friendship, the a.s.sa.s.sin who reigns at Constantinople, he makes his pilgrimage to Palestine, escorted in triumph by the same soldiers who, by order of the Red Sultan, have killed, tortured and tormented Christians? We shall see him kneeling before the tomb of Christ, surrounded by Turks with bloodstained hands, when he goes to take possession of those much-coveted Holy Places, which shall make him, the prop and stay of the exterminator of Christians, sole arbiter of Christianity in the East. Can the heavens that look down on Mount Sinai smile on William II, sheltering in the shadow of Turkish bayonets? When, at Jerusalem, he celebrates the opening of the Prussian Church (whose corner-stone was laid by Frederick III, repentant of his military glory), will not this man of insatiable pride receive some sign of warning from above? No, it sufficeth perhaps that he should go forward to meet his fate. Is it not the same for all evil-doers, no matter to what heights they may attain, who only climb that they may be hurled to lower depths?

The challenges that men fling at the ideal structure of the principles of humanity are like the stones that children throw at monuments. They acc.u.mulate and serve to consolidate that which they were meant to destroy.

No one can reproach William II with inactivity, and in this the monarch at Berlin is of one mind with Germany. He draws the nation after him; it follows blindly on dizzy paths of adventure and the pursuit of wealth.

There is this about Germany to inspire us with fear--and one wonders how it is that Russia and France have not been so terrified long ago as to make them leave no stone unturned in the Near and Far East, to exorcise the perils with which her earth-hunger threatens them--that she is just as greedy as England in the politics of business, has just the same jealous desires for financial and commercial expansion, but that, in addition, she has hankerings of another sort: for glory, for conquests, for the annexations necessary to feed and satisfy her imperious military spirit. When we consider the innumerable objects for which Germany is working in the Near and Far East, we are compelled to astonishment at the narrow limits of the field of action that she leaves for other nations.

Prior to 1870, every country in Europe possessed its own distinguishing features, its power, its ambition, or its dominating influences.

England was the first, of commercial and industrial nations. Russia was the great leader of Oriental policy, the predestined heir to Asia.

Austria was the supreme German power. France was a military nation and at the same time the eldest daughter of the Church; she was the undisputed protector of Catholic Missions all over the world and umpire in most of the great international quarrels. To-day, Germany is at once all that England, Russia, Austria and France were. She holds every monopoly, centralises power of every kind, and destroys all power of movement in others. When shall we have a determined coalition against Germany? Herein lies the only hope of liberating Europe from the claws of Prussia and recovering something of the lion's share which William takes to himself.

February 22, 1898. [3]

By what process of mental aberration has it come to pa.s.s that our Minister of Foreign Affairs has placed himself under the wing of William II at Constantinople? His one object should have been to combine every effort on the part of Russia and France to keep Germany out of the East.

There would be no parallel to such a deplorable lack of foresight, if our diplomacy had not provided it in the Far East, if it had not helped to prove to Germany, there also, that she was becoming indispensable in China, that the prestige of Russia combined with that of France was insufficient to cope with the situation and to solve the difficulties that had arisen with the Son of Heaven, with j.a.pan and England.

The blindness which has characterised our foreign policy, which, since Jules Ferry took it in hand, has made us labour continuously with our own hands for the greatness of Germany, as if to justify our humility in her eyes, this will remain the crime of the initiator of an anti-national policy, the crime of M. Jules Ferry. It will also remain the irreparable fault committed by those who have adopted the lamentable policy which consists in following in the train of the conqueror once the ransom has been paid.

March 9, 1898. [4]

William II will have his sea-going fleet, and be able to challenge the fleets of the Great Powers and meet them on equal terms. He had meant to carry with a high hand his seven years' naval construction plan, in the same way that Bismarck obtained his seven years' military programme in spite of the opposition of the German Catholics. And now behold the German Budget Committee has sanctioned the raising of the money for his warships in six years!

As to the projected reform of the military code and the complete re-organisation of the army on a h.o.m.ogeneous basis, the Emperor-King of Prussia is not in the least disturbed. No doubt Bavaria, Wurtemberg and certain other Confederated States will claim to keep their autonomous armies by virtue of the Const.i.tution of 1871, but the King of Prussia is quite determined, on his part, to administer the German army under a single military code. Bavaria, they tell us, will never yield. Bavaria will yield. The German victories of 1870-71 created the German Empire and every Empire must of necessity be centralised or else become once more a Confederation.

United Teutondom, Germany, is embodied in Prussia. The Bavarians, like all the other Saxons, sing the national hymn "Germany, Germany, ever and ever greater." What, then, is the good of all their talking at Munich? If Germany is to grow ever greater, she cannot have several centres of influence. Therefore Bavaria will submit.

April 1, 1898. [5]

Notwithstanding the fact that he is a Protestant, William is impressed by the greatness of the role that Leo XIII might play in Christianity; and, therefore, brings all the influences at his command to bear upon him. Through all his official and officious agents he tells him that atheistic France, in the hands of laymen, can no longer be the eldest daughter of the Church; that the Holy Father is the Head of Christianity throughout the world, and that in the East and Far East he should make use of those who are most Christian; that an Emperor who is a believer, even though he be a Protestant, is much better fitted to be the protector of Christians in China and in Turkey than a Republic without faith. The only possible influences in China and in Turkey are religious influences, but economic questions follow in their wake, and the German Emperor, King of Prussia, means to appear before the peoples of the Near and Far East, in the light of his spectacular proceedings at Kiel, of the triumphant audacity of Kiao-chao, and of the splendour with which he is going to invest his journey in Palestine, as the Controller of their destinies, the defender of their rights and the supplier of such goods as they may wish to purchase.

It is possible that William II may be able to persuade Leo XIII that he should entrust him with the Holy Places and work together with him in China. In any event, the Catholics of Germany are now a long way from the _Kulturkampf_; they will vote the naval budget by an ample majority and Germany will become the great Naval Power, and at the same time the great Military Power, so that in the end she may become the wealthiest of the Commercial Powers: this is the dream of William, King of Prussia!

June 5, 1898. [6]

William II has become attached to the East, the scene of his chief diplomatic successes, a part of the world in which his Imperial word is law. He will continue to shower his favours upon it, and disturb everything there, so as to be able to fish in troubled waters. He will ransack everything for his purposes, even that very vague thing, h.o.m.ogeneous Turkey, based on the Mussulman faith. At this moment, he is planning I know not what kind of acceptance of the Cross by the Crescent, just as he planned Prince Henry's Chinese crusade. If the Cuban war did not detain him in Europe, he would have gone to Palestine, with a cavalcade of some sort which would have been an event in the history of Christianity. And he will do it yet.

What does Russia, so jealous for the Holy Places, think of the intrusion into them of the German Kaiser? He is master there. Here is one of the most striking proofs of the fact: the Mussulmans have a perfect horror of bells, but the new German Church erected at Jerusalem is equipped with a fine peal of them. That which neither Christian kings, nor even Tzars, were able to obtain, William II has achieved.

And such is the idea of force with which the German Emperor is a.s.sociated in their minds, that even the most fanatical Mussulmans have bent the knee in submission to this sacrilege.

July 12, 1898. [7]

The unseverable unity of Pan-Germanism is the ruling formula with the Germans of Austria. Are they not continually threatening the Hapsburgs that they will secede if the supremacy of their German minority over the Slav majority is not maintained? They do not even take the trouble to lower their voices when they cry to the neighbouring Empire: "Before very long we shall be yours."

Since the defeat of France, Germany's ambitions have grown to a height out of all proportion even to the importance of her conquest. On all sides she has cast covetous eyes, stretched out her grasping hand in all directions. For only France, while still intact, possessed the courage to protect other nations from the all-consuming German appet.i.te.

That Germany should have captured the monstrous friendship of a French Minister for the Christian-slaying Sultan! Can any one possibly find any absolution, any excuses, for such a deplorable mismanagement of our material and moral interests in the East?

Gradually, unless something can be done to check these unfortunate tendencies of our diplomacy, William II will announce that the time has come for the apotheosis, _a la turque,_ of a Protestant Emperor.

And then, all of a sudden after this gradual preparation, the Catholics and the Holy Places of the Orthodox will be delivered over to one of the only forces of Christianity, to that which gives absolution for murder and protects the slayer of Christians.

Race, nationality, politics, trade, influence and guarantees, all may be summed up in Oriental countries in a single word: Religion! Must, then, a government seek to advance the cause of its State religion, not from religious conviction, but in the spirit which seeks to retain the privileges and wealth it has acquired and its powers of self-defence?

Our new Minister of Foreign Affairs understands these things--he has pondered over them long: will he not, therefore, seek and find in the complexities of Oriental policy the factor of immediate and personal advantage which is calculated to minister to boundless self-conceit?

He will endeavour quietly to untie the least compact of the knots tied at Stamboul and Berlin; he will replace them by other knots, tied more closely by himself. He will display the cleverness of those who make no effort to be clever, and he will not lack clearness of sight and precision for the simple reason that he loves his country better than himself.

July 25, 1898. [8]

The high approval bestowed by Germany upon all the subterfuges of the diplomacy of Abdul Hamid, the bankruptcy of the European Concert, the embarra.s.sment in which each one of the Governments that compose this strange Concert finds itself when confronted with the machiavelism of the Turk, all these have produced a situation intolerable for those statesmen who have any regard for the dignity of their country.

Our new Minister of Foreign Affairs, upon coming to the Quai d'Orsay, felt keenly the humiliation inflicted upon France by the persistent weakness of our policy. From the outset he succeeded in foiling the Sultan's dangerous scheme for securing a representative of the Holy See at Constantinople which would have abolished at one stroke the whole French protectorate over Christians in the East.

Cardinal Ledochowsky, Prefect of Propaganda, with the help of the prospective Nuncio at Constantinople, and in order to emphasise the collapse of French influence in the East, was making his plans in readiness for William II to a.s.sume, solemnly and definitely, a protectorate over the Christians. Already the Kaiser's trusty friend at the Vatican had decided to instruct the Catholic clergy in Palestine to render exceptional honours to the German Emperor on the occasion of his journey to the Holy Places. But the Council of the Congregation, in plenary session, has opposed the wishes of Cardinal Ledochowsky, and so there will be no nomination of a representative of the Holy See at the Court of the Grand Turk. The German Emperor must needs be content with the honours "usually accorded to reigning princes." This is the kind of rebuff that neither Abdul Hamid nor William II readily forgives.

One of the German Emperor's chief joys is to break things. To bewilder people by the suddenness of his resolutions, to court all risks, to proclaim his power, to sow the wind and reap the whirlwind: these are the pleasures of the German Emperor, King of Prussia. There is no need for me to repeat the strange Neronian stories that are whispered in Germany concerning certain incidents of William's sea-voyages and journeys in Norway. A number of mysterious deaths following one upon the other provide sufficient material for these tales. For those who, like myself, have never ceased to regard William II as a creature of unbridled pride, it is enough from time to time to note one of his actions, so as to form our judgment of the man and to be able to predict to what heights of complacent admiration for himself and of severity for others he is likely to attain hereafter.

August 10, 1898. [9]