William of Germany Part 20

In the domain of aesthetics this year the Emperor had some pleasant and some painful experiences. Joachim, the great violinist, and a great favourite of his, died in August, and his death was followed next month, September, by that of the composer Grieg, the "Chopin of the North," as the Emperor called him, whose friendship the Emperor had acquired on one of his Norwegian trips. Quite at the end of the year his early tutor, Dr. Hinzpeter, for whom he always had a semi-filial regard, pa.s.sed away.

On the other hand, among the Emperor's pleasant experiences may be reckoned the visit of Mr. Beerbohm Tree and his English company to the German capital. Their repertory of Shakespearean drama greatly delighted the Emperor, who expressed his pleasure to Mr. Tree and his fellow-players personally, and did not dismiss them without substantial tokens of his appreciation.

Earlier in the year the French actress, Suzanne Depres, visited Berlin and appealed strongly to the Emperor's taste for the "cla.s.sical" in music and drama. Inviting the actress to the royal box, he said to her:

"You have shown us such a natural, living Phaedra that we were all strongly moved. How fine a part it is! As a youngster I used to learn verses from 'Phaedra' by heart. I am told that in France devotion to cla.s.sical tradition is growing weaker, and that Moliere and Racine are more and more seldom played. What a pity! Our people, on the contrary, remain faithful to their great poets and enjoy their works. After school comes college, and after college--the theatre. It should elevate and expand the soul.

The people do not need any representation of reality--they are well acquainted with that in their daily lives. One must put something greater and n.o.bler before them, something superior to 'La Dame aux Camelias.'"

A month later, however, he made one of his extremely rare visits to an ordinary Berlin theatre to see--"The Hound of the Baskervilles"!

Meanwhile in domestic politics Chancellor von Bulow's famous "bloc"

continued to work satisfactorily, notwithstanding difficulties arising from the conflicting interests of industry and agriculture, Free Trade and Protection and differences of creed and race. At the end of this year it was near falling asunder in connection with the question of judicial reform, but Prince von Bulow kept it together for a while by an impa.s.sioned appeal to the patriotism of both parties. In the course of the speech he told the House how, when he was standing at Bismarck's death-bed, he noticed on the wall the portrait of a man, Ludwig Uhland, who had said "no head could rule over Germany that was not well anointed with democratic oil," and drew the conclusion from the contrast between the dying man of action and the poet that only the union of old Prussian conservative energy and discipline with German broad-hearted, liberal spirit could secure a happy future for the nation. The "bloc," as we shall see, broke up in 1909 and Prince von Bulow resigned. The Chancellor afterwards attributed his fall entirely to the Conservatives, but it is possible, even probable, that it was in at least some measure due to the events of the _annus mirabilis_, 1908, which now opened.

XIV

THE NOVEMBER STORM

1908

The "November Storm" was a collision between the Emperor and his folk, a result of his so-called "personal regiment."

In a general way the latter phrase is intended to describe and characterize the method of rule adopted by the Emperor from the very beginning of his reign, especially as exhibited in his semi-official utterances, public and private, in his correspondence, private conversation, and public and private conduct generally. According to the popular interpretation of the Imperial Const.i.tution--the nearest thing to a Magna Charta in Germany--the Emperor should observe, in his words and acts, a reserve which would prevent all chance of creating dissension among the federated States and in particular would secure the avoidance of anything which might disturb Germany's relations to foreign countries or interfere with the course of Germany's foreign policy as carried on through the regular official channel, the Foreign Office. The ground for this popular interpretation is a const.i.tutional device which to an Englishman, if it be not offensive to say so, can only recall the well-known definition of a metaphysician as "a blind man, in a dark room, looking for a black cat, _which is not there_."

The device is known as the Chancellor's "responsibility," which was regarded, and is still regarded in Germany, as at once "covering" the Emperor and offering to his folk a safeguard against unwisdom or caprice on his part. The nature of this responsibility which is evidenced by the Chancellor signing the Emperor's edicts and other official statements, is so frequently discussed by German politicians, the position of the Chancellor--the Grand Vizier of Germany he has been picturesquely called--is so influential, and the intercourse between the Emperor and the Chancellor is so close, exclusive, and confidential, that an examination of the meaning of the term "responsibility" in this connexion is desirable.

Whenever the Emperor does anything important or surprising, especially in foreign policy, the first question asked by his subjects is, has he taken the step with the knowledge, and therefore with the joint responsibility, of the Chancellor? If the answer is in the negative, it is the "personal regiment" again, and people are angry: if the latter, they may disapprove of the step and grumble at it, but it is covered by the Chancellor's signature and they can raise no const.i.tutional objection. Hence the demand usually made on such occasions for an Act of Parliament once for all defining fully and clearly the Chancellor's responsibilities. According to Prince von Bulow, and it is doubtless the Emperor's own view, the responsibility mentioned in the Const.i.tution is a "moral responsibility," and only refers to such acts and orders of the Emperor as immediately arise out of the governing rights vested in him, not to personal expressions of opinion, even though these may be made on formal occasions; and the Prince goes on to say that if a Chancellor cannot prevent what he honestly thinks would permanently and in an important respect be injurious to the Empire, he is bound to resign.

The Chancellor, then, takes responsibility of some kind. But responsibility to whom? To the Emperor? To the Parliament? To the people? The answer is, solely to the Emperor, for it is the Emperor who appoints and dismisses him as well as every other Minister, imperial or Prussian, and the Emperor is only responsible to his conscience. In parliamentarily ruled countries like England Ministers are responsible to Parliament, which expresses its disapproval by the vote of a hostile majority, or in certain circ.u.mstances by a vote of censure or even impeachment. In Germany, where the parliamentary system of government does not exist, and where there is no upsetting Ministries by a hostile majority, and no parliamentary vote of censure or impeachment, no Minister, including the Chancellor, is responsible, in the English sense of the word, to Parliament; accordingly, a German Chancellor may continue in office in spite of Parliament, provided of course the Emperor supports him. At the same time the Chancellor to-day is to some indefinable extent responsible to Parliament, and therefore to the people, in so far as they are represented by it, for he must keep on tolerable terms with Parliament as well as with the Emperor, or he will have to give up office. How he is to keep on terms with a Parliament consisting of half a dozen powerful parties and as many more smaller fractions and factions is probably the part of his duties that gives him most trouble and at times, doubtless, very disagreeably interferes with the placidity of his slumbers.

There is no struggle for government in Germany between the Crown and the people: Germans have no ancient Magna Charta, no Habeas Corpus, no Declaration of Rights to look back to on the long road to liberty. In the protracted struggle for government between the English people and their rulers, the people's victory took the form of parliamentary control while retaining the monarch as their highest and most honoured representative. Socially he is their master, politically their servant, the "first servant of the State." In Germany there has never, save for a few months in 1848, been any struggle of a similar political extent or kind. German monarchs including the Emperor, have applied the expression "first servant of the State" to themselves, but they did not apply it in the English sense. They applied it more accurately. In Germany the State means the system, the mechanism of government, inclusive of the monarch's office: in England the word "State" is more nearly equivalent to the word "people." To serve the system, the government machinery, is the first duty of the monarch, and government is not a changing reflection of the people's will, but a permanent apparatus for maintaining the power of the Crown, harmonizing and reconciling the sentiments and interests of all parts of the Empire, and for conducting foreign policy.

It may be objected that legislation is made by the Reichstag, that the Reichstag has the power of the purse, and that it is elected by universal suffrage; but in Germany the Government is above and independent of the Reichstag; legislation is not made by the Reichstag alone, since it requires the agreement of the Federal Council and of the Emperor, and--what is of great practical importance--Government issues directions as to how legislation shall be carried into effect.

The law of 1872 pa.s.sed against the Jesuits forbade the "activity" of the Order, but the interpretation of the word "activity," and with it the effects of the law, were left to the Government.

Kings of Prussia and German Emperors have never shown much affection for their Parliaments: Parliaments are apt to act as a check upon monarchy, and in Prussia in particular to interfere with the carrying out of the divinely imposed mission. This is not said sarcastically; and the Emperor, like some of his ancestors, has more than once expressed the same thought. Parliaments in Germany only date from after the French Revolution. After that event there came into existence in Germany the Frankfurt Parliament (1848), the Erfurt Parliament (1850), and the Parliament of the German Customs Union (1867). These, however, were not popularly elected Parliaments like those of the present day, but gatherings of cla.s.s delegates from the various Kingdoms and States composing the Germany and Austria of the time. Since the Middle Ages there had always been quasi-popular a.s.semblies in Prussia, but they too were not elected, and only represented cla.s.ses, not const.i.tuencies. The present Parliaments in Prussia and the Empire are Const.i.tutional Parliaments in the English sense, elected by universal suffrage, the one indirectly, the other directly.

The present Prussian Diet dates from the "First Unified Diet,"

summoned by Frederick William IV in 1847, which was transformed next year under pressure of the revolutionists into a "national a.s.sembly."

This was treated a year after by General Wrangel almost exactly as Cromwell treated the Rump. The General entered Berlin with the troops which a few weeks before had fought against the revolutionists of the "March days." He pa.s.sed along the Linden to the royal theatre, where the "national a.s.sembly" was in session, and was met at the door by the leader of the citizens' guard with the proud words, "The guard is resolved to protect the honour of the National a.s.sembly and the freedom of the people, and will only yield to force."

Wrangel took out his watch--one can imagine the old silver "turnip"--and with his thumb on the dial replied:

"Tell your city guard that the force is here. I will be responsible for the maintenance of order. The National a.s.sembly has fifteen minutes in which to leave the building and the city guard in which to withdraw."

In a quarter of an hour the building was empty, and next day the city guard was dissolved. A month later the King, Frederick William IV, granted his _octroyierte_ Const.i.tution--that is, a concession of his own royal personal will--which established the Diet as it is to-day.

Emperor William I, as King of Prussia, had a good deal of trouble with his Parliament, and in 1852 wanted to abdicate rather than rule in obedience to a parliamentary majority--it was the "conflict time"

about funds for army reorganization. Bismarck dissuaded him from doing so by promising to become Minister and carry on the government, if need were, without a parliament and without a budget. He actually did so for some years, but there was no change in the Const.i.tution as a result.

Nor has there been any const.i.tutional change in the relations of Crown to Parliament during the present reign. As a young man, the Emperor had of course nothing to do with Parliament, Prussian or Imperial, and since his accession, though there is always latent antagonism and has been even friction at times, he has, generally speaking, lived on "correct," if not friendly terms with it. There is little, if any, of the devoted affection one finds for the monarch in the English Parliament.

And not unnaturally. Early in his reign, in 1891, he made a reference to Parliament little calculated to evoke affection. "The soldier and the army," he said to his generals at a banquet in the palace, "not parliamentary majorities and decisions, have welded together the German Empire. My confidence is in the army--as my grandfather said at Coblenz: 'These are the gentlemen on whom I can rely.'" Again, a year or two afterwards he dissolved the Reichstag for refusing to accept a military bill and did not conceal his anger with the recalcitrant majority. In 1895 he telegraphed to Bismarck his indignation with the Reichstag for refusing to vote its congratulations on the old statesman's eightieth birthday. In 1897, speaking of the kingship "von Gottes Gnaden" he took occasion to quote his grandfather's declaration that "it was a kingship with onerous duties from which no man, no Minister, no Parliament, no people" could release the Prince. In 1903 his Chancellor, Prince Bulow, had to defend in Parliament his action in the case of the Swinemunde despatch already mentioned. Attention was called to the telegram in the Reichstag and the Chancellor defended the Emperor. He denied that the telegram was an act of State--it was a personal matter between two sovereigns, the statement of a friend to a friend. "The idea," said the Chancellor, who contended that the Emperor had a right to express his opinions like any citizen,

"that the monarch's expression of opinion is to be limited by a stipulation that every such expression must be endorsed with the signature of the Chancellor is wholly foreign to the Const.i.tution."

Next day the Chancellor had again occasion to defend his imperial master against a charge of being "anti-social," brought by the Socialist von Vollmar, who coupled the charge with insinuations of absolutism and Caesarism. Prince Bulow said:

"Absolutism is not a German word, and is not a German inst.i.tution. It is an Asiatic plant, and one cannot talk of absolutism in Germany so long as our circ.u.mstances develop in an organic and legal manner, respecting the rights of the Crown, which are just as sacred as the rights of the burgher; respecting also law and order, which are not disregarded 'from above,' and will not be disregarded. If ever our circ.u.mstances take on an absolute, a Caesarian, form, it will be as the consequence of revolution, of convulsion. For on revolution follows Caesarism as W follows U--that is the rule in the A B C of the world's history."

There is no harm in reminding Prince Bulow that the letter V--which may be a very important link in the chain of events--comes between U and W. It is clear also that the Chancellor must have forgotten his English history for the moment, for though Cromwell's rule may be called Caesarism of a kind, the reign of William III, of "glorious, pious, and immortal memory," which followed the revolution of 1688, could not fairly be so named.

Three years later, in 1906, Prince Bulow found it necessary to defend the Emperor on the score of the "personal regiment." "The view,"

Prince Bulow said,

"that the monarch should have no individual thoughts of his own about State and government, but should only think with the heads of his Ministers and only say what they tell him to say, is fundamentally wrong--is inconsistent with State rights and with the wish of the German people";

and he concluded by challenging the House to mention a single case in which the Emperor had acted unconst.i.tutionally. None of these bickerings between Crown and Parliament went to the root of the const.i.tutional relations between them, but they betrayed the existence of popular dissatisfaction with the Emperor, which in a couple of years was to culminate in an outbreak of national anger.

An occurrence calls for mention here, not only as a kind of harbinger of the "storm," but as one of the chief incidents which in the course of recent years have troubled Anglo-German relations. The incident referred to is that of the so-called "Tweedmouth Letter," which was an autograph letter from the Emperor to Lord Tweedmouth, First Lord of the British Admiralty at the time, dated February 17, 1908, and containing among other matters a lengthy disquisition on naval construction, with reference to the excited state of feeling in England caused by Germany's warship-building policy. The letter has never been published, but it is supposed to have been prompted by a statement made publicly by Lord Esher, Warden of Windsor Castle, in the London _Observer_, to the effect that nothing would more please the German Emperor than the retirement of Sir John Fisher, the originator of the Dreadnought policy, who was at the time First Lord of the Admiralty; and to have contained the remark that "Lord Esher had better attend to the drains at Windsor and leave alone matters which he did not understand." The Emperor was apparently unaware that Lord Esher was one of the foremost military authorities in England.

The sending of the letter became known through the appearance of a communication in the London _Times_ of March 6th, with the caption "Under which King?"--an allusion to Shakespeare's "Under which king, Bezonian, speak or die"--and signed "Your Military Correspondent." The writer announced that it had come to his knowledge that the German Emperor had recently addressed a letter to Lord Tweedmouth on the subject of British and German naval policy, and that it was supposed that the letter amounted to an attempt to influence, in German interests, the Minister's responsibility for the British Naval Estimates. The correspondent concluded by demanding that the letter should be laid before Parliament without delay. The _Times_, in a leading article, prognosticated the "painful surprise and just indignation" which must be felt by the people of Great Britain on learning of such "secret appeals to the head of a department on which the nation's safety depends," and argued that there could be no question of privacy in a matter of the kind. The article concluded with the a.s.sertion that the letter was obviously an attempt to "make it more easy for German preparations to overtake our own." The incident was immediately discussed in all countries, publicly and privately.

Everywhere opinion was divided as to the defensibility of the Emperor's action; in France the division was reported by the _Times_ correspondent to be "bewildering." All the evidence available to prove the Emperor's impulsiveness was recalled--the Kruger telegram, the telegram to Count Goluchowski, the Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs, after the Morocco Conference, characterizing him as a "brilliant second (to Germany) in the bout at Algeciras," the premature telegram conferring the Order of Merit on General Stoessel after the fall of Port Arthur, and other evidence, relevant and irrelevant. Reuter's agent in Berlin telegraphed on official authority that the Emperor "had written as a naval expert."

On the whole, continental opinion may be said to have leaned in favour of the Emperor. Mr. Asquith, the English Prime Minister, at once made the statement that the letter was a "purely private communication, couched in an entirely friendly spirit," that it had not been laid before the Cabinet, and that the latter had come to a decision about the Estimates before the letter arrived.

All eyes and ears were now turned to Lord Tweedmouth, and on March 10th he briefly referred to the matter in the House of Lords. He received the letter, he said, in the ordinary postal way; it was "very friendly in tone and quite informal"; he showed it to Sir Edward Grey, who agreed with him that it should be treated as a private letter, not as an official one; and he replied to it on February 20th, "also in an informal and friendly manner." A discussion, in which Lord Lansdowne and Lord Rosebery took part, followed, the former--to give the tone, not the words of his speech--handing in a verdict of "Not guilty, but don't do it again," against the Emperor, and laying down the principle that "such a communication as that in question must not be allowed to create a diplomatic situation different from that which has been established through official channels and doc.u.ments"; and Lord Rosebery, while he recognized the importance of the incident, seeking to minimize its effects by an att.i.tude of banter. The treatment of the incident by the House of Commons as a whole gave considerable satisfaction in Germany, where all efforts were directed to showing malevolent hostility to Germany on the part of the _Times_.

Prince von Bulow dealt with the letter in a speech on the second reading of the Budget on March 24, 1908. After referring to the Union Internationale Interparlementaire, which was to meet in a few months in Berlin, and to the "very unsatisfactory situation in Morocco," he said:--

"From various remarks which have been dropped in the course of the debate I gather that this honourable House desires me to make a statement as to the letter which his Majesty the Kaiser last month wrote to Lord Tweedmouth. On grounds of discretion, to the observance of which both the sender and receiver of a private letter are equally ent.i.tled, I am not in a position to lay the text of the letter before you, and I add that I regret exceedingly that I cannot do so. The letter could be signed by any one of us, by any sincere friend of good relations between Germany and England (hear, hear). The letter, gentlemen, was in form and substance a private one, and at the same time its contents were of a political nature. The one fact does not exclude the other; and the letter of a sovereign, an imperial letter, does not, from the fact that it deals with political questions, become an act of State ('Very true,' on the Right).

"This is not--and deputy Count Kanitz yesterday gave appropriate instances in support--the first political letter a sovereign has written, and our Kaiser is not the first sovereign who has addressed to foreign statesmen letters of a political character which are not subject to control. The matter here concerns a right of action which all sovereigns claim and which, in the case of our Kaiser also, no one has a right to limit. How his Majesty proposes to make use of this right we can confidently leave to the imperial sense of duty. It is a gross, in no way justifiable misrepresentation, to a.s.sert that his Majesty's letter to Lord Tweedmouth amounts to an attempt to influence the Minister responsible for the naval budget in the interests of Germany, or that it denotes a secret interference in the internal affairs of the British Empire. Our Kaiser is the last person to believe that the patriotism of an English Minister would suffer him to accept advice from a foreign country as to the drawing up of the English naval budget ('Quite right,' hear, hear). What is true of English statesmen is true also of the leading statesmen of every country which lays claim to respect for its independence ('Very true'). In questions of defence of one's own country every people rejects foreign interference and is guided only by considerations bearing on its own security and its own needs ('Quite right'). Of this right to self-judgment and self-defence Germany also makes use when she builds a fleet to secure the necessary protection for her coasts and her commerce ('Bravo!'). This defensive, this purely defensive character of our naval programme cannot, in view of the incessant attempts to attribute to us aggressive views with regard to England, be too often or too sharply brought forward ('Bravo!'). We desire to live in peace and quietness with England, and therefore it is embittering to find a portion of the English Press ever speaking of the 'German danger,' although the English fleet is many times stronger than our own, although other lands have stronger fleets than us and are working no less zealously at their development.

Nevertheless it is Germany, ever Germany, and only Germany, against which public opinion on the other side of the Channel is excited by an utterly valueless polemic ('Quite right').

"It would be, gentlemen,"

the Chancellor continued,

"in the interests of appeas.e.m.e.nt between both countries, it would be in the interest of the general peace of the world, that this polemic should cease. As little as we challenge England's right to set up the naval standard her responsible statesmen consider necessary for the maintenance of British power in the world without our seeing therein a threat against ourselves, so little can she take it ill of us if we do not wish our naval construction to be wrongly represented as a challenge against England (hear, hear, on the Right and Left). Gentlemen, these are the thoughts, as I judge from your a.s.sent, which we all entertain, which find expression in the statements of all speakers, and which are in harmony with all our views. Accept my additional statement that in the letter of his Majesty to Lord Tweedmouth one gentleman, one seaman, talks frankly to another, that our Kaiser highly appreciates the honour of being an admiral of the British navy, and that he is a great admirer of the political education of the British people and of their fleet, and you will have a just view of the tendency, tone, and contents of the imperial letter to Lord Tweedmouth. His Majesty consequently finds himself in this letter not only in full agreement with the Chancellor--I may mention this specially for the benefit of Herr Bebel--but, as I am convinced, in agreement with the entire nation. It would be deeply regrettable if the honourable opinions by which our Kaiser was moved in writing this letter should be misconstrued in England. With satisfaction I note that the attempts at such misconstruction have been almost unanimously rejected in England ('Bravo!' on the Right and Left). Above all, gentlemen, I believe that the admirable way in which the English Parliament has exemplarily treated the question will have the best effect in preventing a disturbance of the friendly relations between Germany and England and in removing all hostile intention from the discussions over the matter (agreement, Right and Left).

"Gentlemen, one more observation of a general nature.