BOOKS•

THE GERMAN EMPEROR WILLIAM IL*

TnrNcuLo's reflection that "misery acquaints a man with- strange bedfellows," should be extended so as to include greatness. For here is our august ally, the Kaiser, chucked' into a" series" in profane association with Li Hung. chang, the Pope, Lord Cromer, Mr. Rhodes, and the Ameer Abdurrahman. But to no one of the great "men of the day" included in the collection has a more competent biographer fallen than to the hero of this volume. As Times' correspondent in Berlin, Mr. Lowe acquired an unequalled knowledge of his topic, which he has now handled in a benevolent way, confining himself, on the whole (a copious sprinkling of suggestive adjectives and sarcasms excepted), to the narrative non-critical method, on the ground that neither men of common clay nor monarchs can be judged until they have joined the majority. There is truth in this; yet when "Macedonia's madman " had only got as far as the foundation of Alexandria and the battle of Gavgamela, his calibre had been accurately measured in Macedonia and Greece, while the greatness of " Old Fritz " was almost as familiar to Prussia and Europe in the eighth year of his reign as it is now. On the other hand, in our rapid age of telegrams, correspondents, and interviews, the subject of this memoir, whose culture, versatility, industry, ubiquity, perfervid elo- quence, and self-assertion make him the most interesting public personage of the time, is still only a half-read enigma, whether at home or abroad. Mr. Lowe seems to have a kind of Weissmann theory of the mind and character of the Imperial phenomenon. In him the " germ-plasm " of the Hohenzollern—the most fertile in talent of Continental Royal Houses—has for the first time attained full growth. His eclectic Majesty has borrowed the conspicuous traits and touches of his most celebrated ancestors,—" the noble re- forming rage of the Great Elector ; Frederick William's passion for soldiers, with his fury for scolding his subjects; Frederick the Great's avowed thirst for glory per se ; Frederick William I.'s affability and love of feasting ; Frederick William 1II.'s fondness for meeting his fellow- Sovereigns ; Frederick William IV.'s eloquence and idealism ; William I.'s astonishing familiarity with the Councils of the Almighty ; and Frederick M.'s habit of flirtation with the forward spirit of the time,"—a list, however, by no means exhaustive, as it omits, amongst other things, the musical faculty, so remarkable in " Old Fritz," and again apparent in the author of the ode to "

Mr. Lowe's instructive work illustrates all the varied sides of his hero's individuality by the appropriate incidents and

• The German Emperor William IL By Chirles Lowe, M.A. London: Mu" Sand•, and Foster.

anecdotes, which he connects with the leading circumstances of his reign. He considers William II., " from the points of v'e at of a divine-right Monarch, a soldier, a sailor, a saviour of society, a sportsman, an artist, an orator, a dramatic censor, and other facets of his Crichton-like character," and further, in his capacity of Tourist-Emperor or Reise-Kaiser. But this is not enough. The Emperor cannot be detached from the political firmament of which he is the most visible constellation ; as the followers of M. Taine would say, his Imperial Majesty must be studied in connection with his

milieu. If our young publicists would get to heart an early chapter of this book on the Constitution and Government of

Germany considered in theory and in practice both from the Imperial and the Home-rule points of view, many erroneous and absurd beliefs now prevalent in England would give way to sounder knowledge. Members of Parliament would not talk of the Duke of Edinburgh in his capacity of ruler of Saxe-Coburg-

Gotha, taking an oath of allegiance to the Emperor (sic !), when the fact is that the constitutional relations of uncle and

nephew are those of complete monarchical parity. Nor would public speakers and writers of repute call the Kaiser an " irre- sponsible autocrat" like the Czar, when, as Mr. Lowe well remarks, he " is very much less an irresponsible autocrat than Mr. John Burns." His Majesty cannot declare aggressive war without the approval of the Federal Council, and he is not in peace-time actual " War-Lord " of all the troops in Germany. There is no " German" Minister of War, the corps of the larger States being under the local military executives, to whom the Emperor can transmit his wishes or reeommenda- tions, his immediate paramount power, as regards for instance

discipline and appointments, stopping at the Prussian con- tingent to the Army of the Reich. So in the political order. The Emperor as King of Prussia is, in a sense, primes inter pares; but he cannot move in legislative or executive action

except through, or with, the Federal Council, which consists of delegates, some of whom are regular diplomatic repre- sentatives, from the twenty-six separate States of the Empire. The Emperor cannot veto laws passed by the Reichstag, which is elected by universal suffrage, and, since Prince Bismarck quitted the Parliamentary scene, has been entirely free from all influences or control external to itself. When a Bill passes the Bundesrath and Reichstag it becomes law, and must then be promulgated by the Emperor and Reichs- kanzler, with or without their approval, even when, as in cer- tain cases has happened, the seventeen Prussian votes had been recorded against the measure in the Federal Council. The functions and actual power attaching to God's vicegerent and deputy in the Prussian dominions seem to be, in most substantial respects, superior to those enjoyed by the mere human head of the Empire. Mr. Lowe's warning on this point will be a surprise to many :-

" In this country the tendency ever is to lose sight of the King of Prussia in the German Emperor ; and until the distinction is clearly grasped, no one can hope to avoid confusion of thought in following the course of things in the Fatherland. People should always ask themselves, on bearing that his Majesty has said or done this or that, whether he has been acting as Kaiser, or only as King, and in about seven cases out of ten, they will find, to their great surprise, perhaps, that it was in the latter capacity."

This warning was wanted not long since, when we were told that "the Emperor" and "the German Government" had made a swoop on the Social Democrats, thereby suggesting that the gag had been applied to that party throughout Germany by Imperial order. Nothing of the kind had happened. The localities and incidents in question were ex- clusively Prussian, and the powers concerned were merely the police, or other inferior civil authorities, of, perhaps, Breslau, Aix, or Berlin, who in such matters would act on their own initiative, much as Scotland Yard acts without waiting for

the behests of Whitehall or Windsor Castle. So with the reported cases of lase-majeste. The august personages who are made the subject of unsuitable criticisms or wit, have no

knowledge of the action of the Public Prosecutors of the twenty-six separate States, whose duty it is, when they have cognisance of a libel, to arraign the offenders as the Criminal Code directs, and that without reference to their Ministerial superiors. Such procedure is exclusively local ; the Empire possesses no executive machinery for civil government, nor, with the exception of the Leipsic High Court of Appeal, is there any Imperial apparatus of criminal jurisdiction.

William IL has avowed a special cult for his ancestor, the Great Elector, the contemporary and relative of our

William III., and he owes many inspirations to the example of the Great Frederick. Let us suppose that illustrious pair to have knowledge of utterances like these : " God's decree has placed me at your head ;" " The confidence with which I step into the place to which God's will calls me is im- measurably strong." Again, "I regard my position as appointed for me by God ; " and "This Kingship, by the grace of God, expresses the fact that we Hohenzollerns accept our crown only from heaven." There might also reach the Elysian fields the frequent addresses to the Prussian recruits in which, like the officers of the army, they are exhorted to the daily use of the Lord's Prayer and to orthodox Christian belief ; likewise the Monarch's public ex- planation that with prayer every day of his life is opened and closed. Moreover, there would be the sermons preached by the Imperial Admiral on board-ship, which have been printed and piously presented to the Pope. This theology would have the warm approval of the Great Elector, who ascribed his own Royal patent to the King of Kings ; but it would arouse tornadoes of anger in that avowed atheist, and friend of atheists, Old Fritz, who rejected a Providence which left him in the lurch at Kolin, and fought in his ranks at Leuthen. In the next degree, perhaps, might be the young ruler's claims to something like passive obedience on the part of his Prussian subjects. "There is only one master in this country, and I am he. I shall suffer no other beside me." Then the bold phrase in the allocution to the Diet of the Province of Brandenburg,—" Those who oppose me I shall dash in pieces." After this, the " Sic volo sic jubeo " on a photograph ; the " Suprema lex regis voluntas " written in the Golden Book at Munich ; the " Nemo me impune lacessit on a portrait; and the other expressions quoted by Mr. Lowe in illustration of the Emperor's conception of his position and power. After these suggestive scraps of Latinity comes the curdling lecture on the sin of resistance to the Royal will, delivered to the aristocratic landowners of the Province of East Preussen, who had dared to join the agrarian agitation against the commercial policy of the Government. While those of the "noblest elements of his people" who had not " deserted their King," were decorated, and rewarded by having their names given to the forts round Konigsberg, the recalcitrants were excluded from the Royal dinner-table, and harangued in this fashion :—" Even the word ' opposition' has reached my ears. Gentlemen, an Opposition of Prussian noblemen, directed against their King, is a monstrosity." Take, again, the Emperor-King's snubs to the Constitutional Radicals, and his frequent menaces to Social Democracy, which are always cropping up, recurring, in particular, with something like regularity in the War-Lord's annual addresses to the recruits for the Prussian Guard :—" In view of our present Socialist troubles it may come to this, that I com- mand you to shoot down your own relatives, brothers, and even parents in the streets—which God forbid—but then you must obey my orders without a murmur." To all of which the Great Elector and the Great Frederick, while sympa- thising in the abstract with their descendant's authoritative style, might, after study of Mr. Lowe, object as follows :- That the hints, warnings, and commands of their brilliant and eloquent descendant had been somewhat barren of results, no opponents (two great Ministers excepted) having been "smashed," no recalcitrant nobles frightened into obedience, no Radicals silenced, no votes subtracted from the polls of local democracy. Mr. Lowe says that the Emperor's ill- judged estimate of German character and temper have exposed him to various personal rebuffs. As to the last, it was the boast of William II. that he had "mastered the aims and impulses of the new spirit which thrills the expiring century" (his own words). Yet his august approval was given to the Imperial Anti-Revolution Bill of last year, and to the reactionary Prussian Education Bill, measures which raised storms of public irritation such as the Empire had hardly witnessed since its foundation; but this does not apply to his recent outburst against England. For all this, the young Roi-Soleil is doubtless one of the most progres- sive spirits of the time : his chief ideals and methods of goyernment, if unsuitable for ourselves, are not unpopular in Germany : his banner, like that of his noble father, is peace, not war : and we may say, in Mr. Lowe's final words, that he has "given ample promise of a future which will be followed with the very keenest interest by all the English- speaking race."