THE GERMAN EMPEROR ON PROVIDENCE. T HERE is one thing at
least in which the German Emperor has thoroughly succeeded. He has fixed the regards of the world upon himself. No person so separate, so picturesque, so intensely visible, has sat on an old European throne for generations past ; and it is im- possible for any student, either of history or politics, not to be keenly interested in the development of his per- sonality. Broadly speaking, there are three main theories prevalent as to the Emperor's character. One, the first,. now held but by a few, is that he is a self-sufficient young man, placed by birth in a supreme position, who is dis- posed, like many modern young men, to advertise his business, and his own superior way of performing it Another, which rests mainly on the acrid gossip for which Berlin is distinguished, is that the Emperor is a young man of ability who might go far, but that he has a distinct " crackiness " in his character, the result of ill-health, which may pass away with its physical cause, or may produce grave consequences to him- self and Europe. The third theory, which seems to ourselves the one best supported by evidence, is that he is a Hohenzollern of the true type of that family, which has always shown itself at once masterful and odd, who has even a genius for government, and the selection of competent agents, but who manifests what used to be called " headiness," an inherent rashness which may be constitutional or otherwise, but which, though mitigated in action by a readiness to listen to counsel—we do not imply that the counsel is always taken—comes out with no mitigation in his surprising speeches. He seems some- times to think aloud, and the thoughts make the wise shake their heads. Nothing could be more rash than that speech to recruits at Potsdam in which they were plainly told that loyalty to the Emperor was above the moral law, and the instincts of nature ; and nothing can be conceived more rash than the speech of Wednesday to the Brandenburgers. It is the speech of a fanatical Israelite about the destinies of his tribe, rather than the speech of a pious European about his people and his dynasty. The Emperor tells his people, not only that his power comes from God—which has no doubt been the theory of many a Sovereign, and is in a certain way not only true but a truism—but that God specially exerts himself, even strains himself, if we may imitate the Imperial audacity of expression, to protect the Hohenzollerns and further their plans. The words seem incredible to Englishmen ; but here they are in extenso, as translated by the Standard correspondent :—" The assured knowledge that your sympathy loyally attends me in my work inspires me with fresh strength to persevere in my task, and to advance along the path marked out for me by Heaven. To this are added the sense of responsibility to our Supreme Lord above, and my unshaken conviction that He, our former ally at Rossbach and Dennewitz [scene of Marshal Ney's defeat on September 6th, 1813], will not leave me in the lurch. He has taken such infinite pains with our ancient Mark of Brandenburg and our House that we cannot suppose He has done this for no purpose. No ; on the contrary, men of Brandenburg, we have a great future before us, and I am leading you towards days of glory ! Do not let your trust in the future be weakened, or your delight in co- operating with me be dashed, by complaints and the dissatis- fied chatter of Parties. Watchwords alone are not enough, and to this incessant cavilling at the new policy and the men who are carrying it out I return the firm and unqualified reply, My course is the right one, and it will be persevered in.' " The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. He by direct intervention (pains or trouble) gave the Hohenzollerns victory over the French both at Rossbach in 1757, and at Dennewitz in 1813. Therefore He means us—you Brandenburgers and us Hohenzollerns—to triumph, and therefore, again, I shall persist in my schemes, and especially my Education Bill ; and I shall win, though I admit I am swimming against the stream.' Well, we sup- pose many a King and General has had the same thought ; but was ever anything more rash said aloud ? The speech cuts off all hope of compromise in an internal civil contest of which compromise is, the natural issue ; it asserts implicitly that the Imperial will is also the Divine will, and therefore irresistible ; and it assumes that the Divine favour, so often shown through utter defeat—as it was shown, for example, to us in the American War—is always shown to Hohenzollerns in ultimate success. That is not the conviction of pious men, though the words may sound pious to some. It is the conviction of one who, so to speak, thinks he holds the Lord in his hand, that he is aware of the immutable pur- pose, that he need not even say, "Let the Lord arise, and his enemies [and mine] be scattered," but that he may assume a support which must be irresistible. How that differs from Napoleon's confidence in his " star," or Marshal Lebceuf's in the " luck of France," we are unable to per- ceive. They used a pagan formula, and the German Emperor a Hebrew one—God of Isaac and Jacob, and therefore of me—but the thought in all three cases is identical. Would the Emperor really aver that a second Jena was proof that God had deserted him ? or would he, like the ancestress he speaks of so often, submit in humility, reorganise Prussia, and " tarry the Lord's leisure " until the oppor- tunity arrived again ? We cannot help a prejudice in the Emperor's favour, he is so unlike the opinion-ridden statesmen of the hour ; but we cannot read such a revela- tion of his inner thoughts without a deep distrust, and a hope that the education of misfortune which he so evi- dently needs may not arrive to him in a form which shall be to the injury alike of Germany and of Europe.
One thing is pretty clear from the Emperor's last deliverance. It is absolutely necessary for him to succeed, or the Throne will be shaken in a way no German Throne has ever been. He intends to govern according to his own ideas, and not those of his subjects, whom, indeed, he tells in the same speech to emigrate if they are inclined to grumble, and he probably will succeed in monopolising power. There is no possibility, with the military organisa- tion of Germany, and the deep sense her people entertain of their dangers from without, of any active resistance ; and the means of constitutional resistance, though they exist, and were displayed in the defeat of the Culturkampf, are as against this Emperor disorganised and weak. His absolutism does not offend the body of the electors, for much of it has been displayed in obtaining pensions for workmen and high prices for the immense class of peasant-producers. It does offend the middle class ; but without the Roman Catholics they cannot obtain a majority in Parliament, and they have quarrelled with the Roman Catholics on the one question, their religion, on which the latter are both unanimous and determined. The Emperor is not in the least likely to do anything which would unite all classes in passive resistance to his policy, nor is there any general doubt or apprehension as to his capacity to rule. He will therefore rule, and that means he will concentrate all responsibility on himself, and be the sole mark for national anger should there be any conspicuous or dis- abling failure. A great defeat, a great civil blunder, a great famine, a great commercial decline, will any of them be visited directly upon the Emperor. It is a terrible position to assume ; for, to make it safe, the ruler should have that control over events which no man possesses, and be exempt from the " accidents " which so constantly baffle the wisest plans. If the Emperor thinks that he has that control, and practically this is what he implies when he claims God as the permanent " ally " of Prussia, no one can prevent his thinking it, and acting on his thought ; but no one who has ever studied human affairs will be free from apprehension as to the result. Con- fidence of that sort is too near akin to presumption to be a healthy emotion, and the Emperor, who studies history, may study with much advantage the history of the Jew That people believes itself, and avows its belief, to be in some special sense the favourite and care of the Creator, set apart from mankind for some high purpose, and the belief may prove to have been true ; but if it is true, it is because the divine care has inflicted on the Jew a discipline such as no other race ever passed through and survived. It is not by success of the Rossbach kind that God has proved his favour for the descendants of Israel. The Emperor is orthodox, and strives, we believe, to live up to his creed ; but he has forgotten, or he implicitly denies in his speech, the text, " Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." We respect him for refusing to believe that opinion is divine, and even for saying out what he has to say with so little care for the impression he may produce ; but there is an indescribable something in his speech, a note of exaltation—or is it of fanaticism ?- which, were the Germans a pious people, would hurry them to the churches to pray that God would see fit to grant to their ruler, with all other good things, the gift of a humbler mind. He may stand on the Peak of Darien, as he predicts he shall, and look out on the Pacific ; and yet, like the great explorer who performed the feat— Balboa the Spaniard, not Drake the Englishman—may have one of the least fortunate and least happy careers of all the men who have gained great victories for mankind.
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