THE RIDDLE OF THE KAISER
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I have read with great interest the article in the Spectator of September 25th, on " The Riddle of the Kaiser." The conclusion of the writer that the Kaiser is superficial and weak will scarcely, I think, be the verdict of history. There were certain facts of his life which I think the writer overlooked (1.) There was his educational policy. In that very inter- esting book The Secret of Power it is shown that the Kaiser through the agency of German schools in one generation completely transformed the German character—made every German a patriot who would place " Deutschland fiber Alles." This was scarcely the work of a weak or superficial man.
(2.) He forced upon a reluctant military power a naval policy so great, and carried it out so efficiently, that in the Great War the most celebrated English admiral hesitated to attack the German Fleet. Was this the act of a weak or superficial man ?
(3.) He brought down Bismarck, the strongest and most famous statesman of his age. This may have been wise, or it may have been foolish, but it was surely the act of a strong man.
(4.) The Allied statesmen and Press charged the Germans with having started the War, which means that the Kaiser started it, as he was absolute under the Constitution. Surely, it needed an extraordinarily strong man to plunge his Continent into that maelstrom 1 I remember in 1914-15 optimists constantly saw that the enemy would crumple up suddenly and that the Kaiser would commit suicide. Well, to-day, seven years after the guns
" ceased firing." H.I.M. is still alive, and so well balanced that he is able to write his memoirs. On the whole, I think it likely that the historian fifty years hence, when describing the great characters of to-day, will say that the last of the Kaisers was the strongest, the most interesting, and the most romantic of them all.—I am, Sir, &c.,
C. E. KEANE, Clerk.
Cordoagh Rectory, Cootehill, Co. Cavan.
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