Men Around the Kaiser : The Makers of Modern Germany.
By Frederic William Wile. (William Heinemann. 6s. net.)— _It is only in a very much extended use, of the phrase that many of the men talked of by Mr. Wile can be said to be ." around the Kaiser." For among the thirty-one biographies in the book are included those not only of the actual con- trollers of the affairs of Germany, but also of many who have no share in the Government, and even oppose it bitterly.
Mr. Wile writes alike of statesmen such as Dr. von Bethmanns Hollweg and Admiral von Tirpitz ; of commercial men such as Herr Bailin, of the Hamburg-America Line, and Dr. Krupp von Bohlen, head of the famous arsenal at Essen; of Dr. von Heydebrand, the agrarian leader ; of Herr Bebel, the Social-Democrat ; of Herr Reinhardt, of Herr Hauptmann, and Dr. Strauss. The volume, in fact, is a kind of sublimated " Who's Who" of contemporary Germany. Mr. Wile not only has knowledge of his subject—he has been the Daily Mail correspondent in Berlin for seven years—but he can write about it in an interesting way, and a cheerful flow of anecdotes helps to enliven without detracting from the useful. ness of these biographical sketches.
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