‘THE IMPERIAL JUNKER.’ WHAT THE KAISER’S OWN MEN THOUGHT OF HIM.

BY A NEUTRAL DIPLOMAT.

My work never brought me into intimate contact with court circles in Berlin, but—as the very existence of my country has hung for years on the tenuous thread of the Kaiser’s whim—I have missed no opportunity (during the decade or more in which special missions for my Government have taken me to various foreign capitals) to study the War Lord through those who, in one way or another, had been given opportunities for forming their estimates of him at first hand. My surest and most intimate knowledge of the Kaiser was gained, perhaps, from German and Austrian diplomatic and consular officials who were either included in the inner circle of his personal friends, or whose duties had been of a character to reveal to them the hidden springs and cogs of their master’s intricate machine of welt-politik. But very illuminative, also, I found the after-dinner confidences of several prominent Americans—notably two world-famous ‘kings of industry’ and an almost equally well known ‘intellectual’—through whom the Kaiser had made cleverly calculated efforts to extend his influence in the United States.

The German and Austrian officials alluded to were, for the most part, pre-war acquaintances, but their attitudes toward the Kaiser and his world policies are of pertinent interest at this time as showing that the present apparently unbroken front of German unity is in reality a structure no less artificial and precarious than the tottering ‘paper castle’ of the German scheme of war finance. But two of the Americans—the very ones, too, I found most impressed by Wilhelm’s ‘guide-counsellor-and-friend’ tactics—I have seen since the first of the present year, and it is a significant coincidence that each of them prefaced a scathing denunciation and sweeping repudiation of the Kaiser with the words, ‘He lied to me!’

It is undoubtedly true, as has occasionally been stated in the British press by those intimately acquainted with Germany and the Germans, that the Kaiser was not an ultra-militarist; or rather, that while he might be so rated according to the standard of less ‘organised-for-war’ countries than Germany, he was not so extreme in his views in this regard as many of the leaders of the so-called ‘Military Party,’ the royal member of which was the Crown Prince. But it is true that he was the leader in fact as well as in name—the soul and the mainspring—of what I may call the ‘Deutschland-über-Alles’ movement, which had for its end not only Teutonic ‘kultural’ supremacy, but also Teutonic commercial, financial, and—ultimately—political supremacy. And it is also true that he strove to attain these ends by methods so rough-shod, tactless and cynical that the arbitrament of the sword became the inevitable and only alternative to the national effacement of those countries which stood in Germany’s way.

Let me make myself plain on this point. The Kaiser strove not only to win Germany a place in the sun, but to make Germany the place in the sun, and, in a sense, it is true, as he has so often claimed, that he desired and worked to bring this about by peaceful means. But—he did not follow this course through any inherent love for, or humane predilection toward peace, but only because it was the cheaper way; because it would cost less in treasure and industrial potentiality; because it was calculated to set back Germany less than would the drain of even a victorious war.

He hoped—by building up the most perfect military machine the world had ever known, supplemented by a navy unquestionably designed to equal and ultimately surpass that of Great Britain—to bluff and bully his way through to his goal without paying the price. The principal difference between the Kaiser and the German military party leaders was that the latter proposed to fight first and take what they wanted after all opposition had been crushed, while the former proposed trying to seize what he wanted first and to fight only if some one had the audacity to resist. Both were the schemes of international outlaws, with the militarists comparable to the brigand and the Kaiser to the burglar. That is the most one can say for the Kaiser’s vaunted ‘peacefulness.’

Twice or thrice—notably in the cases of Tsingtau and Bosnia-Herzegovina—the Imperial thief or his accomplices got away, unscathed, with the ‘goods’; but at Agadir his nerve failed him and he was compelled to withdraw with empty pockets. The German military party leaders, knowing his aims and methods rendered ultimate war inevitable, bided their time far more patiently than would have been the case had they not known the Kaiser was no lover of peace for its own sake; that either his bungling or his opportunism must finally make his means, like his end, identical with their own.

It was, therefore, not among even the extremest militarists that one found the deepest distrust of their impetuous emperor, but rather among the members of two other classes (I am not considering the Socialists in this article at all, because the feud between them and the Kaiser was known to all the world), the diplomats and the industrialists. Among German diplomatic and consular officials one met occasional personal favourites of the Kaiser who manifested a kind of sycophantic devotion to him; but the great majority of them—through their broader knowledge of the world, and especially their keener appreciation of the latent might of the British Empire—were restive and apprehensive over the parts they were being compelled to play in a policy which they knew could only lead to a conflict from which the chances of Germany’s emerging victorious were very slender indeed. The most widely informed and most rational of these—and, therefore, the bitterest critics of the Kaiser—were men doing the same character of ‘emergency work’ on which I have so long been engaged myself. Sent on special missions of one kind or another to various parts of the world, they had an appreciation of world ‘values,’ a ‘sense’ for the set of political and racial undercurrents, such as no Prussian Junker ever attained to. Heart and soul in the ‘Deutschland-über-Alles’ crusade though they were, there is scarcely one of these I can recall who was not distrustful of the Kaiser’s way of trying to bring the thing about, and, when opportunity offered for them to speak out, several were frankly condemnatory.

Of such was an unusually level-headed German who was a fellow passenger of mine on the British-India mailboat from Rangoon to Calcutta about five years ago. He claimed to have been on a special tour of investigation of Germany’s Pacific colonies and to be taking advantage of his return trip to see what the Netherlands and England were doing in a colonial way. It was just at the crisis of the Agadir imbroglio, and a wireless message announcing the recall of the gunboat Panther (after Mr. Lloyd George’s ‘Mansion House’ speech had brought home to the Kaiser the disagreeable truth that Great Britain was ready to stand by France) was the direct occasion of the conversation I am about to allude to.

Up to this moment I had found my friend unusually reticent on international politics, even for a German diplomat, but his palpable relief at the turn things had taken over Morocco seemed to have the effect of loosening his hitherto well-bitted tongue.

‘Frankly,’ he said, ‘I am whole-heartedly glad to hear this news, even though, as a German, the dénouement is a very humiliating one. But for a long time I have been afraid that this periodic waving of a lighted torch over such a powder-magazine as Europe has become would cause an explosion. It will have to come if—if “someone” continues to scatter sparks in the future as he has done in the past. Please don’t understand me as intimating that Germany would not render a good account of herself in such an event (you may be sure that her enemies would have some terrible surprises in store for them); but the folly of the thing lies in the fact that we are already on our way to win by “peaceful penetration” all that the most successful war could give us. But if we should fight a war and chance to lose it—nay, even if it should result in more or less of a draw—Germany will never again have such an opportunity for a commercial—and through that, for a political—conquest of the world as she has enjoyed for the last two or three decades, and as she will continue to enjoy so long, but only so long, as we can keep at peace. That is why I deplore so deeply the fact that we have such⸺’ He checked the half-spoken German expletive that had leapt to the tip of his tongue and concluded with ‘that we are not under a safer and saner leadership.’

Very similar views of the Kaiser’s foreign policy I found were held by many outstanding figures among what I have called the German ‘industrialists.’ In this class I would include the heads of the great shipping companies and all of the important manufactories save only those, like Krupps, which were engaged in turning out war supplies. Herr Ballin was, I am assured, one of those who watched the development of the Kaiser’s insidiously ruthless policy with the gravest misgivings, and it is a German shipper only a shade less powerful than the head of the Hamburg-Amerika line that I am about to quote in this connection. I had met this gentleman more or less casually at several points during his tour of the Far East, but it was not until we chanced to be spending the same week-end at the Peak Hotel, Hongkong, that we had any chance to exchange views.

‘How are German trade prospects in the East?’ I asked him one evening as we sat over after-dinner coffee and cigars on the veranda of the hotel.

‘Colossal, simply colossal,’ was the reply. ‘Quite beyond anything I had hoped to find. Will you please take a look at this,’ and he took from his pocket and unfolded a little publication called ‘The Daily Consular Reports,’ published by the American State Department at Washington. Turning to a report written by the American Consul-General at Hongkong, he pointed to a table of figures preceded by a paragraph of comment. I have not the exact figures in mind at this moment, but their purport was to show the remarkable manner in which Germany’s share of Hongkong’s trade had increased until it was finally greater than that of Great Britain itself.

‘That is the one most significant thing I have observed on my whole tour,’ he said. ‘To fully appreciate the weight of it, you must consider that not only is Hongkong a British port, but that it is also a port whose principal, almost its only, raison d’être was commercial. And now what do we see? To-day—on the strength of the official figures of the representative of a nation that specialises in figures—Germany has 60 per cent. of all its trade. And next year it will have more, and still more the year after. What do you think of that?’

‘I think, in the first place,’ I replied, ‘that it seems rather effectually to dispose of Germany’s contention that she is not enjoying the “freedom of the seas”; and, in the second place, that it would appear to be a remarkable tribute to the efficacy of Emperor William’s welt-politik.’

The latter was a ‘bait’ I had often used successfully before under similar circumstances, and in this instance the ‘rise’ was sharp and clean. Indeed, I think he was rather glad to avail himself of the excuse to avoid the ‘freedom of the seas’ issue.

‘Emperor William’s welt-politik!’ he fairly shouted, grasping the arms of his long reclining chair in his anger. ‘Emperor William’s welt-politik is the worst, almost the one, menace to the continuance of our commercial triumphs. We have done what we have in spite of, not because of, this kind of welt-politik. What is more, it is the one thing that threatens to bring all our achievements to nought. Yes, not only to check our advance, but even to put us back so far that we may never be able to regain the place we hold to-day, to say nothing of the one we might attain to in the course of another decade of peace.

‘See here!’ he exclaimed, raising himself in his chair and peering down across the verdant slopes of the Peak to the arcaded squares of the city and the bay beyond, where the ships of all the world swung at their anchors in the turning tide and a thousand wide-eyed, high-sterned junks came winging home to roost for the night. ‘Do you want to know the reason Germany has already the greater part of the trade of Hongkong? why Germany, if left alone, will ultimately control the trade of the world? There’s the answer. Can you read it?’

Kowloon, with its newly-opened railway disappearing into the ‘China-side’ hills, the grim lines of the four-funnelled British battle-cruiser at the naval dock, the red rectangles of bunting sliding gently down the flag-poles at the sterns of a hundred British merchantmen at the boom of the sunset gun—I scanned these for the answer, but they all seemed to argue the other way—against German dominance.

‘I give it up,’ I said finally. ‘What is it? Where is it?’

‘There,’ he replied, pointing to the solid blocks of tall office buildings in the heart of the town and along the Bund. ‘You see, do you not, that some of the buildings are dark and deserted, and that in others the lights are being turned on? Well then! The lighted ones are German, the dark ones English. That is the answer. The English are at the Cricket Club (see the lights on the veranda) and at Happy Valley—you saw them trooping to one or the other all the way from three o’clock onward. But in some of the German offices those lights will be burning at nine and ten o’clock, and even up to twelve or one on the nights before mail day. That is the answer. We Germans are winning the trade of the world because of our capacity for, our willingness to, work, work, work,’ he concluded, punctuating the final words with blows upon the wicker arms of his chair.

He puffed his cigar in angry impatience for a few moments, peering moodily into the gathering darkness, before resuming. ‘The continuance of our present rate of progress would win us everything if only we could contrive to remain free to concentrate our energies upon it. Instead of working to that end, however, it is as though every move of—from a certain quarter, was deliberately calculated to provoke, to embroil us with, the very powers whom it would serve every material interest we have to remain friendly with. A very little more of the brand of welt-politik that the Kaiser’ (he did not attempt an euphemism this time) ‘has been launching during the last few years, and we will not, cannot, be left free to win on to the goal that is already in sight. There is, perhaps, an even chance—certainly not better than that—that a great European war might be a short-cut to our commercial supremacy; but, the way things are going now, we take no chances. And if we failed to win the war, we could never have the same clear field again. You will understand now why I feel so strongly opposed to an Imperial policy which, if not radically changed, cannot but end in war.’

Between diplomats, colonial officials, manufacturers, shippers, etc., I could mention at least a score of Germans of outstanding prominence whom I heard express views so nearly identical with those already quoted that it will hardly be worth while setting them down here. (These would include, I may say, two men who have rendered important service—one politically and the other as an engineer—to the Kaiser in Asiatic Turkey, and another—whom I had met in East Africa and Samoa—who is a member of the present Cabinet, and, moreover, prominently mentioned for the ‘reconstruction period’ Premiership.) Among all of these there was not a single individual who did not have a far clearer comprehension of ‘world problems’—a less ‘warped’ international perspective—than the Kaiser (from the very one-sidedness of his life) could possibly have had. They may be taken as thoroughly representative of the very small class of Germans whose minds and observations had been sufficiently broad to have made their opinions and admonitions worth heeding. No less ‘Deutschland-über-Alles’ than the Kaiser himself, theirs was a practical policy which might have succeeded, while his was a mad piece of international adventuring that not only marked the Kaiser himself for a fall, but—since his country elected to follow him—also made inevitable the downfall of Germany. Had counsellors of this type been heeded, there is little doubt that welt-politik would have been exercised in a manner that would have prevented its becoming, for many years at least, the veritable boomerang into which the Kaiser’s inordinate vanity, cynicism and hot-headedness have converted it. From Great Britain’s standpoint, however, there can be no doubt that it was best that the ‘Imperial Bungler’ should have been allowed to have his own way, that the ‘showdown’ should have been forced at the time it was. The Germany of a decade from now would have been far richer, far more wonderful, far more difficult to defeat than the Germany of to-day. Just as I have heard so many far-sighted Germans say in the course of the last decade, the Kaiser, with his ‘shining armour’ and his trumpetings, has, in the end, only played into the hands of his enemies by awakening the lion which he might have netted—had, indeed, already half netted—in its sleep.

The interesting question which now arises is what attitude these powerful leaders, who feared, distrusted and warned against the Kaiser’s policy for more than a decade, are going to take toward that ill-advised monarch when the once rapidly rising edifice of German commercial and political domination which they had done so much to rear, finally comes down, as come it must, in ruins. Most, if not all, of the men I have alluded to or quoted were already rowing in the Kaiser’s war-galley when the explosion they had so long foreseen and dreaded rent Europe in twain and left them only the dust of their past achievements and less than the ashes of their hopes and dreams. Doubtless they have strained obediently if sullenly at their oars (I have read glowing accounts in the German papers of what several of them have done); but surely not without arrière pensée, not without thoughts of how differently things might have gone if even an amiable nonentity had been their ruler instead of an imperial adventurer.

The fact that, even in the present development of events, Germany’s future, both immediate and remote, looms far darker than even the most prescient or pessimistic of those who followed so mistrustfully the bellicose gesturings of ‘The Mailed Fist’ could have well anticipated, must bode a state of feeling against the man who is responsible for it all that augurs ominously for the lone figure at the helm of the German ship of state when it becomes a case of sauve qui peut in the final wreck. When this day comes—how different a one will it be from ‘Der Tag’ to which the hoodwinked German so long has lifted his glass!—‘I told you so’ will be the mildest of the reproaches that will be launched at the wrecker from the lips of the men whose task it will be to salvage the foundered ship as best they may.

Cut off by the pall of the more imminent war clouds, we on the outside have as yet had little chance to gauge the force of the storm that is gathering to break upon Germany from within. Whether the breaking of that storm will precede and accelerate the coming of peace, or whether the coming of peace will precede and accelerate the breaking of the storm, it is still too early to say. But break it must, sooner or later, and when this hour arrives I feel that I know enough of the temper of the men who distrusted and hated the Kaiser before the war to be safe in saying, that whatever of his just deserts he may have escaped receiving at the hands of the Allies he will stand every chance of having meted out to him at the hands of his own outraged people.