JOHN WILLIAM BURGESS
THE EUROPEAN WAR OF 1914
Its
Causes, Purposes, and Probable Results
1915
CHAPTER
VIII
p. 189—201
189
CHAPTER VIII
THE GERMAN EMPEROR
IT is often said by historians that no truly
great man is ever really understood by the generation, and in the age,
for which he labors. Many instances of
the truth of this statement can be easily cited. Two of the most
flagrant have come within the range of my own personal experience. The
first was the character of Abraham Lincoln as depicted by the British
press of 1860-64 and as conceived by the British public opinion of that
era. Mr. Henry
Adams, son and private secretary of Mr. Charles
Francis Adams, our Minister Plenipotentiary to Great Britain during
that critical era in our history, writes in that fascinating book of
his entitled The Education of Henry Adams:
London was altogether beside itself on one
point, in especial; it created a nightmare of its
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own, and
gave it the shape of Abraham Lincoln. Behind this it placed another
demon, if possible more devilish, and called it Mr. Seward. In regard
to these two men English society seemed demented. Defense was useless;
explanation was vain. One could only let the passion exhaust itself.
One's best friends were as unreasonable as enemies, for the belief in
poor Mr. Lincoln's brutality and Seward's ferocity became a dogma of
popular faith.
Adams relates further that the last time he saw Thackeray
at Christmas of 1863 they spoke of their mutual friend, Mrs. Frank
Hampton of South Carolina, whom Thackeray had portrayed as Ethel Newcome,
and who had recently passed away from life. Thackeray had read in the
British papers that her parents had been prevented by the Federal
soldiers from passing through the lines to see her on her death-bed.
Adams writes:
In speaking of it Thackeray's voice trembled
and his eyes filled with tears. The coarse cruelty of Lincoln and his
hirelings was notorious. He never doubted that the Federals made a
business of
191 THE GERMAN EMPEROR
harrowing
the tenderest feelings of women — particularly of women — in order to
punish their opponents. On quite insufficient evidence he burst into
reproach. Had he (Adams) carried in his pocket the proofs that the
reproach was unjust, he would have gained nothing by showing them. At
that moment Thackeray, and all London society with him, needed the
nervous relief of expressing emotions; for if Mr. Lincoln was not what
they said he was, what were they?
Mr. Lincoln sent over our most skillful politician, Thurlow Weed, and
our most able constitutional lawyer, William M.
Evarts, and later our most brilliant orator, Henry Ward
Beecher, followed, for the purpose of bringing the British people
to their senses and correcting British opinion, but all to little
purpose. Gettysburg
and Vicksburg
did far more toward modifying that opinion than the persuasiveness of
Weed, the logic of Evarts, or the eloquence of Beecher, and it took Chattanooga,
the March
to the Sea, and Appomattox
to dispel the illusion entirely.
Today we are laboring under a no less singular
delusion than were the English in
192 THE GERMAN EMPEROR
1862. The
conception prevailing in England and in this country concerning the
physical, mental, and moral make-up of the German Emperor is the
monumental caricature of biographical literature. I have had the
privilege of his personal acquaintance now for nearly ten years. I have
been brought into contact with him in many different ways and under
many varying conditions; at Court and State functions, at university
ceremonies and celebrations, at his table, and by his fireside
surrounded by his family, when in the midst of his officials, his men
of science, and personal friends, and, more instructive than all, alone
in the imperial home in Berlin and Potsdam and in the castle and forest
at Wilhelmshöhe. With all this experience, with all this
opportunity for observation at close range, I am hardly able to
recognize a single characteristic usually attributed to him by the
British and American press of today.
In the first place, the Emperor is an impressive man
physically. He is not a giant
193 THE GERMAN EMPEROR
in stature,
but a man of medium size, great strength and endurance, and of agile
and graceful movement. He looks every inch a leader of men. His fine
gray-blue eyes are peculiarly fascinating. I saw him once seated beside
his uncle, King
Edward VII., and the contrast was very striking, and greatly in his
favor.
In the second place, the Emperor is an exceedingly
intelligent and highly cultivated man. His mental processes are swift,
but they go also very deep. He is a searching inquirer, and questions
and listens more than he talks. His fund of knowledge is immense and
sometimes astonishing. He manifests interest in everything, even to the
smallest detail, which can have any bearing upon human improvement. I
remember a half-hour's conversation with him once over a cupping-glass,
which he had gotten from an excavation in the Roman ruin called the Saalburg, near
Homburg.
He always appeared to me most deeply concerned with
the arts of peace. I have
194 THE GERMAN EMPEROR
never heard
him speak much of war, and then always with abhorrence, nor much of
military matters; but improved agriculture, invention, and manufacture,
and especially commerce and education in all their ramifications were
the chief subjects of his thought and conversation. I have had the
privilege of association with many highly intelligent and profoundly
learned men, but I have never acquired as much knowledge, in the same
time, from any man whom I have ever met, as from the German Emperor.
And yet, with all this real superiority of mind and education, his
deference to the opinions of others is remarkable. Arrogance is one of
the qualities most often attributed to him, but he is the only ruler I
ever saw in whom there appeared to be absolutely no arrogance. He meets
you as man meets man and makes you feel that you are required to yield
to nothing but the better reason.
In the third place, the Emperor impressed me as a
man of heart, of warm affections and of great consideration for the
feelings and
195 THE GERMAN EMPEROR
well-being of
others. He can not, at least does not, conceal his reverence for, and
devotion to, the Empress, or his love for his children, or his
attachment to his friends. He always speaks of Queen Victoria and of
the Empress Friedrich with the greatest veneration, and once when
speaking to me of an old American friend who had turned upon him, he
said that it was difficult for him to give up an old friend, right or
wrong, and impossible when he believed him to be in the right. His
manifest respect and affection for his old and tried officials, such as
Lucanus
and zu
Eulenburg and von Studt
and Beseler
and Althoff,
give strong evidence of the warmth and depth of his nature. His
consideration for Americans, especially, has always been remarkable. It
was at his suggestion that the exchange of educators between the
universities of Germany and of the United States was established, and
it has been his custom to be present at the opening lecture of each new
incumbent of these positions at the University of Berlin,
196 THE GERMAN EMPEROR
and to greet
him and welcome him to his work. He is also the first to extend to
these foreign educators hospitality and social attention.
To any one who has experienced his hearty welcome to
his land and his home, the assertion that he is arrogant and autocratic
is so far away from truth as to be ludicrous. Again I must say that I
have never met a ruler, in monarchy or republic, in whom genuine
democratic geniality was a so predominant characteristic.
But the characteristic of the Emperor which struck
me most forcibly is his profound sense of duty and his readiness for
self-sacrifice for the welfare of his country. This is a general German
trait. It is the most admirable side of German nature. And the Emperor
is, in this respect especially, their Princeps. I remember sitting
beside him one day, when one of the ladies of his household asked me if
I were acquainted with a certain wealthy, ultra-fashionable New York
social leader. I replied, by name only.
197 THE GERMAN EMPEROR
She pressed me
to know why not more nearly, why not personally. And to this I replied
that I was not of her class; that I could not amuse her, and that I did
not approve of the frivolous and demoralizing example and influence of
one so favorably circumstanced for doing good. The Emperor had heard
the conversation, and he promptly said: "You know in Germany we do not
rate and classify people by their material possessions, but by the
importance of the service they render to country, culture, and
civilization." One of his sons once told me that from his earliest
childhood his father had instilled into his mind the lesson that
devotion to duty and readiness for sacrifice were the cardinal virtues
of a German, especially of a Hohenzollern. His days are periods of
constant labor and severe discipline. He rises early, lives
abstemiously, and works until far into the night. There is no day
laborer in his entire Empire who gives so many hours per diem to his
work. His nature is manifestly deeply religious and,
198 THE GERMAN EMPEROR
in every
sentence he speaks, evidence of his consciousness that the policeman's
club cannot take the place of religious and moral principle is
revealed. His frequent appeal for Divine aid in the discharge of his
duties is prompted by the conviction that the heavier the duty the more
need there is of that aid.
He undoubtedly has an intense desire, almost a
passion, for the prosperity and greatness of his country, but his
conception of that prosperity and greatness is more spiritual and
cultural than material and commercial. More than once have I heard him
say that he desired to see Germany a wealthy country, but only as the
result of honest and properly requited toil, and that wealth acquired
by force or fraud was more a curse than a blessing, and was destined to
go as it had come. His conception of the greatness of Germany is as a
great intellectual and moral power rather than anything else. Its
physical power he values chiefly as the creator and maintainer of the
conditions neces-
199 THE GERMAN EMPEROR
sary to the
production and influence of this higher power. I have often heard him
express this thought.
And in spite of this terrible war, the
responsibility for which is by so many erroneously laid at his door, I
firmly believe him to be a man of peace. I am absolutely sure that he
has entered upon this war only under the firm conviction that Great
Britain, France, and Russia have conspired to destroy Germany as a
world power, and that he is simply defending, as he said in his
memorable speech to the Reichstag, the place which God had given the
Germans to dwell on. For seven years I myself have witnessed the growth
of this conviction in his mind and that of the whole German Nation as
the evidences of it have multiplied from year to year until at last the
fatal hour at Sarajevo struck. I firmly believe that there is no soul
in this wide world upon whom the burden and grief of this great
catastrophe so heavily rest as upon the German Emperor.
I have heard him declare with the greatest
200 THE GERMAN EMPEROR
earnestness
and solemnity that he considered war a dire calamity; that Germany
would never during his reign wage an offensive war, and that he hoped
God would spare him from the necessity of ever having to conduct a
defensive war. For years he has been conscious that British diplomacy
was seeking to isolate and crush Germany by an alliance of Latin, Slav,
and Mongol under British direction, and he sought in every way to avert
it. He visited England himself frequently. He sent his Ministers of
State over to cultivate the acquaintance and friendship of the British
Ministers, but rarely would the British King go himself to Germany or
send his Ministers to return these visits.
More than once have I heard him say that he was most
earnestly desirous of close friendship between Germany, Great Britain,
and the United States, and had done, was doing, and would continue to
do, all in his power to promote it, but that while the Americans were
cordially meeting Germany
201 THE GERMAN EMPEROR
half way, the
British were cold, suspicious, and repellent.
I know that the two things which are giving him the
deepest pain in this world-catastrophe, excepting only the sufferings
of his own kindred and people, are the enmity of Great Britain and the
misunderstanding of his character, feelings, and purposes in America.
To remedy the first we here can do nothing, but to dispel the second is
our bounden duty; and I devoutly hope that other evidence may prove
sufficient to do this to the satisfaction of the minds of my countrymen
than was necessary to convince the British nation that the
great-hearted Abraham Lincoln was not a brute nor the urbane William H.
Seward a demon of ferocity.
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Last update: August 11th, 2014
