The Schemes of the Kaiser. Juliette Adam

He goes in triumph through the land, so that even the Russophile candidates invoke the protection of this man, who shoots the country's heroes and reduces its prince to the level of an ordinary public servant. His audacity, his impunity, the length of his tether, have no limits except those which will be imposed upon him by my power should you turn a deaf ear to my proposals.

      "And just as British policy has served the ends of Prussian statecraft in Bulgaria and Roumelia, even so it serves them at this moment in Armenia.

      "It was I who willed and inspired the indulgence of the Sultan for the bloodthirsty Moussa Bey. Massacred by the Kurds on the one hand, and on the other observing the success of the revolution in Roumelia, the Armenians will inevitably be led from one revolt to another and, helped by a few timely suggestions, will come to believe that they can win their autonomy.

      "Herein lies another difficulty which disturbs your mind, and of which my hands hold the threads; another people, to whom you might have looked for help in the event of my allies going to war with you, but which England and I will be able to remove from your influence.

      "In Roumania, a Hohenzollern guards all the keys which open the doors of his frontiers.

      "In Serbia, I am working by sure means to destroy the last remaining sympathies for Russia. To attain this end I will leave no stone unturned, even as I am doing in Greece against France.

      "With an eye to the future interests of my African colonies, I have compelled England to keep Portugal quiet. I do not wish any revolutionary upheaval to react upon Spain, that indomitable nation which still resists me, but in whose mouth nevertheless, I have put an invisible bit. I shall know how to drive her headlong into the trap that awaits her in Morocco.

      "With the help of Italy, Switzerland is mine. And Holland will fall to me through the little Duchy of Luxembourg, which will come to me by the marriage of one of my sisters with the heir of Nassau.

      "My last master stroke was the way of my coming into Belgium. Therein I was artful. The Belgians affected to believe in the neutrality of their microscopic kingdom. I played up to the joke and entered their country by way of the sea.

      "In all the splendour of my power, I came to Ostend on the Hohenzollern, and I made it my business to invest my appearance with every feature calculated to impress the mob, in these days when outward show appeals most powerfully to the popular imagination. And I was, moreover, determined that nothing should be lacking to the full effectiveness of this demonstration.

      "Belgium had intimated by a revolution her objections to becoming German. Well and good: I imposed myself upon her as German Emperor. With wearisome reiteration she had manifested her sympathy for France. In order to challenge these sentiments the more effectively, I compelled King Leopold to take his seat beside me as the Colonel of one of my Alsatian regiments!

      "And do you suppose that the Belgians protested? Not a bit of it! No, the trick is played. No longer in secret, but openly, Belgium will play my waiting game, in the Congo and at the gates of France.

      "My visit to Belgium is destined to produce such important results in days to come, that I have neglected not the smallest detail in order to produce a legendary impression upon Europe. Nothing have I forgotten: costumes for each part, words, good seed sown broadcast in the public mind, communications to the Press, advice given to sovereigns of a nature to please the people, and elsewhere (as in England) popularity with the military caste!

      "An individual of the name of Van der Smissen, having dared to argue in the ranks, got broken for his pains.

      "At the same time, in order to cast into stronger relief the loftiness and majesty of my countenance, I invested it, amongst these good Belgians, with certain new features of good nature and cordiality.

      "As to France, Russia's only possible ally to-day, her artless simplicity protects me from all risks that I might otherwise run. I shall compel her to accept the neutralisation of Alsace-Lorraine, whenever the provinces shall have become thoroughly Germanised.

      "For the present I leave England to deal with her: England who keeps her busy with childish things, and soothes her vanity with illusory diplomatic successes, such as the exequatur of the Madagascar Consuls (which the settled policy of the residents would have achieved in time) and with useless concessions amidst the fogs of Lake Chad, or on the Niger, or in regions whose possession none disputed.

      "Lord Salisbury evoked much mirth, over these concessions at the Lord Mayor's banquet, joking somewhat cynically at his own policy in disposing of territories over which he had no rights. One country, amongst others, given to France, has provided my good English friends with an inexhaustible source of merriment.

      "Concerning Egypt, Lord Salisbury has clearly intimated to France that

       England will never give it up.

      "Thus, the Salisbury Ministry has still at its disposal, to keep busy my fiery but easily duped neighbours, the Egyptian problem, with a French Minister at Cairo, who is more of a help than a hindrance to England; the Newfoundland question, with the Anglo-American Waddington, more yielding for the purposes of the British Foreign Office than one of its own agents.

      "Moreover, whenever I choose, the rulers of France can be made to believe in a francophile reincarnation of M. Crispi! I have many things in store for them in that quarter.

      "Deceived by the infinite resources of my diplomacy, led astray by my agents who have taken on less reptilian disguises, the guileless French nation remains a prey to ignorance and ambitions as countless as the sands on the shore of her democracy.

      "To sum up; England, through India; England and Germany, through China, we hold in our hands that question of an Asiatic war, a scourge which will exhaust the strength of your Empire, O Tzar! and which may finally weaken France. I have said!"

      'Tis a long tale, and were it all told at one time, Alexander III would certainly not listen to half of it. But William II spent a fortnight in Russia, and I have only an hour to summarise his argument.

      Have the wings of the German Emperor the span of those of Lucifer, as he believes? He may play the part, but he will never be able to carry it through!

      August 28, 1890. [11]

      Although for the meeting of these two powerful Emperors (whose destinies, as history proves, are so frequently commingled) there was no real necessity, other than the desire of the young and restless King of Prussia, to keep the whole world guessing as to the object of his multifarious designs, their coming together has its undeniable importance and significance, for it has been the means of increasing the resistance and strengthening the determination of the Tzar. Alexander III, whose mind reflects the great and untroubled soul of Russia, is well able to estimate at its true worth the insatiable greed of Germany and the ever-encroaching character of her ruler. Because of his own self-control and disinterestedness, the Tzar must have been able to gather from William's words and works a very fair idea of his unbounded self-conceit; of that vanity which, like its emblem the eagle of the outspread wings, aspires to cover the whole earth.

      Even though William has offered to the Emperor of Russia the prospect of a general disarmament; even though, with his present mania for speech-making he may have suggested a Congress for the settlement of Europe's disputes, his success must have been of the negative kind.

      If the Tzar were to agree to a conference, it could only lead to one of two results. Either it would embitter those disputes which threaten to embroil the nations in a fierce struggle, and bring France and Russia together in resistance to the same greedy foes, or it would end in the imposition of a lasting peace, which would mean that the Prussian and military fabric of the German State would be dissolved, as by a miracle, to the benefit of French and Russian influences in Europe.

      Let then the German Emperor have his head. God is leading him straight on the path of failure. It is this still-vague feeling, that he will never have power to add to the Prussian birthright, that makes him rush feverishly from one scheme to another; stirring up this question and that, ever testing, ever striving. It is this foreboding that has driven him to pursue fame, fortune and glory, and so to weary them with his importunities and haste, that