William of Germany 
 
 Archibald Forbes.
 
 WILLIAM or GERMANY 
 
 Succinct 
 
 OF 
 
 WILLIAM Z, GERMAN EMPEROR AND 
 KING OF PRUSSIA 
 
 BY 
 
 ARCHIBALD FORBES 
 
 CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED 
 
 104 & 106 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW TORE
 
 COPYRIGHT, 
 
 1888, 
 BT O. M. DUNHAM. 
 
 AU rights reserved. 
 
 Presi W. L Mershon & Co., 
 Rahway, N. J.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 At half-past eight o'clock, on the morning of Friday, the 
 9th of March, William, King of Prussia, and German 
 Emperor, the subject of this biographical sketch, died. 
 Had he lived thirteen days longer he would have completed 
 his ninety-first year. His death came unexpectedly at last ; 
 for he had lived so long and had recovered so often, with 
 surprising rapidity, from previous similar attacks, that the 
 world hesitated to believe, when the news was flashed, that 
 he was no more. 
 
 The present narrative of the Kaiser's life scarcely needs a 
 word of introduction. It was written, as far as the thir- 
 teenth chapter, by Mr. Archibald Forbes, the great war 
 correspondent, than whom no one could have been better 
 qualified to give the story of the splendid events and hero- 
 ism of the life just ended, through which King William of 
 Prussia was enabled to win unity for Germany, and for 
 himself and his heirs the proud dignity of German Emperor. 
 
 Mr. Forbes had the opportunity, during the Franco- 
 German war, of accompanying King William on the cam- 
 paign through Alsace and Lorraine, up to the walls of 
 Paris, and his account of that portion of the dead Em- 
 peror's life has, consequently, great value, as .being not only 
 the work of an historian, but of a special correspondent, 
 fitted by long training and natural ability to give pictures 
 of the great scenes he witnessed with artistic and thrilling 
 accuracy. 
 
 Unfortunately, Mr. Forbes was prevented, by the state of 
 his health, from completing the story of the imperial life, 
 which, however, he carried through the greatest epoch of 
 German history, up to the time when the victorious Ger- 
 man troops returned home and were welcomed at the
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Prussian and other capitals. In view of Mr. Forbes's ill- 
 ness, the completion of the work, containing the story of 
 the emperor's life up to the end, was entrusted to Mr. 
 John P. Jackson, who has given in concise form the nar- 
 rative of the peace-years that followed the Franco-German 
 war, during which the aged ruler's efforts were directed by 
 a sincere wish to be able to leave to his successor an 
 Empire untroubled by internal difficulties. 
 
 By the death of Kaiser William, the successorship to the 
 royal and imperial thrones of Prussia and Germany falls to 
 his eldest son, so long known as the Crown-Prince or " Un- 
 ser Fritz," who ascends the throne as Frederic III. His 
 consort, the new Empress, Princess Royal of England, the 
 favorite daughter of the late Prince Consort, is a woman of 
 noble character, who has exercised a beneficial influence 
 upon her husband, and who, it is generally admitted, has 
 done much towards implanting in the new Emperor's mind 
 the love of constitutionalism, which, if he lives, will gradu- 
 ally take the place of the absolutism and militarism that 
 has almost necessarily characterized the reign of the dead 
 Emperor. 
 
 The dead Emperor's last thoughts were with his eldest 
 son. During the night he bade farewell to all around his 
 bedside. To Prince Bismarck he said : " Thou hast done 
 well ! " To Prince William he said : " You must treat 
 the Czar of Russia with the utmost consideration." He 
 listened earnestly to the prayers of the Court Chaplain, 
 Dr. Koegel, and said : " It is well to have service, for it is 
 Lent." When Dr. Koegel read the twenty-third Psalm, 
 " The Lord is my Shepherd," he simply murmured : " That 
 is wonderful." He then fell into a sound sleep, from which 
 he never roused, except for a few minutes before his death, 
 when he exclaimed, thinking of the sufferer at San Remo : 
 " Fritz, dear Fritz !" 
 
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 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 ANCESTRY AND PARENTAGE, .... 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 CHILDHOOD AND BOYHOOD, .... 13 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 YOUTH ON CAMPAIGN, . . . . .31 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 EARLY MANHOOD, . . . . 61 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 MARRIAGE* AND MIDDLE AGE, . . . .73 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 EXILE AND COMMANDER, .... 87 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 KING WILLIAM AND THE NEW ARMY, . . 113 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 THE WHETTING OP THE PRUSSIAN SWORD, 139
 
 vin CONTENTS. 
 
 KMH 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 THE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR, , . . .159 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 THE GATHERING OF THE GREAT STORM, . . 201 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN, . . . .218 
 
 CHAPTER XH. 
 THE GERMAN EMPEROR, .... 281 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 HONORED OLD AGE, . . . . .307 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 IMPERIAL MEMORIALS IN STONE AND BRONZE, . 326 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 NEARING THE END, ..... 342 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 THE END, ..... 355
 
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 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ANCESTRY AND PARENTAGE. 
 
 UP among the Swabian Alps, within an hour's 
 drive of the dull and dilapidated town of Hech- 
 ingen, the rugged, fortress - crowned crag of 
 Hohenzollern rears its precipitous sides. The fort 
 on its summit is quite modern, and except the 
 chapel, there is scarcely a fragment left of the 
 ancient castle that was the nest of the Black Eagle 
 the cradle of the Royal Family of Prussia, whose 
 head became the first Grerman Emperor. He is a 
 bold man who would fix the date of the actual 
 origin of any family ; for there must always have 
 been ancestors before ancestors. One biographer 
 considers he has proven a link between the Hohen- 
 zollerns and the noble Italian family of Colonna ; 
 but a genuinely enthusiastic German is bound to 
 accept the genealogical tree of the Elector, 
 Albert Achilles, who assigns as its root one of the 
 fugitives who fled from Troy with ^Eneas. The 
 I
 
 a WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 house first steps out into more definite history when, 
 about 1273, a Count of Hohenzollern became by a 
 fortunate marriage, Burggrave of Nuremberg, and 
 was elevated to the rank of a Prince of the Holy 
 Eoman Empire. With rare exceptions, the Hohen- 
 zollerns have been a thrifty race ; and when, in the 
 beginning of the fifteenth century, Kaiser Sigis- 
 mund found himself troubled by heavy debt, the 
 great-grandson of the Hohenzollern Frederic who 
 had been the first Burggrave of Nuremberg, was 
 ready with a loan of a hundred thousand gulden, 
 taking the Mark of Brandenburg as his security. 
 Kaiser Sigismund not finding it convenient to dis- 
 charge the mortgage, it was amicably arranged 
 that the worthy Burggrave should foreclose ; and 
 so, in 1417, the formal investiture took place, and 
 Frederic VI. of Hohenzollern and Nuremberg be- 
 came Frederic the 1st Elector of Brandenburg. 
 
 Elector succeeded elector ; and most of the 
 electors were men of character and vigour. Frederic 
 the second Elector disciplined the people in the 
 same masterful fashion as his father had brought 
 the barons into hand. Albert "Achilles" (1471- 
 1486) was a great soldier, the successful commander 
 for the empire in many wars ; but he was states- 
 man as well as soldier his statecraft being for 
 the behoof of the Hohenzollern race. One of his
 
 ANCESTRY AND PARENTAGE. 3 
 
 expedients to this end was the establishment of the 
 law of primogeniture ; this act of his Hallam calls 
 the earliest formal promulgation of that principle. 
 His successor, John " Cicero " (1486-1499), earned 
 his by-name by his eloquence, but he could do as 
 well as talk. He ruled with a strong, occasionally 
 a ruthless hand; and, unlike a recent English 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was able not only 
 to decree a beer-tax, but also to levy it. Joachim 
 "the Nestor" (1499-1535) proved his wisdom by 
 his care for learning. He founded the University of 
 Frankfort on the Oder, reformed the parish schools, 
 and remodelled the legal system of the Electorate. 
 John George, "the Steward" (1571-1598), nursed 
 it into great prosperity, cleared off incumbrances 
 on the revenues, and developed a thrift that bordered 
 on penuriousness. In John Sigismund's time 
 (1608-1619), the Duchy of Prussia, coming to 
 them on the failure of direct heirs of Albert of 
 Hohenzollern, who was the last grand master of the 
 Teutonic knights, the subjugators and proprietors of 
 the territory, and who, on the Reformation, had 
 secularised the order, and constituted Prussia a 
 duchy, with himself as its duke, fell to the Electors 
 of Brandenburg and materially increased their con- 
 sequence. 
 
 His son, George William (1619-1648), an 
 B 2
 
 4 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 unsatisfactory Hohenzollern even had conditions 
 been favourable for him, fell upon the evil days of 
 the Thirty Years' War, and suffered, he and his be- 
 longings. Neutrality, which was the policy he tried 
 to follow, had not become one of the fine arts in those 
 days ; and Brandenburg, perilously near as it was 
 to the centre of the great cockpit, was to break the 
 metaphor roughly bruised between the upper and 
 the lower millstone. Mansfeld, Tilly, and Wallen- 
 stein had a fine contempt for George William's 
 neutrality, and Gustavus set his cannon in array 
 against Berlin because the neutral Protestant had 
 hindered his relieving march on Protestant Magde- 
 burg. The "Great Elector," Frederic William 
 (1648-1688), was a quite different stamp of man 
 from his immediate predecessor. As the ally of 
 the Swedes, he signally defeated the 'Poles at 
 Warsaw, and so secured for himself a recognition of 
 the complete independence of the Duchy of Poland. 
 As the enemy of the Swedes, he defeated them in 
 the memorable battle of Fehrbellin, which takes 
 rank in the annals of the army which won it, with 
 E-ossbach and Koniggratz. All that can be said of 
 Frederic III., the " Great Elector's " son and suc- 
 cessor, is that he succeeded in achieving the Royal 
 dignity for himself and his successors (1701), that 
 he encouraged learning ; and that he begat King
 
 ANCESTRY AND PARENTAGE. 5 
 
 Frederic William I., the stern and despotic disci- 
 plinarian who bullied his son, tyrannised over the 
 kingdom which he made prosperous, created in his 
 army the iron discipline that stood Frederic the 
 Great in so good stead, and furnished a theme for 
 Carlyle's immortal description of his manner of life. 
 Of Frederic the Great himself there is no need to 
 say anything, because Carlyle has said of him all 
 that is possible to say. 
 
 The great King died in August, 1786. He 
 had raised Prussia to the position of a first-class 
 power; he left it, to quote Lord Beaconsfield, "re- 
 garded if not respected," thriving, well allied, in 
 fine subordination to an autocratic but not tyran- 
 nical sway. Although the stern lesson of the 
 Seven Years' War had taught Frederic that pru- 
 dence goes farther than valour, and although in 
 the latter period of his reign he used to say that 
 his best regiment was his " yellow dragoons," yet 
 the Prussian army, as he left it, was the finest 
 fighting machine then in existence. Thrift was the 
 maxim of the nation, and seventy-two million 
 dollars lay accumulated in the treasury. 
 
 Barely a year after " der alte Fritz " had been 
 laid to rest in the garrison church of Potsdam, 
 Mirabeau left Berlin, thus recording his estimate 
 of the state of Prussia : " The revenue falling off,
 
 6 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 expenses increasing, genius slighted, blockheads 
 at the helm ; this Prussia is rottenness before ma- 
 turity." Frederic's nephew and successor, Frederic 
 William II., reigned eleven years, and Massenbach 
 records the general saying when he died " It is 
 well for him and well for us that he is no more. 
 The State was near its dissolution." When the 
 debauched monarch's son and successor came to 
 the throne, he found not only that the great 
 Frederic's 72,000,000 accumulated dollars were 
 clean spent, but that there was a national deficit to 
 boot of nearly 50,000,000 dollars. The morality 
 of the nation was at the lowest ebb, the morale of 
 Frederic's army had seriously deteriorated, and 
 Prussia had lost caste among the nations. 
 
 Frederic the Great had not watched for nothing 
 the habits of the nephew who was to succeed him, 
 and forecasted events with singular accuracy in his 
 parting words to his old minister Hoym : " Let 
 me tell you how matters will be after my death. 
 There will be a merry life of it at Court. My 
 nephew will squander the treasure, and allow the 
 army to degenerate. The women will then govern, 
 and allow the State to go to rack and ruin." A 
 like foreboding he expressed to his grand nephew 
 who was afterwards Frederic William III., in their 
 last talk on the Sans Souci garden-seat: "I am
 
 ANCESTRY AND PARENTAGE. 7 
 
 afraid," he said, " that things will after my death 
 go pele-mele." But then he was probably referring 
 rather to the future of Europe than to the future 
 of Prussia only, for he continued with singular 
 prescience : " There are elements of ferment every- 
 where, which the rulers, especially in France, are 
 unfortunately fostering instead of appeasing and 
 extirpating them. The masses are already begin- 
 ning to make a move, and if this comes to a head 
 it will be ' the devil let loose/ ' 
 
 The great Frederic's successor, Frederic Wil- 
 liam II., vulgarly known as " the Fat," was already 
 forty- two years of age when he came to the throne. 
 He had been Prince of Prussia, the usual title 
 given to the heir-presumptive when not the son of 
 the reigning king, since the age of fourteen. From 
 his youth he had been sensual, reckless, and weak 
 a most discreditable and indeed infamous Hohen- 
 zollern. At the age of twenty-five he had divorced 
 his first wife, his own first cousin, and sister to the 
 Duke Charles of Brunswick who commanded and fell 
 at Jena. Immediately after the divorce he married 
 the Princes? Louise of Darmstadt, who became the 
 mother, with other offspring, of his successor, 
 Frederic William III. Both wives he outraged in 
 the openest and most brutal fashion. As prince, 
 his life was a foul and glaring scandal. Of him
 
 8 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 as king this is what Massenbach records : " He 
 bears the greatest resemblance to an Asiatic prince, 
 who, living within his harern with his slaves of 
 both sexes, leaves the business of the State to his 
 viziers. The wall, twelve feet in height, by which 
 the new garden in Potsdam is enclosed, reminds 
 one of the enclosure of a seraglio." The Pompa- 
 dour of Frederic William II., Countess Lichtenau, 
 born Wilhelmina Euche, was the daughter of a 
 man who had been a trumpeter, then a pothouse- 
 keeper, and later a performer in the private band of 
 Frederic the Great. Her nominal husband, the 
 flunkey Bietz, was the pander at once and the 
 bosom friend of the degraded king, who was a 
 sensualist first, then a maudlin devotee with a 
 propensity towards harsh intolerance, a super- 
 stitious Rosicrucian, and a victim to every quack 
 who set up for a professor of the occult sciences. 
 Ruled, victimised, and befooled by his mistress -in- 
 chief, duped by his minister Bischofswerder, Fred- 
 eric William lived detested and died unlamented. 
 
 Yet even in such a reign as this the kingdom 
 of Prussia did not cease to grow. The " Great 
 Elector," dying in 1688, had left a territory having 
 a population of but one and a half millions. Fred- 
 eric William I. had added part of Pomerania to the 
 young kingdom, and left to his son, Frederic the
 
 ANCESTRY AND PARENTAGE. 9 
 
 Great, a state of 47,770 square miles with 2,500,000 
 inhabitants. Frederic the Great added Silesia, 
 and this acquisition, with the large territory gained 
 in the first partition of Poland, increased Prussia 
 to 74,340 square miles with a population of over 
 five and a-half millions. And under Frederic 
 William IT. roi faineant and degenerate Hohen- 
 zollern as he was the state was enlarged so greatly 
 by the acquisition of the principalities of An- 
 spach and Baireuth, as well as by the vast territory 
 added to it by the second and third partitions of 
 Poland, that at his ignoble death in November, 
 1797, the kingdom of Prussia had an area of nearly 
 100,000 square miles, and a population of about 
 nine millions. 
 
 Frederic William III., the eldest son and suc- 
 cessor of the " Fat " Frederic William, was in his 
 seventeenth year when his grand-uncle the Great 
 Frederic was laid in the Potsdam crypt. Mirabeau, 
 a little later, recorded the following estimate of 
 his character : " The Crown Prince will soon 
 deserve the attention of the world. Not because 
 
 
 
 his great-uncle has drawn his horoscope with 
 the words ' H me recommencera,' but because 
 everything that is heard of him shows that he 
 is a fine character, although his manners are 
 not pleasing. He is awkward, but everything in
 
 10 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 him has a decided stamp. He is uncourteous ; 
 but he is true. He demands the reason of every- 
 thing. He is hard and tenacious, even to rough- 
 ness ; hut he is not incapable of deep feeling and 
 tender attachment. He knows very well whom to 
 respect and whom to despise. His aversion to his 
 father amounts even to hatred, which he is at no 
 pains to conceal. On the other hand, his venera- 
 tion for Frederic the Great borders on adoration. 
 This young man may have a great future before 
 him." Not to him however was the great future 
 to come, but to his second son, Frederic William 
 Lewis, better known to us as WILLIAM, first German 
 Emperor and seventh king of Prussia. 
 
 If O'Meara is trustworthy, Frederic William 
 scarcely impressed Napoleon so favourably when 
 the sovereigns met at Tilsit. " The Emperor 
 Alexander and the King of Prussia, especially the 
 latter," so O'Meara reports Napoleon as telling 
 him, " were completely au fait as to the number of 
 buttons there ought to be in front of a jacket, how 
 many behind, and the manner in which the skirt 
 ought to be cut. Not a tailor in the army knew 
 better than King Frederic William how many 
 measures of cloth it took to make a jacket. In 
 fact," continued Napoleon, laughing, " I was 
 nobody in comparison with them. They continually
 
 ANCESTRY AND PARENTAGE. 11 
 
 tormented me about matters belonging to tailors, 
 of which I was entirely ignorant, although, in order 
 not to affront them, I answered just as gravely as 
 if the fate of an army depended on the cut of a 
 jacket. When I went to see the King of Prussia, 
 instead of a library, I found that he had a large 
 room, like an arsenal, furnished with shelves and 
 pegs on which were hung fifty or sixty jackets of 
 different patterns. Every day he changed his 
 fashion and put on a different one. He attached 
 more importance to this than was necessary for the 
 salvation of a kingdom." But then it must be 
 remembered that there certainly was no love lost 
 between Napoleon and Frederic William. 
 
 The truth is that the Emperor's father was a 
 very ordinary sort of person, rather given to tem- 
 porising until braced by stronger wills and stouter 
 hearts ; brave enough personally, but rather a Herr 
 von Knopf than a soldier ; quite without preten- 
 sions to being a general, and destitute of any real 
 insight into the art of governing. It is to be said 
 of him that he was honest, was a true Prussian at 
 heart, and vhen taught by misfortune, sufficiently 
 modest to recognise the worth of staunch patriots 
 and astute and resolute adherents, who discerned 
 by what exertions Prussia was to be rescued from 
 the abject plight into which she had been plunged
 
 12 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 by ill-fortune and a short-sighted regard for expe- 
 diency in preference to principle. 
 
 Probably from indifference, Frederic William 
 II. had allowed his son full freedom in the choice of 
 a wife ; and the latter's union with Princess Louisa 
 of Mecklenburg-Strelitz they were married in 
 1793, when the prince was in his twenty- third year, 
 she just seventeen was a marriage of pure and 
 enduring affection. Louisa was a woman of a very 
 noble character, which developed under misfortune 
 into real heroism. Accomplished, graceful, win- 
 ning, and natural, her beauty has been commemo- 
 rated for us on Tischbein's canvas and in Schadow's 
 marble. Her virtues, her courage, her grand en- 
 durance of misfortune, illuminate the sombre record 
 of Prussia's tribulation and humiliation. Hardship, 
 grief, and anxiety wrought her premature death, 
 ere yet the sun had broken through the clouds that 
 made so gloomy the last years of her short life. 
 But Louisa will ever stand prominent in the not 
 over-crowded gallery of Teutonic heroines. 
 
 On the 22nd March, 1797, it was that this 
 noble woman, true wife, and devoted mother, gave 
 birth to the man-child, who nearly three-quarters of 
 a century later was to accomplish the fulfilment of 
 German unity ; bidden by all Germany to take up 
 the title of GERMAN EMPEROR.
 
 ITS*. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 CHILDHOOD AND BOYHOOD. 
 
 How the bloated debauchee was brought into Berlin 
 for the ceremony from his " orgies " and his quacks 
 in Potsdam is not on record ; but it is recorded 
 that Frederic William II. stood first godfather for 
 his fortnight-old grandson, and held that youngster 
 over the font to be christened in his father's palace 
 in the Unter den Linden of the Prussian capital. 
 Before the year (1797) was out the orgies and the 
 quacks had made an end of Frederic William II., 
 and his son Frederic William III., the recently 
 christened baby's father, reigned in his stead. 
 
 The best-intentioned man in the world, the new 
 king determined by frugality to attempt the repara- 
 tion of the impaired finances of Prussia. Not 
 only did he and his Louisa resolve to live on the 
 former's income when Crown Prince ; they con- 
 tinued to reside in the heir-apparent's palace, and 
 avoided all pomp and state. Now and then, in the
 
 14 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. i- 
 
 records of the time, the name of the little Prince 
 William crops up. His earliest public appearance 
 was, it seems, in 1802, when only five years of age, 
 on the occasion of the presentation of a, municipal 
 banner by the Queen to the burghers of Berlin, 
 when the young gentleman is reported to have 
 " hammered a nail into the flagstaff in his turn, and 
 displayed the greatest interest in the whole pro- 
 ceedings." He could have been little older when 
 he participated in a juvenile masked ball given by 
 the Lord-Marshal ?on Massow, at which a swarm 
 of masks, among whom were Prince William and 
 his elder brother the Crown Prince dressed as little 
 sailors, suddenly gathered round the Queen, and a 
 small Cupid, aged four, tendered her Majesty an 
 arrow with the precocious compliment "De vos yeux 
 a tous nos cceurs" Of course, as a Prussian prince, 
 it behoved him nominally to join the military 
 service at the earliest possible date, that probably 
 being fixed by his fitness to be inducted into nether 
 garments of the " unmentionable " pattern ; and at 
 the age of six, he with his brother the Crown 
 Prince and their cousin Prince Frederic, were pre- 
 sented to the Queen by her royal husband, who 
 described this formidable contingent as " three new 
 recruits for the Prussian army." Prince William's 
 uniform on this occasion was that of the Eudorf
 
 isw. CHILDHOOD AND BOYHOOD. 15 
 
 subsequently Zieten Hussars the famous " Bed 
 Hussars " whose name is familiar to every military 
 reader. In 1804 he and his brother began their 
 military exercises under Sergeant Benustein of the 
 Guards, who drilled them daily until they became 
 thoroughly instructed in the rudiments of military 
 training. Prince William's earliest tutor was 
 Privy Councillor Delbriick, who was succeeded by 
 Ancillon and Professor Eeimann. 
 
 Taken one with another, the lives of royal 
 people have probably been as full of vicissitude and 
 risk as have been the lives of those among their 
 subjects who have made it most their aim to seek 
 for adventure. The Napoleons may be put out of 
 court, as they were parvenus among royalties. But 
 how full of strange experiences are the records of the 
 later Bourbons of France, of Spain, and of the Two 
 Sicilies ! The Hapsburgs have had their ups and 
 downs, and the story of the House of Romanoff 
 reads like a gruesome romance. The present 
 royal family of Great Britain have had an ex- 
 ceptionally colourless experience in comparison with 
 Continental royalty, yet Queen Victoria has been 
 under fire more than have been men among her 
 subjects on whose breasts are decorations bestowed 
 on them for participation in a campaign. William 
 of Germany's purple is assured, but who among us
 
 16 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. &* 
 
 can look back on a life so marked by vicissitude 
 as was his ? 
 
 The bright child life, with its juvenile balls 
 and its Eed Hussar uniforms, while as yet William 
 was too young to understand the meaning of the 
 strange, rough, sudden change, was to give place 
 to years of discomfort and even of penury. The 
 little fellow stood at the window of his father's 
 palace to witness his " Eed Hussars " march out 
 on their route to Jena, and no doubt admired the 
 gallant show they made. The drills were stopped, 
 for Sergeant Bennstein had to go to the war with 
 his regiment ; it is not recorded whether he ever 
 came back, or fell on the field that drank the blood 
 of so many of Prussia's best and bravest. Poor 
 flaccid Frederic William had temporised and finessed 
 himself into a dead angle, and Napoleon had 
 played with him and humbugged him until he had 
 got conveniently ready to fall upon and annihilate 
 him. It is difficult to feel any particular sympathy 
 with this limp Hohenzollern, who had evinced the 
 family predilection for obtaining additional ter- 
 ritory honestly preferably, other things being 
 equal, but territory anyhow. What his devices 
 brought him to was the loss for the time of half 
 the territory his father had left him. He would 
 fain not have fought, but the nation had got its
 
 18M. CHILDHOOD AND BOYHOOD. 17 
 
 back up, and was too strong for him. It re- 
 membered the Great Frederic and his victory of 
 Rossbach, and it believed that another Rossbach 
 awaited the Prussian arms. " Ah 1 with the 
 Austrians," exclaimed the younkers of the Guard, 
 " it was easy work for Napoleon, but wait till he 
 tackles the Prussians ! " 
 
 Well, he tackled the Prussians, and he found 
 it on the whole rather easier work with them than 
 it had been with the Austrians. The rottenness 
 that Mirabeau foresaw had been eating close to the 
 vitals of the nation, and of the army which the Great 
 Frederic had left so sound. The army, indeed, 
 could march past with a front like a wall, but it 
 had been forgotten that no victory was ever won 
 by marching past. " There is no doubt," wrote the 
 shrewd Droysen, " that as far as drill went, it was 
 in a state of perfection which surpassed even the 
 performances of the old Dessauer. There never 
 was more painful attention to the uniform length 
 of the pigtails and the equal distance between the 
 feet. The battalions were converted into com- 
 passes, which were moved to and fro on the ground ; 
 some inspectors-general if we may believe Mas- 
 senbach in order to be more sure of the lines of 
 the divisions marching at right angles, caused a 
 sort of astrolabe for ready use to be fixed to the 
 c
 
 18 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. I** 
 
 sabres of the colour-sergeants, not to mention other 
 equally ingenious contrivances. But in the midst 
 of this superabundance of subordinate excellence 
 of this greatness in small things, some people un- 
 easily began to be aware that the army was sadly 
 deficient in certain points to which the army of 
 Napoleon owed its growing glory." This mis- 
 directed punctiliousness was a symbol of degeneracy, 
 yet it was also an indication of the existence of 
 discipline. And that discipline it was, the inheri- 
 tance from the Great Frederic yet left, which so 
 materially contributed to the effective rehabilitation 
 of the Prussian army so soon after it had virtually 
 ceased to exist. The foundations for the new 
 superstructure remained extant. 
 
 It is to-day as difficult to imagine the Prussian 
 military organisation collapsing after a single de- 
 feat, as to conceive of Prussian officers displaying 
 their heroism by sharpening their swords on the 
 doorsteps of the ambassador with whose nation war 
 may be imminent ; yet both phenomena occurred in 
 1806. Louisa had gone to the front with her hus- 
 band, and remained by his side until the eve of 
 Jena. That night she spent in Weimar, and on 
 the day of Jena, with the distant thunder of the 
 battle ringing in her ears, she started through the 
 Hartz Mountains for Berlin, acting on the advice
 
 1807. CHILDHOOD AND BOYHOOD. 19 
 
 of old General Biichel. She reached the capital 
 only to find the ill news there already, everything 
 in confusion, and her children already sent off to 
 Schwedt on the Oder. Thither she followed them, 
 travelling with all speed, to weep over them, and tell 
 the bewildered infants that her tears were for the de- 
 struction of the army. Schwedt was not safe, so she 
 carried her dear ones farther to Stettin, sending 
 
 o 
 
 them on thence to Dantzig while she herself went 
 to join her husband at Ciistrin. That fortress 
 threatened, the royal couple left it-- Ingersleben 
 pusillanimously surrendered it immediately after to 
 a handful of French hussars and they retired to 
 Konigsberg, where the parents and the children 
 were re-united for a short time, and where on the 
 1st January, 1807, Prince William received from his 
 father his first commission in the army. In his case 
 the customary age of ten at which Hohenzollern 
 princes enter the army was anticipated by three 
 months, owing to the exigencies of the family's 
 nomadic condition. From Konigsberg they went 
 to Memel, where the children lived for some time, 
 although their parents had occasionally to leave 
 them. Friedland brought about the negotiations 
 and the treaty of Tilsit, and Louisa accompanied 
 her husband to that place, anxious to entreat for the 
 mitigation of Prussia's doom. Boyse avers that 
 c 2
 
 20 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. MW. 
 
 Talleyrand, apprehensive of her influence, tried 
 every possible means to set Napoleon against her 
 coming, but unsuccessfully. There is considerable 
 testimony to the effect that the conqueror desired 
 to soften by courtesy and attention associations 
 which must have been very bitter to poor Louisa. 
 Napoleon could behave like a gentleman ; he could 
 also write like a cad. Witness his letter to 
 Josephine, quoted by Las Casas : " The Queen of 
 Prussia is really a charming woman. She is fond 
 of coquetting with me ; but do not be jealous, I am 
 like oil-cloth, along which anything of this sort 
 slides without penetrating. It would cost me too 
 dear to play the gallant." 
 
 The most sombre period for the forlorn family 
 was their stay in damp, unhealthy Memel. Regular 
 instruction was not to be procured, but a young 
 man named Chambeau, of the French colony in 
 Berlin, had accompanied their flight and taught all 
 the children to the best of his ability. Their mode 
 of living was not only simple as that of the 
 burghers among whom they dwelt, but positively 
 meagre ; all outward show was abolished, and priva- 
 tions were endured that, as Praulein von Grimm 
 quaintly has it, " would have been felt even by a 
 bourgeois" To live even thus the poor King had 
 to borrow money from the Mennonites. Tho
 
 1807. CHILDHOOD AND BOYHOOD. 21 
 
 smallest expense had to be thought about twice. 
 Princess Charlotte sorely needed a dress ; the King 
 could give her only five dollars towards it. It was 
 natural that strangers should be rigorously excluded 
 from the observation of penury so harsh. Guests 
 were hardly to be entertained when money was not 
 always forthcoming for the daily household ex- 
 penses, and when the royal table was supplied, and 
 that rather precariously, with coarse food served 
 on common earthenware. 
 
 The treaty of Tilsit reduced the kingdom of 
 Prussia by about one-half, but the peace it brought 
 enabled the royal family to leave Memel and 
 return to Konigsberg, where the historic old palace 
 formed a pleasanter residence than the Memel house, 
 where education and companionship were available 
 for the young people, and where a circle of people 
 of culture more than compensated for the absence 
 of a ceremonious court. Frederic William might 
 have done better for himself for the moment had 
 he lowered himself to take a place in Napoleon's 
 parterre of princes, but there was too much of the 
 Hohenzollern blood in him for such degradation. 
 Personal and family sacrifices he made for his king- 
 dom with a fine readiness. To assist the Prussian 
 military reconstruction, he sent his plate to the mint 
 and his crown jewellery to the Hebrews. When
 
 22 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. iw. 
 
 the French laid a military contribution on Prussia 
 of 146,000,000 francs as the condition of evacua- 
 tion, he had half the requisition charged on his own 
 family domains. Misfortune braced the character 
 of Frederic William III. As for the royal 
 children, the residence in Konigsberg, with its 
 absence of ceremony and pomp, did much to warm 
 and nourish their hearts and minds, efface affectation 
 and pride, and make them natural. Here they 
 found the rare privilege for royal children in those 
 days, of enjoying unmolested the unfettered hap- 
 piness of childhood and youth. In the garden 
 they played at ball, gathered flowers, caught butter- 
 flies, and were freely brought in contact with young 
 companions not of their own rank ; a species of asso- 
 ciation of great advantage for adults as well as 
 children, when the individuals of higher rank have 
 modesty and candour, and those of lower are not 
 toadies. 
 
 Prince William had been made a second lieu- 
 tenant in the end of 1807. He had been a delicate 
 and feeble infant, and a weakly and backward child ; 
 but in his boyhood at Memel and Konigsberg, 
 young as he was, he took part in some of the 
 drills and exercises in which his regiment engaged, 
 and his health and development progressed under 
 the exertion. Writing to her father on the boy's
 
 W CHILDHOOD AND BOYHOOD. 23 
 
 eleventh birthday, his mother thus spoke of him : 
 "Our son William permit me, venerable grand- 
 papa, to introduce your grandchildren to you in 
 regular order will turn out, unless I am much 
 mistaken, like his father, simple, honest, and 
 intelligent. He resembles him most of all, but will 
 not, I fancy, be so handsome." William turned 
 out a much handsomer man than his father, and 
 the Queen's succinct characterisation, " simple, 
 honest, and intelligent," was neat, true, and effec- 
 tive. 
 
 Long months elapsed while the royal family of 
 Prussia continued to reside in Konigsberg, during 
 which time negotiations were slowly progressing 
 for the evacuation by the French troops of what 
 of Prussia the treaty of Tilsit had left. The 
 arrangements were not concluded until after the 
 conference at Erfurt, in October, 1808; and when 
 the general evacuation did occur, three of the prin- 
 cipal Prussian fortresses still remained garrisoned 
 by Napoleon's soldiers. Louisa had made a last 
 appeal to the conqueror for the restoration at least 
 of Magdeburg, " supplicating, not as a queen, but 
 as the mother of her people." The petition was 
 unsuccessful, Napoleon, it is said, sending her by 
 way of refusal the map of Silesia tied round with 
 a gold chain to which was suspended a golden
 
 24 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. &* 
 
 heart. On the 3rd of December the French troops 
 left Berlin on their long march to Spain ; and on 
 the 10th the first Prussian soldiers re-entered the 
 capital. But it was not until the 23rd, after a visit 
 to St. Petersburg, where the Emperor Alexander 
 strove to make them forget the misery of the recent 
 years in " festivals, shawls, and furs," that Frederic 
 William and Louisa again took up their residence in 
 Berlin, after a melancholy and miserable absence 
 from it of three years. Next day, Christmas eve, 
 Prince William returned in military fashion, march- 
 ing into Berlin with his company of guards. This 
 was scarcely one of his triumphal entries. Yet 
 the home-coming had in it an affecting and chastened 
 happiness for the long-harassed family. The 
 Berliners, whose cheers for Napoleon had been but 
 < from the teeth outwards," were now genuinely glad 
 to have the Hohenzollerns back among them again. 
 They presented a new equipage to the Queen, in 
 which, with her eldest daughter and one of her 
 younger sons by her side, she drove down the 
 Unter den Linden. It was the anniversary of the 
 day when she had first traversed that thoroughfare 
 the loveliest and the happiest of brides. The noble 
 lady had seen and shared in the tribulation of 
 Prussia ; she was not to witness its emancipation. 
 Seven months after the return to Berlin she died
 
 CHILDHOOD AND BOYHOOD. 25 
 
 in the castle of Hohenzieritz, when on a visit to 
 her father at Strelitz. Her husband and her two 
 eldest sons arrived in time to be with the wife and 
 mother when she breathed her last. They took 
 the body back to the Berlin she had loved and 
 grieved for ; and the young Prince William, as he 
 had stood by his mother when the life went out of 
 her, now stood by her coffin when, on the sixteenth 
 anniversary of her first entrance into the capital, it 
 was placed in the mausoleum at Charlottenburg. 
 That tomb, the son for whom his mother did so 
 much that son on whose character the mother left 
 the impress of her own rarely failed during all the 
 years of his prolonged life to visit on the anniver- 
 sary of the death of its loved inmate. It was long 
 ere the lad, still delicate from the ailments of his 
 childhood, recovered from the shock of the sudden 
 loss of one so dear. Distraction was provided for 
 him in his military studies, to which he now 
 devoted himself with great industry under the 
 direction of Major von Pirch, qualifying for general 
 efficiency by taking duty in turn with all arms. 
 A section o^ a field work traced by him and con- 
 structed under his superintendence in the year 
 1811 he was then only fourteen may still be 
 seen in the park of Babelsberg. When that resi- 
 dence came into his possession by inheritance, Mr.
 
 26 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 Kingston relates in his short but interesting narra- 
 tive, that William gave orders for the restoration 
 of the earthwork of his boyhood to its pristine form, 
 and its maintenance as a souvenir uf his debut 
 in the art of military engineering. During the 
 interval of half a century, large trees had grown 
 over the surface of the Schanze. " He," says Mr. 
 Kingston, " would not allow those trees to be 
 removed, and they remain there till the present day, 
 projecting at all sorts of angles from the grassy 
 slope of the neatly finished earthwork, and cropping 
 up in some places from the bottom of the deep 
 trench surrounding its flanks and faces." 
 
 The maxim of Kant the Konigsberg philosopher 
 " What a state has lost in outward importance 
 must be replaced by inward development," was not 
 thrown away on Prince William's father. Already, 
 during the stay of the royal family in that city of 
 exile, the interior re-organisation of the realm had 
 been discussed and planned. The King back in 
 Berlin, the time had come for the practical com- 
 mencement of the reforms. 
 
 Able men offered for their conduct. To Scharn- 
 horst and Grneisenau fell the leading share of the 
 re-organisation of the army. Finance and civil 
 administration were the duties first of Stein, and 
 when Napoleon had enforced the retirement of that
 
 mi-la. CHILDHOOD AND SOTHOOD. 27 
 
 " first statesman of Germany/' Hardenberg, in 
 many respects the prototype of Bismarck, came into 
 ofiice as State-Chancellor. Not one of those men 
 was a Prussian ; it must be said of that kingdom 
 that it has not been prolific of great men. Scharn- 
 horst had been a half-starved Hanoverian lad. 
 Grneisenau, born an Austrian, had sung for coppers 
 in the streets of Erfurt, and gone to America in 
 one of the "Hessian" regiments which England 
 hired to assist in the vain endeavour to crush the 
 revolt of her transatlantic colonies. The treaty of 
 Tilsit forbade Prussia to keep in arms more than 
 42,000 men, but no stipulation was made as to 
 how long the men should serve ; so Scharnhorst, 
 while keeping the letter of the treaty, evaded its 
 spirit, by the introduction of what came to be 
 known as the Krumper system. Under it new 
 levies were made every year ; a certain proportion 
 of trained soldiers were yearly sent home after a 
 few months of service, and recruits were brought into 
 the ranks in their place, to be drilled in their turn, 
 sent home, and replaced by fresh recruits. Thus early 
 the scheme of the Landwehr and the Landsturm 
 had been conceived by Scharnhorst, and the founda- 
 tion laid of its development. To the exertions of the 
 military commission of which he was the head and 
 the spirit, was due the extraordinary phenomenon
 
 28 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. *" 
 
 that in August, 1813 barely five months after the 
 declaration of war against France in March of the 
 same year absolved Prussia from the restrictive sti- 
 pulations of the treaty of Tilsit Prussia stood pos- 
 sessed of an army of 250,000 men, of whom 170,000 
 were ready to take the field, while the remaining 
 80,000 formed reserve and depot troops and sup- 
 plied garrisons. The world has known no more 
 wonderful feat of rapid, efficient, and systematised 
 organisation. 
 
 Frederic William, however, lacked the boldness 
 to strike the keynote of the " War of Liberation." 
 He was still Napoleon's henchman when the Mos- 
 cow campaign began ; and the family spirit of land- 
 hunger stirring in him could not resist the bait 
 Napoleon held out, that the Russian Baltic pro- 
 vinces to be occupied by the force he was to 
 contribute to the Grande Armee, should be given to 
 Prussia as the reward of Prussian co-operation. 
 Perhaps Frederic William conceived he could not 
 well help himself in the one sense, and so might as 
 well help himself in the other ; but as the result of 
 the compact, three hundred of his officers, stirred to 
 patriotic wrath, left his army, among them Scharn- 
 horst, Gneisenau, Boyen, and Clausevitz the 
 very salt of that army. Yorck, " the old Isegrim, 
 sharp as hacked iron," commanded the Prussian
 
 1812-13. CHILDHOOD AND BOYHOOD. 29 
 
 contingent that marched out to degradation. The 
 " quiet, cool man, who did not meddle with poli- 
 tics," nevertheless committed the act which forced 
 the hand of his sovereign ; it must be owned at a 
 significant crisis when Napoleon was staggering 
 back from Moscow. Yorck refused obedience to the 
 order that he should aid in covering the French 
 retreat. Nay, more, he made with the' Russian 
 general a convention of neutrality; and in a re- 
 markable letter to the King he announced his 
 conduct; ready in the event of condemnation to 
 " receive the bullet as calmly on the mound of 
 sand as on the battle-field on which I have grown 
 grey." 
 
 Berlin was still in French occupation. But the 
 Diet of the province of Prussia proper acclaimed 
 the act of Marshal Yorck. Frederic William 
 hurried to Breslau ; Scharnhorst and Bliicher had 
 arrived there before him. The nation had caught 
 fire and was in a blaze of patriotism. Prince 
 William, a lad now of fifteen, went to Breslau with 
 his elder brother and father; and heard in its 
 streets the trumpet of the resurrection of his 
 country's independence. He read his father's 
 proclamation to the young men of Prussia calling 
 them to arms ; and must have thrilled with the 
 consciousness that the words of fire spoke not less
 
 30 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. Ja. 
 
 to him than to others. He rode out with his 
 father and brother to welcome Czar Alexander 
 coming from Kalisch to congratulate his brother 
 monarch, and to pledge with him mutual co-opera- 
 tion a outrance, for the grand common object of 
 both sovereigns and both nations. 
 
 William had participated in the wretchedness 
 of the bondage ; he saw the birth of the struggle 
 for Liberation ; in that struggle he fought. Ere 
 he died he must have realised that there is a con- 
 solation for the failed vigour of old age in the 
 grand range of retrospect which it affords.
 
 1813. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 YOUTH ON CAMPAIGN. 
 
 PRUSSIA was in fierce earnest to emancipate herself 
 from the oppression of Napoleon, and Alexander of 
 Russia rejoiced to welcome the new and enthusi- 
 astic ally. But Napoleon was not the man to be 
 driven from the fruits of his conquests by mere force 
 of royal proclamations promising to the German 
 nation liberty from foreign oppression. Those 
 proclamations had to be followed up by resolute 
 and persistent fighting ; and many a bloody battle 
 had to be fought ere the conqueror of Europe, 
 under stress of arms, was to quit German soil and 
 retire across the " German Rhine." 
 
 The hour of revolt had however struck, and the 
 man of the hour was ready and eager. Bliicher 
 was now an old man of seventy, but there was 
 plenty of fight still left in the stalwart veteran. 
 He had been a man of war from his youth. His 
 soldier life had begun under the great Gustavus in 
 the Seven Years' War. He had struggled against
 
 82 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. wis. 
 
 fate at Jena, and writhed under the humiliation of 
 having been a prisoner-of-war in the hands of 
 Napoleon, forced as he had heen to surrender the 
 fortress of Liibeck. The passion of Ins later life 
 was a furious hate against the French in general, 
 and against Napoleon in particular. Professor 
 Arndt, who saw him at Breslau on the eve of the 
 declaration of the War of Liberation, thus sketches 
 old " Marshal Vorwarts," the name his soldiers 
 gave Bliicher after his victory over Macdonald at 
 the Katzbach. " Notwithstanding his advanced age, 
 Bliicher had a noble figure, was tall and active, 
 with fine well-rounded limbs like those of a youth. 
 Most striking of all was his face ; his brow, nose, 
 and eyes might be those of a god ; his mouth and 
 chin were those of a common mortal. His eyes, of 
 a rich dark blue, were capable of a very merry ex- 
 pression, but they often suddenly darkened in a 
 terrible sternness and anger. Indeed, the old hero, 
 soon after the disasters of 1806-7, had been for 
 some time out of his mind, in which state he would 
 thrust his drawn sword against the flies and spots 
 on the wall, yelling out ' Napoleon ! ' His mouth 
 and chin, however, were rather ignoble here the 
 cunning of the hussar was always lurking with 
 somewhat of the expression of a fox watching for 
 its prey." Bliicher seems to have had just two
 
 >815. YOUTH ON CAMPAIGN. S3 
 
 virtues. He was not a great general, but he was 
 the type of a fine soldier. He was a single-hearted 
 man of his word. For the rest, he was a dissolute 
 old reprobate, with the weakest imaginable sense 
 of self-respect. The old savage smoked his pipe in 
 the drawing-room of St. Cloud, and threw it at the 
 head of a French diplomatist. He played in his 
 shirt-sleeves at the gambling tables of the Palais 
 Royal, puffing at his long pipe and drinking great 
 jorums of hot strong punch. Most people know 
 from what point of view it was that the British 
 metropolis moved him to admiration. 
 
 The first short campaign of the allies in the 
 early summer of 1813 was scarcely auspicious. 
 Napoleon won the battles of Lutzen and Bautzen, 
 recovered Dresden and Hamburg, and the line of 
 the Elbe was again in his hands. But he was forced 
 to recognise that, although he had been victorious, 
 the fighting had taken on a new character. Bliicher 
 had dared to assume the initiative, and his cavalry 
 charge on the night of Lutzen had shaken the 
 French guards. The allies retired leisurely and in 
 good order from the fields in which Napoleon's 
 superior skill had worsted them. Napoleon no 
 longer made prisoners or took cannon. " Great 
 victories without trophies ! " wrote a French com- 
 mentator, significantly " all the villages set on 
 P
 
 34 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isw. 
 
 fire, and their conflagration barring the way." The 
 armistice of Plaswitz gave the allies breathing time, 
 and the accession of Austria added 150,000 men to 
 the hosts confronting Napoleon, which by the end 
 of the year numbered little short of half a million. 
 Before that time Napoleon had sustained tremen- 
 dous reverses. Bliicher had all but annihilated 
 Macdonald at the Katzbach. Bernadotte and 
 Bulow had beaten Oudinot at Gross-Beeren. Van- 
 dam me, mobbed by numbers, had to surrender on 
 the heights of Culm. Napoleon's victory at Dres- 
 den had cost him nearly as dear as a defeat would 
 have done. And finally the three days' fighting 
 around Leipsic in October had culminated in that 
 terrific twelve hours'-long struggle which enforced 
 on Napoleon the necessity of recrossirg the Bhine 
 into France. 
 
 Prince William had not shared in the campaign 
 which drove Napoleon back across the Rhine. His 
 elder brother, the Crown Prince, rode in the posse 
 of princes sandwiched between the three allied 
 monarchs and the chief generals of the allied armies, 
 in that triumphant cortege which rode out from 
 the market-place of recovered Leipsic, to review the 
 troops whose faces were still black with the smoke 
 of the battle, the embers of which were yet fiercely 
 aglow down by Lindenau and among the gardens
 
 1813- YOUTH ON CAMPAIGN. 35 
 
 of the burghers in the fair delta between the 
 Pleisse and the Elster. It was only in his fifteenth 
 year that Prince William definitely outgrew the 
 ailments which had kept him weakly and physically 
 backward during his earlier years ; and he was 
 judiciously left behind when his father, his uncles, 
 and his elder brother went away to share the for- 
 tunes of the Prussian army. On May 15th, just 
 while that army was falling back into the position 
 in which four days later it was to fight the battle 
 of Bautzen, he was promoted to the rank of first 
 lieutenant. On the 30th of October, the day on 
 which Napoleon cut his way through Wrede's army, 
 that he might make good- his retreat to the Rhine 
 at Mayence, the day too on which Rapp surren- 
 dered the fortress of Dantzig which he had been 
 holding with a French garrison, Prince William 
 received his commission as captain. Soon after, 
 as aide-de-camp to his father, he joined the head- 
 quarters of the allied monarchs at Frankfort-on- 
 the-Main, whither they had moved forward after 
 Leipsic, and where they remained till close on the 
 end of the year. 
 
 Counsels were divided. The Emperor Francis 
 
 would have been content that Napoleon had 
 
 accepted the proffer made to him of the Rhire as a 
 
 frontier; and Metternich hinted to Napoleon his 
 
 D 2
 
 36 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 disgust at "carrying on a war with Baskirs and 
 Cossacks for allies " France was presently to find 
 out that they were considerably more unpleasant as 
 enemies. How the Emperor Alexander vacillated 
 may be gathered from what Vitrolles said of him 
 later, in reference to the Congress of Chatillon 
 " Alexander, upon the slightest reverse, gives orders 
 to treat upon any terms, at the first sign of success 
 he will listen to nothing." How Frederic William 
 himself felt is doubtful, but the Prussian statesmen 
 and soldiers with one accord were resolute that no 
 terms should be made with Napoleon, and that not 
 he alone, but France as well should be humbled. 
 A council of war held at Frankfort in the begin- 
 ning of December decided on a winter campaign 
 with Paris for its objective. 
 
 If the young Prince William were a close 
 student of war during this his first campaign, he 
 must have found it fertile of lessons, and yet more 
 fertile of warnings. Napoleon's genius never shone 
 brighter, fighting as he was against overwhelming 
 odds and with diminished prestige since it had come 
 to this with him, that he had for the first time to 
 endure and to cope with an invasion of the sacred 
 soil of France. Prince William could scarcely have 
 failed to admire how adroit and how daring was his 
 strategy, how. deft and nimble were his tactics ; with
 
 la*. YOUTH ON CAMPAIGN. 37 
 
 what surprising suddenness his blow fell now on 
 Bliicher, now on Schwarzenberg, now on Yorck, now 
 on Winzingerode ; how ubiquitous and how ener- 
 getic was this extraordinary man, who had not alone 
 to contend with the enemies in his front, but to 
 stimulate the increasing lassitude of his marshals, 
 and to stem the tide of disaffection that was 
 rising in his capital. Young as the Prince was, he 
 could scarcely have failed to discern the evils of 
 divided and vaguely defined command. He saw in 
 Schwarzenberg the nominal commander-in-chief of 
 the allied forces, but controlled and often thwarted 
 by the three monarchs who were making the 
 campaign with him, and who again were not in full 
 accord; while the old war dog Bliicher accepted 
 indeed orders from Schwarzenberg, but honoured 
 them rather in the disregard of them, save when 
 they accorded with the energetic projects of 
 Gneisenau, who had succeeded Scharnhorst as chief 
 of staff in the army of Silesia when that fine soldier 
 had fallen on the field of Lutzen. He might have 
 noted how the feeble and timid Austrian dissemi- 
 nated his force so widely as in a great measure to 
 discount its superiority of strength ; and how, on 
 the other hand, the great Corsican ever had his 
 compactly in the hand, equally ready to strike or to 
 elude a stroke. In a word, it scarcely could have
 
 38 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. ia* 
 
 failed to furnish the young soldier prince with food 
 for reflection, that it should have taken 200,000 men 
 three months to march from the Rhine to Paris, 
 hindered thus long by the opposition of but 60,000. 
 Half a century later he was himself to traverse that 
 distance, not without hard fighting and a wide 
 detour, in about one-half of the time. Did he 
 ask himself, when this latter journey was finished, 
 whether it would have been made as expeditiously 
 had it been Napoleon the Great who had stood in 
 the path ? 
 
 Bliicher's army passed the Rhine on New Year's 
 eve, 1813, at Mannheim, Caub, and Coblentz; the 
 old chief himself, accompanied by King Frederic 
 William and his sons, crossing at Mannheim. The 
 passage was opposed, but not seriously, for Mar- 
 mont had complied with the retrograde movement 
 of Ney and Victor, and fallen back toward the line 
 of the Vosges. Nevertheless, there was sufficient 
 fighting to give Prince William his "baptism of 
 fire," and to justify Tolstoi in executing a medal 
 commemorative of this " Passage of the Rhine." 
 The marshals fell back through the Vosges before 
 Schwarzenberg advancing from the south, and 
 Bliicher coming on from the north. The chain of 
 fortresses was duly masked, and by the end of the 
 third week of January, 1814, the allied armies
 
 1814. YOUTH ON CAMPAIGN. 39 
 
 stood with touching flanks on the great plain of 
 Champagne. They stood on the edge of the great 
 arc, of which Paris is the centre, and the rivers 
 Aisne, Marne, Aube, and Seine are the radii. In- 
 side that arc, between the allies and Paris, and so 
 having the advantage of the " interior lines," were 
 60,000 French troops ; Napoleon, his prestige, and 
 his genius. 
 
 After some preliminary combats, the battle of 
 La Eothiere, the first of importance in the cam- 
 paign, was fought on February 1st, from which day 
 until the final stand on the 30th March made so 
 resolutely by Marmont and Mortier on the slopes of 
 Montmartre, it may be said that there passed nulla 
 dies sine pugnd. The brunt of the fighting fell on 
 old " Marshal Vorwarts," who night and day kept 
 before him the settled purpose of pressing on to 
 Paris, took every opportunity to disobey orders that 
 interfered between him and his goal, and by dint of 
 this persistent resolution eventually obtained sanc- 
 tion for a plan of his own, which, in the words of 
 Major Adams, " was genial in conception, and 
 eventually decisive of the campaign." It is pro- 
 bable that Napoleon scarcely recognised the 
 geniality which Major Adams commends. 
 
 The monarch s and their suites had their head- 
 quarters with Schwarzenberg, and as Schwarzenberg
 
 40 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. *** 
 
 when Napoleon was in front of him was fonder of 
 retreating than of fighting, Prince William, who 
 was serving as aide-de-camp to his father, had 
 fewer opportunities of witnessing and sharing in 
 actual hostilities than if he had been campaigning 
 with old Bliicher. But occasionally, as for instance 
 at Rosnay, the day after the battle of La Eothiere, 
 in the advance on Troyes a day or two later, in 
 Schwarzenberg's retreat towards Langres on the 
 23-4th February, he was engaged and under fire ; 
 and on the 27th February the chance, which he 
 eagerly seized, of gaining some distinction came to 
 the young soldier in the course of the three days' 
 fighting by which Schwarzenberg forced Marshals 
 Oudinot and Macdonald back from Bar-sur-Aube 
 on Troyes. 
 
 The marshals had been following the retreating 
 Schwarzenberg with Napoleon within supporting 
 distance, when Bliicher, by an independent move- 
 ment toward Paris, drew off the latter to cope with 
 him. Then Schwarzenberg turned on the marshals, 
 and attacked them at Bar-sur-Aube with the forces 
 nearest to his hand. In all tbe campaign there was 
 no more desperate fighting than that which occurred 
 in the battle of Bar-sur-Aube on 27th February. 
 Napoleon's orders to Macdonald and Oudinot had 
 been stringent, that at any cost they should hold
 
 1814. YOUTH ON CAMPAIGN. 41 
 
 Schwarzenberg in check, and hinder him from 
 interrupting the movement Napoleon himself was 
 making on Bliicher. Pressed by the allies, Oudi- 
 not and Gerard, the latter of whom commanded 
 in the French fighting line, bade the soldiers 
 raise the acclamations which were wont to sig- 
 nalise the arrival of Napoleon. But on this 
 day the wonted spell of that great name failed 
 to work. The allied commanders, bent on carry- 
 ing their point, were not less prodigal of them- 
 selves than of their troops. Both Wittgenstein and 
 Schwarzenberg were wounded in the hard-fought 
 action, whose issue was the stubbornly reluctant 
 retreat of the French. Eepeated and devoted 
 charges of the allied cavalry contributed most 
 effectually to that result. One of the most furious 
 of these, delivered by a Russian cuirassier regi- 
 ment with dash and sweep but at the cost of severe 
 loss, Prince William accompanied, and after the 
 charge had ridden back to rejoin his father's staff. 
 Just then the King noticed a Russian infantry 
 regiment in the allied front line holding its ground 
 on the slope of a vineyard against heavy odds, and 
 under an exceptionally heavy fire both of artillery 
 and musketry. Reinforcements were urgently 
 necessary, since, besides that the regiment was 
 itself in dire straits, there had gathered in the
 
 42 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. Mi*- 
 
 depression behind it a great mass of wounded, 
 whom the regiment was devotedly covering. Sup- 
 ports were promptly ordered, but his Majesty, 
 anxious to know the name of a regiment which 
 was bearing itself so creditably, ordered his son, 
 just then riding in from his cavalry charge, to 
 gallop to the front again and ascertain the regi- 
 ment's name, and to what corps chiefly belonged 
 the wounded huddled behind it. Eight through 
 the fire rode back the Prince, found the infantry 
 colonel in front of his sore-tried regiment, saluted 
 that gallant officer in the most methodic manner, 
 fulfilled his errand, and brought back the informa- 
 tion with equal coolness, clearness, and promptitude. 
 It was no time, in the heart of a battle and when 
 both were on duty, for the father to infringe mili- 
 tary etiquette by praising the conduct of his son. 
 But that conduct did not pass unnoticed. A few 
 days later Czar Alexander sent Prince William the 
 Russian " Cross of St. George," a decoration never 
 won save by distinguished personal bravery, and 
 very rarely bestowed on a foreigner. On the 10th 
 of March the anniversary of his dead mother's 
 birthday and the first anniversary of the order's 
 institution, Prince William was decorated by his 
 father with the " Iron Cross ; " more charily 
 accorded then than after the resuscitation of the
 
 YOUTH ON CAMPAIGN. 43 
 
 order sixty years later. Modest as brave, tlie lad 
 had not recognised that he had behaved with excep- 
 tional credit until this coveted distinction came 
 to him, when with frank simplicity he remarked to 
 his elder brother, " Now I begin to comprehend 
 why Colonel von Luck shook hands with me so 
 cordially the other day when I had made my 
 report, and why other staff officers smiled so 
 significantly." 
 
 As the winter weeks of bloodshed passed, 
 Napoleon's position became more and more des- 
 perate. Moreau's surrender of Soissons was for 
 him a cruel stroke of evil fortune. Still he fought 
 on, and gleams of possible extrication from his 
 myriad difficulties occasionally flashed on the hard- 
 pressed man. So late as March 19th, in a mo- 
 mentary panic caused by Napoleon's threatening 
 attitude, the Emperor Alexander in the middle of 
 the night sent word to Schwarzenberg to send a 
 courier to Chatillon, with orders to sign the treaty 
 of peace in regard to which negotiations were going 
 on there ; his anxiety was so great that, in his own 
 words, "it would turn half his hair grey." But 
 the battle with Schwarzenberg two days later at 
 Arcis-sur-Aube went so badly for Napoleon that 
 he made the desperate resolve no longer to dispute 
 with the allies the road to Paris, but to undertake
 
 44 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isi*- 
 
 a diversion in their rear across their lines of 
 communications . 
 
 Then it was that the allied sovereigns hardened 
 their hearts. Napoleon no longer stood between 
 them and their goal. There was a suggestive 
 significance in Talleyrand's taunt, " Vous pouvez 
 tout, et vous nosez rien. Osez done une fois" The 
 communications might take their chance. It was 
 on March 22nd, by a coincidence the seventeenth 
 birthday of Prince William, that a council of war, 
 held in the allied sovereigns' headquarters at 
 Pougy, came to the resolution to march straight 
 on the French capital, thus, to quote Grant's 
 message to Sheridan, "ending the business this 
 time before going back." Schwarzenberg struck 
 hands with Bliicher two days later, and the great 
 hostile tide rolled on toward Paris, sweeping out of 
 its course the 30,000 men with whom Marmont 
 and Mortier tried to check it. 
 
 The final battle, on which Joseph Bonaparte and 
 the Parisians looked down from the summit of 
 Montmartre, began with sunrise on 30th May. 
 Frederic William and his sons had spent the night 
 before in the beautiful village of Bondy, and ac- 
 companied the columns of the Russian general 
 Barclay de Tolly on their march across the plain of 
 Bomainville. Desperate as was the situation of
 
 a YOUTH ON CAMPAIGN. 45 
 
 the French marshals, their last fierce and resolute 
 stand was worthy of the men whom the greatest 
 soldier of modern times had delighted to honour. 
 From sunrise till the sun was low in the west they 
 fought staunchly against fate and overwhelming 
 numbers ; and ere Marmont at last was forced to 
 ask for an armistice, ten thousand of the allied 
 troops had by death and wounds apologised to the 
 proud city for her impending humiliation. Amid 
 the waving of white flags and handkerchiefs 
 by officers galloping in all directions to announce 
 the armistice and stop the firing, Alexander and 
 Frederic William, the latter accompanied by his 
 two sons, climbed the hill of Belleville and looked 
 down on that fair city which was the queen of the 
 world. For the first time William saw the capital 
 with whose name his will go down to the ages. 
 As they gazed, old Bliicher was still fighting his 
 way up the steep of Montmartre, for Mortier in 
 his front was slow to be bound by the armistice 
 to which Marmont had agreed. When at length 
 the firing had ceased and he reached the top of 
 Montmartrp, the bloodthirsty old hussar, as he 
 looked down on Paris through his glass, exclaimed, 
 "I would rather turn my cannon on that next than 
 my telescope." In case the chance should come, 
 in a hitch in the negotiations for the capitulation,
 
 46 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isu. 
 
 for the gratification of this truculent preference, 
 he got up into position eighty-four cannon, and 
 then lay down to sleep alongside of them. As for 
 the sovereigns and their suites, after a long con- 
 templation from the heights of Chaumont of the 
 city lying at their feet illuminated by the setting 
 sun, they rode back to Bondy to spend the night 
 there. Bourrienne saw Marmont when he entered 
 Paris after the fight he had waged so stubbornly. 
 " He was scarcely recognisable ; he had been 
 fighting himself, sword in hand, and had been 
 wounded in both hands. He had a beard of eight 
 days' growth ; the greatcoat which covered his 
 uniform was in tatters, and he was blackened with 
 powder from head to foot." 
 
 Next day about noon, the Emperor of Russia 
 and the King of Prussia made their triumphal 
 entry into the capital of their fallen foe. Prince 
 William, who yet another coincidence had been 
 promoted on the day of the fall of Paris to the 
 rank of major for gallantry on the field, accompanied 
 his father and elder brother. The sovereigns and 
 generals were followed by the Guards and 
 Grenadiers of the allied armies. These had been 
 mostly in reserve, and were comparatively present- 
 able. The line troops who had fought the battles, 
 had to remain outside, because of the squalor of
 
 1814. YOUTH ON CAMPAIGN. 47 
 
 their aspect and the raggedness of their attire. 
 It was said of the vanguard, who for three months 
 had never been in a bed, never shaved, and never 
 changed their linen, that " they looked like 
 robbers." " Possibly we do," said an old line 
 colonel to the fine gentleman of the staff who made 
 that supercilious remark, " but we are ready to 
 back ourselves for hard fighting against all the 
 dapper dandies in the world." The reception of 
 the monarchs by the Parisians was lavishly en- 
 thusiastic; even the bare remembrance of Napoleon 
 seemed to have been erased from the minds of that 
 fickle population who had but three months before 
 all but worshipped him as a demi-god. The path 
 of the conquerors was strewn with flowers by the 
 conquered. The people along the route kissed the 
 feet of the monarchs and the hem of their gar- 
 ments ; the troops were hindered by the proffers 
 of refreshments. In the Champs Elysees the pro- 
 cession stopped, and the troops defiled in parade 
 order before the sovereigns. The ceremony finished, 
 Frederic "William and his sons went to their 
 quarters in the Hotel Yilleroi in the Eue Bourbon, 
 where they lived for two months, the lads "doing" 
 Paris and its environs with Alexander von Hum- 
 boldt as their cicerone. 
 
 It was an extraordinary time. The armies of
 
 48 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. wu. 
 
 Europe, the sovereigns of Europe, the dethroned 
 sovereign of France, and the sovereign who had come 
 to resume the sceptre, were all crowded together with- 
 in a circle of fifteen leagues around the capital. 
 There was a Bourbon in" the Tuileries, Napoleon 
 was still at Fontainebleau, chafing fiercely againsb 
 the inevitable; his Empress, Maria Louisa, at Eam- 
 bouillet, with the poor little King of Borne and 
 with Louis Bonaparte the ex-King of Holland ; poor 
 repudiated Josephine fretting and dressing at Mal- 
 maison ; and the Emperors of Russia and Austria 
 and the King of Prussia in Paris. 
 
 Prince William never saw Napoleon the Great. 
 He and his brothers and sisters had been left at 
 Meinel with the Countess von Voss, when their 
 parents had gone to their humiliation at Tilsit. 
 It would have been scarce seemly that any of the 
 allied royalties should have intruded into the 
 gloomy privacy of that cabinet on the first-floor of 
 the palace of Fontainebleau, where Macdonald 
 found the fallen master of Europe seated in motion- 
 less dejection, "in a small arm-chair before the fire- 
 place, dressed in a morning gown of white dimity, 
 and wearing his slippers without stockings." Such 
 a meeting would have had its awkwardness far more 
 for each and all of the monarchs than for the man 
 whom they had the quite recent memory of having
 
 Ml* YOUTH ON CAMPAIGN. 49 
 
 feigned to delight to honour. But Meneval tells 
 us that the Empress Maria Louisa was visited by 
 all the monarch s during her short residence at 
 Rambouillet, and it is probable that Frederic 
 William presented his sons to the unfortunate 
 daughter of the house of Austria. The little King 
 of Kome was in evidence in the course of those visits, 
 and seems to have spoken his infantile mind with 
 considerable freedom. What comments he may have 
 made on others of his mother's visitors is not 
 recorded, but Meneval tells that he utterly declined 
 to approve of his grandfather the Emperor Francis, 
 on the specific ground that that potentate was not 
 handsome. 
 
 Poor Josephine, in her divorced retirement at 
 Malmaison, the allied sovereigns treated with deli- 
 cacy and consideration. Mile. d'Avrillion says 
 that the King of Prussia and his sons came 
 frequently to Malmaison to pay their court to 
 Josephine, and dined with her there several times. 
 On these occasions Queen Hortense, Josephine's 
 daughter, and the wife, but separated from him, of 
 Louis Bonaparte the ex-King of Holland, was 
 always with her mother, and assisted her in doing 
 the honours of the house. It is not clear, however, 
 whether Hortense at this time was living alto- 
 gether with her mother at Malmaison, or whether
 
 50 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. in* 
 
 she, with her two boys, habitually resided in the 
 mansion Napoleon had given as an appanage to her 
 husband at St. Leu, in the forest of Montmorency, 
 and only went to Malmaison to assist her mother 
 in entertaining her imperial and royal guests. A 
 recent author writing of St. Leu, says : " In the year 
 1814 this chateau was inhabited by a queen without 
 a throne, for she was the wife of a monarch who had 
 abdicated, and by her two sons, the younger of 
 whom was about six years of age. The Russians 
 and the Prussians were in Paris. Napoleon was 
 waiting for the escort which was to conduct him 
 from Fontainebleau to Elba. This Queen's chateau, 
 Bonapartist though the lady was, came to be looked 
 upon as in a sense neutral ground. The coterie in 
 her drawing-room was sufficiently attractive. Mole, 
 Lavalette, Flahaut, Decazes, and Garnerey the 
 painter, were among the visitors. The chatelaine 
 herself was an attractive and beautiful woman. It 
 was a dull time in Paris for the conquerors in spite 
 of the frequent fetes, and not a few of the great 
 men among them were glad to mix in the sparkling 
 circle that was open to them in the chateau of St. 
 Leu. Hither came once and again the Emperor 
 Alexander, with his Corsican minister, Pozzo di 
 Borgo. Bliicher cared more for a fight than for a 
 conversazione, but Prince Augustus of Prussia came
 
 TOUTS ON CAMPAIGN. 51 
 
 occasionally, and with him sometimes a slip of a 
 lad in the uniform of the Prussian guards, and with 
 the down not yet budded on his lip. This lad was 
 then the younger son of the monarch of a second- 
 rate state. The down came, and gave place to the 
 heavy blond moustache. The blond moustache 
 had turned snow-white when he over whose lip it 
 hung came back half a century later to revive 
 early memories at the head of half a million of 
 men, and to be proclaimed in the chateau of Ver- 
 sailles as William I., German Emperor. The lady 
 of St. Leu was Hortense, daughter of the Empress 
 Josephine by her first marriage, and wife of Louis, 
 that Bonaparte who preferred Lausanne and his 
 library to the nominal and vicarious throne of 
 Holland. The younger of the two boys of St. Leu 
 lived to be Napoleon III., Emperor of the French, 
 and to send his sword at Sedan to the- monarch bv 
 
 tt 
 
 whose knee, when the latter was a stripling, he had 
 stood in childhood in the chateau of St. Leu." 
 "Whether there or at Malmaison, it is certain that 
 Prince William must have seen the boy whose 
 guest he long subsequently was at Compiegne and 
 in the Tuileries, and who yet later was his hapless 
 prisoner-guest in the castle of Wilhelmshb'he. 
 
 Francis of Austria returned from Paris to 
 Vienna with his daughter, but Alexander and 
 E 2
 
 52 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. Ml*. 
 
 King Frederic paid a visit to England, and Prince 
 William and his elder brother accompanied their 
 father. Well might Alexander exclaim, as he 
 landed at Dover, " God be praised ! I have set my 
 foot upon that land which saved us all." It is 
 true that no English army was in at the death, but 
 it is safe to say that but for the lavish subsidies 
 the little island bestowed on her continental allies, 
 and the long wearing strain on Napoleon's re- 
 sources exacted by the Duke of Wellington's 
 career of success in Spain and the south of France, 
 the allied armies would never have crossed the 
 Rhine. It was a memorable visit. No Eussian 
 emperor had crossed the Channel since Peter the 
 Great had been Evelyn's tenant at Woolwich, 
 and Frederic William was the first Prussian 
 monarch who had ever seen the white cliffs of 
 Albion. Their majesties, brought across from 
 Boulogne by the Duke of Clarence in a couple 
 of men-of-war, landed at Dover on June 6th, and 
 reached London next day. Both monarchs were 
 the nation's guests England was hospitable in 
 those daysthe Emperor at the Pulteney Hotel, 
 Frederic William and his sons at Clarence House, 
 now the town residence of the Duke of Edinburgh. 
 Immediately on their arrival they visited the 
 Regent at Carlton House. George was in his glory
 
 la*. YOUTH ON CAMPAIGN. 53 
 
 all through this visit. He had not yet conceived 
 the impression that he took a distinguished part in 
 the battle of Waterloo, because, for one thing, the 
 battle of Waterloo had not been fought ; but he 
 consistently demeaned himself as if he personally 
 were a full sharer in the prestige of the recent 
 successes. The day after their arrival both mon- 
 archs held levees, and afterwards attended the 
 courts which Queen Charlotte held in their special 
 honour. During the twenty days which the visit 
 lasted, the sovereigns worked as hard in sight- 
 seeing and festivity as ever they had done in cam- 
 paigning, and Prince William participated in all 
 their exertions. The illustrious visitors went to 
 Ascot races, lunching by the way at the Star and 
 Garter at Richmond, and after having seen the Cup 
 run for, drove on to dine at Frogmore. The " Royal 
 Heath " never saw so many royalties as on this 
 occasion ; the list would fill a page. On the fol- 
 lowing night, after dining with Lord Liverpool at 
 Fife House, they all went to the opera, and Prince 
 William had the opportunity of gaining some in- 
 sight into the domestic relations of his royal host, 
 when the Princess of Wales entered the box ex- 
 actly opposite that which her husband and his 
 guests occupied, amidst the significant cheers of 
 the vast audience. So vast was that audience that
 
 54 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. !* 
 
 the inner doors of the Opera House were smashed, 
 and some 2,000 people got in without payment. 
 
 Of course there was a trip to Woolwich, where 
 Colonel Congreve showed his newly - invented 
 rockets ; a review of the artillery brigade followed 
 the inevitable collation. On the following day 
 arms yielded to the gown. The sovereigns and 
 their suites were escorted to Oxford by the Prince 
 Regent ; the Prussian monarch and his sons were 
 the guests of Corpus Christi College, which in their 
 honour flew the Prussian eagle over its gateway. 
 The Prince Regent, arrayed in his academic gown 
 and cap, showed his visitors about the University, 
 and in the Bodleian Library he was presented by 
 the Chancellor with a copy of " Aristotle " why 
 this work was chosen is not recorded. The dinner, 
 at which two hundred sat down, was served in the 
 Library of All Souls. All the colleges sent their 
 gold plate to adorn the board. We are told that 
 when any favourite toast was specially acclaimed, 
 his Royal Highness "was pleased repeatedly to 
 wave his hand with enthusiastic delight, accom- 
 panied with a cheerful and dignified aspect." His 
 visit to England certainly afforded Prince William 
 frequent opportunities of taking lessons in deport- 
 ment from the most distinguished exponent of that 
 accomplishment. Next day the young soldier had
 
 1814, YOUTH ON CAMPAIGN. 55 
 
 the felicity of seeing his father made a D. C. L., a 
 compliment extended also to the Emperor Alexan- 
 der, the Duke of Wellington (in absentia], Metter- 
 nich, and Bliicher. It was rather a shame to leave 
 out the Hetman Platoff, when the University's hand 
 was in. At that evening's banquet in the Hall of 
 Christ Church, old Bliicher was persuaded to make 
 a speech, which he delivered "with a powerful 
 voice and most expressive energy," but in German ; 
 whereupon the Prince Regent volunteered to act 
 as interpreter. 
 
 Their majesties and suites went everywhere 
 with great impartiality, and Prince William was 
 present at grand receptions, charity school treats, 
 corporation banquets, Humane Society meetings, 
 reviews in Hyde Park, and " White's fete." 
 Then everybody went down to Portsmouth to 
 witness a great naval review, and the illustrious 
 visitors were treated to a general salute of forty- 
 two guns from each ship, which it is narrated the 
 Duchess of Oldenburg (the Czar's sister) " bore 
 with much fortitude." All went on board the 
 Impregnable, the Duke of Clarence's ship, where 
 Alexander displayed much curiosity as to the pro- 
 portion of water in the crew's rum. " Six-water 
 grog, your majesty, and it would be no worse for 
 being stronger," was the frank information given
 
 56 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. " 
 
 by a tar. The Emperor took a tot, drank it, and 
 reported it " very good." It is also on record that 
 " the Sons " capital S by the Jenkins of the 
 period " of the King of Prussia drank grog with 
 the men with much satisfaction." Next day the 
 fleet, with the sovereigns aboard, went out quite to 
 sea, some twelve miles, under a brisk north-east 
 gale, which in some instances rendered unaccept- 
 able the refreshments served in the Impregnable s 
 cabin. It was during this visit to Portsmouth 
 that Prince William first met Wellington, who, 
 arriving in England from his army in the south of 
 France, had gone direct to Portsmouth, and was 
 awaiting the debarkation of the Prince Regent and 
 his guests. After a review on the Portsdown 
 ridge, the King of Prussia and his sons travelled 
 across country to Dover, and on June 27th crossed 
 to Calais on the Nymphen frigate. 
 
 Both monarchs were received enthusiastically 
 in England, but old Bliicher kindled the wildest 
 fervour. His huge moustaches " exceedingly 
 prominent " moved wonder. When he went to 
 Carlton House, the mob swept the sentries aside, 
 stormed the royal residence, and crowded into the 
 hall. Once in Hyde Park he was so mobbed that 
 he had to take refuge in Kensington Palace. At 
 Portsmouth two sailors danced a hornpipe on the
 
 1814-is. YOUTH ON CAMPAIGN. 57 
 
 top of his carriage. One very comic story is told 
 of him. When Oxford made him a Doctor of 
 Civil Law, the simple old soldier took the degree 
 for a medical one, and said, " You ought to make 
 Grneisenau an apothecary ; it was he who made up 
 the pills for me." Se non e vero, &c. 
 
 From France Prince William accompanied his 
 father back to Berlin, and took part, along with 
 Blucher, Bulow, Tauentzien and his royal relatives, 
 in his first^ triumphal entry into the Prussian 
 capital. Thorwaldsen's statue of Victory in her 
 Chariot was in its place again on the Brandenburg 
 Gate, as the conquering home-comers rode under 
 the arch to where, in the Lustgarten at the foot of 
 the Linden, the altar of thanksgiving stood in the 
 typical sunshine. 
 
 Prince William did not make the Waterloo 
 campaign in the following year. When Waterloo 
 was being fought he was composing a very interest- 
 ing and characteristic document. The time had 
 come for the young man to be confirmed. It is a 
 House Order of the Hohenzollern family, that 
 every member of it before his or her confirmation 
 shall indite a personal profession of faith, for the 
 satisfaction of those responsible for the moral train- 
 ing of the young candidate ; and it is held a point 
 of honour that this " profession " be strictly and
 
 58 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isw 
 
 personally original, and done without assistance 
 of any kind. Prince William wrote his formal 
 Glaubensbekennlniss, and so fulfilled the family 
 statute ; but he added to his " profession of faith " 
 a composition of a wider scope, to which he gave 
 the title " Lebensgrundscetze" or " Life Principles." 
 In this self -definition if the term may be used 
 William engages in a quaintly simple wrestle with 
 the "Divine right" doctrine, which must have been 
 all but a part of his second nature, and succeeds 
 fairly in emancipating himself from its influence. 
 Every line breathes the Christian and the gentle- 
 man. Mr. Kingston will excuse the freedom taken 
 of using his rendering, conveying as it does so 
 felicitously the spirit of the German original. 
 
 "LIFE PRINCIPLES. 
 
 " With a thankful heart I acknowledge God's great bene- 
 ficence in permitting that I should be born in an exalted 
 station, because thereby I am better enabled to educate my soul 
 and heart, and was put in possession of copious means where- 
 with to build up worthiness in myself. I rejoice in this station 
 not on account of the distinction it confers upon me 
 amongst men, nor on account of the enjoyments it places 
 at my disposal, but because it enables me to achieve more than 
 others. In humility I rejoice in my station, and am far from 
 believing that God has intended, in this respect, to put me at 
 an advantage over my fellow-men. I am equally far from 
 considering myself better than anybody else on account of my
 
 MW. YOUTH ON CAMPAIGN. 59 
 
 exalted station. My princely rank shall always serve to re- 
 mind me of the greater obligations it imposes upon me, of the 
 greater efforts it requires me to make, and of the greater 
 temptations to which it exposes me. 
 
 " I will never forget that a prince is a man before God 
 only a man having his origin, as well as all the weak- 
 nesses and wants of human nature, in common with the 
 humblest of the people ; that the laws prescribed for general 
 observance are also binding upon him ; and that he, like the 
 rest, will be judged one day according to his deeds. 
 
 " For all blessings that may fall to my share I will look 
 gratefully up to God ; and in all misfortunes that may befall 
 me, I will submit myself to God, in the firm conviction that 
 He will always do what is best for me. 
 
 " I know what, as man and Prince alike, my duty is to 
 true honour. I will never seek honour to myself in vain things. 
 
 " My capacities belong to the world and to my country. I 
 will therefore work without ceasing in the sphere of activity 
 presented to me, make the best use of my time, and do as 
 much good as it may be in my power to do. 
 
 " I will maintain and foster a sincere and hearty good-will 
 toward all men, even the most insignificant, for they are all 
 my brethren. I will not domineer over anybody in virtue of 
 my rank, nor make an oppressive use of my princely position. 
 When I shall have to need any service at the hands of others, 
 I shall require it in a courteous and friendly manner, en- 
 deavouring, so far as in me lies, to render the fulfilment of the 
 duty easy to them. 
 
 " But it shall be part of my own duty to do my utmost 
 to thwart the machinations of hypocrisy and malignity, to 
 bring to scorn whatever is wicked and disgraceful, and to visit 
 crime with its due measure of punishment ; no feelings of 
 compassion shall hinder me therefrom. I will, however, be 
 careful not to condemn the innocent. 
 
 "To the utmost of my ability, I will be a helper and
 
 60 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 181*. 
 
 advocate of those unfortunates who may seek my aid, or of 
 whose mishaps I may be informed especially of widows, 
 orphans, aged people, men who have faithfully served the 
 State, and those whom such men may have left behind them 
 in poverty. 
 
 " Never will I forget good done to me by my fellow-men. 
 Throughout my life I will continue to be grateful to those 
 who shall have rendered me service. 
 
 " For the king, my father, my love is tender and respectful. 
 To live in such sort that I may be a joy to him will be my ut- 
 most endeavour. I yield the most scrupulous obedience to 
 his commands. And I entirely submit myself to the laws and 
 Constitution of the State. 
 
 " I will perform all my service-duties with absolute exacti- 
 tude, and while assiduously keeping my subordinates to their 
 duty, will treat them amicably and kindly."
 
 1816. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 EARLY MANHOOD. 
 
 THE " Holy Alliance " had been formed, the " long 
 peace " had set in, King Frederic William had 
 returned to his capital, and Prince William, 
 already almost a veteran ere he had come of age, 
 was quietly serving with his battalion of Guards. 
 On the 4th of November, 1815, the Prince was 
 one of the guests at a somewhat memorable ban- 
 quet in the royal palace of Berlin. The King of 
 Prussia was entertaining his friend and ally 
 Emperor Alexander of Russia, and several other 
 members of the imperial family. Among these 
 was the young Grand Duke Nicholas, who was 
 later to succeed Alexander as the Russian autocrat, 
 and yet later to die of a broken heart because of 
 the disasters that befell his troops in the Crimean 
 war. At the banqueting table there sat next to 
 Nicholas a beautiful girl of seventeen, Princess 
 Charlotte of Prussia, the daughter of Queen Louisa 
 and the favourite sister of Prince William. At the
 
 62 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 181*. 
 
 royal table there were but two guests not of 
 imperial or royal blood the grey-haired Bliicher 
 returned victorious from the last desperate wrestle 
 with the great soldier whom he had regarded as a 
 personal enemy, and Barclay de Tolly, who had 
 commanded the Eussian army on its march upon 
 Paris. The rest of the Court guests a numerous 
 company were entertained in the adjoining room. 
 After dinner the two sovereigns suddenly rose and 
 bade the company drink to the toast of Nicholas 
 and Charlotte as a betrothed couple. Those at the 
 royal table had been informed of the betrothal 
 during dinner, but to the guests beyond in the 
 ante-room the announcement came as a surprise, 
 and they hurried into the principal banqueting 
 room to offer their congratulations. 
 
 At that time there seemed no prospect of the 
 accession of Nicholas to the imperial throne. He 
 was a younger son ; but then he was the younger son 
 of the great White Czar, and a family alliance with 
 a potentate so powerful was in those days a fortu- 
 nate thing for poor mangled Prussia. Prince William 
 was a Hohenzollern, and therefore, although not yet 
 eighteen, quite old enough to be sensible of the 
 advantages of the connection ; but it had for the 
 young man the personal joy that his comrade and 
 his favourite sister had fallen in love with each
 
 EARLY MANHOOD. 63 
 
 other, and that the course of true love had run 
 smooth, flowing as it did parallel with the hroader 
 current of statecraft. Nicholas and Charlotte had 
 met in Berlin when the former, a mere stripling, 
 was on his way to join the army in the field in the 
 "spring of 1814, and hoth had confided to Prince 
 William the mutual predilection. In later life, as 
 the head of his house, he did a good deal of match- 
 making, but probably this was the only love affair 
 in which William was a confidant. 
 
 Nearly two years had to elapse before Charlotte, 
 to use Grimm's quaint phrase, " was sufficiently 
 prepared for her vocation." She had to go to St. 
 Petersburg to be married ; and thither went with 
 her as her appropriate escort, her brother Prince 
 William. He was now a man in years ; with ex- 
 periences of life such as come to few who as yet are 
 standing on the threshold of manhood. On his 
 young breast were decorations, not alone empty 
 honorary compliments, but won by conduct on the 
 battle-field. He had got his promotion to the rank 
 of colonel, had taken the command of a battalion 
 of foot guards, and had been nominated a member 
 of his father's privy council. The weakly boy whose 
 childhood had been complicated by rickets and ner- 
 vous fevers, was now a handsome and stalwart young 
 fellow, broad of shoulder, deep of chest, straight
 
 64 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 18W. 
 
 and long of limb. If he could not measure inches 
 with the young giant to whom he was to give away 
 his sister, he had stature, thews, and sinews to 
 have delighted the eye of that ancestor of his 
 whose passion was for strapping grenadiers. Fairly 
 well educated, fluent in French then as now the 
 Court language of Russia gracious and graceful 
 in manner, he was in all respects a creditable 
 Prince to be sent to a critical court, the escort and 
 brother of the lady who was its sovereign. The 
 road to St. Petersburg, as far as Konigsberg at least, 
 was not wholly strange to the sister and brother ; 
 they had traversed it before in very different 
 case eleven years previously, when the family had 
 to flee from Berlin before Napoleon's victorious 
 legions. All had been then misery and dismay. 
 Now the peaceful and contented people everywhere 
 welcomed the royal travellers with joyous shouts. 
 Charlotte's beauty and winsomeness recalled to 
 many the image of her mother ; and all Konigs- 
 berg, the home of her childhood, turned out to greet 
 the young bride. Nicholas met the travellers at 
 the frontier, and escorted them through Russia till 
 Pawlosk was reached, the residence of that master- 
 ful woman Maria Feodorowna the empress-mother. 
 Fortunately the anxious Charlotte made a favour- 
 able impression on this dame ; and as for Prince
 
 1817. EARL7 MANHOOD. 65 
 
 William lie captivated tlie old lady on the spot. The 
 Emperor Alexander led that young man to his 
 mother with the words, " Allow me to present to 
 you my new brother." Whereupon the empress- 
 mother promptly embraced Prince William with 
 the genial observation, " And I also gain a son." 
 
 For poor bewildered Charlotte followed in 
 quick succession her grand entry into St. Peters- 
 burg, her reception into the Greek church with her 
 re-christenment by the new name of Alexandra 
 Feodorowna, her formal betrothal according to the 
 forms of the Eussian National Church, and finally 
 the sumptuous yet simple wedding ceremony ; at 
 all of which functions her brother was naturally 
 present. It was his duty to hold the diadem over 
 his sister's head, and as the ceremony lasted three 
 hours, it may be conjectured he was quite ready for 
 the grand banquet which immediately followed it, 
 whereat the imperial family, seated by themselves, 
 were served by the great dignitaries of the Eussian 
 realm. 
 
 Prince William achieved a distinct social suc- 
 cess in Eussia. Wherever he found himself, amid 
 the stately ceremonials of the Winter Palace, in 
 the modified stiffness of Zarsko-selo, in the 
 charming seclusion of Pawlosk, he won golden 
 opinions. Naturalness through life was the chief 
 I
 
 66 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. "" 
 
 characteristic of his manner, and the secret of the in- 
 fluence it exercised. Grimm tells how he especially 
 attracted the attention and won the liking of the 
 old empress-mother, and speaks of her having been 
 forced to recognise one difference hetween his train- 
 ing and that of her own sons. " Prince William," 
 says he, " was easy and active in all his move- 
 ments, natural in his intercourse with society, 
 youthful joyousness animating his whole being 
 without any loss of his dignity as a Prince ; whereas 
 it was difficult, nay impossible, for Nicholas and 
 Michael, even in the most intimate circles, to 
 descend from their imperial eminence, and to 
 assume that genial tone which everywhere calls 
 forth sympathy." This is courtier-language that 
 Nicholas and Michael had been educated into an 
 unbending rigidity of pompous stick-hood; and 
 were to be pitied in the isolation which their train- 
 ing had created. Fortunately for themselves, since 
 the days when Grimm flunkey ed in the imperial 
 court there has been a sweeping change in the 
 habitual demeanour of the men of the reigning 
 family of Eussia. Their social characteristics now 
 are frankness, simplicity of manner, and genial 
 ease. 
 
 The Eussian bear hugged Prince William 
 closely, but it was a hug with the claws in sheath.
 
 isw- EARLY MANHOOD. 67 
 
 But the Russian mastiff used its teeth on him. At 
 Pawlosk he chanced to get severely bitten by one 
 of the empress-mother's chained mastiffs, and it 
 was thought advisable to have the wound cauter- 
 ised. Grimm recounts that he submitted to this 
 highly unpleasant operation with so cool a forti- 
 tude that the old lady, perhaps striving to salve 
 by flattery the misdeed of her dog, exclaimed, " It 
 is quite natural that he should be brave; is he 
 not a Prussian prince ! " At a great masquerade 
 in the Anitschkow Palace, the Grand Duchess 
 Alexandra (previously Princess Charlotte) appeared 
 as an Indian prince, the old empress-mother as a 
 sorceress, and the Empress Elizabeth as a bat. 
 The chronicler does not specify Prince William's 
 character ; probably we should have been told had 
 he appeared as a mastiff in a state of hydrophobia, 
 and attacked the venerable sorceress. In autumn 
 the Court travelled by easy stages to Moscow, and 
 Prince William saw the ancient capital of Holy 
 Russia ere yet it had wholly retrieved the desola- 
 tion wrought by the sacrificial flames of 1812. 
 After a stay of six months in Russia, during which 
 we are told his influence sensibly encouraged the 
 comparatively pleasant and unreserved tone of 
 society which had begun to prevail in his sister's 
 little court, Prince William left Russia amid 
 P 2
 
 68 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1818- 
 
 wide-spread regrets, and returned to Berlin to take 
 up his military duties. On his coming of age 
 in March, 1818, he was promoted to the rank of 
 Major-Greneral. 
 
 The Berlin of Prince William's early manhood 
 was a very second-rate style of capital ; one writer 
 describes it as a provincial town compared with 
 Prague or Venice. It covered a large area indeed, 
 hut the long wide streets were lined with small 
 tasteless houses, indicating a quiet unpretentious 
 citizenhood. The doors of few hospitable well- 
 equipped mansions opened to admit guests to well- 
 spread tables, or to evening receptions. By ten at 
 night the city seemed dead the silence unbroken 
 save by the cry of the night watchman or the 
 sentry's unfrequent challenge. Few strangers 
 visited it, for it had little to show except regiments 
 drilling mathematically on dusty parade grounds. 
 Militaryism was supreme and arrogant ; the 
 highest civilian officials had scarcely any social 
 status. General Muffling kept Alexander Hum- 
 boldt standing half an hour before him, while he 
 remained seated in the presence of a man whom 
 emperors had delighted to honour. But matters 
 were improving. The King, conscious of the need 
 for his capital of intellectual resources, had es- 
 tablished the University of Berlin, whose leading
 
 1820-2L EARLY MANHOOD. 69 
 
 light had been the philosopher Fichte. He was 
 dead, but Wilhelm Humboldt, the true creator 
 of the Berlin University, still lived, and the in- 
 tellectual and scientific group comprised such men 
 as Frederic Wolf, Ancillon, Stazemann, and the 
 physicians Huf eland and Heim. The social and 
 artistic Maecenas of Berlin in those days was 
 Prince Radziwill, a man of fine culture and con- 
 spicuous talents who had won the hand of a niece 
 of Frederic the Great. The King pottered about 
 Berlin with his younger daughter in a homely 
 bourgeois fashion, stopping for a gossip with a passer 
 by, dining at two, and entering the theatre every 
 night at six precisely. He was a most affectionate 
 parent, and liked to have his family around him. 
 It was a great pleasure to him when his eldest 
 daughter and her husband, the Arch-Duke Nicholas, 
 came to Berlin to spend with them the winter of 
 1820-21 ; and he laid himself out to do his visitors 
 honour to such purpose as to receive from the 
 sententious old empress-mother the modified com- 
 pliment, "He really does more than one could 
 think or expect." Among other entertainments 
 were a series of tableaux, illustrating Tom Moore's 
 poem of Lalla Rookh. The dramatis persona were 
 sufficiently distinguished. The Grand Duchess 
 Alexandra was Lalla Eookh ; her husband the
 
 70 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isei- 
 
 Grand Duke Nicholas, Alexis fancy the stern 
 Nicholas attitudinising in tableaux vivants ! The 
 sisters of Aurungzebe were the Duchess of Cumber- 
 land and the Princesses William and Alexandrina, 
 his sons the Crown Prince and Prince William, 
 and other junior members of the royal house. 
 Ernest Duke of Cumberland was Abdallah, little 
 anticipating that a young participant in the per- 
 formance would half a century later deprive his 
 son of the kingdom of Hanover. All the members 
 of the poem's houses of Bucharia and Cashmere 
 were represented by Princes and Princesses of royal 
 blood. Nor was the privilege of witnessing this 
 unique entertainment confined to the court and the 
 favoured few ; it was repeated for the behoof of the 
 citizens, 3,000 of whom were afforded the oppor- 
 tunity of enjoying it. 
 
 In the spring of the same year (1821) Prince 
 William visited Italy, along with his father and 
 younger brother Charles. At Kome the erudite 
 Niebuhr, then Prussian minister to the Vatican, 
 conducted the King to all the objects of interest in 
 the Holy City, and the scholarly Bunsen acted as 
 guide to the Princes, the two German savants super- 
 seding the Roman antiquarians, usually nominated 
 by the papal court to attend high personages and 
 explain all the remarkable objects. Bunsen tells
 
 1827. EARLY MANHOOD. 71 
 
 his sister what pains he had taken to perform his 
 duties with credit, and adds that he attained his 
 aim. Both Princes he found " very observant and 
 intelligent ; " of Prince William he speaks as " of 
 a serious and manly character, which one cannot 
 behold and perceive without feeling heartily de- 
 voted to him, and in all sincerity holding him in 
 esteem." 
 
 William always, save during one brief interval 
 to be afterwards alluded to, retained a cordial 
 friendship for Bunsen, who never visited Berlin 
 without having an interview with him. The elder 
 brother, Frederic William, from the first meeting 
 found great delight in intercourse with Bunsen, 
 and gave him frequent invitations to intimate 
 social gatherings, when the latter was called in to 
 communicate the results of his study and re- 
 search. One of such interviews, which occurred 
 in November, 1827, on the occasion of Bunsen's 
 bringing to Berlin Rafael's Madonna di Lante, 
 which he had purchased for the royal collection, 
 he describes in a letter to his wife : " The Crown 
 Prince and Prince William were present, also 
 Ancillon and General von Knesebeck. At first 
 Rome was the subject of conversation; but then 
 the affairs of Greece and Turkey were discussed, 
 and an animated and warm debate came on between
 
 72 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. ia-7. 
 
 the Crown Prince and Prince William on one side, 
 and Ancillon and Knesebeck on the other. The 
 views and feelings of the two princes were admir- 
 able. The most important and delicate points of 
 the political situation were touched upon freely and 
 even daringly ; but no word of passion or prejudice 
 was uttered. If I were to write down the conver- 
 sation as a memorial, twenty years hence it would 
 hardly seem credible."
 
 1821-s. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MARRIAGE AND MIDDLE AGE. 
 
 WILLIAM'S youth, had been spent amidst vicissi- 
 tudes ; his years of manhood, until the events of 
 1848 broke in on their quietude, were to pass 
 uneventfully. Europe was regaining prosperity 
 after decades of exhaustive warfare, and her states 
 were concerning themselves with the development 
 of domestic reforms, rather than with problems of 
 foreign policy. Frederic William III. of Prussia 
 was not cursed with ambition. He had retrieved 
 his kingdom's position, and now he was content to 
 let that kingdom prosper in repose, while he him- 
 self took life easily. His second son was a soldier 
 in spirit as well as in name, and he devoted him- 
 self sedulously and unremittingly to the duties of 
 his profession. As the years passed, he held 
 divisional commands, made successive tours inside 
 the realm to inspect territorial troops, and paid 
 visits to foreign countries on professional errands. 
 Promotion came to him in due course. Before his 
 marriage in 1829, he had attained the rank of
 
 74 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1828. 
 
 Lieutenant-General, and been placed in command 
 of the Brandenburg Army Corps. 
 
 And lie had fallen in love, with the experience 
 that for princes, as for people of lower degree, the 
 course of true love does not always run smooth. 
 He had given his heart to the fair daughter of 
 Prince Eadziwill, the cultured and intellectual Pole 
 whose house in those years was the centre of Berlin 
 society. But reasons of State forbade the marriage. 
 The blood in the veins of the Princess Radziwill 
 was only half royal ; her mother was the niece of 
 Frederic, the Great, her father was a prince, 
 indeed, but no scion of a royal family. Obedience 
 is reckoned the first duty of a Hohenzollern ; and 
 William sorrowfully yielded to the paternal prohibi- 
 tion of the union that would have made him happy. 
 Since he was not to marry the woman he loved, he 
 would have preferred not to marry at all, but the 
 mariage de convenance is a normal part of the 
 princely lot. His elder brother the Crown 
 Prince had been married for some years without 
 issue, and poor William had to accept matrimony 
 in the interests of the succession. His younger 
 brother Charles had in 1828 wedded a daughter of 
 the Grand Duke of Weimar, and there had come to 
 Berlin with the bride a younger sister, who had found 
 so much favour in the eyes of Frederic William that
 
 82J>- MARRIAGE AND MIDDLE AQE. 75 
 
 he chose her to be the wife of his second son. 
 William yielded to the raison d'JEtat, and resignedly 
 betrothed himself to the good, amiable, and beauti- 
 ful Princess Augusta of Weimar. Their nuptials 
 were celebrated in the palace at Berlin on June 
 llth, 1829. William was then thirty-two, his 
 bride barely eighteen. Among those present at the 
 marriage were the bridegroom's sister Charlotte, 
 who by the death of Alexander I. had now become 
 Empress of Russia, her stalwart husband likewise 
 becoming the Emperor Nicholas. The bride's 
 coronet was adjusted by the Crown Princess of 
 Prussia, assisted by the Empress of Eussia and the 
 Grand Duchess of Weimar. The young couple 
 began housekeeping in the " New Palace " on the 
 Linden, which was to be their Berlin residence during 
 all the years of their long wedded life, for William, 
 when he came to the throne, declined to remove. 
 
 The fetes were very brilliant, partly in honour 
 of the wedding, partly in honour of the visit of 
 the Empress of Eussia to the home of her an- 
 cestors. It was in homage rather to the Empress 
 than to the bride that the spectacular tourney of 
 " The Magic White Eose " was held ; for Charlotte 
 it was who was the " Blanche -fleur " dear to 
 Prussian hearts, and who was the queen of the 
 tournament. Among the armour-clad competitors
 
 76 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1829-31 
 
 eager to distinguish themselves by feats of arms, 
 whom the heralds by the Rose-Queen's per- 
 mission admitted into the tilting-yard overlooked 
 by her tribune, was Prince William, carrying the 
 banner of Brandenburg, and followed by four 
 knights in blue, scarlet, and silver. The four 
 sons of the King opened the tilting. They rode 
 with couched lances at shields wreathed in white 
 roses, then at Moors' heads, and finally, discarding 
 the lances, they essayed to thread on their sword- 
 points a series of rings. The competition was a 
 sort of sublimated " heads and posts." The tilting 
 finished there is no record how successful was 
 Prince William the knights escorted the Queen 
 of the fete to the Palace, where was exhibited a 
 series of dissolving views illustrating incidents in 
 her life. 
 
 William and his princess travelled about a good 
 deal in the first years of their union. In 1831 they 
 went into Silesia on a visit to old Gneisenau in his 
 country retirement at Erdmannsdorf. At Fisch- 
 bach, near Grneisenau's quiet homestead, the Em- 
 peror and Empress of Russia had a residence, at 
 which they were then living, and the two families 
 saw much of each other, for the lifelong friendship 
 between William and Nicholas was ever warm and 
 firm. Excursion parties were made up into the
 
 MARRIAGE AND MIDDLE AOE. 77 
 
 ravines and among the crags of the Reisen-Gebirge, 
 and William from the summit of the Schnee-Koppe 
 looked down on the country where, thirty-five years 
 later, Prussian armies of which he was to be Com- 
 mander-in-Chief were to fight and conquer. The 
 French Eevolution of 1830 found William and 
 Augusta at The Hague, and later the ripple of 
 its turmoil reached the Rhine Provinces, so that 
 William had to march Brandenburger troops into 
 Cologne and Aix-la-Chapelle to avert disturbances 
 there. On the 18th October, 1831, was born to 
 them their only son, he who as Crown Prince and 
 as Imperial Crown Prince commanded universal 
 respect and admiration for his many virtues, and 
 whose career in his higher sphere of influence and 
 usefulness will prove a fitting sequel to an earlier 
 life of unblemished purity, of grand manliness, of 
 loyal devotion to duty. 
 
 William and Augusta were among the imperial 
 and royal personages who, in August, 1835, con- 
 verged on Silesia for unwontedly important military 
 manoeuvres in that province, and afterwards crossed 
 the Prosna into Russian Poland, for the sumptuous 
 festivities of Kalitz. There was a quiet preliminary 
 time at Fischbach, but in a few days both Courts 
 moved into Leignitz, in the environs of which were 
 held the manoeuvres to witness which there came,
 
 78 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 from all parts of Europe, princes and personages who 
 filled the castles and country houses all around, and 
 crowded the balls, concerts, and State theatrical 
 performances But the doings in Silesia paled be- 
 fore the brilliancy of the imperial splendour at 
 Kalitz. The King of Prussia was welcomed on his 
 arrival there by a military band as strong as an aver- 
 age British infantry brigade. Ball succeeded ball ; 
 on the intervening nights the best singers of Europe 
 sang in Italian opera, Spanish and Polish dancers 
 enchanted by their grace, and the highest talent 
 of the Berlin stage performed in favourite dramas. 
 Around Kalitz a great army which had been 
 gathered from all parts of the Russian empire, 
 engaged in manoeuvres, reviews, and sham fights of 
 exceptional realness. In the Kalitz camp were to 
 be seen " Cossacks, Circassians, Grusinians, Tscher- 
 kessen, and Mussulmans, in every imaginable 
 costume, primitive-looking forms, with sunburnt 
 faces and glossy black hair and beards, armed with 
 pistols, scimitars, and daggers, their heads covered 
 by turbans or fur caps ; others wore glittering 
 silver helmets and coats of mail made of links of 
 steel ; and while some invoked Allah, from the lips 
 of others resounded hurrahs." 
 
 In the early part of 1S40 William visited 
 St. Petersburg in command of a detachment of
 
 if*>. MARRIAGE AND MIDDLE AGE. 79 
 
 Prussian troops, on the errand of participating in 
 the inauguration of Czar Alexander I.'s memorial 
 column. He went as the representative of his father, 
 for Frederic William was too old and frail for a 
 journey so arduous. His ailments increasing as 
 the year advanced, the King had to delegate to 
 his second son all the arrangements connected 
 with the laying of the foundation stone of that 
 monument to Frederic the Great, with which every 
 one who has visited Berlin is familiar. The 
 hand of death was on the old monarch, and he 
 could stand only for a few minutes at his window 
 to look on the little remnant of veteran comrades 
 of " der alte Fritz" standing around the spot, where 
 with much ceremony was laid the foundation stone 
 of the monument to the great warrior who had so 
 often led Prussian soldiers to victory. A week 
 later, on 7th June, 1840, there died the homely, 
 well - meaning old sovereign whom his subjects 
 loved; and the reign began of his eldest son, 
 Frederic William IV., a man as well-meaning 
 as his father, of a more liberal nature, a loyal 
 student of art, but lacking the firm will and the 
 strong hand to guide wisely the destinies of the 
 country he ruled through the troublous years of 
 revolutionary turmoil that were soon to come. 
 
 By the death of his father, William became
 
 80 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 heir - presumptive, and took the titular rank of 
 " Prince of Prussia." Nominated by his brother, 
 the new King, to the Governorship of Pomerania, 
 he held that office for some time ; and during a 
 visit which the King paid to England in 1842, the 
 functions of Regent were entrusted to him. 
 
 The agitation for a Constitution had commenced 
 in Prussia with the accession of Frederic William 
 IV. The Government was an absolute monarchy ; 
 but as regarded local provincial affairs, a species of 
 " home rule" obtained in the limited administrative 
 jurisdiction of the Provincial Diets. In so far as 
 Prussia was not governed direct from the throne, 
 the principle of decentralisation, of which we now 
 hear so much, was in full development. The move- 
 ment in favour of a National Parliament, the King 
 was understood to regard favourably; the Prince 
 of Prussia did not recognise the particular need 
 for a Constitution, and took umbrage at Bunsen's 
 advocacy of that reform. A reconciliation took 
 place in 1844, when Bunsen, who was then 
 Prussian minister to England, visited Berlin and 
 had an interview with the Prince, which he thus 
 describes in a letter to his wife : " The Prince 
 spoke with me for more than an hour ; in the first 
 place about England ; then on the great question, 
 the Constitution. He asked my opinion on this
 
 18*4. MARRIAGE AND MIDDLE AGE. 81 
 
 matter. I replied that I had come rather to learn 
 and hear than to offer an opinion ; but this I could 
 well perceive, that it would be impossible longer to 
 govern with provincial assemblies alone it would 
 be as if the solar system should be furnished with 
 centrifugal power only. The Prince stated to me 
 his own position in relation to the great question, 
 and to the King, with great clearness, precision, 
 and self - command." Bunsen does not mention 
 whether the Prince was converted by his " solar 
 system" argument; but William determined to 
 give up his project of going to Russia with the 
 Emperor Nicholas, who had been visiting western 
 Europe; and instead to go to England and make 
 a tour through that country, with Bunsen as his 
 guide, perhaps to study there the working and 
 results of free institutions. William was in 
 England when the Duke of Edinburgh was born, 
 and a special parade of the Household troops was 
 held in Hyde Park as a compliment to him. Then, 
 with Bunsen as his " guide, philosopher, and 
 friend," he went on a round of visits to great 
 houses in the provinces. Bunsen writes from 
 Badminton on August 30th : 
 
 "... At length, on the twelfth day of the 
 journey, a day of rest in this truly royal country- 
 seat 1 We have seen Edinburgh (the magnificent) 
 
 G
 
 82 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. ** 
 
 and Glasgow, the lakes, and Liverpool (before this 
 tour we had been at Portsmouth and at Oxford), 
 the splendid seat of Chatsworth (more than royal), 
 Stowe, Warwick Castle, Lowther Castle, Belvoir. 
 To-morrow to the Queen, and on 4th September to 
 London, where the Prince will embark. The 
 journey was a refreshment, and a great event. 
 The Prince of Prussia has taken an affection for 
 England ; admires her greatness, which he per- 
 ceives to be a consequence of her political and 
 religious institutions. ... I am always alone with 
 the Prince in the carriage, except Captain Meynell, 
 who, not understanding German, is no check on 
 our conversation." Poor Captain Meynell, what 
 he must have lost ! 
 
 Bunsen quotes a curious passage in a letter to 
 him from King Frederic William, in relation to 
 this visit. " To William all that is cordial and 
 affectionate ! Talk over with him all things as 
 much as possible politics, Church matters, the 
 arts, Jerusalem in particular. I have begged him, 
 on his part, to discuss everything unreservedly 
 with you ; that will be most useful and very 
 necessary." On the whole, perhaps, Captain Mey- 
 nell was not greatly to be pitied. 
 
 Bunsen appears to have done his bear-leading 
 with assiduity and skill. He is reported by his
 
 18*4. MARRIAGE AND MIDDLE AGE. 83 
 
 wife, whenever he brought the Prince into contact 
 with distinguished persons, to have led up indus- 
 triously to topics on which they might he moved 
 to utter opinions, which he then translated into 
 Grerman for the behoof of his Eoyal Highness. 
 The Duke of Wellington was unwontedly com- 
 municative on military subjects, but only one of his 
 answers to Bunsen's catechism is remembered, a 
 reply concerning military regulations. " I know of 
 none," said the great Duke, " more important than 
 closely to attend to the comfort of the soldier ; 
 let him be well clothed, sheltered, and fed. How 
 should he fight, poor fellow ! if he has, besides 
 risking his life, to struggle with unnecessary hard- 
 ships ? Also, he must not, if it can be helped, be 
 exposed to the balls before he is fairly in action. 
 One ought to look sharp after the young officers, 
 and be very indulgent to the soldier." The obser- 
 vations as we read them, suggest the idea of 
 having been paraphrased freely. 
 
 King Frederic William IV. was far from being 
 a dull man. He did not keep his eyes closed 
 against the signs of the times, and he recognised, 
 earlier than did most of his brother monarchs, the 
 stirring throughout Europe of the aspirations 
 of the peoples for liberty. In the Prussian 
 character are united a love of freedom and a certain 
 o 2
 
 84 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1847. 
 
 veneration for the settled order of things which 
 have in every age marked the Teutonic race, 
 and which, hy separating the aspiration for liberty 
 .from a craze for headlong innovation, have made 
 the progress of liberty sure, if slow, and its ulti- 
 mate triumph sounder. A desire for national 
 liberty is a natural concomitant of national pros- 
 perity and the universal diffusion of education. 
 
 Since 1815 the population of Prussia had swelled 
 from ten to sixteen millions, and its industry and re- 
 sources had advanced in a still greater proportion. 
 With the enjoyment of peace and prosperity had 
 naturally grown up a general desire for free insti- 
 tutions, such as were observed to be enjoyed by 
 other countries in a similar condition of civilisation 
 and advancement. In Prussia education was 
 enforced by the State ; an educated people are a 
 thinking people, and to a thinking people des- 
 potism, however benevolent, becomes intolerable. 
 Frederic William felt the throes of the upheaval, 
 and he strove at once to allay their intensity by a 
 modicum of concession, and to posture as the 
 prominent figure on the apex of the upheaval. In 
 the spring of 1847 was published a royal decree, 
 which, with the ordinances accompanying it, 
 formed a Constitution after a fashion. The Pro- 
 vincial Diets were fused into a National Diet, with
 
 1847. MARRIAGE AND MIDDLE AGE. 85 
 
 very restricted powers ; the Sovereign did not 
 cease to be absolute. In the curious rambling 
 speech he made at the opening of the first United 
 Diet, the King made this, at least, clear enough. 
 " No power on earth," said he, " will ever succeed in 
 moving me to change the natural, and in Prussia's 
 case the imperatively necessary relation between 
 prince and people, into something merely conven- 
 tional or constitutional ; and I say once for all, that 
 I will never suffer a written sheet of paper to force 
 itself in, as it were, a second providence, between 
 our Lord God in heaven and this people, to rule us 
 with its paragraphs, and to replace by them our an- 
 cient and time-hallowed reliance on each other. If 
 other countries find their happiness in another 
 way than we in the way of 'manufactured 
 and granted' constitutions, we can indeed regard 
 their happiness with brotherly approval. But we 
 furnish the example of a happy country whose 
 constitution has been made, not by sheets of 
 paper, but by the centuries, and by the exercise of 
 an hereditary wisdom without a parallel." 
 
 Those were brave words, but Frederic William 
 was to talk in another key ere the " centuries " had 
 been swelled by another twelve months. The 
 " Constitution " of 1847, such as it was, satisfied 
 nobody. The sturdy old Absolutists looked with
 
 86 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 grave foreboding on the concession. The Liberals 
 recognised in the new patent only the starting- 
 point of a progress which would find its meet end 
 in a modern constitutional monarchy. The Ultras 
 regarded it as an obstacle in the path of their 
 revolutionary designs, and would have been glad of 
 its rejection. 
 
 As for Prince William, he took his seat in the 
 Assembly of the Three Estates, and his popularity 
 was not increased by the vigorous opposition he 
 offered to what a Prussian writer terms " the inso- 
 lent pretensions of the modern parliamentary 
 spirit."
 
 1848 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 EXILE AND COMMANDER. 
 
 BEFORE the first month of 1848 had ended, the 
 " Citizen King " had walked out of the Tuileries, 
 France had consummated another revolution, and 
 the Republic was established. The fire kindled in 
 France spread far and wide; and a sauve qui peat, 
 in divers fashions, set in with great severity among 
 the sovereigns of continental Europe. Frederic 
 William of Prussia had tried in vain to curb the 
 storm ; now he made a fine time-serving effort to 
 ride the whirlwind. On the 13th of March a 
 great popular meeting of Berliners, tumultuous 
 and disorderly, clamoured loudly for reform, and 
 gave convincing demonstration that the citizens of 
 the capital, at all events, refused any longer to be 
 pacified by ambiguous promises of which there had 
 been so scanty fulfilment. It was on this occasion 
 that the first collision occurred between the military 
 and the populace. For five days Berlin was a prey 
 to disorder. The mob were free to work their law- 
 less will, for the restraints attempted to be put on
 
 88 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 18- 
 
 their excesses were of the feeblest kind. Frederic 
 William was in a state of vacillation, and while he 
 wavered to and fro, his capital was suffering. 
 
 At length he took his resolution, if the term 
 can be used in relation to a person who had so little 
 resolution ; he determined to out-trump the hand 
 of the agitators. On the 18th he issued a remark- 
 able proclamation, pronouncing for the transforma- 
 tion of Germany from a bundle of separate states 
 into one great Federal whole. He pronounced for a 
 Pan-German parliament, for a Pan-German army, for 
 Pan-German laws, for the abolition of customs duties 
 between the states, for uniformity of currency, 
 weights and measures, and for liberty of the press all 
 over Germany. This was a large order ; if it could 
 have been fulfilled, the unification of Germany with 
 the King of Prussia for its emperor would have 
 been accomplished thirty years in advance of the 
 ceremony in the Galerie des Glaces of Versailles. 
 But the ink of this sweeping pronunciamento was 
 scarcely dry ere Frederic William was to experience 
 a rude confirmation of the truth, that those who 
 aspire to sway events by the support of the demo- 
 cracy have to submit to become the puppets of its 
 will. For a moment it seemed that he had played 
 the winning card. On the evening of the 18th an 
 immense crowd of citizens had assembled in front
 
 1843. EXILE AND COMMANDER. 89 
 
 of the palace, to thank the monarch who had so 
 well interpreted the popular aspirations, and loud 
 acclamations greeted him when he came on the 
 balcony to thank the people for their appreciation 
 of his anxiety to meet their wishes. 
 
 But the implacable revolutionists regarded with 
 disgust this good understanding between monarch 
 and people, and saw their way to break it up by pro- 
 voking a collision between the citizens and the troops. 
 Half a dozen shots fired into a squadron of cavalry 
 drawn up under the windows of the palace the 
 King had been a trifle distrustful of his turbulent 
 JBerliners sufficed to raise civil strife. The 
 cavalry moved forward to clear the square, but at 
 a walk, with sheathed swords ; their moderation, 
 however, was thrown away. Already barricades were 
 being erected within sight of the palace. The 
 infantry fired a few shots ; retaliation came in a 
 general discharge of musketry by the mob, of 
 which the leading spirits were the students of 
 the university. A battalion of regulars changed 
 sides and fought with the populace. A san- 
 guinary conflict set in, and was stubbornly 
 maintained. A Prussian mob is always formidable, 
 because the whole nation has been trained to 
 arms, and the insurgents on this occasion had 
 among them an exceptional number of old soldiers,
 
 90 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. we. 
 
 who were as well versed in arms as were the troops 
 to whom they were opposed. The conflict lasted till 
 long, after nightfall, carried on by the light of burn- 
 ing houses, which had been broken into, sacked, 
 and then fired. This fierce street-fire cost sixty 
 lives, and reduced the King to a state of abject 
 pusillanimity. He surrendered all along the line. 
 He apologised to his " beloved Berliners " for the 
 hostile acts of his troops ; he dismissed his 
 ministers, and replaced them by a cabinet of known 
 Liberals ; he proclaimed a general amnesty for 
 political offences, and so released as well the persons 
 in custody for their share in the insurrection, as 
 a number of revolutionary Poles previously incar- 
 cerated. He rode about the streets bedecked with 
 the German colours, and avowed his pride in the 
 " powerful manifestation of public opinion " that 
 had made him for the time but a king at will. The 
 bodies of the citizens who had been killed in the 
 affray were paraded with great pomp before 
 the palace, and the King had to salute, hat in 
 hand, the corpses of men who had fallen in an 
 insurrection by the hands of the troops striking in 
 the cause of order. Finally he withdrew from 
 Berlin its garrison of regulars, and committed the 
 capital to the care and protection of a Burgher 
 Guard.
 
 1848. EXILE AND COMMANDER. 91 
 
 Yet another act of surrender to the mob-rule 
 did the agitated monarch commit. His brother, 
 the Prince of Prussia, had become the arch-object 
 of detestation on the part of the demagogues. A 
 known and professed supporter of absolutism, all 
 sorts of charges were hurled against him, to some 
 of which reference will presently be made. The 
 windows of his residence had been broken, and 
 repeated attempts had been made to storm it. The 
 clamour against him surged so high that the King 
 succumbed before it ; perhaps hoping as well to 
 make a little capital out of his compliance. On 
 the morning of the 19th William was ordered to 
 quit Berlin within twenty-four hours, and to leave 
 the kingdom as early as possible. The same night 
 the Prince went to Potsdam, where he spent with 
 his family a few days, one of which was his birth- 
 day. It was scarcely a pleasant present his royal 
 brother sent him, in the official announcement of 
 his impending departure for England. But William 
 was not a man given to murmuring ; he made no 
 remonstrance against the banishment imposed on 
 him in deference to the clamour of the mob, and on 
 the 27th he arrived in England, having travelled to 
 Hamburg, and made the voyage thence as a pas- 
 senger in that honest old tub the Jo/in Butt 
 eteatner,
 
 92 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1848. 
 
 Later Prussian writers are extremely solicitous 
 to exonerate William from any share in the military 
 dispositions during that stormy week of the " Bed 
 Year.*' Why they should take so much trouble is 
 scarcely apparent. Both as a soldier, and as the 
 first subject of the realm, it would have consisted 
 with his duty to have done his utmost to combat 
 anarchy. Prussian officers whose names became 
 distinguished in the annals of Prussian wars, were 
 actively concerned in the course of their duty in 
 the attempts to thwart.the lawlessness of the Berlin 
 mob. Manteuffel bade the cavalry charge, Stein- 
 metz led his battalion to attack the people, Vogel 
 von Falckenstein was wounded in the affray. None 
 of these men shirked the acknowledgment of 
 having performed acts of simple duty, or were 
 thought the worse of afterwards, because they had 
 been true to their soldier-oath. If William had 
 been in command of the Guard Corps when the 
 disturbances occurred, it may be taken for granted 
 that he would not have asked himself twice 
 whether he should strike, and strike hard, in the 
 cause of order. But as it happened, he was in 
 Berlin during the riots in a wholly unofficial capa- 
 city. As an officer he would have even thus been 
 at the disposition of his sovereign, had that sove- 
 reign called for his services; but they were not
 
 MM- EXILE AND COMMANDER. 93 
 
 requisitioned, and he therefore remained simply a 
 spectator of events. Some of the charges party 
 rancour put forth against him carried their own re- 
 futation ; as for instance, that it was at his instance 
 the prisoners taken during the street-fighting of the 
 18th received ill-treatment. The accusation that 
 from his window he had, by waving his hand- 
 kerchief, given the signal for the cavalry to attack 
 the mob, fell to the ground in face of the fact 
 that his palace was invisible from where the 
 dragoons stood drawn up. 
 
 The Rhine provinces had caught from adjacent 
 France the infection of anarchy, and disturbances 
 had occurred there before they broke out in Berlin. 
 As a man who had some experience in coping with 
 this sort of mischief, the Prince of Prussia had 
 been appointed to the western Grovernor-General- 
 ship, with his headquarters in Cologne. Berlin 
 was perfectly quiet when this appointment was 
 made, and continued so on the morning of the 
 12th, when William, about to quit Berlin for his 
 new sphere, bade adieu to the officers of the Gruard 
 corps, command of which he had ceased to hold. 
 He was still in Berlin during the week of trouble, 
 but it was not his place to give orders to troops 
 commanded by another, nor did he do so. Puncti- 
 liously, as some might hold, over punctiliously, he
 
 94 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 184& 
 
 had even in emergency and when urgently applied 
 to, resolutely refused to intervene. On the evening 
 of the 18th, an officer, who saw how important it 
 was that the Frederic Bridge should be held 
 against the raging populace, and who had in vain 
 addressed himself to the Governor of Berlin and to 
 the minister of war, made an appeal to William to 
 order a detachment on the service. He would not 
 budge from his attitude of non-interference. " You 
 are right," said he, " the bridge ought to be held, 
 but I cannot give you the order.'* Eightly or 
 wrongly, he would not go one hair's-breadth outside 
 the line of strictest duty. Yet if he had swept 
 the Berliners off the Linden with grape-shot, and 
 slivered half a dozen pursy burghers with his own 
 sword, he could not have been more fiercely vitu- 
 perated. 
 
 The scapegoat of monarchy in extremis betook 
 himself to England ; his previous study of her free 
 institutions had brought forth no visible fruit. He 
 came on this later visit to find them stable and 
 sure, while all over Europe the pillars of absolutism 
 were toppling headlong. On the morning of March 
 27th, at eight o'clock, the Prince arrived quite 
 unexpectedly at the Prussian Legation in Carlton 
 House Terrace. No intimation of his intended 
 visit had been given, though the newspapers had
 
 EXILE AND COMMANDER. 95 
 
 announced his departure from distracted Berlin two 
 days previously. The Prince waited on Queen 
 Victoria at Buckingham Palace he was the bearer 
 of a communication to her from his brother but 
 did not see her, for Princess Louise had been born 
 on Berlin's " bloody day." Visits of ceremony were 
 paid him by the Prince Consort, the Duke of 
 Cambridge, the ambassadors of the European 
 powers, and by the Duke of Wellington, who paid 
 him the compliment of wearing a Prussian uni- 
 form. His advent rather disorganised the domestic 
 arrangements of the Bunsens, for he consented to 
 take up his residence in the Legation, and it was 
 turned upside down to furnish him with fit accom- 
 modation. Members of the family were billeted out 
 in all directions, and the only inmate who remained 
 besides the minister and his wife was the first 
 secretary, Count Lowenstein. The baroness writes, 
 two days after William's arrival : 
 
 " I think all the business of accommodating the 
 Prince has been well got through ; if on the one 
 hand one has trouble, on the other hand one is saved 
 trouble; for of course no visitors are let in, and thus 
 we can remain quiet. We had sent out invitations 
 for a series of Tuesday receptions, and intimations 
 putting these off had to be hurriedly sent out. The 
 Prince to-day dines with the Duke of Cambridge.
 
 96 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isffl. 
 
 He came to breakfast with us all at ten o'clock, and 
 was very amiable. F. had fetched an arm-chair, 
 but the Prince put it away and took another, saying, 
 ' One ought to be humble now, for thrones are 
 shaking.' One longs to perceive how a bridge can 
 be constructed for his return home. He expresses 
 much concern and scruple for the trouble he occa- 
 sions, but now that the arrangement has been 
 made, it is infinitely preferable that he should be 
 here, rather than his having to hire a place of 
 abode." 
 
 At the dinner-parties which the Bunsens gave 
 in honour of the Prince, we are told that " he was 
 cense to receive the guests himself," the house of the 
 Prussian Legation being, in the first place, his 
 residence. The 10th of April was the day on 
 which occurred what was to have been the great 
 Chartist demonstration. Bunsen, at Lady Pal- 
 merston's on the previous Saturday night, had 
 brought his Prince up to the Duke of Wellington, 
 to hear of the manner in which the victor of 
 Waterloo meant to cope with a demonstration 
 which seemed to threaten an outbreak similar to 
 that which had made the heir to the throne of 
 Prussia an exile from the Fatherland. "Your 
 Grace," said Bunsen, " will take us all in charge, 
 and London too, on Monday ? " " Yes," replied
 
 1848. EXILE AND COMMANDER. 97 
 
 the Duke ; " we have taken our measures, but not 
 a soldier nor a piece of artillery shall you see, 
 unless in actual need. Should the police the 
 force of law be overpowered or in danger, then 
 will come the time for the troops. But it is not 
 fair on either side to call on them to do the work 
 of police the military must not be confounded 
 with the police, nor merged in the police." 
 
 While William was having an anxious but a 
 sociable time in England, visiting at Osborne, spend- 
 ing the Easter week at Strathfieldsaye, and touring 
 through the Lake country and Scotland, strange 
 doings were being enacted in Berlin. Over the 
 royal palace floated no longer the black and white 
 banner of Prussia, but the tricolor of black, red, 
 and gold. In place of the stately Prussian Guards, 
 portly citizens were burlesquing military duties in 
 plain clothes and pipe in mouth. The King re- 
 mained in Berlin in a species of contemptuous 
 toleration, as a sort of tap through which to draw 
 concessions to democracy. But the nation was 
 beginning to show that Berlin is not to Prussia 
 what Paris is to France. That the provinces were 
 not in full accord with the capital was first 
 manifested with respect to the exiled Prince of 
 Prussia. Berlin maintained all its virulence against 
 him ; and his name was expunged from the Liturgy
 
 98 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. IMS. 
 
 in the metropolitan churches. But in the pro- 
 vinces, where he was best known, a clamour arose 
 for his return. Pomerania urgently petitioned ; 
 the West Prussians grimly threatened to lay Berlin 
 in ashes if he were not back by the end of May. 
 A song had been written in his honour, which was 
 sung in every barrack-room. The minister Camp- 
 hausen advised the King to recall his brother. 
 When this became known, Berlin raged furiously ; 
 the walls were placarded with vituperative hand- 
 bills. Twelve thousand Berliners massed in the 
 Thiergarten and marched down the Linden in 
 procession, to inform the minister that the people 
 would not consent to the Prince's return. But he 
 was sent for all the same. In truth, the impression 
 was dawning that men of his stamp would soon be 
 wanted in Prussia. 
 
 The recall reached him on the 27th May, and 
 he started at once, escorted to the coast by his host 
 the minister, whom and the Baroness Bunsen he 
 had "thanked most kindly and touchingly for 
 kindness received." The Prince's parting words 
 were that " in no other place or country could he 
 have passed so well the period of distress and 
 anxiety which he had gone through, having found 
 so much to interest his mind both in the country 
 and in the nation." He is described as having
 
 1848. EXTLE AND COMMANDER. 99 
 
 bestowed close study on the principles and working 
 of the British constitution. Wherever he went 
 during his short two months' stay in London, his 
 manly frankness and unaffected courtesy created 
 a most favourable impression. The Baroness Bunsen 
 speaks enthusiastically of the manner in which 
 services were acknowledged as " kindness," which 
 were but the fulfilment of bounden duty; and of 
 "the dignity, the cheerfulness, the gracious kind- 
 ness, the constant regard for others' convenience, 
 which marked from first to last the Prince's 
 demeanour." He did not hurry in his journey; 
 awaiting instructions and answers to letters at 
 various points en route. 
 
 The King, on the 22nd, had opened the first 
 session of the new National Assembly a parliament 
 whose members were elected on the household fran- 
 chise suffrage, so swiftly had reform marched in 
 Prussia and had submitted to it a constitutional 
 programme which was broad enough to have satisfied 
 all honest aspirants for real freedom. In a letter 
 written to his brother on his way through Brussels, 
 William, with a certain dryness, accepted the new 
 departure. " I beg," he wrote, " respectfully to in- 
 form your Majesty that, in accordance with the 
 commands imparted to me, I have quitted London 
 and am at present on the Continent. I deem this a 
 H 2
 
 100 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. is 
 
 most opportune moment for giving renewed expres- 
 sion to the sentiments, already well known to your 
 Majesty, with which I return to my native country. 
 I venture to hope that the free institutions, to 
 found which still more firmly your Majesty has 
 convoked the representatives of the people, will, 
 with God's gracious aid, become more and more 
 developed to the benefit of Prussia. I will devote 
 all my powers sincerely and faithfully to this 
 development, and look forward to the time when I 
 shall accord to the Constitution, about to be pro- 
 mulgated after conscientious consultation between 
 your Majesty and your people, such recognition as 
 shall be prescribed to the Heir- Apparent by con- 
 stitutional charter." 
 
 A few days later his arrival at Wesel was 
 greeted by an enthusiastic public reception, to 
 which he responded under the influence of great 
 emotion. "It is painful," said he, "to be mis- 
 understood. A clear conscience only has carried 
 me through this sad time, now ended; and it is 
 with a clear conscience that I return to my country. 
 I have always hoped that the day of truth would 
 dawn and it has dawned. Many things have 
 been changed in our native land. The King has 
 willed this : the King's will is sacred to me. lam 
 the first of his subjects, and I honestly acquiesce in
 
 isig. EXILE AND COMMANDER. 101 
 
 the new order of things. But right, order, and law 
 must have sway, not anarchy against this shall I 
 struggle with all my might. That is my calling in 
 life. Whoever has known me, has known how 
 ardently I have loved my country." 
 
 It was to a strange Berlin that William re- 
 turned on the 8th June. There was no Court, for 
 the King had gone to Potsdam out of the turmoil. 
 Most of the great houses on the Linden were 
 empty, and a private carriage was seldom seen, for 
 all the gentry had quitted the distracted city. At 
 the street-corners popular democrats with strident 
 voices, expounded the principles of democracy to 
 noisy crowds. " Flying booksellers " ran about 
 crying broad-sheet manifestoes, put forth by the 
 leaders of the popular movement. " How melan- 
 choly does Berlin now appear to me ! " cried 
 Wrangel, returning in September from Sleswig- 
 Holstein. " Grass is growing in your streets ; 
 your houses are empty; your shops are full of 
 goods, but there are no purchasers ; your indus- 
 trious citizens are without work, without wages, 
 without profits." It was through a capital in this 
 plight that William, accompanied by a single aide- 
 de-camp, drove to the Opera-house, where the 
 National Assembly was in noisy session. He 
 might be unpopular in Berlin, but a constituency
 
 102 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. VMS. 
 
 in Prussian Poland had returned him to Parlia- 
 ment by a sweeping majority, and he was on his 
 way to take his seat, as his first act on returning to 
 the city from which mob-clamour had ejected him. 
 At the sight of him, and of the Prussian uniform 
 so detested by the revolutionists for William was 
 a soldier, and had not truckled to dress himself in 
 civilian attire the serried benches of the Left 
 greeted him with vehement hissing. They osten- 
 tatiously kept their seats those gentlemen of the 
 Left; the Right was but a handful, but it rose in 
 a body to show respect to the heir to the Crown. A 
 vehement radical had possession of the floor, and 
 kept it obstructively in the face of the House's 
 anxiety to hear the Prince of Prussia, who quietly 
 waited until Herr Temme had talked himself out. 
 Then the Speaker announced that " the member for 
 Wirsitz desired to speak on a personal matter," and 
 the Prince rose. He had not the discursive fluency 
 of his brother ; when it seemed to William that he 
 had anything to say, it was his way to liberate 
 his mind in the fewest words that would express 
 his meaning. On this occasion he simply said thai 
 he had come to declare his honest and loyal accep- 
 tance of a Constitutional Government, since the 
 King had thought fit to adopt that form of rule ; 
 and expressed the hope that the new legislative
 
 1848. EXILE AND COMMANDER. 103 
 
 body would act steadfastly on the grand old 
 Prussian motto, " With God, for King and Father- 
 land." The feeble Right cheered him vociferously ; 
 the democratic Left responded to his utterances in 
 hisses and hootings. Having said what he came 
 to say, William left the National Assembly to its 
 devices, and went away to Potsdam to live there in 
 seclusion with the family to whom he had come 
 back from exile. 
 
 In Berlin things went from bad to worse. 
 Cabinet succeeded cabinet, only to go down before 
 the factious violence of the Assembly. A few days 
 after William had taken his seat, a mob attacked 
 the arsenal, overpowered the feeble resistance 
 offered by the Burgher Guard, stormed the place, 
 and pillaged the immense stores of arms which it 
 contained. It may be assumed that William did 
 not hesitate to express his opinion on the state of 
 affairs, and to make suggestions of a remedial 
 character. For the moment not much could be 
 done, for divers reasons ; but the armistice of 
 August placed at the King's disposition some 
 thirty thousand staunch troops who, under Wran- 
 gel, had been engaged in Sleswig in a rehearsal of 
 the campaign of 1804. They and other troops 
 were concentrated in the vicinity of Berlin : 
 and the military command in the Marches of
 
 104 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1848. 
 
 Brandenburg having been entrusted to Wrangel, 
 that plain-spoken old fighting-man lost no time in 
 informing the Berliners that any attempt at in- 
 subordination or sedition would find in him a stern 
 and uncompromising opponent. He spoke his 
 mind in a series of jerky sentences : " I shall re- 
 establish order when it is disturbed, and support 
 the laws when they are infringed. Should the 
 Burgher Guard fail to keep order, we will enter ; 
 and we will succeed. My troops are staunch ; their 
 swords are sharp and their muskets loaded. . . . No 
 reaction, but to protect liberty ; for the laws and 
 for freedom." 
 
 The Berliners were stiff-necked, and took no 
 heed of WrangeFs warning. Law and order were 
 in abeyance ; the working classes were idle and 
 starving ; the jails had been thrown open, and 8,000 
 convicts were at large. The rabble joined in 
 desperate attempts to destroy machinery; barricades 
 were erected and lives lost. Parliament amused 
 itself in passing resolutions abolishing the nobility 
 and declaring universal equality; yet it did not 
 move fast enough for the revolutionary mob, who 
 broke in upon its deliberations, carrying ropes and 
 nails for the encouragement of the Conservative 
 members by the summary argument of hanging 
 them. It was evident that a new revolution was
 
 IMS. EXILE AND COMMANDER. 105 
 
 imminent, in which the throne and the constitution 
 would alike be overthrown, and a republic esta- 
 blished on their ruins. Frederic William, strenuously 
 counselled, was stirred to decisive' action. A Con- 
 servative Government was formed, with a resolute 
 nobleman at its head, who promptly served on the 
 Parliament a royal decree, transferring its place of 
 meeting from the capital to Brandenburg, and 
 meanwhile suspending its deliberations. 
 
 The Assembly, by its majority, vehemently pro- 
 tested against this edict, and resolved to remain in 
 Berlin and sit in permanence. A detachment of 
 thirty gallantly remained in session all night. 
 When the members who had slept at home began 
 to arrive in the morning, they found the building 
 surrounded by regular troops, with Wrangel in com- 
 mand. Asked how long he intended to maintain the 
 cordon, he replied : " For a week, if necessary ; my 
 troops are accustomed to bivouac. Anybody is 
 free to withdraw, but none shall enter." The 
 Assembly evacuated the Opera-house under pro- 
 test, and met in another place, protected by the 
 Burgher Guard in great strength, and applauded by 
 the mob for their firmness. A royal proclamation 
 dissolved the Burgher Guard, thirty thousand 
 regular troops were marched into the capital, and a 
 state of siege was declared. Military officers entered
 
 106 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. ISM 
 
 the hall where the Assembly was sitting, and sum- 
 moned it to disperse as an illegal gathering. A 
 violent refusal being given to the demand, the 
 officers picked up the Speaker, chair and all, carried 
 him out and set him down in the street. Another 
 meeting held by it elsewhere was dispersed by the 
 military, and when the Left threatened to go to 
 Brandenburg and swamp the Conservative minority, 
 the King turned the flank of the revolutionists by 
 dissolving the Assembly altogether. The crisis 
 was over, although it was long ere Berlin re- 
 covered from the spasm of anarchy and distraction 
 it had undergone. A considerably modified con- 
 stitution was presently accorded, which underwent 
 further restrictions before the termination of Frederic 
 William's reign. 
 
 This is scarcely the place for the review of the 
 political condition of Germany at this epoch of 
 upheaval and fermentation. Of the " Vor- Parlia- 
 ment " and its lusty outcome the Frankfort As- 
 sembly, of the latter's fair promise and its ultimate 
 ignominious collapse on the mandate of the Wur- 
 temburg police-sergeant, nothing can here be said ; 
 yet the reflection may be permitted by how narrow 
 a chance was baulked then the achievement of 
 German unity, while as yet the statesman who on 
 the dais of the Galerie des Glaces watched the
 
 1848. EXILE AND COMMANDER. 107 
 
 triumphant crowning of the edifice he had built up 
 with craft and blood, was but an obscure Branden- 
 burg squire. " Do not," said the wise Welcker, at 
 the great Liberal meeting at Heidelberg, " do not 
 mistake liberty for license, nor suppose that because 
 much must be remodelled, all must be overturned." 
 If the Frankfort Assembly had but acted on that 
 good counsel, if the violence of the revolutionist 
 element in that body had not alienated the support 
 of men who discriminated between license and 
 liberty, the great work might have been accom- 
 plished while the man who twenty -two years later 
 was to be the first German Emperor was living in his 
 quiet Babelsberg seclusion. As things turned out, 
 it befell him to stamp out the final flash of revolu- 
 tionary anarchy into which the proletariat blazed up. 
 In May 1849, Baden and the Palatinate rushed 
 into arms against constituted authority. The 
 Grand Duke was a fugitive from Carlsruhe ; the 
 Duchy had a ministry of revolutionists, and a 
 revolutionary provisional government was set up in 
 the capital of the Palatinate. The crisis demanded 
 energetic action, and Prussia sent to co-operate 
 with the troops of the Confederation, an army in 
 command of which was placed the Prince of Prussia, 
 with Count von der Groeben and Von, Hirschfeld 
 as his corps' commanders. After the battle of
 
 108 WILLIAM OF GERMANY, i84. 
 
 Grossachsen, the supreme command of the combined 
 operations was vested in the Prince. He acted with 
 prompt vigour. 
 
 He had left Berlin on the 10th of June, on 
 the 14th he was in the Palatinate, and fought 
 a victorious action at Kirchheim Bolanden. Next 
 day his troops stormed the Ehine-shore en- 
 trenchments of Ludwigshafen, opposite to Mann- 
 heim. From Newstadt, where he quartered on the 
 19th, William swept the Palatinate clean of insur- 
 gents, followed them across the Rhine, and narrowly 
 missed cutting off the Baden insurrectionary army 
 under Mieroslawski, on whose flank he came at 
 Waaghausel, while close locked in command with 
 Hannehen's small division. Giving the insurgents 
 no rest, he struck them again at Upstadt on the 
 23rd, stormed their entrenched position at Durlach 
 on the 25th, and on the same day entered Carls- 
 ruhe, the capital of the Grand Duchy. Mieros- 
 lawski and Sigel withdrew their discomfited bands 
 to the hill country of the Black Forest, whither 
 they were followed by the Prince, and utterly dis- 
 persed. Part of the insurgents had thrown them- 
 selves into the fortress of Rastadt, which they 
 continued to hold for nearly a month. The place 
 was strong and well found in artillery and ammuni- 
 tion, and the heterogeneous crowd of men of all
 
 18. EXILE AND COMMANDER. 109 
 
 nations that made up the garrison were of the 
 desperado stamp. 
 
 The Prince was humanely anxious to spare 
 his own troops, nor had he the desire to push 
 matters to extremities with the misguided gar- 
 rison, mostly mere tools in the hands of their 
 officers. His proposal that two officers from the 
 defenders of Eastadt should visit the Black Forest 
 and the Swiss frontier, to satisfy themselves of 
 the dissolution of the insurgent field army, was 
 accepted. One of the officers who made this excur- 
 sion was a Colonel Corvin, a soldier of fortune, 
 whose autobiography reads like a romance. Satis- 
 fied that relief was out of the question, Corvin 
 strove hard to make terms for the foreigners, but 
 surrender at discretion was insisted on. His Royal 
 Highness witnessed the march out of the garrison 
 on the 23rd of July. There is at Babelsberg a 
 twenty-four pound shell, from which he had a 
 narrow escape in the course of a reconnaissance of 
 Bastadt, and his quarters at Chateau Favorite were 
 within range of the fortress artillery. 
 
 Hard measure was meted out to the officers of 
 the Bastadt garrison, many of whom were shot by 
 sentence of court-martial. Arrangements had been 
 made to exempt the Prince from the disagreeable 
 necessity all the more disagreeable to him as the
 
 110 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. mo. 
 
 successor to the throne of refusing the numerous 
 applications for mercy with which he was certain to 
 be assailed, by the devolution upon one of the 
 army corps' commanders of the duty of dealing 
 with the sentences of courts-martial on Prussian 
 subjects. Corvin grumbles in print at having been 
 subjected to what he considers the ignominy of 
 imprisonment in the house of correction, instead of 
 having been shot like a gentleman. His mother 
 wrote to the Prince begging for his intercession 
 with the Grand Duke of Baden on behalf of her 
 son, and William's reply is too characteristic not to 
 be quoted : " Though you avail yourself of the 
 accident which threatened my person to appeal to 
 my sympathy for your sorrow as the mother of a 
 son who has strayed from the right path, it was 
 not necessary to do so in order to move this emotion 
 in me. So much the more painful, then, is it for 
 me to be unable to support your request to the 
 Grand Duke of Baden, for the commutation of 
 your son's sentence to banishment. This reply 
 will be comprehensible to you when you reflect 
 that I saw my soldiers fall and bleed before insur- 
 gents commanded by your son. Perhaps misled, 
 he was one of those who continued the contest with 
 bitter obstinacy, and his return from exile to renew 
 it is not impossible. May God assist you, my
 
 EXILE AND COMMANDER. Ill 
 
 lady, in enduring your hard fate with patience. 
 He does not send us any more than we are able to 
 bear by submission to His will." 
 
 It was scarcely a campaign in which much 
 renown was to be earned, but to William belongs 
 the credit of having conducted it in a soldierly 
 manner, and he certainly deserved the order pour le 
 merits which his brother sent him. He was home 
 in Babelsberg by the middle of October. 
 
 There was little incident worth noting in the 
 life of the Prince of Prussia for the next seven 
 years. In the beginning of 1851 he paid a short 
 visit to his sister in St. Petersburg, and in May of 
 the same year came to England for Prince Arthur's 
 christening, one of whose godfathers he was. In 
 May, 1851, he superintended the solemn dedication 
 of the monument to Frederic the Great, which had 
 been curiously slow in finishing. In 1853 he 
 was in England again, present at the review held 
 by the Queen of the troops that were in Chobham 
 camp, and at the naval review off Spithead. In 
 February, 1854, he was raised to the rank of field- 
 marshal ; and in June of the same year celebrated 
 his silver wedding. In 1855 he presided over the 
 Military Commission which settled the adoption of 
 the needle-gun as the weapon of the German 
 infantry it had been used to a considerable extent
 
 112 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1867. 
 
 in the Baden insurrection with good results. The 
 1st of January, 1857, was i^e half-century military 
 jubilee of his Royal Highness, in honour of which 
 occasion Queen Victoria sent him the Grand Cross 
 of the Bath by the hands of a worthy bearer, Sir 
 Colin Campbell, afterwards Lord Clyde. In the 
 summer of 1857 the Prince made the acquaintance 
 at Baden of Napoleon III., and we read of him in 
 September of that year sitting resignedly at the 
 reception by the King of the Evangelical Alliance, 
 which was attended by "lots of Americans, Scotch, 
 Australians, Hungarians, &c." William's longevity 
 proves how tough was his constitution, but his 
 brother, the King, promptly succumbed to softerJ-ug 
 of the brain.
 
 1857. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 KING WILLIAM AND THE NEW ARMY. 
 
 KING FREDERIC WILLIAM IV., never a man of strong 
 head, had for years been growing weaker and more 
 eccentric. The tragic events of 1 848 had severely 
 shaken his never very strong nerves. In 1850 his 
 vacillation and feebleness had entailed on Prussia 
 the humiliation which culminated in the Olmiitz 
 " capitulation," and in his latter years of compara- 
 tive sanity the influence of the " pietistic " party 
 had been gaining more and more hold upon him. 
 He was a well-meaning man, and there is no 
 evidence that there was any foundation for the 
 insinuation conveyed in the nickname of " King 
 Clicquot " which Punch fastened upon him ; but as 
 was said of Lord John Kussell, " he was not strong 
 enough for the place." In the early part of 1857, 
 symptoms of softening of the brain began to show 
 themselves. That disorder so developed itself that 
 in October, 1857, he gave a delegation to the 
 Prince of Prussia to act as regent; but the first 
 commission was only for three months. Queen 
 Elizabeth stood out as long as possible against the
 
 114 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isw. 
 
 constitution of a permanent regency, and the 
 Prince's temporary commission was renewed from 
 time to time ; but it soon became apparent that 
 Frederic William's case was hopeless, and his 
 brother was formally installed as Regent in October, 
 1858. Ultimately the King died in January, 1861, 
 and his brother succeeded to the throne as William I. 
 In the popular mind there had been a wonderful 
 reaction in favour of the Prince from the fierce 
 rancour against him of the " Bed Year." It had 
 come to be believed that if he were a champion of 
 the rights of the Crown, he was at any rate no ex- 
 tremist. It was in his favour, too, with the masses 
 that his election as Regent should have been met 
 with opposition by the aristocratic and pietistic 
 faction, of which the Queen was a partisan, and to 
 whose influence had been ascribed the later obnoxi- 
 ous policy of King Frederic William, with which 
 the Prince of Prussia was supposed not to be in 
 accord. The Manteuffel cabinet quitted office, and 
 the Regent replaced it by a ministry of so- 
 called Old Liberals, under the leadership of his 
 connection and friend Prince Charles Anton of 
 Hohenzollern and Baron Rudolph von Auerswald. 
 " Old Liberal," in this connection, was equivalent 
 to what we know as " Conservative," in contradis- 
 tinction to bigoted obstructive and reactionary
 
 1858. KING WILLIAM AND THE NEW ARMY. 115 
 
 " Old Toryism." But the Regent was not the kind 
 of man to accept a popularity springing out of 
 erroneous assumptions. He was a man of indomit- 
 able resolution, or as others have phrased it, of " un- 
 conquerable obstinacy ; " his honesty was thorough 
 as his firmness was unflinching ; and he thought it 
 the straightforward line to take, to define his atti- 
 tude on the threshold of his new sphere. The 
 result of the elections was much in favour of the 
 Progressist party. Progressist majority or not, 
 William was determined there should be no mistake 
 about the policy he meant to stand or fall by ; and 
 in his address at the opening of the Chambers he 
 roundly laid it down that he " never could permit 
 the progressive development of the nation's inner 
 political life to question or endanger the rights of 
 the Crown or the power of Prussia." 
 
 Such were the new ruler's principles, from 
 which alike, through bad report and through good 
 report, neither hostility nor popularity ever caused 
 him to deviate one jot. " For King and Father- 
 land ; " yes, and for the Constitution afterwards, 
 if it would persist in claiming attention. Father- 
 land and Constitution had no affinity in the sight 
 of the resolute old patriot, who did so much for 
 the former and so little for the latter. If in those 
 early days of fine curt frankness he already looked 
 i 2
 
 116 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. m 
 
 down the vista of the strange improbable future 
 that was to be, and had in his mind the mighty 
 projects whereby he was to make the Fatherland 
 so prosperous and glorious as to beguile its children 
 from caring any more, at least for the time, about 
 that Constitution in hostility to which he lived 
 and died, what a superb faith had he in the nation 
 and in himself ! But if again the future, did he 
 care to look into it, was blank and misty, he was 
 a yet braver man, thus unwitting of expedient to 
 stand upright and defiant in the path of a great 
 popular movement. In either case, he was a 
 champion; in the former he meant to risk the 
 leadership of a forlorn hope for the sake of victory ; 
 in the latter, he was either bat-blind or prepared 
 to die in his ditch rather than quit it. 
 
 Because of the imposing personality of his 
 great servant Bismarck, the impression has long 
 been all but universal, that William was only the 
 figure-head of the ship at the helm of which stood 
 Bismarck, subtle, wily, shrewd, cynical, and un- 
 scrupulous. Probably how much Bismarck has 
 done for William no man will ever know, for the 
 dead are not garrulous, and the living has a certain 
 modified sense of decency. But it is not easy to 
 deny, whether or not William consciously worked 
 toward the great enterprise which the political
 
 1858. RING WILLIAM AND THE NEW ARMY. 117 
 
 strategy of Bismarck crowned with success, that 
 as Bismarck certainly did a great deal for him, he 
 at the least did much for Bismarck. The shrewdest 
 diplomatist has a bad and bitter time of it when the 
 pourparlers become significantly abrupt, and he is 
 the representative of a state that cannot fight. It 
 is all very well to enunciate a policy of " blood and 
 iron," but these cheerful persuasives involve the 
 control of a great and thoroughly effective army. 
 The needle gun it was that achieved the United 
 Germany, and William it was to whom Prussia and 
 Germany owe all which armed strength, tipping the 
 arrow of Bismarck's shrewd statecraft, has wrought 
 on their behalf. 
 
 William had long recognised the slow deca- 
 dence of the army which had conquered at Hohen- 
 friedberg and Rossbach, and fairly divided the 
 laurels of Waterloo. Like his father, he was a 
 soldier ; but unlike his father, he was not a mili- 
 tary pedant. It was as he lay on his death-bed, 
 while the Guards were marching past the palace, 
 that the old King anxiously said to his son, " I 
 hope the companies are following each other in 
 proper numerical order." It may be said with 
 hardly a strain of the fact, that assured this was 
 so, he died contentedly. William was the stamp 
 of soldier to whom it was a matter of moment
 
 118 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isse. 
 
 indeed that the companies of a battalion should 
 march past in correct sequence ; but this he did not 
 regard as a conclusion, but as an illustration. 
 Once and again he had seen his country humiliated 
 because her sword was rusty in the scabbard. He 
 knew that Austria would not have dared to put on 
 Prussia the affront of Olmiitz, but that Austria 
 was aware Prussia was in no condition to resent 
 the indignity. A man need have neither ambition 
 nor visions to recognise when his country is slighted 
 because its army has degenerated. Since William 
 had obtained high rank in the Prussian army, it 
 had been found expedient three times to order its 
 partial mobilisation, and each time graver and yet 
 graver defects in the system had manifested them- 
 selves. Almost as soon as he accepted the reins 
 as regent, yet further evidence of the unsatis- 
 factory condition of the army was urgently forced 
 on him by events. When in 1859 Austria was 
 hard pressed in the Italian campaign, with France 
 and Sardinia as her adversaries, the Regent was 
 disposed to afford her succour by an armed diversion 
 on the Rhine, and the Prussian army was again 
 mobilised. Francis Joseph preferred to submit to 
 the harsh terms of Yillafranca, rather than con- 
 cede that William should have the command of 
 the forces which the Grermanic Confederation
 
 1850. KING WILLIAM AND THE NEW ARMY. 119 
 
 proposed to send into the field. Probably it was 
 fortunate for Prussia that she did not then come 
 into collision with France ; Bismarck held that she 
 was arming herself too soon. The mobilisation of 
 1859 revealed more than ever the irremediable 
 defects of the old military system which had stood 
 Prussia in so good stead forty-five years earlier, 
 but which in the altered conditions of more modern 
 warfare imperatively called for sweeping reforma- 
 tion. 
 
 It had been one of the wise acts of the Prince 
 of Prussia to surround himself with officers whose 
 capacity had become apparent to him in the course 
 of his professional duties. Among those were 
 Moltke, who in 1858 had been made chief of the 
 general staff, and who in that capacity had pre- 
 pared a plan of campaign in the event of the Ger- 
 manic Confederation having struck in for Austria 
 in 1859 ; his own nephew Prince Frederic Charles, 
 Manteuffel, Vogel von Falckenstein, Hindersin, and 
 the singularly shrewd and clear-headed Boon. 
 The last had devoted much thought to the defects 
 of the then existing military organisation, and 
 there is reason to believe that the Prince Regent 
 had desired him to prepare a scheme for its amend- 
 ment. This much is certain, that a plan based on a, 
 memoir submitted by General Boon was adopted, and
 
 120 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isW50. 
 
 Boon himself named war minister and charged with 
 the arduous task of carrying it into practical effect. 
 The Prussian army as reformed hy William 
 on the lines laid down and carried out by Roon, 
 is so interwoven with the story of the most mo- 
 mentous period of the former's life, that it is 
 necessary to go into some detail concerning it. 
 Three great principles characterised the military 
 organisation by which in so short a time Scharn- 
 horst had created a great army for the needs of 
 Prussia in her time of strait ; and which was 
 definitely and permanently adopted on the con- 
 clusion of the War of Liberation. Those three 
 principles were : short service, universal obligatory 
 service, and territorial service. The last gave at 
 once economy and convenience. The two first 
 afforded the potentiality of having a large 
 force available for war without the necessity of 
 maintaining a great standing army. Prussia 
 managed her army matters, as, indeed, to a great 
 extent, she still does, on the same advantageous 
 footing that a commercial company works, which 
 has but a small capital on which dividend is 
 payable, but large financial resources from de- 
 benture loans and money deposited. She was 
 poor, and her population was small, but she claimed 
 to be a first class power, and had to act up to her
 
 1859-60. KING WILLIAM AND TEE NEW ARMY. 121 
 
 pretensions. Her wealthy and more populous com- 
 peers kept up large standing professional armies ; 
 this for lack at once of men and money, Prussia 
 could not afford to do. Her expedient was to utilise 
 her population in the double capacity of soldiers and 
 of civilians. She took up annually 40,000 recruits, 
 who served with the colours three years, and after- 
 wards two more in the reserve. So her standing army, 
 not reckoning officers and permanent organisation 
 about 20,000 in all amounted to 120,000 men, 
 and by calling up the reserves, could be immediately 
 raised to 200,000. But to keep her place with the 
 other powers, it was requisite that her army should 
 be about 500,000 strong; so the reserves when they 
 had completed their two years' service as such, be- 
 came Landwehrmen of the first levy for seven years, 
 affording a further instalment of 160,000 more ; 
 and those seven years completed, passed for five 
 years more into the Landvvehr of the second levy, 
 affording yet another contingent of about 140,000, 
 which brought up the grand total to about 500,000 
 men, of whom less than one-fourth during peace 
 were actually present with the colours, drawing 
 pay, and withdrawn from the civilian community. 
 This, in contrast with the large standing army 
 and no reserve system of the other States, was 
 a kind of military thimble-rig on a grand scale.
 
 122 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 The device worked well when the nation, with 
 one mind, was eager to rush to arms against 
 Napoleon. But the impetus of national enthusiasm 
 is not always to be relied upon. Subsequent 
 mobilisations showed the Landwehr obeying un- 
 willingly the summons to turn out ; their discipline 
 was not always satisfactory, nor did they without 
 exception acquit themselves creditably in action. 
 The old system involved other disadvantages. 
 Under it the Landwehr, constituting about one 
 half the field army, took some time to be embodied, 
 and after embodiment were found to require a 
 short preliminary training before being in a proper 
 condition for active service. And thus there oc- 
 curred delay which was found detrimental to the 
 chances of military success in an era when short, 
 sharp, and decisive wars had begun to be rendered 
 possible by the increased facilities of transport. 
 Some minor reforms had been instituted in 1850, 
 1852, and 1853, but those were merely in details. 
 King Frederic William acknowledged that more 
 heroic changes were needed, but he had not force of 
 character to take action. 
 
 The reorganisation into which William threw 
 himself with all his energy as soon as he had a 
 free hand, and for which, not Prussia alone, but all 
 Germany owes him so much, was no revolution.
 
 1859-60. KINO WILLIAM AND THE NEW ARMY. 123 
 
 Scharnhorst's principles were devoutly respected in 
 the spirit. The double aim of the reforms was to 
 increase the armed strength of the country, and to 
 make that armed strength more quickly available. 
 Since 1815 the population of Prussia had in- 
 creased from ten millions to eighteen millions, but 
 the annual contingent of recruits remained at 
 40,000. As the increase swelled, a larger and 
 yet larger proportion of the young men re- 
 mained unsubjected to military training in the 
 first instance, and free from liability to be called 
 up on mobilisation in the second, since the re- 
 serves and Landwehr consisted exclusively of men 
 who had been three years with the colours. Thus, 
 two evils arose ; the principle of universal training 
 and service was more and more infringed in prac- 
 tice, and an excessive liability to be called on for 
 the national defence was thrown on a mere pro- 
 portion of the population that proportion con- 
 sisting solely of those who had formed the annual 
 contingents of 40,000 each. As the population of 
 the kingdom had increased, so in almost direct ratio 
 had its revenue swelled from fifty million to ninety- 
 three million thalers; so that there were legitimately 
 available means to justify an increase of the 
 military expenditure. 
 
 At one stroke the annual contingent of
 
 124, WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1859-60. 
 
 recruits was raised from 40,000 to 63,000; an 
 increase which., as it took effect, increased the 
 numerical strength of Prussia's standing army, 
 including officers, &c., to 217,000; and permitted 
 its augmentation by 117 infantry battalions, 10 
 regiments of cavalry, 31 companies of artillery, and 
 18 of engineers. The increase inflicted no added 
 strain either on the population or the revenue. 
 The army of 1814 withdrew for the time from civil 
 avocations 1^ per cent, of the country's population ; 
 the " bigger battalions " called into existence by 
 William demanded scarcely so large a percentage. 
 The army of 1814 had cost 35 per cent, of the 
 current national revenue. When the strengthened 
 army under the reorganisation had attained virtual 
 completion on the eve of the war of 1866, 
 William's " bloated armament " absorbed only 29 
 per cent, of the kingdom's revenue. 
 
 But the reorganisation plan embraced a reform 
 which, in seeming paradox, relieved the nation from 
 military strain, roughly in proportion to the aug- 
 mentation of its military strength ; and this, not- 
 withstanding that the army of Prussia was a 
 national, as contradistinguished from a professional 
 army. Under the old dispensation, the Landwehr- 
 man stood almost close behind the small standing 
 army, with nothing between him and it save the
 
 1859-eo. KINO WILLIAM AND THE NEW ARMY. 125 
 
 80,000 reserve men. Even a partial mobilisation 
 tore him from his home, and a petty campaign sent 
 him into the field of battle. Thus the Landwehr- 
 man lived on the constant knife-edge of unsettled 
 perturbation until the period of his liability had ex- 
 pired. But under the new dispensation, the fetters of 
 his military obligations galled him infinitely less. 
 There was now a multiplicity of buffer between him 
 and the fear lest war should make his wife a widow 
 and his children fatherless. First there was the 
 standing army in augmented strength ; then the new 
 scheme lengthened the term of service in the reserve 
 from two to four years, so that instead of two tiers 
 of reserve men in front of him, he had now four. 
 The Landwehrman was still liable for service as 
 well beyond as within the confines of his country ; 
 but it would thenceforward be only in a great war 
 that he would find himself in the forefront of the 
 battle. As a rule, he was to do garrison work and 
 guard the lines of communication. He was not 
 mobilised at all in the Danish campaign. He was 
 extensively called out in the Seven Weeks' War, 
 but of the 260,000 Prussians who stood on the field 
 of Koniggratz, not 27,000 were Landwehrmen. 
 Under the old disposition of a fighting force of 
 that strength, could it have been mustered, one- 
 half at least would have been Landwehrmen.
 
 126 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 The elastic efficiency of Scharnhorst's system 
 stands out more and more triumphantly indicated 
 as the years roll on. Almost every nation in 
 Europe certainly every wise nation in Europe- 
 has adopted its leading principles, as well as the 
 improvements devised by Boon and carried into 
 execution under William. In virtue of the Prus- 
 sian military system, the armed strength of United 
 Germany constitutes to-day the most puissant force 
 which the world has ever seen. The army of 
 Prussia consisted of eight army corps when that 
 State engaged in the war of 1866. That war 
 brought about the North German Confederation, 
 with an army of thirteen and a half army corps 
 made up of the Prussian guard, eleven Prussian 
 territorial army corps to which were attached the 
 contingents of the smaller States of the Confedera- 
 tion, the Royal Saxon army corps, and the division 
 furnished by the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darm- 
 stadt. The Franco-German war brought about the 
 German Empire and the disruption from France of 
 Alsace-Lorraine ; and the army of the empire now 
 consists of nineteen army corps. In peace time its 
 numerical strength is but 430,000 men. Mobilisa- 
 tion of the reserves raises that strength to one 
 million of fighting men, and such is the perfection 
 of arrangement and system, that this stupendous
 
 1859-60. KING WILLIAM AND THE NEW ARMY. 127 
 
 increment can be fully attained throughout the 
 whole empire in the space of eight days from the 
 issue of the order. Behind the reserves are ready 
 at call 500,000 Landwehrmen, and at the back of 
 the Landwehr again stands the Landsturm, the 
 last final buttress of the German military edifice. 
 
 At the opening of the session of the Prussian 
 Parliament in January, 1860, the Prince Regent 
 spoke with great emphasis as to the necessity 
 for the adoption of the scheme for the recon- 
 struction of the army, on the accomplishment of 
 which he had resolved. The outcome of that 
 accomplishment, he pointed out, would be that in 
 the future the Prussian army would be the Prussian 
 nation in arms. The object of the measure, he 
 declared, with a significance which stood disclosed 
 ere many years had passed, was to assure the ability 
 of the fatherland to cope with the vicissitudes of 
 the future. 
 
 But the Liberal majority in the Prussian House 
 of Commons were perverse and short-sighted. They 
 feared the power of the Crown more than they 
 cared for the supremacy of Prussia, or the possibility 
 of a United Germany attainable by force of arms. 
 The ministry were lukewarm, nor was there much 
 more real heart in the enterprise in the nominally 
 Conservative Government, which under Hohenlohe
 
 128 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 had superseded the Auerswald administration. 
 William, who had now (Jan., 1861), succeeded to 
 the crown, was resolute to effect the reform. The 
 attitude he had taken up when as yet regent in 
 regard to the sacredness of the rights of the Crown, 
 he had maintained at his coronation when he 
 crowned himself with the words, " I receive this 
 crown from the hands of Grod." To carry out the 
 army reorganisation scheme in its fulness must 
 necessarily he the labour of years, hut he had 
 already commenced the work, and in a solemn 
 ceremony performed at the foot of the statue of 
 Frederic the Great, the reform had received a 
 stately inauguration by the consecration of the 
 banners under which the new cohorts were to 
 march, and, if need arose, to fight. But the 
 majority in the Second Chamber stood in his path 
 with a resolution only second to his own. They 
 persisted in refusing to vote the budgets which 
 included the expenditure that the reorganisation 
 necessarily involved. There were two courses open 
 to him in this dilemma. He might fling aside the 
 flimsy robe of constitutionalism he had hitherto 
 worn, walk in the footsteps of Cromwell, and dis- 
 pensing entirely with the irritating encumbrance of 
 a parliament, revert to the absolutism which his 
 brother had surrendered as the ransom of his
 
 1862. KING WILLIAM AND THE NEW ARMY. 129 
 
 throne. Or, if haply there was such a man, he 
 might find a minister strong enough, resolute 
 enough, unscrupulous enough perhaps, to act as a 
 buffer between him and naked absolutism, and who 
 should effect for him the object on which he was 
 stiffly determined, as well without a coup d'ttat as 
 without a revolution. 
 
 Such a man there lay to his hand in Otto von 
 Bismarck, and him in September, 1862, William 
 placed at the head of a new ministry, in which 
 Eoon, the mainspring of the army-reorganisation, 
 retained the place of war minister, and carried on 
 with steadfast and unswerving perseverance the 
 working out of his great plan. The other members 
 of the cabinet need not be named. They were 
 nonentities who had to be content with the duties 
 of departmental administration. The Minister- 
 President was the ministry. He it was whom the 
 task confronted of thwarting a parliamentary 
 majority of violating the constitution without 
 producing a revolution. Scarcely a less arduous 
 duty did he assume when he accepted with the 
 Premiership the portfolio of Foreign Secretary. 
 
 Bismarck, when he entered public life, in 1847, 
 had liberal leanings ; to the extent at least of ap- 
 proving of the constitution promised to Prussia by 
 King Frederic William IV. in that year. What of 
 J
 
 130 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. MW. 
 
 liberalism he began life with was soon weakened 
 by his realisation that the Prussian liberalism of 
 the period had its goal in democracy ; and the wild 
 licence which shook throne and institutions in 
 1848 not only stamped out his earlier predilections, 
 but changed him into a staunch and unscrupulous 
 conservative. If it was Bismarck, and not Wil- 
 liam or events, that wrought out German unity, it is 
 certain that not from the first was German unity 
 an aspiration of Bismarck. " In the Prussian army, 
 as in the rest of the Prussian people," he said, in a 
 speech delivered in 1849, '"there will be found no 
 longing for national regeneration. The name of 
 Prussia is all-sufficient for it. The accents of the 
 Prussian National Anthem, the strains of the 
 Dessau and Hohenfriedberg march are well known 
 and beloved among them; but I have never yet heard 
 a Prussian soldier sing, 'What is the Grerman 
 Fatherland ? ' . . The Prussian nation does not 
 desire to see the Prussian realm melt away in the 
 filthy ferment of South German immorality. . . 
 We are Prussian, and Prussians we desire to 
 remain." As Prussian envoy to the Frankfort Diet, 
 all his political activity was concentrated in the task 
 of presenting an opposition to the anti-Prussian 
 policy of the Vienna cabinet, and so strong was his 
 disgust that Prussia did not assert herself against
 
 1851. KING WILLIAM AND THE NEW AEMY. 131 
 
 Austria in 1858, when the latter's hands were full 
 in Italy, that the Prussian ministry of the day re- 
 garded his longer stay at Frankfort as impossible, 
 and recalled him. 
 
 William and Bismarck had met so early as 1836, 
 at a court ball, when the latter, having passed his 
 examination in law, was serving as an assistant in 
 the judicial department of the Berlin police. He 
 and a brother legal official as tall as himself, were 
 presented to the Prince, who, looking the strapping 
 young fellows up and down with something of the 
 eye of his ancestor, remarked, " Well, justice seems 
 to recruit her functionaries according to the standard 
 of the Guards ! " 
 
 Bismarck had found favour in the eyes of 
 "King Frederic William, who conceived the idea 
 of sending him, in 1851, to represent Prussia at the 
 Frankfort Diet. Bismarck was quite ready for 
 the " experiment ; " when the King rather hesitated, 
 he struck in with the observation, " Your Majesty 
 can surely try me ; if I prove a failure, I can be 
 recalled in six months or sooner." So Bismarck 
 was sent, but, till he had gained some experience, only 
 to act as First Secretary to the Embassy, General 
 von Rochow temporarily remaining as Envoy. In 
 the summer of 1851 the Prince of Prussia visited 
 Frankfort, and among the functionaries who 
 j 2
 
 132 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isea. 
 
 received him was Bismarck, the prospective ambas- 
 sador, in the uniform of a Landwehr lieutenant. 
 The prince commented on the anomaly that a 
 militia lieutenant of thirty-six should be Prussia's 
 representative at the Bund ! Von Rochow gave 
 the Landwehr lieutenant a high character for 
 vigour and ability; and although the Prince, 
 with strong personal goodwill to Bismarck, still 
 harped on his youthfulness, the apprehension 
 disappeared under the influence of close personal 
 intercourse. The Prince conceived a real friend- 
 ship for the big lieutenant-ambassador, and a 
 year later stood godfather to Bismarck's younger 
 son, whom Berliners best know as " Prince 
 Bill." Relations between William and Bismarck 
 had become very intimate ; and the latter, then 
 Prussian ambassador to St. Petersburg, had known 
 early in 1862 that his Majesty had it in his 
 mind to appoint him Minister -President. He 
 was recalled in the spring of that year, probably 
 with the intent that he should take office at 
 once on the resignation of the Auerswald-Schwerin 
 ministry; but the appointment was postponed 
 Bismarck certainly was not eager for the pro- 
 motion and he went ambassador to Paris until 
 called back to Berlin in September of the same 
 year.
 
 1862. KINO WILLIAM AND THE NEW ARMY. 133 
 
 It was an arduous duty which, at the bidding 
 of his sovereign, the JBrandenburger Junker had 
 undertaken. The Progressists, roughly equivalent 
 to our Eadicals, were in themselves a majority of 
 the Lower House, and were in almost rancorous 
 opposition to him. Of the Liberals the Whigs 
 of Prussia a preponderating majority were also 
 hostile to Bismarck. He had behind him the 
 Conservatives, it is true, but in the Lower Chamber 
 that party had become very feeble. Untoward 
 conditions truly, under which to accept office with 
 the set purpose of carrying through the King's 
 army reorganisation measures, in the teeth of the 
 assured determined opposition of a powerful 
 majority, and of the fact that the nation through 
 its elected representatives had emphatically pro- 
 nounced against the project. 
 
 Bismarck began as he meant to go on, with un- 
 compromising masterfulness. His first appearance 
 in the House as premier (23rd September, 1862) 
 was to inform it curtly that since the adverse vote 
 on the military expenditure for 1862 gave no 
 prospect that the estimates under that head for 
 1863 would meet with a more favourable reception, 
 the proposed budget for the latter year would be 
 withdrawn. Next month the Upper House rejected 
 the Commons' amendments on the 1862 budget, and
 
 134 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isss. 
 
 passed the Government proposals in their entirety. 
 Two days later the session was closed with a frank 
 and explicit declaration by the premier that the 
 Government, seeing no prospect of carrying the 
 Lower House with it on the budget question, 
 recognised no other alternative than to conduct the 
 administration of the state regardless of the 
 absence of the parliamentary sanction of the state 
 expenditure prescribed by the constitution. In a 
 far more violent sense than that in which the Duke 
 of Wellington used the phrase, Bismarck in effect 
 said, "The King's Government must be carried 
 on." 
 
 In the next session the reproduced budget for 
 1863 was duly rejected, as well as the bill intro- 
 duced by Bismarck for the parliamentary approval 
 of the army reorganisation measures. The House 
 voted an address to the Crown, explicitly de- 
 nouncing the ministry for a gross violation of the 
 constitution in the matter of the budget. Before 
 such a pronouncement Bismarck did not quail. He 
 significantly informed the majority that if they 
 insisted in their stubborn opposition to the Govern- 
 ment measures, the issue would be that the side in 
 whose hands lay the actual power would cut the 
 knot in its own favour. To this all but explicit 
 suggestion that the majority were welcome to try
 
 J864-5. KING WILLIAM AND THE NEW ARMY. 135 
 
 their strength in the direction of a revolution, the 
 answer of the House was an address to the King, 
 demanding the dismissal of his Government, and a 
 return on the part of him and of his ministers to 
 a constitutional line of action. 
 
 William had the courage of his great minister's 
 opinions. He answered this address by promptly 
 closing the session ; and that act was closely 
 followed by an ordinance restricting the freedom of 
 the press. In the next session parliament main- 
 tained its unrelenting hostility to the measures of 
 the King and his minister. It went through 
 the now accustomed formula of rejecting the 
 military reorganisation bill as well as the military 
 expenditure estimates. It opposed the Govern- 
 ment policy on the Danish war question, and de- 
 clined to sanction a war loan of 2,000,000 thalers, 
 which the Crown asked for. " No surrender," was 
 still the motto of William and his minister. The 
 House of Lords voted everything it was asked to 
 vote ; the loan was effected, the revenues were 
 collected, the military disbursements were made, 
 just as if there either existed no constitution at 
 all, or as if the provisions of the constitution were 
 being fulfilled au pied de la lettre. 
 
 The session of 1865 passed, like its predecessors, 
 without having led in the least to the settlement
 
 136 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. I86& 
 
 of the army question. But the triumph of the 
 monarch and his minister over the constitution 
 was approaching. The policy of doing political 
 evil that national good might come was, for once 
 at least, to stand vindicated. The parliament was 
 dissolved on the eve of the great war of 1866, and 
 the general election took place amidst the fervid 
 outburst of enthusiasm which the earlier victories 
 of the Prussian arms in that campaign stirred 
 throughout the Prussian nation. When the new 
 parliament met in August, 1866, the clamour of the 
 rejoicings for Sadowa was still ringing in the ears 
 of the new members. The King and his minister, 
 for the first time since they had entered on the 
 career of unconstitutionalism, found themselves no 
 longer confronted by a hostile parliamentary ma- 
 jority. William, strong in his divine right con- 
 victions, would have let the dead years bury their 
 dead, and begrudged to pass under the Caudine 
 Forks of submission to the law of the land. But 
 Bismarck was wiser in his generation, and per- 
 suaded his master of the expediency of an absolu- 
 tion. The minister made the monarch compre- 
 hend, since it was unquestionable that the free-est 
 liberties had been taken with the constitution in 
 the past, and since events had rendered it possible 
 for King and Government to return to the safer
 
 1868. KING WILLIAM AND THE NEW ARMY. 137 
 
 routine of the constitutional path, that it was a 
 discreet concession and precaution to ask the repre- 
 sentatives of the people to grant an act of indem- 
 nity for the past. The conquerors in the long 
 arduous struggle could afford to be at once con- 
 siderate and politic ; all the more so since it was 
 obvious that as there had been a past, so there 
 would be a future. The act of indemnity extin- 
 guished the conflict of years, and gave internal 
 quietude to a nation rejoicing in a triumphant 
 external peace. Other times, other peoples, other 
 outcomes. Strafford went to the scaffold, and 
 Bismarck was the most popular subject in Prussia. 
 It might not be seemly to point the contrast 
 between the fates of the royal masters of the two 
 ministers. 
 
 The act of indemnity was passed by both 
 Houses in September, 1868, and thus terminated 
 the most momentous internal episode of William's 
 long reign. By dint of riding roughshod over the 
 constitution, he had created an army so swift to 
 muster, so effective when mustered, that while yet 
 unperfected it had prostrated the military power 
 of a gigantic adversary in a campaign measured by 
 days, had wiped out the opposition of a horde of 
 minor enemies, and had placed Prussia at a bound 
 among the most puissant of the great military
 
 138 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1861. 
 
 powers-of Europe. The nation had acclaimed that 
 the grand results justified the rough and illegal 
 methods whereby those results had been made 
 possible. So all were content, and lawlessness was_ 
 justified of her children.
 
 1861. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE WHETTING OP THE PRUSSIAN SWORD. 
 
 IN the preceding chapter chronological order had 
 to be violated for the sake of recording without a 
 break the progress of the development of Prussia's 
 reorganised army, the weapon which in conjunc- 
 tion with William's strong will and Bismarck's 
 diplomacy carved out the achievement of German 
 unity. It is now necessary to revert to William's 
 accession to the throne of Prussia, and briefly 
 sketch the events of his reign and life which pre- 
 ceded the " Seven Weeks' War." 
 
 William began his reign by asserting the royal 
 prerogative in relation to the army. He decreed 
 that it was no longer necessary that the royal 
 orders respecting military matters needed to be 
 countersigned by the war minister, thus denuding 
 that functionary of any discretionary status. In 
 February, 1861, the month after his accession, a 
 special British Embassy was sent to Berlin charged 
 with the duty of investing his Majesty with the
 
 140 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isei. 
 
 Order of the Garter. The ceremony of investiture 
 was held in the palace. There was a difficulty as 
 to the dress the King should wear on the occasion. 
 It was contrary to the order of things that the 
 garter should be fastened on a trowsered leg ; but 
 there was no Prussian uniform of which knee- 
 breeches formed a part. The King resuscitated for 
 the ceremony the old ball uniform of the gardes 
 du corps, and was invested with the garter attired 
 in a red dress-coat, white knee-breeches, and white 
 silk stockings. Another dress problem confronted 
 him when, in September of the same year, he went 
 to Compiegne on a visit to the Emperor Napoleon, 
 During his stay there a parade was held of the 
 Zouaves in garrison at Compiegne, which the easy- 
 going French Emperor professed his intention of 
 witnessing in civilian attire. To wear mufti on a 
 military occasion was heresy in William's eyes 
 indeed, except during his visits to watering-places, 
 few people save his valet ever saw him out of 
 uniform. But to wear uniform when his imperial 
 host was in plain clothes would have implied a 
 rebuke to the latter, and so William, for the only 
 time in all his long life, had to appear on a parade 
 ground in a black coat and a tall hat. Sedan was 
 avenged in anticipation. 
 
 The King went in the teeth of almost universal
 
 1861. THE WHETTING OF THE PRUSSIAN SWORD. 141 
 
 public opinion in carrying out his resolve to cele- 
 brate the ceremony of his coronation. No Prussian 
 king since Frederic the First, Carlyle's " expen- 
 sive Herr," had ever been crowned ; a coronation 
 had uniformly been regarded as a useless piece of 
 costliness. But William held that since his brother 
 in granting Prussia a constitution had seemed to 
 diminish the prestige of the kingly power, the 
 ceremony of a coronation afforded him a fitting 
 opportunity for making it manifest to the nation 
 that he refused to consider the kingship weakened 
 in its masterful prerogative. He went to Konigs- 
 berg days before the ceremony, and in his methodi- 
 cal painstaking way, saw himself to all the arrange- 
 ments for it. Thus on the margin of the specifica- 
 tion for the height of a balustrade to enclose the 
 stand to be constructed for the accommodation of 
 military officers, his Majesty wrote in his own 
 hand, " Lower ; if I invite officers of my army to 
 be witnesses of a solemn act, they must be able to 
 see something." So, when the day before the 
 coronation the stage outside the royal apartments, 
 on which had been arranged all the representative 
 colours of the army, suddenly fell with a great 
 crash and brought down the colours pele-mele in 
 its ruin, William quietly ordered the standards to 
 be picked up and ranged in the coronation room
 
 142 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isei. 
 
 about the throne, forbidding the accident to be 
 spoken of "as it might give disquietude to many 
 very worthy people." 
 
 The ceremony was held in the chapel of the 
 castle of- Konigsberg on the 18th of October. 
 While the blessing was being invoked, the King 
 held high and firm the naked sword of Prussia 
 that had been tendered him by Count von 
 Briinneck, the chief burggraf of the kingdom. 
 Then with his own hands he lifted the crown from 
 off the altar, and set it on his head, saying in a loud 
 voice, " I receive this crown from God's hand, and 
 from none other!" significant words which scarcely 
 tended to increase William's popularity among his 
 subjects. A few months before his life had been 
 attempted at Baden Baden by Oscar Becker, who 
 coolly pleaded amidst no little sympathy his 
 intense German patriotism as his justification. 
 Becker, however, found the plea less practically 
 effective in his case, than had the would-be 
 assassin who shot at William between Mayence 
 and Creuznach, when the Prince was on his way to 
 deal with the Baden insurrection. The latter self- 
 asserted " patriot " was duly acquitted by an anti- 
 monarchical jury; Becker was as duly executed. 
 How discontented were the burghers of his capital 
 with the policy with which William as king had
 
 1863. THE WHETTING OF THE PRUSSIAN SWORD. 143 
 
 identified himself was shown in their flat refusal 
 to have anything to do with the festivities with 
 which he celebrated the centenary of the Peace of 
 Hubertsberg, by which the Seven Years* War had 
 been concluded. " The time," said the trades guilds, 
 " was no time for merry-making." But their 
 gruffness did not daunt William ; he duly com- 
 memorated Hubertsberg, listening to the same Te 
 Deum as Frederic the Great had commanded to be 
 sung. And while festivities were the order of the 
 day, he made the founding of a monument to his 
 father the occasion for gathering together all the 
 veterans of the wars of 1813-14 and 1815. Four 
 thousand old soldiers headed by old Marshal 
 Wrangel, marched down the Linden to where the 
 foundation stone was to be laid in the Lustgarten ; 
 the iron cross veterans leading, the lameters from 
 wounds bringing up the rear on wheels. Revising 
 the programme of this as of every other ceremony, 
 William made an emendation that is worthy of 
 notice. In the direct, rugged, perhaps one might 
 say brutal style occasionally adopted by Prussian 
 military persons, the officer drawing up the pro- 
 gramme had written " all cripples will be driven 
 after the procession in carriages from the royal 
 stables. 5 ' This sentence the royal editor crossed 
 out, and substituted this other, " Those who are
 
 141 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1862-4. 
 
 lame from honourable wounds received in their 
 country's cause will be driven in the procession in 
 royal carriages." The provincial veterans were the 
 King's guests in the large hall at " Krolls," where 
 he paid them a visit, drank their healths, and made 
 them a speech. It was rather a big dinner party 
 he had in the palace the same afternoon covers 
 were laid for 2,400 guests, all possessors of the Iron 
 Cross, instituted by William's father fifty years 
 previously. 
 
 It is a German custom to celebrate both 
 public and personal anniversaries, which are com- 
 monly known as " Jubilees." " There are few 
 incidents," says Mr. Kingston, " in which a Ger- 
 man happens to have played anything like a lead- 
 ing part that are not caught at as occasions for 
 ' Jubilees ' by his friends, admirers, or dependants, 
 that is, if he live long enough to be a person of 
 mark." The latter part of William's long life was 
 studded thick with anniversaries and consequent 
 jubilees. Already, in 1857, had been celebrated 
 the fiftieth anniversary of his entry into the 
 Prussian army. February 27th, 1864, was the 
 fiftieth anniversary of that battle of Bar-sur-Aube, 
 in which he had won the Iron Cross and the 
 Russian St. George. While his own subjects hold- 
 ing the former order gathered to congratulate their
 
 1864. THE WHETTING OF THE PRUSSIAN SWORD. 145 
 
 king and comrade, there came from far off Russia 
 on the same errand a detachment from the Russian 
 regiment of Kaluga the regiment to which the 
 young Prince had ridden on duty through the 
 fierce French fire on the day of Bar-sur-Aube. 
 His Majesty received the deputation wearing the 
 uniform of the Kalugas and the St. Greorge that 
 had been given him fifty years previously. 
 
 But while the Kalugas were commemorating 
 William's soldierhood in a long-past battle in which 
 Prussian troops had taken part, these were now 
 engaged in another campaign. Austria and Prussia 
 had leagued their armed strength against unfortu- 
 nate and gallant little Denmark. It was a contest 
 so unequal as to bring little martial credit to the 
 conquerors ; the vanquished could say with Francis 
 at Pavia, " All is lost save honour ! " He must be 
 a very bold or a very reckless writer who does not 
 tremble when he finds himself compelled to touch 
 even the hem of a subject so intricate and so obso- 
 lete as the Slesvvig-Holstein question, of which 
 Lord Palmerston used to say that there was only 
 one man in Europe besides himself who understood 
 it, and that man was dead. Only as much reference 
 to it will here be made as to render lucid the 
 sequence of events that led up to two wars in which 
 Prussia during William's reign was a participator. 
 
 K
 
 146 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. ISM. 
 
 The population of Holstein was almost exclu- 
 sively German, that of Sleswig partially so. King 
 Frederic VII. of Denmark had no male heirs, and 
 by the Treaty of London executed in May, 1852, 
 to which the signatories were England, France, 
 Russia, Austria, and Prussia (but not the Germanic 
 Confederation, of which the two latter Powers were 
 memhers), the succession to the throne of Denmark 
 was vested in Prince Christian of Sleswig-Holstein- 
 Sonderburg-Gliicksburg, the husband of the grand- 
 daughter of King Christian VIII. of Denmark, 
 and the father of the Princess of Wales. This 
 provision was intended to bring about the dynastic 
 blending of the Elbe duchies with the kingdom of 
 Denmark, and was guaranteed by the five Powers 
 parties to the treaty. In November, 1863, Frederic 
 of Denmark died, and Prince Christian succeeded 
 to the throne of that kingdom. Already before his 
 accession, the duchies were possessions of the Danish 
 monarchy, hut had in certain respects a separate 
 administrative existence. This Denmark, in the 
 year of Christian's accession, had materially in- 
 fringed in the case of Sleswig, by a law which 
 virtually incorporated that duchy with the Danish 
 monarchy. The German Confederation protested 
 against this " Danification " of Sleswig, and having 
 pronounced a decree of Federal execution against
 
 1864, THE WHETTING OF THE PRUSSIAN SWORD. 147 
 
 the new King of Denmark as Duke of Holstein 
 and, in virtue of that duchy, a member of the 
 German Confederation, sent into Holstein Federal 
 troops belonging to the smaller States of the 
 Confederation. The Confederation, as a collective 
 body, favoured the establishment of the indepen- 
 dence of the duchies, and had with it the wishes 
 probably of the great mass of the German nation. 
 But the independence of Sleswig and Holstein 
 scarcely suited the views of Bismarck. He desired 
 the annexation to Prussia of at all events Holstein, 
 because in Holstein is the great harbour of Kiel, 
 all important in view of the new fleet with which 
 he purposed equipping Prussia ; if Sleswig could 
 be compassed along with Holstein, so much the 
 better. 
 
 But there were two difficulties in Bismarck's 
 way. Prussia was a co-signatory of the Treaty of 
 London. If he were to grasp at the duchies single- 
 handed, a host of enemies might confront him. 
 England was burning to take up arms in the cause 
 of the father of the beautiful princess she had 
 adopted as her own. The German Confederation 
 would oppose Prussia's naked effort to aggrandise 
 herself ; and Austria, in the double character of a 
 party to the Treaty of London and of a member of 
 the Confederation, would rejoice in the opportunity 
 K 2
 
 148 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. IH&L 
 
 to strike a blow at a power of whose rising preten- 
 sions she had begun to be jealous. The wily 
 Bismarck had to dissemble. He made the proposal 
 to Austria that the two states should ignore their 
 participation as individual States in the Treaty of 
 London, and that as corporate members of the 
 German Confederation they should constitute them- 
 selves the executors of the Federal decree, and put 
 aside the minor states whose troops had been 
 charged with that office. Austria acceded. It was 
 a bad hour for her when she did, yet she moves no 
 compassion for the misfortunes which befell her as 
 the issue. She was playing her own game without 
 regard to principle ; because she lost the game, 
 worsted in it by an astuter player as little troubled 
 by principle as herself, no condolences are due to 
 her. 
 
 The Diet had to submit. The Austro-Prussian 
 troops marched through Holstein into Sleswig, and 
 on the 2nd of February, 1864, struck at the Danes 
 occupying the Dannewerke. The Prussian troops 
 in the field consisted of two line -divisions with 
 a division of the Gruard Corps in reserve, the whole 
 under the command of Prince Frederic Charles. 
 The venerable Marshal Wrangel was commander- 
 in- chief of the combined forces until after the fall 
 of Dtippel, when Prince Frederic Charles succeeded
 
 1864 THE WHETTING OF THE PRUSSIAN SWORD. 149 
 
 him in that position ; but throughout the campaign 
 the control of the dispositions was mainly exercised 
 by the Bed Prince. But neither strategy nor 
 tactics were very strenuously brought into use for 
 the discomfiture of the unfortunate Danes. Their 
 ruin was wrought partly because of the overwhelm- 
 ingly superior force of their allied opponents, partly 
 because of their own unpreparedness for war in 
 almost everything save the possession of heroic 
 bravery ; but most of all by the fire of the needle- 
 gun and the Prussian advantage in the possession 
 of rifled artillery. Only part of the Prussian in- 
 fantry had used the needie-gun in the reduction of 
 the Baden insurrection in 1848 ; now, however, the 
 whole army was equipped with it. Ever slow to take 
 new impressions, military Europe did not awake to 
 the full value of the breechloading rifle until it 
 stood forth as the unquestioned leading factor in the 
 phenomenally swift discomfiture of the Austrian 
 armies in 1866 ; but two years previous to that 
 war the Austrians might have observed how deadly 
 was the new weapon the Prussians carried into 
 action against the Danes. 
 
 In their retreat from the Dannewerke into the 
 Dtippel position, the Danes suffered severely from the 
 inclemency of the weather, and fought a desperate 
 rear-guard engagement with the Austrians, in which
 
 150 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. MM. 
 
 the overwhelming strength of the latter ultimately 
 told, hut only after a most stubborn and valiant 
 resistance on the part of the Danes. The Prussians 
 undertook the task of reducing Diippel ; the Aus- 
 trians marched northward into Jutland, and driving 
 back the Danish troops they encountered in their 
 march, sat down before the fortress of Fredericia, 
 and swept the Little Belt with their cannon. The 
 sieges, both of Diippel and of Fredericia, were 
 conducted with extreme inertness, and it was at 
 times difficult to believe that either side was in 
 earnest. But at Diippel the Prussians held the 
 key of the position ever since, in the early part of 
 the siege, they had gained possession of the 
 Broagerland peninsula. There, and on the hill of 
 Rugebol, they methodically built their batteries, 
 and opened fire on the 17th of March. Under 
 cover of the cannonade, the Prussian infantry moved 
 forward to the attack of the village of Diippel and 
 the heights of Arnbjerg. The defence was as 
 obstinate as the attack was vehement, but the 
 Danes ultimately had to give ground. Again and 
 again the heights of Arnbjerg, like the village of 
 Diippel, were taken and retaken ; but the Prussians 
 remained in possession, and the positions they had 
 won gave them important advantages. 
 
 Yet the Danes were not beaten. They repulsed
 
 1864. THE WEE TTING OF THE PR US 81 AN S WORD. 151 
 
 a Prussian assault on the 28th March, and held the 
 ground that remained to them, under an incessant 
 storm of shot and shell from the Prussian batteries, 
 until the 18th of April. On that day, supported 
 by a furious cannonade from their whole line of 
 batteries, the Prussian infantry swarmed up against 
 the shattered Danish lines. The Danes fought 
 with the obstinacy of despair, but were thrust back 
 by superior numbers out of position after position, 
 till at length they were driven clean out of the 
 Diippel works, and across the narrow sound into 
 the island of Alsen. So severe were their losses 
 that certainly less than half the Danish army made 
 good its escape to Alsen, and the proportion of 
 officers placed hors de combat was excessive. 
 
 An armistice, which lasted till the 26th June, 
 effected nothing in the direction of peace, and three 
 days afterwards a Prussian force, under General 
 Herwath von Bittenfeld, crossed the sound in boats 
 in the morning twilight, landed on the island of 
 Alsen, stormed the Danish batteries in the face of 
 a strong resistance, and drove the Danish forces out 
 of their positions back into the woods. Alsen 
 taken and Fredericia abandoned, nothing remained 
 for Denmark but to yield and sue for peace. The 
 Danish war was terminated by the Treaty of Vienna 
 on the 30th October, 1864, under which the duchies
 
 152 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. ISM 
 
 of Sleswig, Holstein, and Lauenburg were handed 
 over to the sovereigns of Austria and Prussia. 
 
 King William did not accompany his troops 
 into Sleswig, contenting himself with devoting his 
 whole time and attention to the details of equip- 
 ment and supply in conjunction with the War 
 Minister. In February he saw brought into Berlin 
 a number of cannon which had been left behind by 
 the Danes when they evacuated the Dannewerke. 
 It had been intended in the Prussian camp to make 
 the assault on the inner line of the Diippel works 
 on March 22nd, the King's birthday; but when 
 William heard of this he ordered the postponement 
 of the enterprise, as he did not desire that his 
 natal day should be associated with the sorrow of 
 the relatives of those who must fall. As it hap- 
 pened, this command saved his birthday from being 
 the anniversary of a reverse, for the attempt made 
 six days later was repulsed. The tidings of the 
 successful storm of Diippel came to him on his way 
 back from having reviewed a battalion of foot 
 guards, and he immediately rode back to the field 
 and announced the good news to his soldiers. Two 
 days after the storm he suddenly quitted Berlin for 
 the army, accompanied only by Generals Boon 
 and Manteuffel. Beaching the Brussian head- 
 quarters at Flensburg next day, he found there
 
 1864. THE WHETTING OF THE PRUSSIAN SWORD. 153 
 
 Wrangel, Prince Frederic Charles, and the Crown 
 Prince, who was making the campaign as lieutenant- 
 general in command of the. Guard division. Accom- 
 panied by those officers and Marshal von Gablenz, 
 the Austrian commander, the King reviewed the 
 troops who had done the righting three days be- 
 fore, then visited the trenches, where he decorated 
 General Manstein, and as he passed through the field 
 hospital, gave the order "pour le merite" to the 
 dying Raven, the first Prussian general officer that 
 had been mortally wounded since the campaign of 
 1815. William had not long returned to Berlin 
 when there was for him the grateful duty of leading 
 down the Linden from the Brandenburg Gate the 
 long procession of 118 guns taken from the Danes 
 when Diippel had to be abandoned. The medal 
 struck for the Sleswig campaign he himself wore, 
 considering himself entitled to it by having been 
 inside the enemy's country while the war was in 
 progress. 
 
 Out of the Danish war of 1864 grew almost 
 inevitably the war of 1866, between Prussia and 
 Austria. The wolves quite naturally wrangled 
 over the carcase, and the astuter wolf had so much 
 the better of the wrangle that the duller one, 
 unless he chose to be partly bullied, partly tricked 
 out of his share, had no alternative but to fight for
 
 154 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. ises. 
 
 it, with the result that he clean lost that and a 
 great deal more besides. 
 
 The future of the Elbe Duchies was played at 
 pitch and toss with between Prussia and Austria 
 for the best part of a year; the details of the 
 game were too intricate to be followed here. The 
 condominium of the two Powers in the duchies 
 produced constant friction, which was probably 
 Bismarck's intention, especially as Prussia had 
 taken care to keep stationed in them twice as 
 many troops as Austria had left there. Relations 
 were becoming very strained when in August, 1865, 
 the Emperor Francis Joseph and King William 
 met at the little watering-place of Gastein, and 
 from their interview originated the short - lived 
 arrangement known as the Convention of Gastein. 
 By that compact, while the two Powers preserved 
 the common sovereignty over the duchies, Austria 
 accepted the administration of Holstein, Prussia 
 undertaking that of Sleswig. Prussia was to have 
 rights of way through Holstein to Sleswig, was 
 given over the right of construction of a North Sea 
 and Baltic Canal ; and while Kiel was constituted a 
 Federal harbour, Prussia was authorised to construct 
 there the requisite fortifications and marine estab- 
 lishments, and to maintain an adequate force for 
 the protection of these. Assuming the arrangement
 
 . THE WHETTING OF THE PRUSSIAN SWORD. 155 
 
 to be provisional, as on all hands it was regarded, 
 Prussia clearly had the advantage under it. If it 
 should be violently ruptured, Prussia, the possession 
 of Kiel apart, would have the Austrian s in Holstein 
 under two fires ; and as a fact, when the rupture 
 did come in the course of a few months, the position 
 of the Austrian garrison of Holstein was so un- 
 tenable that it evacuated the duchy without firing 
 a shot. But the Gastein Convention contained 
 another provision that Austria should sell to 
 Prussia all her rights in the duchy of Lauenburg 
 (an outlying appanage of Holstein) for the sum of 
 2,500,000 thalers ; thus making market of rights 
 of which she was but a trustee for the German 
 Confederation. The Convention of Gastein pleased 
 nobody, but that mattered little to Bismarck. The 
 Confederation was offended by the trafficking in the 
 Lauenburg duchy, and the Prussian Parliament 
 denounced the transaction for which it assumed 
 Prussia would have to find the cash. But King 
 William drew this sting from his refractory 
 Commons ; he paid Austria for Lauenburg out of 
 his own private purse. 
 
 Bickerings recommenced before the year 1865 
 was out, and early in 1866 Austria began to arm. 
 Would the armament of Austria, by whose side the 
 other states of the German Confederation were sure
 
 156 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isra. 
 
 to range themselves against this truculent and shifty 
 Prussia, enforce on that power the policy of chang- 
 ing her tactics of sel f -aggrandisement ? Or would 
 Prussia daringly confront fate, and hold herself a 
 match in war, should war be the issue, for all the 
 rest of Germany ranged against her single self? 
 Prussia, or rather Bismarck for indeed the 
 Prussian nation Jooked askance at his strange 
 mysterious statecraft was ready to fight, but was 
 not above looking around Europe for an ally. 
 France would be neutral ; Bismarck had arranged 
 that much, and would ask of her no more. But 
 Italy, with her inveterate hatred of Austria, burn- 
 ing to finish the work of 1859 Italy, with her 
 strategic position on Austria's reverse flank, was 
 just the ally for Prussia; so in March, 1866, a 
 secret treaty was formed between Italy and 
 Prussia, by which they pledged themselves to 
 joint and simultaneous action in case of hostility 
 with Austria. 
 
 The spring was spent in abortive negotiations 
 between Prussia and Austria, having for their pro- 
 fessed object the preservation of peace while both 
 nations were engaged in preparing for war. The 
 Prussian army was mobilised in May, with a smooth 
 methodical rapidity ; half a million of men stood 
 ready equipped in all respects for a campaign
 
 1866. THE WHETTING OF THE PRUSSIAN SWORD. 157 
 
 within fourteen days of the issue of the mobilisa- 
 tion order. That proved with what sedulous care 
 Prussia must have been long engaging her energies 
 in the consummation of her military preparedness. 
 Her forces by the end of May were so disposed on 
 her frontier that she might have struck at Austria 
 at once, and this with great advantage, since the 
 Austrian military preparations were still in a very 
 backward state. That she then refrained from 
 immediate action has been adduced as an argument 
 in favour of her anxiety to keep the peace. But 
 there certainly were other causes for Prussia's self- 
 restraint. Her army was ready, and might have 
 attacked Austria, but the communications of an 
 invading force would have remained exposed to 
 molestation from the troops of the minor German 
 states, and until Prussia was in a position to take 
 measures with the latter, she acted discreetly in 
 refraining from the offensive against Austria. 
 
 A proposed conference of the great Powers in 
 the interests of peace proved abortive. Prussia 
 threw the Convention of Gastein to the winds by 
 civilly but masterfully turning the Austrian brigade 
 of occupation out of Holstein. Then Austria in 
 the Federal Diet, complaining that by this act 
 Prussia had disturbed the peace of the German Con- 
 federation, moved for a decree of Federal execution
 
 158 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. im. 
 
 against that state, to be enforced by the Con- 
 federation's armed strength. On the 14th June, 
 Austria's motion was carried by the Diet, its last act; 
 for Prussia next day wrecked the flimsy organisa- 
 tion of the German Confederation, by declaring war 
 against three of its component members, Hanover, 
 Hesse, and Saxony. There was no formal declara- 
 tion of war between Austria and Prussia, only a 
 notification of intended hostile action sent by the 
 Prussian commanders to the Austrian foreposts. 
 On the 17th the Emperor Francis Joseph published 
 his war manifesto ; King William on the 18th 
 emitted his to " My People ; " on the 20th, Italy 
 declared war against Austria and Bavaria. The 
 great game had begun.
 
 1866. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR. 
 
 IT was under strange conditions that the kingdom 
 which William ruled entered upon the war of 1866. 
 Austria was Prussia's principal antagonist, but 
 Prussia was so hemmed in by minor enemies that 
 it was only away down in Silesia, that long south- 
 eastern salient which she owes to Frederic the 
 Great, where her frontier marched with the frontier 
 of Austria. Along her western border from the Elbe 
 to the Thuringian forest, stood enemies ; on her 
 southern she had to deal with hostile Baden, Wiir- 
 temberg, Bavaria, and Saxony, which latter king- 
 dom stood right between her and Bohemia, the 
 country that was to be the cockpit of her struggle 
 with Austria. 
 
 Before she should get to close grips with 
 Austria, it behoved her to make for herself elbow- 
 room about her own confines. Hanover, for 
 instance, and Hesse Cassel, had to be promptly 
 muzzled. Then Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and the 
 minor states of the German Confederation had to
 
 160 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. ISM. 
 
 be deterred from molesting her while she was fight- 
 ing out the greater fight with Austria. In a week 
 after the declaration of war, the kingdom of Hanover 
 was under quiet Prussian administration. Its army, 
 on the evening of that declaration, had made a rush 
 to the southward, with intent to reach Bavaria, 
 and unite with its army. It had to halt at Grot- 
 tingen, and when it recommenced its southern pro- 
 gress through the Thuringian forest, its progress 
 was slow and undecided. Hemmed in by three 
 Prussian divisions, it fought at Langensalza a fight 
 worthy of the military renown of Hanoverian 
 soldiers, and then there remained for it no alterna- 
 tive but to accept an honourable capitulation. The 
 Hanoverian army no longer constituted an element 
 of flanking danger to Prussia after it had moved 
 southward on the 15th June ; on the 28th by its 
 capitulation it passed out of existence. As for 
 Hesse Cassel, a Prussian force had overrun that 
 Electorate within a week after the declaration of 
 war ; its prince was a state prisoner of Prussia, 
 and his troops, driven from their own territory, had 
 joined the Federal army gathering at Frankfort. 
 Thus summarily had Prussia swept clear of possible 
 molestation her western flank. 
 
 She had still to deal with the Bavarian army, 
 and the composite assembly of regiments which
 
 C*. THE SEVEN WEEKS 1 WAR. 161 
 
 was termed the Eighth Federal Corps the Bava- 
 rians were the Seventh. Neither of these bodies 
 was aggressive. The Bavarian army was covering its 
 own northern frontier along the Maine. The com- 
 posite Eighth Corps lay about Frankfort. To 
 these two bodies Prussia opposed the force, three 
 divisions strong, known as " the Army of the 
 Maine," commanded first by Yogel von Falcken- 
 stein, and afterwards by Manteuffel. The former, 
 with a considerable amount of hard fighting, drove 
 his adversaries to the south side of the Maine 
 during the first fortnight of July, and occupied 
 Frankfort. Subsequently Manteuffel gained several 
 successes over his Federal antagonists, and when the 
 armistice was announced on 26th July, had them 
 jammed in a very precarious position in an elbow of 
 the Maine, all but cut off from the territories they 
 were attempting to defend. 
 
 Thus did Prussia by a prompt and vigorous 
 offensive, sweep away or hold at bay the enemies 
 who threatened to hamper her feet in her great 
 contest with Austria. There remained but Saxony, 
 and that state lay right in Prussia's path to the 
 Bohemian frontier. It was a military necessity 
 that Saxony should be occupied. War was de- 
 clared on the 15th, and on the 20th of Juno the 
 whole of Saxony was in the undisturbed possession 
 X,
 
 162 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. im. 
 
 of Prussian troops, and the Saxon army had 
 crossed the frontier into Bohemia and joined the 
 Austrians. 
 
 This occupation accomplished, and the disposi- 
 tions following on it perfected, no obstacle now 
 intervened between Prussia and the invasion of 
 Bohemia. The aphorism that " Everything comes 
 to him who can wait," has a fine speciousness, but 
 whatever may have once been the case, it is not 
 now true of a nation which has engaged in a great 
 war. A nation with that species of undertaking on 
 its hands gets no opportunity to play the waiting 
 game. It must strike, or it is lost. The history 
 of Prussia during the years of William's reign 
 proves conclusively how a nation can profit by 
 placing its practical faith in another aphorism, " If 
 you wish for peace, be prepared for war." His 
 reign began in 1861. Of its long duration Prussia 
 spent in war, all told, not more than fifteen months, 
 enjoying peace during all the rest of its years ; but 
 look what she accomplished, what she gained, in 
 her three short bouts of warfare! Her career of 
 victory all but unchequered ; her position among 
 the nations so raised that Berlin may be said to 
 dominate Continental Europe ; her treasury re- 
 cruited by what for the most part depletes national 
 treasuries; her area and her population doubled.
 
 1866. THE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR. 163 
 
 All these things came to her because of success 
 in three short campaigns. And that success was 
 not achieved by brilliancy of military genius dis- 
 played by any soldier of Prussia. No Teutonic 
 Napoleon it was who gained for her those swift 
 triumphs. She won them, and gained all they 
 brought her, simply because her men responsible 
 for her military condition knew and acted on the 
 knowledge, how all important it is for a nation 
 to live ready for war; and who knew, too, 
 how best to improve the advantage accruing 
 from that attitude of preparedness. The lesson is 
 written so clear that he who runs may read; but 
 there are nations which studiously look the other 
 way, in the apparent belief that the millennium is 
 nigh at hand. They would have their millennium 
 on the cheap an aspiration of the folly of which 
 time will sternly convince them ; Prussia asks 
 nothing for nothing, and honestly fights out her 
 own millennium. 
 
 The millennium, whether for Prussia or as a 
 general thing, was rather at a discount in Bohemia 
 in the summer of 1866. That dependency of the 
 Austrian Empire, whose hills and valleys had echoed 
 to the din of the Seven Years' War, and had been 
 trodden by the conquering legions of the First 
 Napoleon, was now to be the scene of a short but 
 L 2
 
 164 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1864 
 
 bloody conflict. The northern and north-eastern 
 frontier of this great hastion of Austria is protected 
 by the chain of the Keisen-Gebirge, inside of which 
 bulwark is the basin of the Upper Elbe and its 
 tributaries. In that basin lay the Austrian army 
 commanded by Benedek. It had lost the power 
 of initiative through unpreparedness, and now, 
 disposed around the central point of the fortress 
 of Joseph stadt, its role had to be that of the 
 defensive. Because of Prussia's preparedness, 
 the privilege of the offensive vested in her 
 armies. Of these on the 23rd of June the First 
 Army, commanded by Prince Frederic Charles, 
 stood on Saxon soil, ranged along a section of the 
 northern frontier of Bohemia. Nominally this 
 force, made up of four-and-a-half army corps and a 
 proportionate complement of cavalry, consisted of 
 two armies, the " First Army," commanded by 
 Prince Frederic Charles, composed of three corps, 
 and the " Army of the Elbe," composed of one-and- 
 a-half corps, commanded by General Herwath von 
 Bittenfeld ; but since a few days after the invasion 
 both armies were placed under the supreme com- 
 mand of the Red Prince, it is unnecessary here to 
 maintain the distinction between them. On the 
 north-eastern frontier of Bohemia, on Silesian soil, 
 lay the " Second Army." Its chief was the Crown
 
 1866. TEE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR. 165 
 
 Prince of Prussia, and it was composed of four 
 army corps, with proportionate cavalry. 
 
 The task in the first instance assigned to both 
 armies was to penetrate through the mountain 
 passes of the Bohemian frontier, operating sepa- 
 rately ; and this accomplished, to form a junction 
 somewhere about Gritschin, in the Upper Elbe 
 basin, and deal in conjunct action with the Austrian 
 forces which might be expected thereabouts to stand 
 in the path. Great discretionary freedom of action, 
 as is the Prussian custom, was left to both com- 
 manders, within the limit of keeping in view the 
 need for concentration " for the principal decision," 
 and they were to afford each other what mutual 
 support might be possible. 
 
 The First Army crossed the frontier earliest, 
 partly because it had to travel the greater distance, 
 partly because its movement in advance might in 
 some measure relieve the Second Army, whose 
 march, although the shorter, had to be made 
 through four separate mountain passes, and was 
 infinitely the more arduous, from the pressure 
 of Austrian opposition. The combined operation 
 had its manifest dangers, since Benedek had the 
 possession of the interior lines, and might con- 
 centrate his whole force against either army. 
 On the morning of the 23rd, Prince Frederic
 
 166 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1866. 
 
 Charles entered Bohemia near Reichenberg. On 
 the night of the 29th he had his headquarters 
 in Gitschin. He had fought hard for almost 
 every step of his progress, at Liebenau, at Hiihner- 
 wasser, at Podoll, at Mimchengratz, and for the 
 right to enter Gitschin, having been opposed by 
 about 60,000 Austrians and Saxons under the 
 command of Count Clam Gallas. In a campaign 
 on a smaller scale, some of the actions fought be- 
 tween Reichenberg and Gitschin would have been 
 regarded as great battles. In the fighting, for 
 instance, that resulted in the Prussian occupation 
 of the latter place, the Austrians lost 10,000 men 
 in killed, wounded, and prisoners. 
 
 The Second Army, for its part, quitted Si- 
 lesian soil, and plunged into the ravines of the 
 Reisen-Gebirge, on the morning of June 27. It 
 used four passes, and had to fight its way through 
 two. At Trautenau one of the columns experienced 
 a reverse which was retrieved on the following day : 
 Nachod, Skalitz, Soor, Koniginhof, and Schwein- 
 schadel, were all Prussian successes ; and on the 
 fourth day from his crossing the frontier, the Crown 
 Prince had conquered the mountains, driven back 
 the Austrians, reunited his divided columns of 
 march, stood possessed of the line of the Elbe as 
 far south almost as Josephstadt, and had his
 
 1866. TEE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR. 167 
 
 communications established with Prince Frederic 
 Charles at Gitschin. Thus far the Prussian pro- 
 gramme had " come off." Benedek had thrown away 
 the advantage of the interior lines. Of his divided 
 opponents he had crushed neither, and now they 
 were no longer divided. By opposing three corps 
 to the Crown Prince, instead of the six at his dis- 
 posal, he had merely got the three mauled, without 
 having hindered the Prussian convergence. And 
 presently, having, when it was open to him, failed 
 to reap the advantage of the " interior lines," he 
 was to find himself in a situation where their 
 advantage was to change into mischief. An army 
 attacked in front and in flank in the battle-field 
 stands, it is true, on an inner line of operations, 
 but the strategical advantage is eliminated by the 
 tactical disadvantage, as Benedek found at Konig- 
 gratz. But before Koniggratz his position had 
 clearly become seriously compromised. Of his 
 eight corps five had been decidedly beaten, and had 
 suffered heavily in men and morale. He had no 
 hope of reinforcements. Prince Frederic Charles 
 in Gritschin threatened his left flank ; the Crown 
 Prince on the Elbe his front. He was in that 
 plight that he could not take the offensive, at all 
 events until he had fought and won a great battle 
 in a defensive position. On the arbitrament of
 
 168 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. ia. 
 
 such a contest he elected to stand or fall ; and on 
 the 30th June issued orders that his army should 
 withdraw to the vicinity of Koniggratz. 
 
 While the armies of Prussia were gathering and 
 marching, the anxieties of the situation hore hard 
 on King William. He was a simple man of a 
 kindly nature, and while he did not refuse his 
 sanction to the projects of his great Minister, or to 
 the somewhat tortuous methods by which those 
 projects were furthered, he found the path along 
 which he was being led rough and thorny. He had 
 been glad to recognise the Convention of Gastein, 
 as constituting the firm establishment of friendly 
 relations between Prussia and Austria, and was dis- 
 appointed when he found the ground that he had 
 thought so solid, hollow and precarious. War with 
 Austria was distasteful to him, and if genuinely 
 convinced of its expediency, if not of its necessity, 
 he was convinced against his will. It was no secret 
 that to his son the quarrel was repugnant, and that 
 before duty called him into the field of action, the 
 Crown Prince had warmly exerted his influence in 
 favour of the maintenance of peace. A powerful 
 section of the Court party, supported by the influence 
 of the Dowager Queen Elizabeth, threw its weight 
 into the scale against war ,with Austria. The 
 Liberals were vehement against it, and the
 
 1866. THE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR. 169 
 
 nation's dislike to it was unmistakably manifested. 
 Demonstrations against the war were made by 
 corporations, by mercantile communities, and in 
 more than one instance by the Landwehr troops 
 summoned to fight against an Empire of German 
 affinities and Grerman relations. Private sorrow 
 swelled the burden of public anxiety, for in the 
 middle of June, William had to mourn the death 
 of a little grandson. Racked by solicitude, he was 
 sedulous in the discharge of his military duties. 
 His time was spent in holding farewell reviews of 
 regiments before they marched away to the frontier, 
 in superintending the orderly despatch of troops, 
 and in assiduous superintendence of the preparations 
 for the campaign. While Bismarck, with stern 
 resolve and teeth hard set, worked out his schemes 
 in the Foreign Office, and while Moltke, seated 
 before his maps, telegraphed strategic instructions 
 to the leaders in the field, the King was bidding 
 adieu to old comrades going down into the battle, and 
 inspiring enthusiasm in his departing soldiery by 
 his presence and his exhortations. 
 
 The sun began to break through the gloom of 
 his dull horizon when, on the 27th June the day 
 appointed by him for general prayer throughout 
 the Kingdom intelligence reached Berlin by 
 telegraph of the threshold successes at Podoll and
 
 170 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. ises. 
 
 Nachod. The tide of popular feeling- was on the 
 turn. Two days later universal enthusiasm was 
 flowing in a great rushing stream, for the news 
 had come of the more important victories of Skalitz 
 and Miinchengratz, and of the capitulation of the 
 Hanoverian army at Langensalza. A.S if by enchant- 
 ment, all Berlin was suddenly dressed with banners 
 of the national colours ; every street resounded with 
 the chant " IcJi bin ein Preusse ; Kennt ihr meine 
 Farben ?" The multitudes flocked to the Palace, 
 where the King stood greeting his people from the 
 accustomed window, while from the balcony an 
 officer read the news of the victories. Bismarck 
 shared in the enthusiastic greetings of the populace ; 
 on that day Prussia rejoiced to put her stubborn 
 neck under the great minister's foot. 
 
 Before the good news came, it had been al- 
 ready decided that the King and his military and 
 political advisers should without delay join the 
 armies in the field. When the tidings arrived, 
 William was in his cabinet, engaged in a strange 
 task. His childhood had taught him how sudden 
 and swift may be the reverses of royalty, and how 
 wise it was to take precautions against untoward 
 contingencies. Before leaving for the field, he was 
 selecting and packing up the more important of his 
 private papers. What had happened after Jena
 
 isee. THE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR. 171 
 
 might happen again ; if the impending struggle 
 should be overwhelmingly adverse to Prussia, he 
 knew by experience what confusion might ensue. 
 In case of accident, he would get his private papers 
 packed ready for transport. He hoped to march 
 on Vienna; but in the meantime it was wise to 
 secure the safe retreat from Berlin. It was while 
 thus hedging against disastrous eventualities that 
 there came to him almost simultaneous messages 
 announcing three important successes. He finished 
 his packing all the same; and then from his window 
 he beckoned to him a passer-by whom he recognised, 
 and shouted to him : " My son has gained a victory. 
 News of victory on all sides ! I will have the 
 good tidings published immediately but mean- 
 while tell everybody you meet." Of a cordial 
 nature, he could not rest till he had visited old 
 Prince Charles, and congratulated him on the suc- 
 cess achieved by that senior's son, Prince Frederic 
 Charles, whose birthday it was ; and he went also 
 to tell his daughter-in-law our English Princess 
 Royal how her gallant husband was proving him- 
 self not less an able commander than a fine soldier. 
 In the evening, from his palace window, after the 
 densely-massed Berliners on the Linden had sung 
 " Ein feste Burg" he spoke to them words of 
 thankfulness and farewell; and next morning he
 
 172 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 left his capital for the seat of war. After he had 
 closed his window on the populace, he had kept 
 long lonely vigil ; the sentries saw him walking up 
 and down his room till three in the morning. 
 
 Five trains were needed for the conveyance of 
 the royal entourage, for there accompanied William 
 on campaign not only the headquarter staff and his 
 own personal suite, hut also the whole of the civil 
 and military cabinets. Austria was to be fought 
 in the field : Prussia was to be governed from the 
 field. Bismarck, of course, went into Bohemia 
 with his royal master. The King had prepared a 
 short stirring address to his army, which was issued 
 on the day he left Berlin. " To-day," it ran, " I 
 am coining to join you, my brave soldiers in the 
 field, and to give you my royal greeting. Within 
 the space of a few days your bravery and devotion 
 have achieved results that may worthily rank by 
 the side of the great deeds of our forefathers. I 
 regard all branches of my faithful army with pride, 
 and look forward to the future of the campaign 
 with full confidence. Soldiers ! Great hosts are 
 in the field against us. Let us, however, put our 
 trust in God, who is the God of battles, and in 
 the justice of our cause. He will direct Prussia's 
 oft victorious banners to fresh victories through 
 your bravery and perseverance."
 
 1888. THE SEVEN WEEKS' WAH. 173 
 
 The destination for the night was Reichen- 
 berg, a day's march inside Bohemia. Count Clam 
 Grallas was not at home, from unavoidable causes : 
 he was in command of the Austrian troops that had 
 tried to oppose Prince Frederic Charles's advance, 
 and had been swept away back before the torrent of 
 Prussian soldiers ; but King William was his guest 
 in the chateau of Reichenberg. In the evening 
 there went out to salute him a civic deputation 
 from the town of Eeichenberg, to whom he said : 
 " It was one of the saddest moments of my life 
 when I crossed the boundary of your country as 
 an enemy. I believe 1 am right : your emperor 
 believes he is right. Would that the question had 
 been left for settlement between us two, but others 
 have involved themselves in it, and it has now become 
 very complicated." At Reichenberg the King was 
 hardly safe from the enemy, who were known to 
 have some cavalry up among the hills about Leiter- 
 metz, and the chain of sentries round the head- 
 quarters was exceptionally strong. But the Aus- 
 trians had little enterprise and worse intelligence; 
 and on the following day the royal headquarters 
 moved forward to Sichrow, where the King occupied 
 the fine castle of the princely Rohans. He made 
 the journey by carriage, the railroad having been 
 broken up; and on the way everywhere were passed
 
 174 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. vm. 
 
 Austrian prisoners tramping to the rear. Prom 
 Sichrow, on 2nd July, the King moved on into 
 Gitschin, where his quarters were in the Golden 
 Lion. He had been met on the battle-field of the 
 29th by his nephew Prince Frederic Charles, who, 
 as they drove into Gitschin together, put his Majesty 
 in full possession of the military situation so far as 
 it had then developed itself. The King spent the 
 afternoon in going about among the wounded ; and 
 here, too, he had something to say to the local 
 civic deputation. " I must tell you," said the 
 King, "that I am not making war against your 
 nation, but only against the armies which oppose 
 me. If, however, the civilian inhabitants commit 
 acts of causeless hostility against my troops, I 
 shall be forced to make reprisals. My troops are 
 not savage hordes, and only claim the supplies 
 necessary for subsistence. It must be your care that 
 they have no cause for just complaint. Tell the 
 inhabitants that I have not come to make war 
 upon peaceable citizens, but to defend the honour 
 of Prussia." 
 
 There was no expectation of severe fighting on 
 the 3rd July. At the council of war held in Gitschin 
 on the morning of the 2nd, reconnaissances were 
 prescribed for that day to discover Benedek's where- 
 abouts, otherwise the Prussian armies were to stand
 
 1866. 
 
 THE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR. 175 
 
 firm. Prince Frederic Charles's reconnoitring officers 
 rode far and fast ; and when, returning from Gits- 
 chin, he reached his farther-forward quarters in 
 Kamenitz, there were tidings waiting him that 
 changed the whole complexion of affairs. 
 
 Benedek had not retreated far. He had brought 
 all his force to the right bank of the Elbe, and now. 
 stood with his back to that river, occupying the 
 space between it and its tributary the Bistritz, with 
 a front on the latter stream extending from Bena- 
 tek on the right, to Nechanitz on the left. Prince 
 Frederic Charles drew the inference from this dis-. 
 position that it was Benedek's intention to advance 
 next day from the line of the Bistritz, with the 
 object of attacking the First Army with superior 
 force, before the junction between it and the Crown 
 Prince's army should be practically effected. Prince 
 Frederic Charles at once saw his double opportunity. 
 It was for him to concentrate and move forward 
 against the Bistritz line. If Benedek meant the 
 offensive, then the Red Prince would meet him and 
 fight him, straining every nerve to thwart the 
 success of that offensive till the Crown Prince 
 should come up and strike the Austrian's right 
 flank. If, again, Benedek did not intend the offen- 
 sive, but preferred to stand fast on the Bistritz 
 and offer battle to Prince Frederic Charles, then
 
 17<! WILLIAM OF GERMAN^, im. 
 
 that commander would accept the challenge, and 
 put forth his whole strength to " hold " the 
 Austrian there until the Crown Prince should 
 come up and assail with crushing effect his right 
 flank. Benodek's attitude, whatever might have 
 been his intention, is explicable only on the hypo- 
 thesis that he believed the two Prussian armies 
 had already effected their junction, that the mass of 
 both was in front of him as he lay on the Bistritz, 
 and that the Prussian commanders designed an 
 attempt to strike at his left, and so cut him off 
 from his communications with Vienna. The scout- 
 ing of the Austrians throughout the campaign was 
 very badly done, and their intelligence extremely 
 defective. 
 
 Prince Frederic Charles was a man of prompt 
 action, and there was no time to lose. It was 
 already 9 p.m. when the gallopers dashed out from 
 his headquarters in Kamenitz, carrying his detailed 
 orders to the various corps of his army for their 
 immediate concentration to the front. An hour later 
 an officer started on the long dangerous ride to 
 Koniginhof, with a letter to the Crown Prince 
 requesting him to co-operate by sending one of his 
 army corps to strike at the right flank of the 
 Austrians, while the First Army was OMX, prises with 
 their front. So well did Von Normand ride, that
 
 1866. THE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR. 177 
 
 he rejoined Prince Frederic Charles at 4 o'clock on 
 the morning of the 3rd, with assurances of the 
 Crown Prince's co-operation. 
 
 In his quarters at Gitschin the King had been 
 sitting at his writing-table all the evening, and was 
 preparing to lie down for the night on his camp- 
 bed, when there entered to him General Voights- 
 Ehetz, the chief of Prince Frederic Charles's staff, 
 who had been sent back in haste from Kamenitz to 
 inform his Majesty of the altered dispositions for 
 the morrow, and to desire his approval of them. 
 A practised soldier, William found it hard to 
 believe that Benedek could have projected himself 
 into a position so radically vicious. But he knew 
 how safe a man was his nephew, and even were he 
 mistaken, no harm could arise out of the disposi- 
 tions he had ordered. Moltke joined Voights-Rhetz 
 in the King's bed-room, and one amendment on 
 Prince Frederic Charles's arrangements was re- 
 solved on. If he were right, Benedek's position 
 was such that it was worth to " mak' siccar " of the 
 Austrian's utter discomfiture, by bringing to bear 
 upon it the whole strength of both the Prussian 
 armies. So at midnight two messengers, lest one 
 should fail, were sent to the Crown Prince, bidding 
 him advance not with one corps, but with his whole 
 army, against the Austrian right flank, make all 
 
 M
 
 178 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. im 
 
 speed, and commence his attack as early as 
 possible. 
 
 In the darkness of a stormy night, Prince 
 Frederic Charles's army was gathered in the long 
 hollow behind the ridge of Dub, ready to issue from 
 its ambush and attack the Austrians if they should 
 advance. But the Austrian army came not. As 
 the morning wind blew aside the mists, the 
 Austrian position on the face of the slope rising 
 from the further bank of the Bistritz could be 
 accurately discerned. Benedek's centre was in 
 front of Chlum, whose church-tower crowned the 
 slope. He held the Bistritz line from Benatek on 
 his right, and the hill of Horenowes behind it, 
 through the villages of Sadowa, Dohalitz, Dohalicka, 
 Mokrovous, Popowitz, and Lubno, to Nechanitz, 
 where his left rested supported by the villages of 
 Problus and Prim further back. So stood the Austrian 
 line which confronted Prince Frederic Charles's army. 
 Benedek had intended that his position should have 
 a semi- circular front, with the right extending 
 backward from the Bistritz towards the Elbe, but 
 his projected arrangements had not been carried 
 out, and the Austrian line of battle actually formed 
 a very gentle curve, the length of which from Prim 
 to Horenowes was about six and three-quarter 
 miles, and on which stood four and three-quarter
 
 186*. TEE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR. 179 
 
 army corps, the rest of his force, which in all was 
 about 206,000 strong, being in reserve. The 
 Prussian frontal attack was delivered by Prince 
 Frederick Charles with 124,000 men. The Crown 
 Prince came down on the Austrian flank with 
 97,000 more ; so that in all the Prussian force on 
 the field numbered 221,000 men. On both sides a 
 considerable proportion did not come into action. 
 
 The first shot was fired before seven, but the 
 atmosphere continued thick with fog and rain, 
 and the cannonade did not become general along 
 the Bistritz till after eight. The Prussian infantry 
 presently approached the Bistritz ; and since it was 
 the task of the First Army to pin the Austrians to 
 their position there until the Second Army should 
 come up, it was necessary to occupy them along 
 their front. To this end the Bistritz had to be 
 crossed, and immediately the battle waxed fierce. 
 Fransecky on the Prussian left dashed on Benatek, 
 and came at once to hand-to-hand fighting. Home 
 promptly flung his Brandenburgers against Sadowa; 
 Herwath's Pomeranians battled their way into 
 the blazing Dohalitz ; and Werder led the Third 
 Division through the Austrian cannon fire upon 
 Mokrovous. An hour's hard infantry-fighting suf- 
 ficed for the Prussians to clear the Austrians out 
 of the villages along the Bistritz ; and about eleven 
 M 2
 
 180 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isee. 
 
 o'clock they began the attempt to press up the 
 wooded slope beyond. But in vain. Not only 
 could the First Army, spite of all its efforts, and 
 they were many and strenuous, gain no more ground 
 in the face of the stubborn resistance offered by 
 the Austrians, but it was hard put to it to re- 
 tain what advantage it had gained. 
 
 For neither -Prussian king nor Prussian private 
 soldier had there been a reasonable amount of sleep 
 on the night before Koniggratz. It had been past 
 midnight ere William, lying on his camp bed in 
 the " Golden Lion " of Gitschin, had been left by 
 Moltke and Voights-Rhetz, and by five o'clock, 
 seated in an open carriage with his mantle about 
 him to fend off the drizzling rain, he was on his 
 way to the battle-field, to witness a combat to 
 which the Bar-sur-Aube of his youth had been 
 child's-play. He was still hesitating to accept 
 the conviction that Benedek had committed the 
 strategical error on a belief in which Prince 
 Frederic Charles's dispositions were based ; and he 
 expressed his apprehension to Count Lehndorf, his 
 carriage companion, that the Prussian concentration 
 which had been ordered would turn out to be "a 
 stroke at empty air." At the village of Klenitz 
 his saddle horses were waiting him, but before 
 mounting he went into the inn to accoutre himself
 
 1866. THE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR. 181 
 
 for horseback. A Prussian chronicler gives the 
 details of his costume with innocently minute 
 particularity. It seems that he got into his great- 
 coat, and put on goloshes over his boots. A wrong 
 pair of spurs had been brought from Gritschin and 
 would not fit. It may be permissible for a king 
 close on seventy to ride down into the battle in 
 goloshes, but goloshes even on a king will not 
 excuse spurless heels. A groom whipped his off 
 and strapped them on over the royal goloshes ; 
 the King mounted the good mare " Fenella " 
 from that day thenceforth to be called " Sadowa"- 
 and rode forth with glass hung round his neck by 
 a " long strap." The thunder of the cannon had 
 been audible for some time, and on the knoll 
 beyond Klenitz Prince Frederic was found, who 
 told the King from his own personal inspection 
 that von Ungar had brought back correct intelli- 
 gence, and that the whole Austrian Army was 
 down there behind the Bistritz. 
 
 Riding still forward and leftward, amid the 
 vociferous cheering of his troops, William rode 
 on to a hillock over against Sadowa, where stood 
 General Home superintending the deployment 
 of his division, which was presently to assail that 
 village. The spot was within range of the Austrian 
 cannon, and the King was followed by a suite that
 
 182 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isee. 
 
 loomed on the sky-line like a regiment, and that 
 was sure to draw fire if the Austrian gunners knew 
 their business. Home urged his Majesty to retire ; 
 the advice, however, was not palatable and was 
 not taken. A moment later a shell fell close to 
 the King, and its fragments brought down a shower 
 of leaves and twigs from the tree alongside of which 
 he was standing. Another went whizzing over 
 King and suite and burst somewhere in the rear. 
 The King quietly remarked to Lehndorf that the 
 close group about him was provoking the fire, and 
 Lehndorf gave the word for the suite to disperse. 
 Riding still forward, his Majesty met the first of 
 the many wounded he was to see that day ; and 
 mounted the Roskoberg, from the crest of which a 
 view was commanded of the whole Bistritz line. 
 The cannon smoke, indeed, kept down by the 
 weight of the damp atmosphere, hung low in the 
 valley, and obscured the troops down in its trough, 
 but the whole range of the Austrian batteries was 
 visible on the long slope on the further side. 
 
 Prince Frederic Charles gave him the word that 
 the moment was ripe, and shortly before ten his 
 Majesty gave the order for his infantry to assail 
 the villages and so force the passage of the Bistritz. 
 Up there on the Roskoberg the King watched with 
 engrossed intensity the long, fierce struggle of his
 
 1886. THE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR. 183 
 
 soldiers. From out the heart of it the debris of 
 the fight drifted to the rear, the men tried beyond 
 endurance. One mass of troops came surging in 
 disorder along the chaussee. William rode down 
 from the height, and asked an officer " whence they 
 came and whither they were going?" The officer 
 replied that the loss in the front had been so heavy 
 that disorganisation had resulted, and that the 
 order to join the reserves had been given. Mean- 
 while the soldiers continued their hurried retirement. 
 That is a very infectious movement in the crisis of 
 battle ; and the King stopped it with the loud 
 imperious order, " Halt ! Front ! " The soldiers at 
 first obeyed mechanically ; then recognising their 
 sovereign, fell into some semblance of line facing 
 him and with their backs on Sadowa. " In the 
 battle," asked William, "where is the front?" and 
 the soldiers replied to the question by facing about. 
 Dismounting, his Majesty set about reorganising 
 the dishevelled companies, and order had just been 
 re-established when an officer galloped up with 
 the urgent command that every available man was 
 to return to the front. The King himself gave the 
 detachment the word to march, and as it passed 
 him they were men of the Second Army Corps 
 he called out, " Now, remember you are 
 Pomeranians ! "
 
 184 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. ISM. 
 
 It was f ast noon. The army of Prince Frederic 
 Charles was engaged up to the hilt, and could gain 
 no ground from the stubborn Austrians. The 
 Prussians had fought their way about half way up 
 the slope through the woods and copses, but could 
 get no further, and had indeed to strain every nerve 
 to hold the positions they had won. Anxious eyes 
 watched from the Roskoberg for signs of the ap- 
 proach of the Crown Prince. He was overdue, 
 there, on Benedek's right flank, but there was no 
 indication to the eager watchers that he had begun 
 to make his presence felt. The Austrian cannon 
 still had their muzzles turned toward the Bistritz ; 
 Fransecky in Benatek was being punished worse 
 than ever; no commotion in the Austrian right 
 wing gave token of an impending diversion. 
 
 But all the same, the Crown Prince had kept 
 tryst, and had been striking at the Austrian flank 
 since before noon. There stood in his path between 
 the hill of Horenowes and the Trotinka only one 
 weak corps of the Austrian. That he had brushed 
 aside to his own left, away in the direction of the 
 Elbe. By one o'clock he had carried the height of 
 Horenowes, in rear of Benatek, where the fight was 
 still raging furiously. Then without hesitation 
 he led his Guards to where, through the smoke 
 drifting up from the battle-field, was visible the
 
 186. THE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR. 185 
 
 church steeple of the village of Chlum, right in 
 rear of the centre of the Austrian position on the 
 Bistritz. It was an astounding evolution, yet it 
 was successful, and, strange to tell, entailed in its 
 execution no serious loss. The Austrians were intent 
 on their Bistritz front, and the Crown Prince, 
 almost without molestation, marched a division of 
 the Guards some two thousand paces along the rear 
 of the Austrian fighting line. The Prussian Guards 
 were in Chlum before three in the afternoon. 
 
 Benedek was near the place, and could not be- 
 lieve the tidings brought him that it was no longer 
 his. As he rode towards it, a volley from Prussian 
 needleguns met him, which told with severe effect 
 on his staff, and convinced him of the misfortune 
 that had befallen him. The Austrian reserves were 
 hurled on Chlum with intent to re-take it, and a 
 desperate combat ensued. It was but one division 
 of the Prussian Guards that held Chlum, and they 
 had to struggle hard to retain the all-important 
 position. But succour was near ; the other, the 
 Second Guard Division, was at hand. Two more 
 corps of the Crown Prince's army, eager for the 
 fray, came surging up out of the Trotinka hollow 
 on the Austrian rear. With the entry of the 
 Prussian Guards into Chlum, the battle of Konig- 
 gratz had been lost and won.
 
 186 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. igfe 
 
 But, strangely, this result had been attained 
 entirely without the cognisance of any part of 
 Prince Frederic Charles's army, held stationary 
 there on the Bistritz front and hard pressed still to 
 hold its own. The leading Prussian division that 
 penetrated to Chlum had moved along the reverse 
 face of the ridge, invisible alike to the Prussians 
 and the Austrians locked in mortal strife along 
 the line of the Bistritz. Chlum was occupied and 
 the battle won before the second Prussian Guard 
 Division advancing toward that village, not along 
 the reverse but the hither slope of the ridge, was 
 seen by the anxious watchers on the Roskoberg, 
 and it was a welcome sight that spoke volumes. 
 Bismarck, in his Landwehr uniform, was up there 
 with the King. By them stood Roon, Moltke, 
 Lehndorf, and others, all intent on the direction 
 whence the Crown Prince was expected. Suddenly 
 Bismarck lowered his field-glass, and drew the 
 attention of his neighbours to certain lines in the 
 far distance. All telescopes were pointed thither- 
 ward, but the lines were pronounced to be ploughed 
 ridges. There was a deep, anxious silence ; then 
 Bismarck brought down his glasses abruptly, and 
 exclaimed in a tone of decision, "Those are not 
 plough furrows ; the spaces are not equal ; they 
 are marching lines ! " Bismarck had been the
 
 isea THE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR. 187 
 
 first to discern the advance of the Second 
 Army. 
 
 As the Prussian Guards dashed at the Lipa 
 batteries, the First Army sprang forward, and with 
 loud cheers and drums beating, went straight up 
 the hill face. The Sadowa road was cleared as if 
 by magic, the Austrian batteries carried with a 
 rush, and the guns in position captured. There 
 was still desperate fighting to be done, as the Aus- 
 trians vehemently revolting with cannon and cavalry 
 against the steady, relentless pressure with which 
 the Prussians pushed them back out of position 
 after position, till the bridges across the Elbe were 
 reached, covered by the fortress guns of Konig- 
 gratz. The Austrians could not help but retreat; 
 the day had wrought them terrible disaster; but 
 so staunch were their infantry, so well handled and 
 well-served their field artillery, so recklessly self- 
 sacrificing their cavalry, that the retreat never 
 degenerated into a rout. Yet never was victory 
 more decisive than that won by the Prussians on 
 the field of Koniggratz. 
 
 As soon as Home had made good his advance 
 up the slope from Sadowa on Lipa, King William 
 galloped down the Eoskoberg, rode through the 
 blood and slaughter of Sadowa, and followed the 
 chaussee on to the ridge near Langenhof, where
 
 188 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. \am. 
 
 he first found troops belonging to the Crown Prince's 
 army. Flushed with the fight and the victory, they 
 gave him a reception which he described in a letter 
 to Queen Augusta : " You cannot conceive the 
 enthusiasm which broke out when I came among 
 them. The officers rushed to kiss my hand, which 
 I was forced to allow for this once; the men greeted 
 me with endless hurrahs right in the midst of the 
 still enduring cannon-fire." Dying officers raised 
 themselves as he rode by, eager for a word or a 
 glance ; the King bent from the saddle and shook 
 the hands soon to be cold in death. Following the 
 tide of battle, he had a narrow escape from being 
 ridden down by a headlong rush of Austrian cavalry 
 flying from a melee with Prussian horsemen. He 
 had been searching everywhere for his gallant son, 
 and found him at last, up in the front, of course, 
 near the village of Eosnitz, urging on the Prussian 
 cavalry. Both father and son were greatly moved. 
 The King took from his breast his own order pour 
 le merite, and gave it to the Crown Prince. He 
 had before leaving Berlin conferred on him the 
 decoration by telegraph in recognition of the Prince's 
 success at Skalitz, but the message had never reached 
 his Royal Highness. Eosnitz was still the centre 
 of hard fighting, and the King was not to be 
 restrained from exposing himself to the perils which
 
 1866. THE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR. 189 
 
 his troops were confronting. Bismarck, in his 
 capacity as Minister-President, ventured to entreat 
 him to desist from incurring needless danger, espe- 
 cially now that the victory was assured. William's 
 answer was worthy of a soldier-monarch : " My 
 troops and I are here on the battle- field : would you 
 have me ride away out of the shell-fire, while they 
 remain under it ? " "It was well," wrote Bis- 
 marck to his wife, " that I was with him, for all the 
 warnings of others were in vain, and no one else 
 would have spoken to him as I finally did, when 
 I did produce some effect, after a knot of ten 
 soldiers and fifteen horses of the 6th Cuirassier 
 regiment were rolling around in their blood, and 
 shells were flying in very unpleasant proximity to 
 our sovereign. Yet I would rather have it so, 
 than that he should be over-prudent. He was full 
 of enthusiasm at his troops, so that he never heeded 
 the turmoil and fighting around him, and rode 
 about quite quietly and comfortably, as on home 
 parade, continually coming across battalions whom 
 he had to thank and say ' good- night ' to." The 
 old Warrior-King kept in the field till after 
 dark, engaged in tasks which became him. He 
 comforted his own wounded with words of praise 
 and hope. He bade his own surgeon see to the 
 wounds of an Austrian officer who lay in danger of
 
 190 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 1886. 
 
 bleeding to death. He gave strict injunctions that 
 the prisoners should be well treated, and receive 
 share and share alike of rations with his own 
 troops. He would have been glad at the moment 
 of a ration, however meagre, for himself. He had 
 swallowed a morsel of breakfast at the Klenitz inn, 
 while they were settling the little trouble about his 
 spurs, but while they waited on the Roskoberg for 
 the Crown Prince to strike, his Majesty got ex- 
 tremely hungry. Nobody abput him seemed to 
 have had the Dugald Dalgetty virtue of looking 
 after the provant, and not so much as a sandwich 
 was forthcoming. A field-gendarme pulled out of his 
 wallet a dry crust of black bread ; as there seemed 
 nothing else, perhaps his Majesty would deign to 
 eat this humble contribution. His Majesty deigned 
 with the keenest zest ; and then a sergeant, em- 
 boldened by the royal condescension, tendered his 
 drinking-keg, which contained a driblet of the sour 
 wine of the country. With the sergeant's rinsings 
 the King washed down the gendarme's crust. 
 
 Far across the ghastly battle-field, through 
 darkness lit up by blazing villages, the King rode 
 back from the fighting line to the village of 
 Sadowa, where his carriage awaited him. It was a 
 long drive back to Gritschin, and Prince Frederic 
 Charles suggested that his Majesty should occupy
 
 wee. THE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR. 191 
 
 the quarters that had been taken up for himself in 
 the petty village of Horitz. The King was tired ; 
 Horitz was nearer the field than Gitschin, and he 
 accepted the offer. The Red Prince was a man 
 who cared little for luxurious comfort on campaign, 
 and he told his uncle not to expect great things. 
 But the King found all he wanted food and rest. 
 He ate the supper that had been got ready for his 
 nephew, and we are told he drank a cup of tea. 
 But there was no bed ; the furniture of the room 
 consisted of a table, two chairs, and a remorselessly 
 hard sofa. The cushions were brought in from the 
 carriage, and spread on the hard sofa ; the King 
 lay down, with his writing-case for a pillow and 
 his mantle for a blanket, and was sound asleep 
 long before Prince Frederic Charles came in from 
 arranging the bivouacs of his army. 
 
 No time was to be lost in reaping the fruits of 
 the victory of Kb'niggratz. News had reached the 
 Prussian headquarters of the approach of Benedetti,' 
 the French Ambassador to the Court of Berlin ; 
 and the inference was drawn that the French Em- 
 peror, jealous of the Prussian successes, was anxious 
 for the prestige of being a successful mediator in 
 the quarrel. Every step forward into Austrian 
 territory was a political as well as a military gain 
 to Prussia ; and the advance on Vienna was begun
 
 192 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isee. 
 
 on the morning after the hattle. Benedek, sending 
 his most shattered division direct to Vienna, was 
 falling hack on Moravia, the mass of his army 
 under orders to move on the entrenched camp of 
 Olmutz. King William remained in Horitz till 
 the afternoon of the 5th, when royal headquarters 
 were advanced to Pardubitz. Early in the morning 
 of the 4th his baggage had been brought on from 
 Gitschin to Horitz, and his servants wished him to 
 quit the sofa and get into his camp bed. But his 
 Majesty found the sofa so comfortable that he 
 declined to leave it, and continued to sleep on it 
 till seven A.M. He would not have the names of 
 the fallen sent home in the first bulletin. " First," 
 he ordered, " let the good news of victory spread ; 
 the sad, inevitable list of losses will appear later, 
 and then too soon. In the afternoon, as he was 
 riding over the battle-field of the previous day, he 
 met the Austrian Field-Marshal von Gablenz, whom 
 he knew well personally. The Marshal had come 
 from Benedek to treat for a suspension of hostilities, 
 and at the foreposts he had been blindfolded by a 
 bandage over his eyes. The King imagined he had 
 been wounded, and alighted from the carriage to 
 offer him condolences. When he was informed of 
 the Marshal's mission, he had the bandage removed, 
 and sent him to Horitz to discuss his errand with
 
 1868. THE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR. 193 
 
 Moltke. The King himself went on to Sadowa to 
 be present at the interment of his soldiers who had 
 fallen there ; and afterwards at Chlum took part in 
 the funeral services over the bodies of General 
 von Hiller and Colonel von Helldorff, both officers 
 of the Guards who had been personally known to 
 him. The truce which Gablenz had been sent to 
 ask was refused, as Prussia and Italy were mutually 
 bound to accept no suspension of hostilities save in 
 common concert. Next day there was received a 
 communication from the French Emperor counsel- 
 ling that Austria should be allowed terms. On his 
 way to Pardubitz in the afternoon, the King rode 
 close to the fortress of Koniggratz, and saw what 
 a mass of war material the Austrians had abandoned 
 under the guns of the fortress. In the Castle of 
 Pardubitz he found 800 wounded Austrian soldiers 
 lying entirely without surgical attendance, and 
 immediately ordered to their assistance all avail- 
 able Prussian surgeons. He was laid up in Pardu- 
 bitz for three days with acute sciatica, but continued 
 to transact civil and military business in his room. 
 On the 8th Marshal Gablenz came on a second 
 mission, this time commissioned by the Austrian 
 Government to treat for an armistice. His pro- 
 posals were not accepted, as the conviction in the 
 Prussian headquarter was that Austria was not 
 N
 
 194 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isee. 
 
 eager to conclude a definite peace, but wished to 
 gain time to bring up her army of the South from 
 Italy. On the 10th his Majesty, still ailing, crossed 
 the frontier into Moravia, amid a great assemblage 
 of local priests and inhabitants, and was quartered 
 for the night in Zwittau, a Moravian town. While 
 the royal headquarters remained in Zwittau, Bene- 
 detti arrived, and was received by the King on the 
 morning of the 1 2th. After his audience of William, 
 Bismarck took the Frenchman in hand. 
 
 Meanwhile the Prussian armies were marching 
 steadily southward on a broad front, their faces 
 set towards the Danube. Prince Frederic Charles 
 moved direct on Briinn, which he entered on the 
 12th, having encountered but trivial opposition on 
 his march. The Crown Prince, moving on his 
 cousin's left, had inclined towards Olmutz, with the 
 object of watching and masking Benedek's force 
 gathered into the entrenched camp there. But it 
 was not intended that the Austrian army of the 
 North should remain in Olmutz. Before he was 
 superseded in the supreme military command by 
 the Archduke Albert, Benedek had sent away three 
 of his corps by rail in the direction of Vienna. A 
 part of the remainder of his force was on the march 
 by road the railway having been cut by the Prus- 
 sians when it was attacked at Tobitschau o.u the
 
 la*. THE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR. 195 
 
 15th by one of the Crown Prince's corps, and 
 defeated with the loss of 1,200 men and eighteen 
 guns. The Crown Prince found that one corps 
 would suffice to watch Olmiitz, and with the rest 
 of the army he followed in the track of Prince 
 Frederic Charles, passing through Briinn on the 
 19th. By the 21st the Prussian hosts had come up 
 into line, and stood concentrated on the historic 
 Marchfeld, within thirty miles of the Austrian 
 capital. From the forepost line the gleaming 
 pinnacles of the lofty spire of St. Stephen's Cathe- 
 dral could be dimly seen through the heat-haze. 
 But between the Prussians and Vienna lay the 
 heavily- armed lines of Florisdorf, the redoubt- 
 crowned Bisamberg, and all the Austrian troops 
 which the Archduke Albert had been able to gather 
 together. 
 
 Whether those defences would have sufficed to 
 hinder the Prussian officers from drinking Voslauer 
 in the "Herzog Karl," and the Prussian soldiers 
 from being defrauded with sham meerschaums in 
 the Grraben and the Karnther-Strasse, was a problem 
 that happily was not to be solved. The King had 
 reached Briinn on the afternoon of the 13th, re- 
 ceived ceremoniously by the bishop and the burgo- 
 master, at the head of a deputation of clergy and 
 citizens. In the midst of war for a whole army 
 N 2
 
 196 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. ises. 
 
 stood halted for the day in Briinn the air seemed 
 to savour of peace. Benedetti's secretary had gone 
 into Vienna with the conditions on which the King 
 would consent to an armistice. He returned to 
 Briinn on the morning of the 14th with counter- 
 proposals, which William and his advisers regarded 
 as inadmissible. So tho negotiations were broken 
 off, and the march of the Prussian armies was re- 
 sumed on the following morning. 
 
 But peace in the abstract was a general de- 
 sideratum. The Austrians had encountered ex- 
 periences scarcely calculated to make them sanguine 
 as to the issue of prolonged hostilities. William 
 was privately shuddering at the idea of entering 
 Vienna by force, and driving his brother monarch 
 Francis Joseph out of the Burg-hof . Napoleon III. 
 was bent on attitudinising before Europe in the 
 attitude of a puissantly successful mediator. As 
 for Bismarck, he was the genial cynic of the piece, 
 and, for that matter, of the peace. He had no 
 personal or professional ill-will to anybody only 
 he meant to have just what he wanted. If Austria 
 would give him his terms, he would much rather not 
 exacerbate the situation by going into Vienna ; if 
 she would not, then her blood be upon her own 
 head. If he got his terms, he did not in the least 
 mind that Napoleon, if he had the fancy that way,
 
 1866. THE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR. 197 
 
 should figure as the Dem ex machina. And indeed, 
 if Napoleon chose to nourish the notion that he 
 was to make a profit out of the function of umpire, 
 was it his place rudely to shiver the illusion ? Was 
 it not politic rather to let the assumption pass with 
 that absence of direct negative which might be 
 construed into an indefinite affirmative, and let the 
 future arrange itself ? 
 
 Benedetti was cheerfully fussy in the business 
 of mediation. He went into Vienna on the 15th 
 with the news of the Prussian refusal of the 
 Austrian proposals, and spent a couple of days in 
 the Austrian capital, where he had free and quick 
 telegraphic communication with Paris. On the 
 evening of the 17th, the King, in the midst of a 
 general illumination, reached Nikolsburg, and took 
 up his residence in the magnificent castle of the 
 Dietrichstein Princes, from whom it had passed to 
 Count Mensdorff, the Austrian Foreign Minister 
 and the political antagonist of Bismarck. In the 
 Castle of Nikolsburg, Napoleon the Great had 
 resided in the interval between Austerlitz and his 
 entry into Vienna, and King William slept in the 
 room that had been occupied by the man who had 
 driven his parents out of Berlin. 
 
 To Nikolsburg came Benedetti on the following 
 day, bringing amended proposals from Vienna, and
 
 198 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 1866. 
 
 on the 22nd an armistice to last for five days till 
 mid-day on the 27th was agreed upon. The line 
 of demarcation was defined, and each within its own 
 bounds both armies worked hard to be ready for 
 the alternative of renewed hostilities, should the 
 peace negotiations miscarry that were being wrestled 
 out in Bismarck's cabinet at Nikolsburg. But the 
 great Prussian lion couchant on the Rossbach was 
 not to spring. On the evening of the 26th the 
 preliminaries of peace were agreed on, and the 
 Seven Weeks' War was at an end. Its results to 
 Prussia were momentous. Austria accepted her 
 utter exile from Germany, recognised the dissolution 
 of the old Germanic Confederation, and consented 
 to non-participation in the reorganised Confedera- 
 tion of which Prussia was to have the unques- 
 tioned military and diplomatic leadership. Saxony 
 had to enter the new Confederation bodily, and 
 Hesse-Darmstadt as regarded her territories north 
 of the Maine. To Prussia were annexed Hanover, 
 Electoral Hesse, Nassau, Sleswig and Holstein, 
 the City of Frankfort-on-the-Maine, and pieces of 
 Hesse-Darmstadt and Bavaria. Prussia's total 
 acquisitions amounted to over 6,500 square miles 
 of territory, with a population exceeding 4,000,000. 
 The States with which she had been at war paid 
 her by way of indemnity for the charges she had
 
 1866. THE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR. 199 
 
 been put to in worsting them, sums amounting 
 in all to nearly 10,000,000 sterling. In a 
 material sense, it had not been a bad seven weeks' 
 work for Prussia ; in a sense other than material, 
 she had profited incalculably more. Henceforth 
 Germany and Prussia were virtually synonymous 
 terms. 
 
 On the 31st of July his Majesty reviewed the 
 army of Prince Frederic Charles, drawn up on the 
 Marchfeld within fifteen miles of Vienna. In long 
 array there defiled past him the victors of Podoll, 
 of Miinchengratz, of Gitschin, of Koniggratz a 
 great host in grand condition and in the finest 
 discipline. At Briinn, on the 2nd August, on his 
 way back to Berlin, he reviewed the Crown Prince's 
 army, when with drawn sword he rode past the 
 saluting point at the head of his own regiment of 
 West Prussian Grenadiers. Travelling through 
 Prague he arrived in Berlin on the 4th, and next 
 day went to the Cathedral to return thanks for his 
 safe return, spending the rest of the day in visiting 
 the hospitals. By the 18th of September there was 
 not a spiked helmet or a needle-gun on Austrian 
 soil; and Berlin on the 20th and 21st was the 
 scene of magnificent fetes to celebrate the return of 
 the army. The triumphal entry of the King and 
 his victorious troops took place on the former day ;
 
 200 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isee. 
 
 on the evening of the latter the King entertained 
 at dinner, in the Palace, twelve hundred generals 
 and principal officers who had served in the cam- 
 paign, and all Berlin sparkled and glowed in a 
 universal illumination.
 
 CHAPTEK X. 
 
 THE GATHERING OF THE GREAT STORM. 
 
 REALISING from the commencement of his reign 
 that his hold on France was precarious, Napoleon 
 III. was ever restlessly eager to strengthen his 
 position by pandering to the national hunger for 
 the prestige of successful military operations and 
 the acquisition of territory. The earlier years of 
 his reign had been fairly fortunate both in war and 
 in annexation ; but his Mexican enterprise was 
 going badly ; and the Grastein Convention, which 
 seemed to establish amity between two Powers 
 whom he would rather have seen at variance, gave 
 him disquietude. Its rupture brought him new 
 hopes, and, on the eve of the war of 1866, he made 
 Prussia the offer of active co-operation in return 
 for what Dominie Sampson called a "consideration." 
 Austria defeated by the conjunct arms of France, 
 Prussia, and Italy, the face of Europe was to 
 undergo material alteration. Prussia was to have
 
 202 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. i860. 
 
 all North Germany, Venetia was to be allotted to 
 Italy, and Prussia in return for France's co-operation 
 was to compliment her with the territory lying 
 between the Moselle and the Rhine. 
 
 Prussia declined the proposition, but Bismarck 
 was wily enough to secure by vague non-committing 
 half-promises the neutrality of France during the 
 weeks while Prussia was crushing Austria in 
 Bohemia. But Koniggratz startled Napoleon, and 
 set France in ferment. Austria tempted him with 
 the cession of Venetia to strike in for her, but the 
 gravity of the possible issues caused him to hesitate. 
 Prestige, and something perhaps more substantial, 
 might be gained by his assumption of the role of 
 a weighty and powerful mediator. He was not, 
 indeed, strong enough to get all for himself he 
 asked, for Prussia point blank refused his demand 
 for the fortress of Mayence, made though that 
 demand was under threat of war. But Prussia 
 had to confront the alternative of making certain 
 concessions to the importunate mediator, or of 
 going to war with him. Bismarck was wise and 
 could wait. " I thought it my duty," said he, later, 
 " to advise his Majesty to sanction the terms sub- 
 mitted as they stood, rather than jeopardise our 
 previous success and gamble for more." The cards 
 were being made up in case the gamble had been
 
 1866. THE GATHERING OF THE GREAT STORM. 203 
 
 ventured on. While the negotiations were in 
 progress, Eoon had been making his preparations 
 for the contingency of war with France. Half a 
 million of Prussian soldiers were already in the 
 field, but their hands were full ; Eoon had warned 
 for immediate mobilisation 350,000 more. 
 
 Napoleon had thought to raise in Germany a 
 counter-buttress against Prussia's supremacy by 
 enforcing the stipulation that the South German 
 States should be at liberty to form themselves 
 into a South German Confederacy. It was thus 
 hoped to avert the ultimate fusion of Germany into 
 a Federal whole, and to establish a power which 
 the smart of defeat and jealousy of the conqueror 
 might in a future war range on the side of Prussia's 
 enemies. But Bismarck was a better diplomatist 
 than Napoleon. Confident in the hindrances to 
 the formation of a Southern Bund, Bismarck did 
 not refuse assent to the Austro-French stipula- 
 tion ; but he formed and knit together the North 
 German Confederation in which Prussia was 
 dominant, and quietly negotiated an alliance of- 
 fensive and defensive with each of the Southern 
 States separately. No Southern Bund was ever 
 formed, and when the Franco-German war broke 
 out, Napoleon saw the shipwreck of his abortive 
 devices in the spectacle of the troops of Bavaria
 
 204 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 1866. 
 
 and Wiirtemberg marching on the Ehine in line 
 with the battalions of Prussia. 
 
 Koniggratz stuck in the throat of France, and 
 the master-men of Prussia recognised from the hour 
 of the victory that as the outcome of it France 
 would have to be dealt with one or other of two 
 ways. Either Prussia would have to fight France, 
 or make such concession to France as would smooth 
 France's national vanity ruffled by Koniggratz. 
 Concession was scarcely a palatable expedient; 
 and regarding war sooner or later as inevitable, 
 Prussia assiduously addressed herself to the task 
 of preparing for the conflict. The Bohemian cam- 
 paign, though swift and glorious, had been none the 
 less pregnant of lessons and warnings to William 
 and his military subordinates. " Rest and be 
 thankful " was no motto for the new army which 
 William had called into existence; to it the use 
 of victories was to teach it how to win other 
 victories. 
 
 Less purposeful, less resolute, less gifted with 
 the power of concentration, France foresaw war not 
 less clearly than did Prussia. It may be said that 
 while the latter accepted the inevitable, the former 
 it was which created and maintained the inevit- 
 ability. The French nation and its head acted and 
 reacted on each other in a curious mutually detri-
 
 1866. THE GATHERING OF THE GREAT STORM. 205 
 
 mental fashion. Napoleon would probably have 
 preferred a quiet life ; he was a phlegmatic man, 
 and while ungifted with energy enough to prepare 
 himself for serious contingencies, had quite acute- 
 ness enough to perceive how dangerous it was 
 unprepared to confront or create such contingencies. 
 But if he would pursue an unaggressive policy 
 and let France enjoy quiet, then France proceeded 
 to give him trouble and endanger his position by 
 clamouring for the concession of liberal institutions. 
 That kind of concession he perfectly realised led 
 straight up to an end of him. It was pleasant to 
 be an Emperor, and he did not want to go. But 
 he could only stay or rather there was for him 
 the only chance of staying by diverting the 
 nation from hankering after liberty, and con- 
 centrating its interest on a brilliant and flashy 
 foreign policy. So he was always, to use a military 
 simile, sapping up towards a great coup in the 
 effort to keep France distracted. But France did not 
 find the engineering process sufficiently interesting 
 to lure her from agitation for internal reforms; 
 and the Emperor had to make concessions in this 
 direction. He slackened the curb on public opinion ; 
 then public opinion with its head free bolted with 
 him, and carried him into war, if he were not to 
 lose altogether his rather washball style of seat in
 
 206 WILLIAM OF QEEMANY. ise?. 
 
 the saddle. In the end rider and ridden came an 
 " imperial crowner " over the big Grerman fence. 
 
 A fine opportunity for a dazzling coup seemed 
 to offer itself in the beginning of 1867. The King 
 of Holland was also Grand Duke of Luxemburg. 
 That duchy had been a member of the old Ger- 
 manic Confederation which the war of 1866 had 
 shattered. Its capital had been a very important 
 Federal fortress, one of Germany's great bulwarks 
 against France, and the garrison had consisted of 
 Prussian troops since the Treaty of Vienna in 1815. 
 When the Germanic Confederation broke up, the 
 King of Holland acquired full sovereign rights 
 over Luxemburg. Its inhabitants showed no incli- 
 nation to enter the new North G-erman Confedera- 
 tion which the war of 1866 created; and the higher 
 classes among them were understood to hold Prussia 
 in aversion. It was against the policy of the new 
 Confederation to have included in it possessions 
 belonging to foreign rulers, and no pressure was 
 exerted to bring Luxemburg within its pale. A 
 Prussian garrison, however, still continued to oc- 
 cupy its fortress ; although that fortress had been 
 defederalised. Prussia had insisted on this right, 
 holding that it vested in her altogether apart from 
 the relations that had subsisted between the Grand 
 Duchy and the old Confederation ; and the right
 
 1867. THE GATHERING OF THE GREAT STORM. 207 
 
 was not actively challenged by the King of Holland. 
 He had no particular fondness for his Luxemburg 
 possession, detached as it was from the rest of his 
 dominions, and he was a man to whom money was 
 always peculiarly acceptable. He had, then, no 
 objection to enter into an arrangement with France, 
 whereby the latter was to acquire by purchase the 
 Grand Duchy. On the French side there was a 
 not unnatural anxiety that the negotiation should 
 be kept secret from Prussia till the bargain had 
 been carried through, but the King of Holland did 
 not see his way to this, and formally notified 
 Prussia of the transaction in [progress. Prussia 
 refused her assent, and further refused to withdraw 
 her garrison from a fortress that had been in her 
 guardianship for half a century. The Duchy was 
 German soil, and the public feeling of Prussia ran 
 high against its alienation. On the other hand, 
 France was in a state of acute excitement. Its na- 
 tional jealousy of Prussia, louring luridly ever since 
 Koniggratz, flashed out vehemently against the 
 idea that an arrangement to which the Emperor of 
 the French had agreed was to be abandoned, simply 
 because Prussia thought fit to forbid it. 
 
 War seemed imminent, yet the guiding forces 
 on neither side really desired war. It has been said 
 that Bismarck had great difficulty in restraining
 
 208 WILLIAM OF GERMANY i* 
 
 King William from responding actively to the fervid 
 demands of his people, hut this is only gossip. 
 Prussia would fight if need were ; she would not 
 yield ; hut she was not yet quite ready for war 
 with Prance. On the other hand, Napoleon was 
 not eager for war. The French army was in a state 
 of reconstruction, and was not in case for a great 
 struggle. Both nations were nevertheless arming, 
 when the intervention of the European Powers 
 effected a settlement. By the Treaty of London, 
 ratified on the 31st May, 1867, the Duchy was 
 declared a neutral State under the guarantee of the 
 Powers. The town of Luxemburg ceased to he a 
 fortress, the Prussian garrison was withdrawn, and 
 the fortifications were to be demolished. War, at 
 least for the moment, was averted, and there were 
 sanguine people who believed that an era of lasting 
 peace had dawned on Europe. 
 
 The ink of the treaty was scarcely dry when 
 King William, accompanied by his great minister, 
 arrived at Paris on a visit to the Emperor Napoleon. 
 It was the summer of the Great Exhibition, when 
 Napoleon was on the summit of the big soap- 
 bubble he had blown, and was able to vie with his 
 illustrious relative in the possession of a " parterre 
 of princes." The Czar had arrived in advance of 
 William, and was living in the Elysee. The Crown
 
 1867. THE GATHERING OF THE GEE AT STORM. 209 
 
 Prince and Princess were already in Paris before 
 the King arrived on June 5th. Bismarck had fired 
 his salute to France before leaving Berlin, in the 
 announcement that he had concluded with the 
 States of Southern Germany a full understanding 
 as to the relations between them and the North 
 Grerman Confederation. At the railway station 
 his Majesty was received by the Emperor, accom- 
 panied by the ministers and marshals of the Empire, 
 and was escorted to his quarters in the Pavilion Mar- 
 san, one of the wings of the Tuileries. After pre- 
 senting his respects to the Empress his hostess, he 
 went to the Elysee to call on his nephew the Czar, 
 who returned the visit next morning, when the 
 three potentates went out into the private garden 
 of the Tuileries, and strolled in conversation among 
 the flower beds of the narrow slip of reserved 
 garden. Later in the day Napoleon and his guests 
 drove to Longchamps to witness on that field a 
 review of 60,000 French soldiers. It had not been 
 the first review William had seen there, nor was it 
 to be the last. In 1814 he had witnessed the com- 
 bined hosts of Prussia, Austria, and Eussia march 
 past the saluting point at which stood a Russian, a 
 Prussian, and an Austrian monarch. Russian and 
 Prussian monarchs were now at the same saluting 
 point again ; the grandson of Francis was to come
 
 210 WILLIAM OF GERMANY, leffr. 
 
 later for the moment he was being crowned King 
 of Hungary on the Kronungsberg of Pesth. Five 
 years later William was to look again on an armed 
 pageant on the Longchamps sward, when his host 
 of 1867 was to be his prisoner, and the troops he 
 was to review the conquerors of France. 
 
 William drove out to Longchamps along with 
 the Empress Eugenie ; the Czar and his two sons 
 sat in the same carriage with the Emperor. On 
 the field each potentate rode at the head of a bril- 
 liant staff, while great ladies looked down on the 
 scene from the imperial tribune. Bismarck made 
 himself visible to the Parisians in his Landwehr 
 cuirassier uniform crowned by the spiked helmet; 
 and it is recorded that the Parisians " were getting 
 reconciled to him on account of his martial bearing 
 in the field." Neither the Czar nor the King was 
 particularly popular in Paris. Cries of " Vive la 
 Prusse " were few and far between, and the angry 
 shouts of " Vive la Pologne " had been yelled at 
 Alexander ever since he had stepped out of the 
 Gare du Nord. But, at all events, nobody tried to 
 shoot William, whereas Berezouski interfered with 
 the Czar's ability to boast of the same immunity. 
 Fete followed fete while the monarchs were the 
 guests of Napoleon there was one in the Hotel de 
 Ville, when the salons, crammed with 8,000 people,
 
 1867. THE GATHERING OF THE GREAT STORM. 211 
 
 were illuminated by 18,000 wax candles; another 
 in the Tuileries, where the dancing was interrupted 
 at midnight that the guests might witness the 
 splendid show of fireworks and illuminations in the 
 garden. There were luncheons at the Trianon and 
 visits to Versailles and Fontainebleau, till on the 
 14th the King bade adieu to his host and hostess, 
 and was back in his own capital next day. His 
 simplicity of manner was noted by the Parisians 
 just as the English in 1814 had marked this cha- 
 racteristic of his father. He would not have a 
 formal reception when he first went to the Exhibi- 
 tion, and in his subsequent visits uniformly strove 
 to preserve his incognito. He quietly put down 
 an officious commissioner with the simple remark, 
 " Pray make no bother on my account, but regard 
 me but as one more visitor to Paris/' His Majesty 
 took a great deal of interest in diamond cutting, 
 and spent a good deal of money with the English 
 jewellery houses, driving, it was reported, rather 
 close bargains. When the time came for him to 
 go home, he did not scatter costly souvenirs and 
 high-sounding orders as the Czar did so lavishly. 
 During his stay he had continually expressed the 
 wish that no fuss should be made with him ; and 
 when he went away he simply thanked the Emperor 
 very warmly for the cordial reception he had met 
 o 2
 
 212 WILLIAM QF GERMANY. 
 
 with, and left 40,000 francs to be distributed among 
 the servants who had attended on him. 
 
 Queen Isabella had fled from Spain in September, 
 1868, but its throne was still vacant in the summer 
 of 1870. There had been some sort of an intrigue 
 in Paris in the previous summer for the promotion 
 of the candidature of Prince Frederic, a younger 
 son of the old Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, 
 the house of which TCing William was head. It 
 was said that the Empress Eugenie favoured the 
 project, and that Prince Frederic might marry a 
 relative of hers. Perhaps such credentials hardly 
 recommended him to the Spaniards, and no offer of 
 the throne was made to Frederic. In the autumn of 
 1869 it was that Prim's project of inviting the can- 
 didature of Frederic's eldest brother, Prince Leopold, 
 was first mooted. The idea was distasteful to the 
 French Court party, at whose instigation Isabella 
 was persuaded to abdicate in favour of her son, 
 Prince Alfonso. But Alfonso's turn was to come 
 later. In the summer of 1870 Prince Leopold 
 signified his readiness to accept the Spanish Crown 
 if the choice of the Cortes should fall upon him. 
 
 The news of this acceptance reached Paris from 
 Madrid on July 5th. The political horizon of 
 Europe was then so delusively clear that an Eng- 
 lish statesman, who certainly had claims to be con-
 
 1870. THE GATHERING OF THE GREAT STORM. 213 
 
 sidered well-informed, affirmed publicly that it was 
 without a cloud. But the storm gathered with a 
 speed which proved how treacherous had been the 
 calm. Paris broke into universal excitement, and 
 the machinations of Bismarck were vehemently de- 
 nounced. In reply to an interpellation, the Foreign 
 Minister professed a surprise that must have been 
 feigned, spoke significantly of the "balance of 
 power," and affirmed the intention to prevent the 
 election of the Hohenzollern prince, by a line of 
 action in which there should be " neither fear nor 
 hesitation." His words had an unmistakably war- 
 like tone, and they were received with vociferous 
 applause. The minister's statement, which was 
 read, not spoken, had been settled at a council held 
 in the morning, and presided over by the Emperor. 
 The profession of surprise was ridiculous in the 
 face of the fact that Prince Leopold's candidature 
 had been extensively discussed in the press, and 
 that the French Ambassador in Madrid had listened 
 to what Prim said in the Cortes three weeks pre- 
 viously. 
 
 France immediately began military preparations. 
 The Paris press, almost with one accord, rushed 
 into menacing and hostile utterances, which in- 
 flamed the soreness already existing against Prussia 
 in the popular mind. England offered her good
 
 214 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isn 
 
 offices, but without effective results. The Prussian 
 Government's reply to the French demand for ex- 
 planation, although calm and measured, was scarcely 
 calculated to soothe the irritation into which France 
 was lashing herself. Bismarck stated simply that 
 he knew nothing officially of Prince Leopold's 
 candidature. The Prussian Government did not 
 pretend to interfere with any action the Spanish 
 nation might choose to take, and were unable to 
 give any information regarding what negotiations, 
 if any, might have passed between the provisional 
 Government of Madrid and the Hohenzollern prince. 
 A financial convulsion thrilled through Europe, 
 and in one week there had occurred a depreciation 
 in stocks common to the Paris and London Ex- 
 changes representing a sum that could not have 
 been under fifty millions sterling. 
 
 For a few hours the catastrophe of war seemed 
 averted. Prince Leopold, as soon as he had realised 
 what complications his candidature had evoked, 
 hastened with loyal self-sacrifice to renounce it. 
 He requested his father to be the medium of 
 communication to that effect; and on the 12th of 
 July the Spanish Ambassador in Paris announced 
 officially to the French Government that Prince 
 Leopold had signified his renunciation of pretensions 
 to the throne of Spain. Upon this announcement
 
 1870. THE GATHERING OF THE GREAT STORM. 215 
 
 M. Ollivier declared unofficially that the affair was 
 at an end. 
 
 But France was not content. She had gained 
 her point, but she thought fit to follow up the 
 success by provocative insolence. She was hurrying 
 troops to the frontier, and was bent on rushing on 
 her fate. On the same day the Prussian minister 
 in Paris was requested to communicate to Bismarck 
 a demand that King William should write a letter 
 of apology to the Emperor. Bismarck's grim reply 
 was that the ambassador must have misunderstood 
 the French ministers, and that he was to desire them 
 to put the demand into writing, and have it pre- 
 sented in the regular form through their ambassador 
 in Berlin. 
 
 That ambassador was M. Benedetti, and he was 
 vigorously turned on to William in person. The 
 old King was staying at Ems, taking his annual 
 course of the waters, while angry passions were 
 rising in Berlin and Paris. During his morning 
 walk on July 13th he met Benedetti, and, taking a 
 newspaper out of his pocket, expressed his satisfaction 
 at having learnt from it of Prince Leopold's renun- 
 ciation, in the wisdom of which he personally quite 
 concurred. To his surprise the Frenchman demanded 
 his assurance that he would never, under any cir 
 cunastances, give his consent to his kinsman';';
 
 216 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 candidature. The King replied that he would give 
 no such pledge, hut must reserve to himself liberty 
 of action. At breakfast his Majesty received a 
 letter from Prince Anton of Hohenzollern, giving 
 formal intimation of his son's withdrawal ; where- 
 upon .the King sent his aide-de-camp to Bene- 
 detti with the intelligence of this confirmation of 
 the newspaper report, and with the further co;ii- 
 munication that he looked upon it as terminating 
 the incident. 
 
 To the aide-de-camp Benedetti communicated 
 his explicit instructions to demand a fresh audience 
 of his Majesty, and insist on the King's categorical 
 consent to Prince Leopold's renunciation, with the 
 further assurance that the candidature should never 
 be resumed. William still kept his temper, and 
 sent back the answer that he consented to the 
 renunciation of the prince in the same sense as he 
 had accepted the candidature as a matter which 
 had no concern for him as king, and still less 
 concerned either Prussia or the North German 
 Confederation. There resulted an absolute im- 
 possibility on his part to give assurance as to the 
 future on a question with which really he had no- 
 thing to do. 
 
 But Benedetti, driven by those cogent instruc- 
 tions of his, was still importunate for another
 
 THE GATHERING OF THE GREAT STORM. 217 
 
 audience personally to push for assurances as to the 
 future. The King's back did at last begin to get 
 up. He sent his aide-de-camp with a final message 
 to Benedetti to the laconic effect that he had nothing 
 more to say to him. The story has been contra- 
 dicted chat Benedetti insisted on accosting his 
 Majesty making his afternoon promenade; and 
 that the King turned from him with the direction 
 to his aide-de-camp "Inform this person that I 
 have nothing to say to him, and desire no further 
 intercourse with him." But there could be but 
 one motive for the unprecedented importunity with 
 which the French ambassador, acting on commands 
 from Paris, set himself to badger the Prussian mo- 
 narch unattended as he was by a minister. There 
 was the clear intention to force not on Prussia 
 only, but on its sovereign as an individual, the 
 alternative of putting up with a humiliation or of 
 accepting the quarrel so swaggeringly urged.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 
 
 IT has been alleged that neither King William 
 nor M. Benedetti was aware that offence had heen 
 given and taken in the final communication be- 
 tween them at Ems on July 13th, until Paris 
 and Berlin informed them that each had been in- 
 sulted. If this were indeed so, both must have 
 possessed an abnormal obtuseness, in which neither 
 the French nor the German nation in the least 
 degree participated. And if it were so, William 
 would scarcely have so abruptly interrupted his 
 cure, and hurried back to Berlin without allowing 
 a day to intervene. 
 
 The whole German nation had suddenly caught 
 fire. The Teuton blood was up from the Baltic to 
 the Lake of Constance, from Treves to Memel. It 
 was to a capital in a white heat of martial enthu- 
 siasm that the King returned on the night of July 
 14th. As he drove from ^he station to the palace, 
 the Linden was in a blaze of illumination, and
 
 1870. FltOM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 219 
 
 volleys of cheering greeted him as he passed through 
 the vast excited multitudes. In front of the palace 
 so dense was the throng that the mounted gen- 
 darmes could hardly make a lane through it for the 
 royal carriage. Over and over again had the King 
 to come to his accustomed window, and acknow- 
 ledge the patriotic fervour of the subjects who would 
 not let him rest. The attitude of the French 
 nation and the French Government made war all 
 hut certain ; and on the 17th the instructions 
 radiated by wire from Berlin for the immediate 
 mobilisation of the whole army of the North Grer- 
 man Confederation. The wonderful machinery was 
 in perfect order, and within a fortnight there stood 
 massed near the French frontier upwards of half a 
 million of men, with all the equipment and appli- 
 ances required for the field service of a host so vast. 
 William, during the interval that elapsed before 
 his departure to join the army, resided partly in 
 Potsdam, partly in Berlin. It was at the private 
 station at Potsdam that, on the morning of the 
 21st, Dr. Russell saw the King receive his venerable 
 consort, who had travelled from the Rhine to be 
 with her husband during the last days he should 
 spend at home. It was in the New Palace of 
 Potsdam that, on the 23rd, the royal grandfather 
 and father were present at the christening of the
 
 220 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1370. 
 
 youngest-born daughter of the Crown Prince, a 
 ceremony at which were present also most of the 
 commanders who a few days later were to be direct- 
 ing the operations of the armies that were already 
 hurrying to the front. It was in Berlin, on the 
 18th, that the King, in his plain, terse, effective 
 style, replied to the address presented him by the 
 Town Council of Berlin. " God knows," said the 
 old monarch, " I am not answerable for this war. 
 The demand made on me I could not do other than 
 reject. My response to it has gained the approval 
 of all the towns and provinces, the expression of 
 which I have received from all parts of Germany, 
 and even from G-ermans residing beyond the seas. 
 Heavy sacrifices will be required from my people. 
 We have been rendered unaccustomed to them by 
 the quickly-gained victories which we achieved 
 during the last two wars. We shall not get off so 
 cheaply this time ; but I know what I may expect 
 from my army and from those now hastening to 
 join its ranks. The instrument is sharp and finely- 
 tempered; the issue is in the hands of God. I 
 know also what I may expect from those who are 
 called upon to alleviate the wounds, the pains, and 
 the sufferings which war inflicts." 
 
 His Majesty opened the Session of the North 
 German Parliament on the 19th, amidst a whirl-
 
 1870. FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 221 
 
 wind of enthusiasm. In his speech he was emphatic 
 that the candidature of the Hohenzollern Prince 
 had heen seized upon by France as a mere pretext 
 for a casus belli, " put forward in a manner long 
 since unknown in the annals of diplomatic inter- 
 course, and adhered to after the removal of the 
 very pretext itself, with that disregard for the 
 peoples' right to the blessings of peace of which 
 the history of a former ruler of France affords so 
 many analogous examples. . . . But," continued 
 the venerable soldier-king, "the German nation 
 contains within itself the will and the power to 
 repel the renewed aggression of France. With a 
 clear gauge we have measured the responsibility 
 which, before the judgment seat of God and of man, 
 must fall upon him who drags two great and peace- 
 loving peoples into a devastating war/' The echo 
 of the royal words came from the lips of Bismarck, 
 when on the same day he announced that the 
 French charge d'affaires Benedetti had hurried 
 from Ems to Paris had delivered him France's 
 formal declaration of war against Prussia. The 
 response of Parliament was practical. For session 
 after session Bismarck had wrestled in vain for the 
 sanction of the Prussian Parliament to the expen- 
 diture required for the reorganisation of the Prus- 
 sian army now the North German Parliament
 
 222 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isyo. 
 
 enthusiastically voted fifteen millions sterling to 
 furnish the Army of the Confederation with the 
 sinews of war. 
 
 On the same 19th of July the King decreed the 
 revival of the order of the "Iron Cross," which 
 had fallen into abeyance after the wars of the early 
 part of the century, and announced that the decora- 
 tion " should be conferred, without distinction of 
 rank or condition, either on the battle-field, or at 
 home after the war, as a reward for service in the 
 cause of the honour and independence of the father- 
 land." On the 21st he issued the command that 
 Wednesday, the 27th of July, was to be observed 
 as an " extraordinary and universal day of prayer, 
 and solemnised by services in the churches, and by 
 abstention from public business so far as the press- 
 ing needs of the time permit." In a proclamation 
 dated the 23rd, he thanked the nation for its 
 patriotic devotion. " There have come to me," 
 said he, " from every tribe of the German father- 
 land, from every section of the German nation, even 
 from beyond the seas, such countless assurances of 
 devotion and self-sacrifice for the common father- 
 land, that I hold it no less a pleasure than a duty 
 publicly to bear testimony to this German unani- 
 mity ; and to add to the expression of my thanks 
 as the Sovereign, the assurance that I, for my part,
 
 1SW. FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 223 
 
 will return fidelity for fidelity, and unalterably 
 abide by my duty. Love for our common country, 
 the unanimous uprising of every branch of the 
 nation, has smoothed every difficulty and reconciled 
 every contention ; and more united now than at 
 any former period of her history, Germany will find 
 in her unity no less than in the justice of her 
 cause, a pledge that the war will be succeeded by a 
 lasting peace, and that from this bloody seed will 
 spring a Divine harvest of German unity and 
 freedom." 
 
 The invasion of the Rhine provinces by France, 
 which all the world in the first instance had 
 assumed as a certainty, was becoming more and 
 more unlikely ; and the gathering of German 
 troops in the vicinity of the frontier line was 
 already well advanced, when King William left his 
 capital on the evening of the 31st of July, on his 
 way to take the active command of his armies in 
 the field. His departure was made the occasion of 
 a most moving popular demonstration. His Majesty 
 drove to the station in an open victoria, with the 
 Queen sitting by his side, and the route was lined 
 by dense and enthusiastic crowds, who cheered the 
 royal couple with strong-lunged fervour. The 
 emotion of the scene and the occasion moved the 
 Queen to tears, and William's face was quivering
 
 224 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. ISTO. 
 
 as his hand nervously smoothed his white mous- 
 tache. Along the thronged streets, under the 
 crowded windows, the covered roofs, and the multi- 
 tudinous banners, the old soldier-monarch went 
 forth to his last campaign. At the station were 
 Bismarck, Moltke, Boon, Podbielski, and the per- 
 sonnel of a great staff. It was a touching scene 
 when the King embraced his wife amidst the 
 sympathetic silence of the vast throng. Augusta 
 was sobbing with uncontrollable emotion, and the 
 tears were running down the King's cheeks, as 
 amid cheering that vied with the din of the 
 thunder-storm which was raging, the train rolled 
 slowly out of the station. The departing King 
 had done a graceful act announced in lan- 
 guage that well became a sovereign going out to 
 head a nation in arms. " To my people," was the 
 following proclamation addressed : " On my depar- 
 ture to-day for the army, to fight with it for 
 Germany's honour and the preservation of our 
 most precious possessions, I wish to grant an 
 amnesty for all political crimes and offences, in 
 recognition of the unanimous uprising of my people 
 in this crisis. My people know with me that the 
 rupture of the peace and the provocation of war 
 did not come from our side. But, being challenged, 
 we are resolved, like our forefathers, placing full
 
 1870. FROM TSB RBINE TO SEDAN. 225 
 
 trust in God, to accept the battle for the defence 
 of the Fatherland." 
 
 The railways were so engrossed by the transport 
 of troops and material that the King's journey 
 from Berlin to Mayence, where his headquarters 
 afterwards known throughout the war indifferently 
 as the " Great " and as the " Eoyal " headquarters 
 remained established for several days, was rather 
 slow. On his arrival at Mayence, William issued 
 the following proclamation to his army : " All 
 Germany with one mind stands in arms against 
 a neighbouring State which has surprised us by 
 declaring war against us without any cause. The 
 defence of the threatened Fatherland, of our 
 honour and our hearths, is at stake. To-day I 
 undertake the command of the whole army, and I 
 advance cheerfully to a struggle which in former 
 times our fathers, similarly situated, fought out 
 gloriously. The whole Fatherland, and I, your 
 Sovereign, trust in you with confidence. The Lord 
 God will be with our righteous cause." They were 
 no empty words which William used when he 
 announced that he undertook the command of his 
 army. He was its chief in deed as well as in 
 name. He shared in the conception of the strategy 
 which Moltke instructed. Nothing of importance 
 was done without his cognisance and approval. 
 p
 
 226 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 His personality made itself felt, not alone in every 
 department of the great headquarter-staff tliat 
 served him directly, but throughout the whole 
 army in the field. All who were conversant with 
 the conduct of the Franco-German War were well 
 aware how little of a " figure-head " commander 
 was this King on campaign. Few foreigners had 
 better opportunities of judging how paramount 
 were William's supervision and authority than 
 had William Howard Russell, who thus bears his 
 testimony : " So far as I can see, there never was a 
 more real commander-in-chief than this aged King. 
 History will no doubt do him justice. At present 
 his glory is swallowed up or eclipsed in the fame of 
 Moltke and Bismarck ; but the King exercises the' 
 most active influence and control over the military 
 operations, and is absolutely and entirely para- 
 mount in his administration of the army, and in 
 his direction of its personnel. It was he who 
 created this vast host, and it is he who knows how 
 to use it. His eye is as clear and as keen as if he 
 were twenty instead of seventy-three, and he 
 understands the soldier from his boot-heel to the 
 spike on his helmet." 
 
 Before the King crossed the frontier, the two 
 great battles of Worth and of Spicheren had been 
 fought simultaneously on the 6th of August.
 
 1870. FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 227 
 
 Before then, on the 2nd of August, there had been 
 the promenade of Saarbriick, and on the 4th Douay 
 had been overwhelmed by numbers at Wissem- 
 bourg. Everywhere success had irradiated the 
 German arms, and already the uneasy consciousness 
 that their enemies were better men than themselves 
 had begun to sap that confidence which is 
 perhaps of more value to French soldiers than to 
 any other fighting men in the world. 
 
 It would be to write a history of the war to 
 describe in detail the various and frequently 
 changed dispositions of the German armies in the 
 field. At the outset there were three armies. The 
 First, commanded by General Steinmetz, consisted 
 of the 1st (East Prussian), 7th (Westphalian), and 
 8th (Ehineland) army corps, and the 1st and 3rd 
 cavalry divisions ; it numbered about 80,000 men, 
 and was gathered on the frontier between Treves 
 and Saarbriick. The Second Army was com- 
 manded by Prince Frederic Charles, nephew of 
 the King, and was composed of the Prussian 
 Guard, the 2nd (Pomeranian), 3rd (Brandenburg), 
 4th (Saxon Province), 9th (Hessian, &c.), 10th 
 (Hanoverian), and 12th (Royal Saxon) army corps, 
 with the Guard, 5th, 6th, and 12th cavalry divi- 
 sions ; it numbered little short of 200,000 men, 
 and its region of concentration inside the German 
 p 2
 
 228 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. ISTO. 
 
 frontier vr&s the western section of the Palatinate 
 The Third Army, commanded by the Crown Prince 
 of Prussia, had its route from Speyer by Landau, 
 to its region of concentration in the eastern portion 
 of the Palatinate, and was made up of the 5th 
 (Posen), 6th (Silesian), and llth (Mediatised Pro- 
 vinces), North German Army Corps, the 1st and 
 2nd Bavarian Army Corps, the Wiirtemberg and 
 Baden divisions, and the 2nd and 4th cavalry divi- 
 sions; the numerical strength of the Third Army 
 being in all about 175,000 men. The Prussian 
 official account puts the total strength of the 
 German field army at 462,000 infantry, 56,800 
 cavalry, and 1,584 guns ; and the same authority 
 states that, including the reserve and garrison 
 troops, the number of soldiers drawing rations in 
 August, 1870 (the month when the mobilisation 
 was virtually completed), amounted to 1,183,000 
 men. It should have been said that South Ger- 
 many had unanimously and enthusiastically thrown 
 in its fortunes with the North German Confedera- 
 tion, and thus disappointed the expectation, or at 
 least the hope, of Napoleon. 
 
 The King's headquarters reached Saarbriick on 
 the 8th of August, two days after the battle of 
 Spicheren had been fought. His Majesty had 
 rooms in the Hotel Guepratt, in the suburb of St.
 
 1870. FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 229 
 
 Johann. He was now in the only German town 
 the French had set foot in. Their occupation of 
 Saarbriick, barely two miles inside the frontier line, 
 was scarcely a great stride on the road to Berlin ; 
 but they never were to get further in that direction, 
 and they had held Saarbriick only for three days. 
 When the King reached the little frontier town, it 
 was crammed with the wounded of the Spicheren, 
 among whom the King went with words of sym- 
 pathy and encouragement. Already his Uhlans 
 were pushing on towards Metz and the Moselle, 
 and the infantry of both the First and Second 
 armies were steadily plodding on behind the 
 advanced fringe of horsemen. At length, on the 
 llth August, William in person invaded France. 
 On the previous day, indeed, he had crossed the 
 frontier to visit the battle-field of the 6th, where he 
 had looked down from the edge of the Spicheren 
 plateau on the steep ascent so gallantly stormed 
 by his soldiers, and where a peasant pointed out 
 to him the spot from which on the 2nd, the day of 
 the " baptism of fire," the Emperor Napoleon and 
 his son had watched the advance of Bataille's soldiers 
 on the long low ridge covering Saarbriick, held so 
 stoutly by Yon Pestel's handful. 
 
 There was no more railway travelling now for 
 the old monarch. From Saarbriick to Paris he was
 
 230 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. ISTO 
 
 to drive in his field carriage. That was a plain, 
 solid, strongly-built barouche, seated for four, but 
 the King seldom had more than one of his personal 
 aides-de-camp as travelling companion. Sometimes 
 Moltke or Eoon drove with him instead, and 
 occasionally, but not often, Bismarck, whose carriage 
 usually followed close behind the King's. The royal 
 carriage was drawn by a team of four fine dark 
 brown horses. The postilions there was no 
 coachman wore braided dark blue jackets, with 
 tall hats economically covered with waterproof. 
 The King's two valets sat on the box-seat. One of 
 these was an old man to all appearance as old as 
 his master who had been in the personal service 
 of his Majesty all his life. In front of the royal 
 carriage rode a detachment of the cavalry escort 
 commanded by a lieutenant ; there followed it on 
 the march the plain serviceable carriages of the 
 high officers of the staff ; behind those the vehicles 
 containing the minor functionaries ; and in rear of 
 these again the baggage waggons and a squadron of 
 led horses, the procession being closed by a smaller 
 section of the cavalry escort. The whole cortege 
 was plain, useful, and workmanlike ; the bag- 
 gage was cut down to severe field allowance ; and 
 in its sombre Spartan simplicity the campaigning 
 equipage of King William contrasted mightily with
 
 18701 FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 231 
 
 the elaborate and rather gaudy train which followed 
 Napoleon out of Sedan. 
 
 His first night on hostile soil King William 
 spent in the little town of Saint Avoid, occupying 
 a house which fronted on the market-place. Now 
 he was indeed " on campaign," although it was not 
 until a few clays later that he was to listen to the 
 cannon thunder. He was among his soldiers, and 
 to encourage them was at once his duty and his 
 pleasure. Hours of the next day he spent standing 
 in the market-place of Saint Avoid, greeting his 
 children as they strode by him in the steady, 
 persistent current of the advance. An eye-witness 
 describes the scene : " By his side was Moltke, 
 gaunt, thin, and wiry. Close behind stood Bismarck. 
 A few general officers stood about, but there was 
 no regular staff, nor anything like a guard or 
 escort. Interspersed among the generals were the 
 street boys of Saint Avoid, gazing up with eyes of 
 wonder at ' le Eoi Prussien.' A private soldier in 
 his shirt- sleeves, carrying a loaf in his hand, all but 
 floured his Majesty's elbow, and others stood around, 
 forming a close circle behind the officers. But if 
 King William was homely in his immediate sur- 
 roundings, those who stood by him were spectators 
 with him of a sight that might well flush his 
 cheek with pride and emotion. For during the
 
 232 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isro. 
 
 hours while the King stood in this market-place, 
 there ceased not to stream past him the army of 
 which he was the chief. Now it was a regiment 
 of white-coated, steel-breasted curassiers that came 
 on stately, the ground shaking under the tramp of 
 the great horses as the air vibrated to the mighty 
 cheer from the deep-chested men ; then a regiment 
 of infantry three battalions strong, each with its 
 band playing at its head, the men marching 
 eight abreast, and already seasoned in the march 
 and the bivouac, looking fit to do anything and go 
 anywhere. The cheering swelled into a shout of 
 proud joy as regiments came by with ranks already 
 thinned by the desperate storm of Spicheren, and 
 when the King with a wave of his hands greeted 
 them with the appreciative ' Morgen, Knappe 
 Jungens ! ' Hussars, Uhlans, horse - artillery 
 diversified the dense masses of infantry, all arms 
 appearing equally serviceable. With all the field 
 officers the King shook hands and exchanged 
 a few words, but he seemed best pleased to look 
 into the enthusiastic faces of his men as they 
 passed. King as he was, he was none the less 
 a soldier. It was amusing to hear him reprove a 
 man for being out of step, and another for 
 having his needle-gun on the wrong shoulder. 
 No one would have imagined that the upright
 
 1870. FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 233 
 
 form and square shoulders carried a load of seventy- 
 three years.'* 
 
 On the 13th the king's headquarters moved 
 forward through Faulquemont, a little dung-hill 
 village a couple of marches south-east of Metz, 
 whither not a week before Napoleon had driven 
 out of Metz with Changarnier, to take counsel 
 with poor Bazaine trying to make the best of a 
 bad business ; and on a few miles nearer the 
 Moselle to the village of Herny, where his Majesty 
 billeted himself on the priest. Next day old Stein- 
 metz rather rashly tried to take the bull by the 
 horns on his own account, and committed himself 
 to the bloody battle of Courcelles, or Borny, as 
 the French call it, with a fierce recklessness which 
 was by no means approved of in the royal head- 
 quarters. Next day the King, with Moltke and 
 Bismarck, rode over the field, approached Metz 
 so nearly that he was fired upon by the French 
 outposts, and, if tales were true, gave the old " lion 
 of Skalitz " rather a bad quarter of an hour. But 
 in after years Germans will acknowledge what a 
 contribution to the success of the great turning 
 movement the issue of which was the cooping up 
 of Bazaine in Metz, was this perhaps over-heavy 
 onslaught by Steinmetz on Bazaine's rear. 
 
 The desperate battle of Mars-la- Tour was
 
 234 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. i 87 o. 
 
 raging in full fury away there on the great plateau 
 beyond the Moselle, as the King drove through the 
 villages and the vineyards from Herny to the old 
 historic town of Pont-a-Mousson. Before he slept 
 on the night of the 16th there came news to him 
 from Prince Frederic Charles, quartered in Gorze 
 amidst a gruesome chaos of wounded, that on that 
 day had been fought the fiercest battle the Prussian 
 arms had known since Ligny. 
 
 Thus far Moltke's strategy had been successful. 
 Bazaine had tried, perhaps with no great heart in 
 his work, to obey the orders which bade him " get 
 on toward Chalons." Alvensleben had stood in his 
 path till Prince Frederic Charles had arrived, and 
 the issue of the day was the frustration of Bazaine's 
 attempt to move west. But Bazaine had not been 
 defeated, he had only been thwarted. He was still 
 out in the open, with diverse potentialities open to 
 him. The German conviction from the outset had 
 been that the French army of the Rhine would 
 exert its utmost effort to retire from the neighbour- 
 hood of Metz and effect a junction with MacMahon. 
 " Consequently," in the emphatic words of the 
 German Staff narrative, " all measures, from those 
 of the royal headquarters to the commander of an 
 advanced guard, were directed without remission to 
 the one end that of preventing the execution of
 
 1870. FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 235 
 
 the adversary's supposed intention." It was to that 
 end that Alvensleben had confronted the French 
 army with a single army corps ; to that end it was 
 that the King, early on the 17th, hurried to the 
 scene of the yesterday's battle, and spent long 
 hours with Prince Frederic Charles, Moltke, and 
 Roon in discussing the dispositions for the imme- 
 diate future. The French had in a great measure 
 drawn backward from off the Rezonville plateau, 
 although they still held the section of it nearest 
 Gravelotte. The question with the King and those 
 about him, as the group surveyed the scene from 
 the Flavigny height on the morning of the 17th 
 the King had left Pont-a-Mousson for the previous 
 day's battle-field by da}*break was, What were 
 Bazaine's intentions ? Did he mean to fall back 
 upon Metz ? Did he mean to offer another battle 
 in his present position ere he did so ? Or was it 
 his intention still to attempt to get out of the trap 
 by a march on the Meuse along the northerly roads 
 leading from Metz ? 
 
 The dispositions for the morrow promulgated 
 by Moltke were calculated to cope with any of these 
 contingencies. Steinmetz was to stand fast be- 
 tween the Moselle and Grravelotte, to hinder French 
 offensive in that direction, while the army of Prince 
 Frederic Charles was to sweep to the north in a
 
 236 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. ig?o. 
 
 broad front, when, if Bazaine were marching out 
 by the northern roads, it would take him in flank 
 and force him to change front to accept battle. If, 
 again, Bazaine were standing fast in a position 
 covering Metz, Prince Charles's army, pivoting its 
 right on Steinmetz, would make a great wheel to 
 the right, and confront if not overlap the stationary 
 Bazaine. Orders issued to this effect, the King 
 and his staff drove back to Pont-a-Mousson. 
 
 Before the sun of Gravelotte rose, William was 
 on his way back to the scene of the impending 
 battle. He took his stand on the height above 
 Flavigny, among the thickest of the ghastly debris 
 of the battle of the 16th. As the morning waned 
 toward noon, reconnaisances made it apparent that 
 Bazaine was awaiting battle in a strong position 
 west of Metz, his left on the Moselle above Metz, 
 his right stretching away northward, with a little 
 westerly inclination, over Amanvillier and St. Privat 
 to Eoncourt, where his right flank stood somewhat 
 in the air. This once ascertained, it took time for 
 Prince Frederic Charles's army to effect its great 
 wheel, and meanwhile, the task of Steinmetz was 
 simply to " hold " Bazaine's left and left centre, 
 pending the development of the attack of the 
 Second Army. This he did with artillery fire, using 
 infantry only to clear the French advance-post out
 
 1870. FEOM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 237 
 
 of Gravelotte. But as the day drew on, Stein metz's 
 infantry had come into action, had fought their 
 way across the deep ravine of the Mance, and with 
 terrible losses carried the chateau and garden of 
 St. Hubert ; and were trying to press forward up 
 the natural glacis stretching down from the crest of 
 the ridge at Point du Jour, in the teeth of a dread- 
 ful hailstorm of artillery, mitrailleuse, and chassepot 
 fire. The King and his staff had ridden forward 
 from their original position at Flavigny, till they 
 had reached the Rezonville swell. But this was 
 not near enough to the heart of the battle for the 
 keen old soldier. He still rode on until about 
 five o'clock he had reached almost to the verge of 
 the Bois de Genivaux, on the heights on the 
 further side of which the fight was swaying back- 
 wards and forwards, as now one side, now the other, 
 fed the fire of the battle with fresh fuel. Sitting 
 there on horseback on the Grravelotte-Malmaison 
 road, the whole arena of the Steinmetz attack lay 
 before him. 
 
 Slowly, as he watched, the French cannonade 
 in front of him abated its virulence. The chassepot 
 fire flickered almost out ; one might have thought 
 the personal presence of the old King had assuaged 
 the fierceness of the strife. But the comparative 
 stillness in front of him enabled William to hear
 
 238 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isro, 
 
 that the fire was becoming intenser to northward of 
 him an indication that Prince Frederic Charles 
 had brought his army to close quarters. That was 
 the signal that it behoved Steinmetz to co-operate 
 with his utmost vigour, if the adversary was to be 
 crushed all along his front. William caught the 
 moment, and ordered Steinmetz to fall on with his 
 last man, and so " end the business/' The Second 
 Army Corps, that had been standing in reserve 
 behind Gravelotte, was ordered to co-operate in the 
 impending attack. 
 
 As it began to develop, the French suddenly 
 shook off their temporary torpor. The French 
 batteries renewed their fire vigorously, and poured 
 on the woods and on the Gravelotte plateau beyond 
 a tempest of projectiles. The French infantry, 
 for once relieved from the defensive and restored 
 to its traditionary metier of the attack, dashed for- 
 ward with the grand old elan, and swept the 
 Germans backward down the slope almost into the 
 Mance valley. 
 
 Under the stroke of that fierce impact, under 
 the hurricane of missiles that beat upon the troops 
 unassailed by the French infantry, Steinmetz's army 
 reeled to its base. It may be said, without exaggera- 
 tion, that for the moment the whole of that army 
 was on the run. The old King was carried back-
 
 187U FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 230 
 
 ward in the surging press, resisting vehemei tly the 
 while, and expostulating with great fervour of ex- 
 pression with the component parts of the momen- 
 tary debacle. It was a spasm of awful crisis. A 
 real panic was imminent, and there were the shells 
 swishing venomously into the recoiling masses, 
 every explosion intensifying the infectious nervous- 
 ness. If the German front had quite broken, if 
 Gniigge's battery had been swept clean away from 
 the St. Hubert garden wall some of his guns 
 were carried down the current of fugitives King 
 William would hardly have slept that night in 
 Rezonville. 
 
 But the front braced itself, and held its own. 
 The panic died out as fast as it had kindled. 
 Still the French shell-fire kept crashing into the 
 huddled masses, however, around the spot where 
 the King and his rather dishevelled staff were 
 gathered together again. The whisper went round 
 among the personages that this was hardly the place 
 for his Majesty. But who would bell the cat ? 
 Bismarck had been rather snubbed at Koniggratz 
 for that sort of office or officiousness. It did not 
 seem to be Moltke's affair. At length Boon 
 greatly dared; as an old personal comrade and 
 friend of William, he might perhaps venture 
 on the liberty. As Eoon spoke desiring simply
 
 240 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 to point out that his Majesty was risking his life 
 very freely, the King took his binocular from his 
 eyes, looked hard at honest Roon for a moment, 
 and then with a smile turned his horse's head back- 
 ward toward Eezonville. 
 
 As he went he passed a portion of the 2nd corps, 
 that was being hurried forward to throw its weight 
 into the wavering scale. He halted while the regi- 
 ments passed him at the double, cheering as they 
 went, and then rode on to Rezonviile, where on the 
 edge of the village nearest to Gravel otte a seat was 
 made for him on a ladder, one end of which rested 
 on a weighing-machine, the other on a dead horse. 
 Moltke and other officers of the royal headquarter 
 staff had not gone back with the King, but stood 
 on the Grravelotte edge of the Mance ravine, to 
 watch the issue of the 2nd corps' effort. The sun 
 had set on the lurid scene. The strain of the crisis 
 was sickening as tidings were awaited. The 
 King seemed forcing himself to be still. Bis- 
 marck, with an elaborate assumption of indifference 
 that his restlessness belied, made pretence to be 
 reading letters. The roar of the close battle 
 swelled and deepened till the very ground trembled. 
 The night came down like a pall, but the blaze of 
 an adjacent conflagration lit up the anxious group 
 here by the churchyard wall. From out the
 
 1870. FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 241 
 
 medley of broken troops littering the plain in front, 
 came suddenly a great shout that grew in volume 
 as it rolled nearer. The hoofs of a galloping horse 
 rattled on the causeway. A moment later, Moltke, 
 his face for once quivering with excitement, sprang 
 from the saddle, and running toward the King, 
 cried out : " It is good for us ; we have won the 
 plateau, and the victory is with your Majesty ! " 
 The King sprang to his feet with a " God be 
 thanked ! " Bismarck, with a great sigh of relief, 
 crushed his letters in the hollow of his hand, and 
 a simultaneous hurrah welcomed the glad tidings. 
 A sutler who happened to be hard by improved 
 the occasion in a quaintly practical way; he 
 brought up his wine-barrel, and dispensed its con- 
 tents. King William took a hearty pull of the 
 thin red wine out of a cracked tumbler, and never 
 made a wry face. 
 
 There was neither food nor accommodation in 
 that miserable shattered village ; every room, every 
 passage, every shed, every cellar of which were 
 crammed with wounded men, groaning in their 
 agony. The King meant to sleep in his carriage, 
 in the midst of wounded men and dead horses, but 
 at length a room was found for him in a little 
 public-house, and a couple of cutlets were forth- 
 coming for his supper. There was no food for 
 9,
 
 242 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1370. 
 
 anybody else. Of how Bismarck fared, General 
 Phil Sheridan of the American army, who was 
 with the royal staff as Commissioner from the 
 United States, tells a comical story. He, an old 
 campaigner, had marked a likely house, whither 
 Bismarck and he went. The ground floor was 
 packed with wounded soldiers, and the old crone 
 who owned the place protested with vehement 
 emphasis that her cottage had no upstairs. Sheri- 
 dan was too polite to call the old lady a liar, hut 
 he mildly asked her, if there were no upstairs, 
 where, then, did that staircase lead to ? Sheridan 
 had attended a class of practical logic during four 
 years of unremitting campaigning. At the top of 
 the staircase there was a little attic-room, with 
 three beds in it. Sheridan, as the finder of the 
 prize, claimed the bed with the cleanest sheets ; 
 Bismarck and his cousin slept in the second bed, 
 and the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg and his aide- 
 de-camp occupied the third. All, perforce, went 
 supperless to bed, save Sheridan, who gnawed a 
 crust of black bread which Prince Albert, the 
 King's brother, had given him, as a polite attention 
 to a distinguished foreigner and guest. Next 
 morning Sheridan was up early prospecting around, 
 and presently came back with a couple of eggs 
 which he had coaxed the old woman out of; at
 
 1870. FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 243 
 
 least he said this was how he got them, and he 
 looked sublimely innocent when Bismarck picked a 
 stray feather off the sleeve of his coat. Bismarck 
 went across and borrowed a little coffee from the 
 King, and he and Sheridan made a feeble pretence 
 of breakfast off the two eggs and the coffee. 
 Btisch gives Bismarck's account of the experiences 
 of this eventful night; Sheridan's recollections 
 differ in some minor details from those set down 
 by the great Chancellor's Boswell. 
 
 On the morning after Gravelotte, the King, 
 still quartered in the pothouse at Hezonville among 
 the dead and wounded, decreed the immediate 
 investment of Metz, and entrusted Prince Frederic 
 Charles with the task of neutralising Bazaine and 
 the army of the Rhine. The morrow saw the 
 environment virtually accomplished. With the 
 Prince was left the whole of the First Army, and 
 part of his own the Second. But France had 
 still to be conquered, and to co-operate with the 
 Crown Prince of Prussia's army in what future 
 work this undertaking might entail outside the 
 Metz theatre of war, three army corps the Prus- 
 sian Guards, the 4th, and the 12th were taken 
 from Prince Frederic Charles's command, and con- 
 stituted into a fourth army, to be called the Army 
 of the Meuse, the command of which was entrusted
 
 244 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isro. 
 
 to the Crown Prince of Saxony, an able soldier 
 who had materially helped to win the victory of 
 Gravelotte. This new army, and the Third Army 
 commanded by the Crown Prince of Prussia 
 were to sweep onward toward Paris on a broad 
 front, fighting MacMahon if he should offer battle, 
 whether at Chalons or elsewhere in its track, and 
 making all haste to bring about the " psychological 
 moment." 
 
 Those arrangements thus promptly decided on, 
 the King and his headquarter staff returned on the 
 19th to Pont-a-Mousson ; but not until William 
 had spent many hours riding about among his 
 victorious troops, and personally attending to 
 arrangements for the care of the vast mass of 
 wounded soldiers. At Pont-a-Mousson on the 
 20th, the Crown Prince of Prussia visited his 
 venerable father, to -congratulate him on the success 
 of the Metz battles, and to receive instructions as 
 to the spirit of the new dispositions, and their 
 influence on the immediate future of his own army, 
 now mostly west of Nancy, with faces set towards 
 Chalons. It was not until the 23rd that the 
 Royal headquarters left Pont-a-Mousson, and 
 crossing the saddle between the valley of the 
 Moselle and the valley pf the Meuse, halted in the 
 pretty little town of Commercy. All the region
 
 1870. FROM THE BHTNE TO SEDAN. 245 
 
 in which the King now found himself was familiar 
 ground, although more than half a century had 
 passed over his head since he had fought and 
 marched in Champagne. In Commercy he was 
 quartered in the same house he had occupied in 
 1814. When on the following day he drove 
 through the little town of Ligny, he recalled to 
 mind his previous entrance into its market-place, 
 when the three allied sovereigns rode abreast 
 Alexander of Russia in the centre ; and behind 
 them a huge staff, " a whole regiment of princes, 
 marshals, dukes, and generals," in which brilliant 
 cohort he had ridden. Two nights (24th and 25th) 
 the King spent in Bar-le-Duc, awaiting develop- 
 ments that might sensibly affect the German 
 dispositions. 
 
 MacMahon, it had been known, was concen- 
 trating and reconstituting an army at Chalons. 
 Rumours had come that he had evacuated that 
 vicinity, but whither had he gone? In lack of 
 information on this point, the German march west- 
 ward had been continued. But late on the 25th 
 intelligence reached the Royal headquarters which 
 led to the belief that MacMahon's objective was 
 the relief of Bazaine by a wide turning movement 
 to the north, round the right flank of the German 
 army. The news was true. MacMahon had gone
 
 246 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 1870. 
 
 on a forlorn hope ; at the bidding of the politicians 
 in Paris. The idea was not absolutely crazy- 
 only relatively so. Partial success might have 
 been attained if the Army of Chalons had been 
 so equipped and organised as to be swiftly, com- 
 pactly, and purposefully mobile; but the reverse 
 was the case. In MacMahon's favour was the 
 element of surprise. Precious moments he had 
 indeed lost, yet on the evening of August 25th he 
 was actually in position with 150,000 men on the 
 right flank of the German army facing westward, 
 while the latter had still no sure evidence that its 
 adversary was not in its front, somewhere between 
 it and Paris. 
 
 The 26th furnished that evidence decisively, 
 and the German army, with extraordinary alacrity 
 and deftness, changed front to the right and 
 marched northward with hasty speed to strike 
 MacMahon in the act of his exposure of his 
 strategic flank. The Crown Prince of Saxony 
 hurried to head him while the great German 
 wheel, which yet was not so much a wheel as a 
 rearrangement of front, was in progress. That 
 operation is one of the most wonderful episodes of 
 modern war, viewed simply as a tactical evolution, 
 carried out in conditions where chaos seemed all 
 but inevitable, dexterously, smartly, without con-
 
 1870. FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 247 
 
 fusion, and with amazing speed. In the closing 
 days of August, MacMahon, who had hoped against 
 hope to steal a march on the Germans, found that 
 they had not only effectually cut him off from 
 his Metz objective, but were actually barring his 
 line of retreat westward; and on the 1st of 
 September the grand catastrophe occurred. In less 
 than a week after the Germans had first detected 
 MacMahon's movement, they had mobbed him in 
 the open, and the army of Chalons had ceased to 
 exist. 
 
 To Clermont in Argonne the royal headquarters 
 moved on the afternoon of the 26th among the 
 soldiers of the Meuse army, whose commander, the 
 Crown Prince of Saxony, the King found there. 
 On the 29th the King moved northward through 
 Varennes to Grand Pre, following up his troops, 
 who on their part were following up the French. 
 The latter had evacuated Grand Pre only on the 
 day before the King entered it. They had not 
 been kind to the place, and in default of better 
 quarters, William billeted himself in the modest 
 house of the local apothecary, in the principal 
 street. On the 30th he watched the progress of 
 the battle of Beaumont, in which the Crown Prince 
 of Saxony distinguished himself so greatly by the 
 skilful handling of his troops. It was the Fourth
 
 248 WILLIAM OF GEKUANY. ism 
 
 Army Corps, of his command, and not the Bavarians, 
 as generally believed, that so effectively surprised 
 de Failly by a shower of shell- fire on his un- 
 guarded camp while the unsuspicious Frenchmen 
 were cooking and cleaning their arms. The 
 cannonade was already echoing in the distance 
 when his Majesty near noon drove through the 
 little town of Busancy, a few miles beyond which 
 he took horse and rode forward to an elevation 
 which commanded part of the battle-ground, and 
 from which was visible across the valley the 
 high spur of ground outside the village of Stonne, 
 whence the Emperor Napoleon was watching the 
 combat which presaged so ominously for him. 
 
 As William stood with the princes and his staff 
 about him, and looked down on the scene from his 
 elevated position on the Sommauthe height, the 
 prospect that lay under his eyes was so lovely that 
 its beauty might well have distracted attention from 
 the bloody work outraging the calm sweetness of 
 Nature. Immediately below him was a broad 
 shallow valley lined with woods of a beautiful deep 
 green. Beyond, an open, gently-rising country, in 
 the slope of which, away to the right, half-nestled 
 among the trees, was the pretty little town of 
 Beaumont with its fine old church. To the left 
 front, among the exuberant foliage, were scattered
 
 isfo. FEOM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 24 
 
 villages, lying at the gates of fine country houses. 
 Beyond the gently-swelling ground behind Beau- 
 mont the prospect was closed in by the dark blue 
 hills of the Ardennes, seen dimly in the haze of the 
 heat and the cannon smoke. 
 
 All day long the combat raged, watched intently 
 by the old monarch. As the dusk began to gather 
 a fire was kindled, for the Ardennes air is chilly 
 when the sun goes down, and by it sat the King 
 on a camp-stool, still watching the battle intently 
 through his field-glasses. The German shells 
 crashed into Beaumont, and the flames from burning 
 houses rose almost as high as the spire of the old 
 church. The French, still fighting desperately, 
 were slowly driven over the ridge behind it ; and 
 then there was a sauve qui pent towards the Meuse. 
 Some got across by swimming, perhaps more were 
 drowned, and more still of the broken and driven 
 men were fain to surrender to the conquerors. So 
 sweeping was the German success that the Crown 
 Prince of Saxony quartered himself for the night 
 in Beaumont. The King drove back as far as 
 Busancy, whither, as he watched the battle, his 
 quarters had been removed from Grand Pre. It 
 was late and very dark when he reached the humble 
 billet which was all the little place could afford, for 
 the first part of the road had been cumbered by the
 
 250 WILLIAM OF QERMANT. 1570. 
 
 wounded, and then there had to be passed great 
 columns of troops still on the march, and long trains 
 of ammunition and provision waggons. But the 
 King took back to Busancy the realisation that the 
 end was now close at hand for MacMahon and his 
 army. It appeared all but certain that further 
 pressure on it must force the army of CMlons 
 against, if not across, the Belgian frontier, and by 
 the King's direction Bismarck had already tele- 
 graphed to Brussels his Majesty's expectation that 
 if French troops should enter Belgium they should 
 be immediate!} 7 disarmed. Specific orders were 
 issued to the German army that if French troops 
 crossed the Belgian frontier and did not immediately 
 undergo disarmament, they were to be promptly 
 followed without regard to Belgium's neutrality. 
 The Germans on campaign take no concern with 
 fine distinctions. 
 
 On the evening of the 31st August the two 
 opponents were facing each other, their advanced 
 troops in immediate contact. The boldly conceived 
 but feebly attempted plan of the French for the 
 relief of Metz had failed before the rapid initiative 
 of the German strategists and the extraordinary 
 marching powers of the German soldier. The Army 
 of Chalons stood gathered in a curve round the 
 obsolete fortress of Sedan. Its situation was almost
 
 1870. FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 251 
 
 if not altogether hopeless; the only alternatives 
 presenting themselves were a refuge in the Belgian 
 territory, or a desperate attempt to escape west- 
 ward over Mezieres. Its leaders apparently failed 
 adequately to appreciate the desperate character of 
 the situation. The troops were being rested, when 
 it was imperatively necessary that they should be 
 marching fast and far. Only two of several bridges 
 across the Meuse were destroyed. The Emperor 
 and MacMahon seemed to apprehend no impedi- 
 ments to a retirement on Mezieres, the former 
 leaning on the broken reed of a road which he 
 believed was unknown to the Grermans, but which 
 was marked on their staff maps. 
 
 Opposite this cramped and precarious position 
 of the French stood a victorious and superior army 
 of Grermans deployed on a broad concave front. On 
 the east and south-east the army of the Crown 
 Prince of Saxony barred the space between the 
 Meuse and the Belgian frontier. On the south the 
 army of the Crown Prince of Prussia held the line 
 of the Meuse, and had its left wing free to swing 
 round and bar the French retreat westward. In 
 effect, MacMahon's army was in a complete trap. 
 And so strong were the Grermans that they could 
 afford to keep a whole army corps out of the im- 
 pending conflict altogether, fresh for any enterprise
 
 252 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. IBTO. 
 
 which the contingencies of the future might 
 demand. 
 
 On the morning of the 31st the King left 
 Busancy early, and drove over the scene of the 
 previous day's fighting, through Sommauthe and 
 onward through the pleasant country to Beaumont, 
 where he had a consultation with the Crown Prince 
 of Saxony. Everywhere were soldiers and every- 
 where wounded, and for all his Majesty had a 
 cheery, kindly word. Blisch relates an anecdote of 
 this day told him by Bismarck. " Near the church 
 (of Beaumont) the King noticed a soldier who 
 was wounded. Although the man looked some- 
 what dirty from his work of the day before, the 
 King held out his hand, to the great surprise, no 
 doubt, of the French officer who was standing by, 
 and asked the man what was his trade. He 
 answered that he was a doctor of philosophy. 
 ' Well, you must have learned to bear your wounds 
 philosophically,' said the King. ' Yes,' answered 
 the soldier ; ' that I had already made up my mind 
 to." A mile beyond Beaumont, at a village called 
 Crehanges, the King had arranged a breakfast, at 
 which he entertained Bismarck, his own staff, and 
 the officers of the suite of the Crown Prince of 
 Saxony. Thence he drove onward through Kau- 
 court to Che*mery, where his son had established
 
 1870. FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 253 
 
 his headquarters, and where a council of war to 
 consider the arrangements for the morrow was 
 held, those present being, besides his Majesty and 
 the Crown Prince, Moltke, Podbielski, and Blum- 
 enthal, chief of Staff to the Crown Prince. From 
 Chernery the King drove on a few kilometre's 
 further to the pretty village of Vendresse, where 
 his quarters were for the night in a large handsome 
 chateau. 
 
 There was early stirring in the German head- 
 quarters on the morning of the 1st September, the 
 memorable day of Sedan. The Crown Prince had 
 quitted Chemery before daylight, and made for his 
 commanding position on the hill of Donchery. 
 Already by three A.M. the 5th and llth Army 
 Corps had broken up from their bivouacs in the 
 valley, and were crossing the Meuse at Donchery 
 on the long arduous march prescribed to them, 
 thereby they were to turn the right flank of the 
 French, and giving the hand to the Gruard Corps 
 between them and the Belgian frontier, complete 
 the fell cincture of blood and iron. Already by 
 four A.M., in a mist from the water-meadows so 
 dense that no man could see ten yards in front of 
 him, von der Tann's Bavarians were crossing the 
 railway-bridge and moving forward to tho awful 
 tragedy of Bazeilles, amid the roar of the cannon
 
 254 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 1870. 
 
 covering the advance. Half an hour later the 
 Guards were sturdily climbing the slope in front of 
 Grivonne, and the Saxons were pushing over the 
 broken ground with their faces set for La Moncelle. 
 By the time the sun drove away the fog, the battle 
 was in full activity on the eastern and southern 
 faces of the French position. 
 
 About seven o'clock the old King, driving 
 through Chemery and Chehery to its foot, and 
 thence riding to the summit, reached the bare- 
 flat top of the hill of Frenois, a position chosen 
 for him as commanding a wide view of the theatre 
 of operations. The fog had by this time yielded 
 to the sun and the air which, where untainted 
 by cannon smoke, was on this day singularly clear. 
 At the foot of the hill gleamed through the 
 trees the white Chateau Bellevue, soon to be- 
 come historic. To right of it, between Frenois 
 and Wadelincourt, there were Bavarian batteries in 
 steady, measured action. The Meuse wound through 
 the broad fertile valley from right to left. Away 
 there across the river to the right, a column of 
 black smoke curling up from out a shallow fold in 
 the terrain told where the village of Bazeilles was 
 burning. The roofs and spires of Sedan, on the 
 face of the gentle slope, showed above the fortifica- 
 tions which were so formidable when Vauban con-
 
 1870. FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 255 
 
 structed them, and now so obsolete. To the west 
 of the town ran out a long bare plateau, with an 
 abrupt drop down into the river meadows on the 
 south and west ; the village just at the base of its 
 bastion-like projection was Moing whence the 
 plateau was to take the name that will endure 
 down the ages. Far away to the extreme right, 
 the clouds of white smoke told where the army of 
 the Crown Prince of Saxony was fighting hard ; 
 and if one scanned closely the undulating country 
 on the exteme left, one might perchance discern a 
 fitful gleam of steel that told where the stout 
 soldiers of the 5th and llth corps were pressing 
 on steadfastly in that long arduous turning move- 
 ment that had been prescribed to them. Already 
 the German ring, which in a few hours was to be 
 welded fast and true, was partly defined. Neither 
 troops nor cannon smoke showed as yet on the 
 upland in the northern distance, behind which the 
 dark wooded hills of the Belgian Ardennes closed 
 in the picture. 
 
 It was a remarkable assemblage that had gathered 
 on the stubbles here on the summit of the hill of 
 Frenois to watch, as a surgeon might watch a 
 patient in extremis, the death-throes of the army 
 of Chalons. Out to the front, observant, un- 
 demonstrative, the intensity of his interest in what
 
 256 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. ISTO. 
 
 lie saw betrayed only by the constant handling of 
 the heavy white moustache, stood the old King in 
 full uniform. Close behind him in a group were 
 Moltke, Eoon, and Podbielski, and behind them 
 again, somewhat scattered, stood or sat the person- 
 ages of the staff and suite. Old Prince Charles 
 the King's brother, the Grand Dukes of Weimar 
 and Coburg-Gotha, the Hereditary Grand Duke of 
 Mecklenburg, generals, aides-de-camp, marshals of 
 the household. Among the Germans were the 
 military representatives of foreign powers ; Kutu- 
 soff, the Russian ; Colonel Walker, the British 
 military attache ; General Sheridan, the military 
 commissioner from the United States. Another 
 little group, of which the centre was Bismarck, 
 occupied ground a little on the left flank; the 
 great Chancellor himself sat on the edge of the 
 stubble field, more engrossed to all appearance in 
 the perusal of documents than in the study of the 
 battle- field. The position was within range of the 
 fortress guns of Sedan, and occasionally, especially 
 in the morning, projectiles fell at no great distance 
 from where the King stood. He would not give 
 up nevertheless the commanding position which 
 afforded so wide a range of view, but he had given 
 directions that the groups behind him should in 
 some measure scatter themselves, so that as much
 
 1870. FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 257 
 
 as might be temptation for hostile fire should be 
 diminished. 
 
 The hard fighting during the morning was 
 chiefly on the east and south-east of Sedan, at too 
 great a distance for the progress of events to be 
 accurately discerned from the King's position ; but 
 news came that after a desperate struggle with 
 Turcos and Zouaves, the Saxons had fought their 
 way through the woods overhanging the hollow of 
 the Givonne valley, and had forced a victorious path 
 into the village of Daigny. The Prussian Guards 
 had carried the village of Givonne after experienc- 
 ing a fierce resistance, and their right flank was in 
 possession of the hamlet of La Chapelle, further 
 to the northward. Already by noon the hussars of 
 the Guard were pushing forward through the 
 Ardennes forest, feeling for the head of the 5th 
 corps the other claw of the great crab. Bazeilles 
 or rather the burnt and blood-stained skeleton 
 of what at sunrise had been Bazeilles was at 
 length in the hands of the Bavarians, after a long 
 and furious street-fight, envenomed into ruthless 
 bitterness by the passionate folly of its civilian 
 population. 
 
 But before noon the great telescope that had 
 been mounted on a tripod in front of where 
 Moltke stood with his maps spread out at his feet, 
 a
 
 258 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. ISTO. 
 
 had been slewed round so as to point in a north- 
 easterly direction. The other limb of the great 
 impending hug was making itself manifest. The 
 5th and llth corps, which had crossed the 
 Meuse at Donchery in the first hours of the 
 morning, had marched round the great Iges 
 bend. The former corps, on the outside of the 
 great wheel, having made its northing, then headed 
 almost due east on Fleigneux, to meet the Guards 
 edging westward to give it the hand, and so fasten 
 the clasp of the belt of environment. The llth 
 corps for its part, having got round the great Iges 
 bend, marched partly east on St. Menges, partly 
 inclined more to the south-east, so as to hold the 
 space between the Meuse and the 5th corps. For 
 the French there was a dread significance in this 
 combined movement of these two corps. Until it 
 developed, the French field, so to speak, was walled 
 up only on two sides, the east and the south. But 
 this movement of the 5th and llth corps, if 
 accomplished, would close a third side of the field, 
 the western, and presaged ominously also the com- 
 pletion of the enclosure along the fourth, the 
 northern side. 
 
 But the French were at first entirely unaware of 
 these menacing preparations in progress to westward 
 of them. The village of St. Menges was occupied
 
 im FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 259 
 
 by the Prussians without a struggle, and so the 
 space between it and the Meuse, traversed by the 
 road on which Napoleon had professed to build his 
 hopes, was blocked fast against the French. Gradu- 
 ally, as the Prussians completed the great wheel, 
 and came up into their positions beyond St. Menges 
 eastward, the French danger developed itself. From 
 Floing, near the river, right round to beyond Illy 
 in the north-east, a hundred and fifty Prussian field 
 guns were raining their fire on the huddled French 
 army, while from the heights of Givonne the 
 artillery of the Guard was contributing its quota 
 of deadly cross-fire. The grip had been all but 
 effected, but not without fierce and reckless opposi- 
 tion on the part of the French. From the Cavalry 
 of Illy, Gallifet, with his brigade of chasseurs 
 d'Afrique, had surged down upon the Prussian 
 batteries in the act of deployment on the plain 
 south-east of St. Menges, only to recoil before the 
 torrent of shrapnel that struck his squadrons fair 
 in the face. Later the gallant Margueritte threw 
 his life away in a dashing attempt to drive back the 
 Prussian infantry, climbing on to the crest of the 
 plateau west of Illy. It was the flower of the 
 French cavalry that he led out from the Bois de 
 Garenne on this enterprise, his own five light regi- 
 ments, Savaresse's lancer brigade, and several 
 
 R 2
 
 260 WILLIAM OF GERMAN7. ism 
 
 cuirassier squadrons of Bonnemain's division. 
 Prussian shell-fire tore through the French cavalry, 
 riding chivalrously on their ruin ; musketry fire 
 rained on them its ruthless storm. Margueritte 
 went down, and Gallifet dashed to the front and 
 headed the onset. Broken and with sore-thinned 
 ranks, the French horsemen were not to be denied. 
 Their charge thundered right home on the detach- 
 ments of infantrymen that stood in their path. 
 Gallantly delivered, the furious onset was as 
 gallantly received. The Prussian linesmen met it 
 with their fire and with the bayonet, in open order 
 mostly ; only on open ground did the skirmishers 
 run into rallying groups for self-defence. 
 
 Upon the King's hill-top this onslaught was 
 watched with breathless interest. Every detail of 
 the hand-to-hand combat lay exposed to the watchers 
 there, gazing down on it through their field-glasses. 
 As the French horsemen recoiled from the firm 
 Prussian front, and rode back under a withering fire 
 that left half their number on the field, Sheridan, 
 the American general, himself a cavahy leader of 
 great experience and accustomed to gauge the 
 issues of battles, broke the strained silence by 
 closing his glasses with a snap, and exclaiming: 
 " It is all over with the French now ! " Men ran 
 up to him to shake him by the hand for the word,
 
 lg7o. FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 261 
 
 for they knew it came from the lips of a past 
 master in the art of war. 
 
 But it was not yet that the French were to own 
 to the truth of Sheridan's conclusion. The wild 
 confusion in which the struggle now surged back- 
 wards and forwards for about the space of half an 
 hour on the western edges and slopes of the plateau, 
 baffled even the methodical compilers of the Prus- 
 sian Staff record to describe it in detail. It was 
 indeed a lurid, an awful, yet a magnificent spectacle. 
 The cruel ring of German fire ever gathering in 
 more and more closely on that upland whereon 
 stood huddled the Frenchmen as if in the shambles ; 
 the storm of shell-fire that tore lanes through the 
 dense masses all exposed there to its pitiless pelting . 
 the impotent yet vehement revolts against the 
 inevitable in the shape of furious sorties; now a 
 wild headlong charge of cuirassiers, thundering 
 in glittering steel-clad splendour down the slope, 
 with a ponderous impetus that seemed resistless till 
 the biting fire of the German infantrymen smote 
 the charging squadrons fair in the face, and rolled 
 riders and horses into swift sudden death ; now the 
 frantic gallop to their fate of a regiment of light 
 horsemen on their grey Arab stallions up to the very 
 muzzles of the needle-guns that the German lines- 
 men held with so unwavering steadiness ; now a
 
 262 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1370. 
 
 spurt of red-trousered foot-soldiers darting against 
 a chance gap in the stern ring of environment, 
 quelled and crushed too surely by the ruthless 
 flanking fire. No semblance of order there, no 
 indication of leadership ; simply an inferno wherein 
 raged and writhed an indiscriminate mass of brave 
 men, rebelling against fate with a noble constancy 
 sublime as hopeless. But a struggle so one-sided 
 could not long endure. Slowly and reluctantly the 
 French began to move backward in the direction of 
 what shelter the nearer vicinity of Sedan might 
 afford. Repeated efforts of isolated detachments to 
 break out in a northerly direction were foiled by 
 the Germans without serious difficulty. 
 
 MacMahon had been wounded early in the day, 
 and after an interval long enough to be productive 
 of much ill, Wimpffen had succeeded him in the 
 command. He had been but forty-eight hours 
 with the army ; his ignorance of its condition, and 
 want of conversance with the situation generally, 
 told severely against him ; but Wimpffen was a 
 soldier of character, and would not have it that the 
 time had yet come to confess to hopelessness. He re- 
 solved on an attempt to break through the German 
 line in a south-easterly direction, designing to 
 throw the Bavarians back on the Meuse, and so 
 open a road toward Carignan.
 
 1870. FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 263 
 
 In more favourable conditions such an attempt 
 would have heen of the nature of a forlorn hope ; 
 but no chief could have been in a worse plight than 
 was Wimpffen that afternoon. He could get no 
 communication with his master the Emperor, who 
 was inside Sedan. He had no staff officers to carry 
 his orders to the corps commanders ; and most of 
 the troops with which he purposed making his 
 effort were already broken, and retiring in disorder 
 on Sedan. But nevertheless his effort, made with 
 a marine division, a few battalions of Zouaves, 
 and perhaps about 15,000 line troops, kept the 
 Saxons and Bavarians fighting hard all the after- 
 noon ere it was finally thwarted. All around the 
 circle the French kept up, until about five o'clock, 
 a resistance more or less fitful, notwithstanding 
 that before that hour the white flag was already 
 flying over Sedan. In the confusion it was impos- 
 sible to disseminate intelligence or orders if there 
 were any orders over so wide an area with any 
 speed ; and so desperate and reckless were a con- 
 siderable proportion of the French army, officers as 
 well as soldiers, that intelligence of the humiliation 
 of an armistice that could have but one result was 
 only an incentive to a yet more virulent resistance. 
 
 But by five o'clock the white flag had been 
 
 j 
 
 hoisted. An hour previous it had become apparent
 
 264 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. i#o. 
 
 to the King that his artillery commanded the entire 
 space upon which the French army stood helplessly 
 pressed together in confused masses. Reports from 
 all directions convinced him that he was every- 
 where in sufficient strength to defeat any attempt 
 to break through. Since the French down there 
 were stubborn, a yet acuter incentive than the 
 arguments already applied needed, it seemed, to 
 be administered. As in old times, in the name of 
 humanity, people in the last stage of hydrophobia 
 used to be put out of their agony by being 
 smothered, so the final death-throe of the French 
 army was to be artistically quickened up. To 
 quote the German official account : " A powerful 
 fire of artillery against the enemy's last point of 
 refuge appeared under the circumstances the most 
 suitable means for convincing him of the hopeless- 
 ness of the situation, and for inducing him to 
 surrender. With the desire to hasten the capitula- 
 tion, and thereby spare the German army any 
 further sacrifices, the King ordered the whole 
 available artillery to concentrate its fire upon 
 Sedan." 
 
 The artillery fire turned upon Sedan was not 
 long in producing the anticipated results. Flames 
 began to rise in several places from inside the fortifi- 
 cations the argument of fire was supporting the
 
 1870. FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 265 
 
 argument of blood and iron. Sedan, like most 
 towns which are surrounded by fortifications, is 
 very densely built, with narrow streets and few 
 open spaces. Putting out of view the civilian 
 population, it was literally crammed with troops 
 who had crowded into it in the illusive hope 
 to escape from under the torture of the German 
 nre. Every shell thrown into the place must 
 have told, and shells were rained upon it in hun- 
 dreds. A Bavarian battalion, moving forward on 
 the suburb of Torcy, pushed on toward one of 
 the gates of the fortress. Little resistance had 
 been encountered, and preparations were being made 
 for the escalade of the palisades, when the white 
 flag was run up over the local position. The 
 French officer in command at the same time desired 
 the Bavarian colonel to desist from any further 
 prosecution of his attacks, and expressed the desire 
 that the Germans should enter into negotiations. 
 The Bavarian colonel reported the situation to 
 General Maillenger, the commander of the brigade, 
 who moved up the nearest troops to points just 
 outside the Torcy gate, and sent an officer up to 
 the Frenois hill-top to inform the King of the 
 French proposals to negotiate. While he was 
 making his report, there broke out a spurt of hard 
 fighting down in Balan, close under the King's
 
 266 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. im. 
 
 eye, as if to mock the message which was being 
 delivered. 
 
 The King bade the Bavarian officer inform his 
 chief that all proposals in regard to negotiations 
 must be sent direct to the Eoyal headquarters, and 
 the Bavarian rode down again into the valley. His 
 Majesty entered into a consultation with the Crown 
 Prince, who had just ridden up from his own position 
 on the hill of Donchery, and with Bismarck, Moltke, 
 and Boon the Dukes of Weimar and Gotha stood 
 near, but were not called into council. As the 
 result of the conference, the King directed Colonel 
 von Bronsart of his staff to take with him Captain 
 von Winterfeld, to proceed to Sedan under a 
 flag of truce, and summon in his Majesty's name 
 the French commander-in-chief to surrender his 
 army and the fortress. The Prussian officers 
 were received at the Torcy gate by the local staff 
 of the fortress ; and Bronsart was sent forward 
 into the town, making his way with difficulty 
 through the huddled masses of wearied soldiery. 
 He had announced that the object of his mission 
 was to negotiate on behalf of the King his master 
 with the commander-in-chief of the French army ; 
 but he was conducted instead into a room of the 
 sub-prefecture, in which to his surprise he found 
 the Emperor Napoleon, of whose presence in Sedan
 
 1870. FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 267 
 
 the German headquarters had been in ignorance. 
 Wimpffen, for his part, was in Balan, still fighting 
 hard there. An hour before, as he had ridden 
 back toward Sedan from the direction of Daigny, 
 he had been met by an order from the Emperor 
 bidding him open negotiations with the Germans. 
 He had refrained from complying, believing that he 
 saw his way to cut through the Bavarians to Carig- 
 nan, and had diverged to Balan to pursue a local 
 success which he unquestionably gained. At his 
 instigation the rumour was sped through the 
 French forces in that region of the field that 
 Bazaine was at Carignan with the army of the 
 Bhine, and the white flag that had been hoisted 
 over Sedan was actually hauled down by General 
 Faure, Wimpffen's chief of staff. 
 
 Napoleon laboured under no illusions. At the 
 moment when Bronsart was ushered into his 
 presence, he was engaged in writing a letter to 
 the Prussian monarch acknowledging the hopeless- 
 ness of the situation. He told Bronsart, in answer 
 to his application for a French officer of rank to be 
 delegated with full powers to negotiate, that General 
 Wimpffen held the supreme command in place of 
 Marshal MacMahon, who had been wounded. This 
 answer he requested him to take back to the King, 
 and intimated further that he would send with
 
 268 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. ISTO. 
 
 him to the royal headquarters his aide-de-camp, 
 General Count Eeille, to deliver a letter to the 
 Prussian monarch. 
 
 Meanwhile, on the Frenois hill-top, general con- 
 gratulations had heen exchanged, and men now 
 found time to eat, pending the return of Bronsart. 
 An officer of the staff, who had ridden out to collect 
 information, came back with the intelligence that 
 the German losses, so far as had been ascertained, 
 were not very heavy ; moderate among the Guards, 
 somewhat larger with the Saxons, and less in the 
 other corps which had participated in the fighting. 
 Only a few of the French had escaped through the 
 forest toward the Belgian frontier ; all the rest had 
 been driven back on Sedan. 
 
 " And the Emperor ? " asked the King. 
 
 " Nobody knows,," answered the officer. 
 
 Tidings of the Emperor were on the way. Bron- 
 sart, riding out with Eeille, had sent Winterfeld on 
 in advance, with the information that Napoleon 
 was in Sedan, and that an emissary from him was 
 coming out. It was now past six o'clock. 
 
 When he had listened to Winterfeld's message, 
 the King, turning round to his retinue, and speak- 
 ing in a loud voice, said, " This, gentlemen, is 
 indeed a great success ! " Then, with a face of 
 pride and love, he turned to the Crown Prince and
 
 1870. FROM THE EHINE TO SEDAN. 269 
 
 added, " And I thank thee, who hast helped so well 
 toward it." With the words the old monarch held 
 out his hand to his son, who, bending low, kissed 
 it in much emotion; then he gave his hand to 
 Moltke, who also kissed it. When Bismarck, in 
 his turn, had kissed his master's hand, the King 
 and he drew aside, and talked earnestly. 
 
 Their conference was interrupted by Bronsart, 
 who rode on to announce Count Eeille's approach. 
 With the Uhlan in front bearing on his lance the 
 flag of truce, and with an escort about him of 
 Prussian cuirassiers, the French general came up 
 the hill at a walking pace. He dismounted a little 
 way off from where the King stood, out to the 
 front of his retinue ; stepped forward, doffing his 
 cap as he came, was presented by Bronsart, and 
 with a silent reverence handed to his Majesty the 
 Emperor's letter. Then he drew back, and stood 
 alone a little way apart, watching in melancholy 
 self-possession the scene before him. Count Eeille 
 had been the imperial equerry specially detailed to 
 attend on the King of Prussia when that monarch 
 was the Emperor's guest in the Tuileries in 1867. 
 
 The King broke the big red seal, and read the 
 few words which the letter contained. He stood a 
 brief moment in thought there was much in the 
 situation to give occasion for thought. It was as
 
 270 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1370. 
 
 if lie had to make an effort to preserve his compo- 
 sure; and it was in rather a broken voice that, 
 turning to his people, he read to them the few 
 words that told so much : 
 
 " Sire my Brother, 
 
 " Not having been able to die in the midst 
 of my troops, there is nothing left me but to 
 render my sword into the hands of your Majesty. 
 
 " I am, your Majesty's good brother, 
 
 " NAPOLEON." 
 
 The sword of his "good brother" was indeed 
 something, but it was not by any means all that the 
 other brother wanted. Indeed, this proffer of per- 
 sonal surrender rather complicated the situation, 
 while the army of Chalons remained uncapitulated. 
 The King and Bismarck talked earnestly together, 
 while the Crown Prince, with that gracious tact 
 which never deserts him, entered into conversation 
 with poor forlorn Reille, standing out there among 
 the stubbles. Presently this conversation was joined 
 in by Moltke and the Duke of Coburg-Gotha. The 
 Chancellor had called up his assistant, Count Hatz- 
 feld, and commissioned him to sketch an answer to 
 the imperial letter in the sense in which the King 
 had signified. Hatzfeld brought up the draft, and 
 the King wrote out his reply, sitting on one chair,
 
 1870. FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 271 
 
 and using the seat of another as a desk, held up 
 by Major von Alten, who knelt on one knee, sup- 
 porting the chair on the other. The reply was as 
 follows : 
 
 " My Brother, 
 
 " While regretting the circumstances in 
 which we meet, I accept your Majesty's sword, and 
 request that you will appoint one of your officers 
 and furnish him with the necessary powers to treat 
 for the capitulation of the army which has fought 
 so valiantly under your command. I for my part 
 have appointed General von Moltke to this duty. 
 
 " Your loving brother, 
 
 " WILLIAM." 
 
 With this laconic missive Reille rode back into 
 Sedan. After issuing orders that offensive move- 
 ments were to be suspended during the night, but 
 that any attempt on the enemy's part to break 
 out was to be repelled by force, the King drove 
 back to his quarters in Yendresse, receiving along 
 the road the most enthusiastic demonstrations on 
 the part of the troops. The great news had spread 
 like wildfire, and the array was in a wild rapture of 
 triumph. Inside Sedan it was a dreadful evening. 
 "Wimpffen had resigned in a transport of shame 
 and anger, and only withdrew his resignation at
 
 272 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1970. 
 
 the earnest and almost piteous entreaty of the 
 Emperor. The French generals handled insults 
 and reproaches in the very presence of their fallen 
 master. 
 
 While William rested in Vendresse the condi- 
 tions of the capitulation were being debated in 
 Donchery. Moltke and Bismarck had already 
 discussed the terms that were to be conceded, and 
 at the conference to which Wimpffen came so 
 reluctantly, Moltke demanded, and adhered to the 
 demand, that the French army should surrender 
 unconditionally; in the event of refusal, he was 
 prepared to enforce it next morning by an appeal 
 to arms. Wimpffen earnestly urged less stern con- 
 ditions, but in vain. At one A.M. of the 2nd the 
 conference broke up, no definite result having been 
 obtained. Wimpffen had not accepted Moltke's 
 offer that he should, by personal inspection of the 
 German positions, convince himself of the futility 
 of further resistance ; and Moltke, for his part, 
 had refused Wimpffen's petition for a twenty-four 
 hours' armistice, intimating that if his conditions 
 were not accepted by nine A.M. he would renew 
 hostilities. 
 
 At six o'clock Bismarck, lying asleep in Dr. 
 Jeanjot's front room in Donchery, was awakened by 
 his servant, who said that a French general was at
 
 1870. FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 273 
 
 the door and wanted to see him. It was Count 
 Reille, with the news that the Emperor was on his 
 way out of Sedan and desired a conference with the 
 Chancellor. Reille went away, and the Chancellor, 
 dressing and mounting, followed him along the 
 Sedan road. When some two kilometres had been 
 traversed, there was seen coming in the other 
 direction a shabby-looking open carriage, the four 
 persons seated in which wore gold-braided and laced 
 kepis. Bismarck, as he came alongside the carriage, 
 sprang from his horse, letting it go ; and drawing 
 near on foot, uncovered his head and bowed low. 
 The man to whom he spoke the man with the 
 leaden-coloured face, the lines of which were drawn 
 and deepened as if by some spasm, the gaunt-eyed 
 man with the dishevelled moustache and the weary 
 stoop of the shoulders, was none other than Napo- 
 leon the Third and last. Bismarck remounted 
 and followed the carriage on its route toward 
 Donchery, where he had placed at Napoleon's dis- 
 posal his own quarters. Scarcely a hundred yards 
 had been traversed when the Emperor, leaning 
 back and in obvious pain, told Bismarck he wished 
 to halt and alight. On a little bank, a few paces 
 off the road, stood a weaver's cottage, which the 
 Emperor wished to occupy. It was reported a 
 miserable place, but that, he said, did not matter. 
 
 8
 
 274 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. ISTO. 
 
 Bismarck and he went up to a room in the first 
 floor, where, and subsequently seated on chairs 
 outside in front of the house, they had a long 
 conversation. During it and again to Moltke, who 
 had been hastily summoned, Napoleon reiterated 
 his earnest wish for more favourable terms of 
 capitulation for his army. This purely military 
 question Bismarck declined to discuss, and Moltke 
 adhered resolutely to his unconditional stipulation. 
 When the problem of peace was discussed, the 
 Emperor had nothing to say. He was a prisoner, 
 and it was not for him to decide; he referred 
 Bismarck to the Government in Paris probably 
 discerning that a revolution would immediately 
 follow on the tidings of Sedan. So while Bismarck 
 rode away to Donchery to dress himself, Moltke 
 rode tov/ard Vendresse to meet the King and tell 
 him of the state of the negotiations, and of the 
 complication brought about by the advent of the 
 French Emperor in the German lines, while the 
 French army remained unsurrendered. Meanwhile 
 Napoleon strolled moodily up and down a path in 
 the potato plot by the side of the cottage, limping 
 slightly, and smoking cigarette after cigarette. A 
 detachment of cuirassiers had ridden up and formed 
 a cordon of videttes round the cottage. 
 
 About ten o'clock Bismarck returned, and led
 
 1870. FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 275 
 
 the way back in the direction of Sedan to the 
 Chateau Bellevue, a pretty house enclosed in orna- 
 mental grounds overhanging the Meuse. The 
 Emperor followed in his carriage, escorted hy the 
 cuirassier " guard of honour." The chateau 
 reached, he alighted wearily and dragged himself 
 up the steps leading to the main door. It must 
 have been a trying morning indeed, with little 
 to alleviate its bitterness for the crushed, stunned 
 man. A colloquy with Bismarck, stern of heart, 
 sharp if courteous of speech, unyielding in resolve, 
 for an hour or more ; then for another hour a list- 
 less inaction, while the man who had conquered 
 was to adjudge the future of the vanquished. 
 
 Eiding toward Vendresse, Moltke met the King 
 on the road near Che'hery. They had a conversation 
 under a tree a little way apart, when William fully 
 approved the proposed conditions of capitulation, 
 and intimated his declinature to see the French 
 Emperor until they had been accepted. Moltke had 
 given poor Wimpffen no rest. Before riding away 
 to meet the King, he had sent into Sedan an officer 
 with the blunt ultimatum that hostilities would be 
 recommenced at 10 A.M. unless by that hour there 
 was a prospect of the capitulation being arranged. 
 Wimpffen still refused to negotiate, urging in- 
 structions from the Emperor not to surrender until 
 s 2
 
 276 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1370. 
 
 the latter should have had an interview with the 
 German king. Captain Zingler remarked that his 
 instructions in that case were to give orders, as he 
 rode back, that the German cannon, 475 of which 
 were in position in a ring round Sedan, should 
 immediately open fire. In stress of an argument 
 like that, Wimpffen consented to renew the nego- 
 tiations. The King had so far modified Moltke's 
 terms, in acknowledgment of the brave defence made 
 by the army of Chalons, as to admit its officers to 
 their parole, allowing them to retain their swords 
 and personal property on condition of giving their 
 word of honour not to fight against Germany during 
 the war. The negotiations were concluded in the 
 Chateau Bellevue, and soon after eleven the capitu- 
 lation was signed. 
 
 The tidings were sent to the King, who was 
 awaiting them in his yesterday's position above 
 Frenois, surrounded by the German princes and a 
 great and illustrious retinue. It was a memorable 
 moment for him and for the country which he 
 ruled. It was under the influence of strong 
 emotion that his Majesty addressed to those around 
 him heartfelt words of acknowledgment of the 
 valour and conduct of the army he had led to 
 victories so momentous, and avowed the confident 
 hope of a great future for Germany. Then he
 
 I870t FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 277 
 
 mounted, he and his suite, and descending the hill, 
 rode his black charger to where, on the gravel 
 sweep in front of the Chateau Bellevue, the " guard 
 of honour " stood over the captive monarch inside. 
 As William dismounted, Napoleon came down the 
 steps to meet him. What a greeting ! The 
 German, tall, upright, bluff, square-shouldered, with 
 the sparkle of victory in the keen blue eye under 
 the helniet-peak, and the flush of success - on the 
 fresh cheek. The Frenchman, bent, leaden-faced, 
 his eye drooping, his lip quivering, bareheaded and 
 dishevelled. As the two clasped hands silently, 
 Napoleon's handkerchief was at his eyes, and 
 William's face was working strangely. Then the 
 " good and loving brothers " turned, and mounting 
 the steps, entered the chateau together. They 
 spoke for a few moments in an outer room, and 
 then withdrew into a little boudoir opening off the 
 library in the central turret. The Grown Prince 
 stepped to the door and closed it from the outside, 
 and for a quarter of an hour or so the two monarchs 
 remained closeted together. When they came out 
 the Emperor was visibly affected, and in talking 
 with the Crown Prince said, with much emotion, 
 that the King had treated him with great kindness 
 and generosity. As he spoke he brushed the tears 
 away from his eyes with the glove he carried in
 
 278 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isyo. 
 
 one hand, and was overcome for several seconds. 
 William spoke of his emotions in a letter he wrote 
 to Queen Augusta next day : " We were both much 
 moved at seeing each other again under such circum- 
 stances. What my feelings were I had seen 
 Napoleon only three years before at the summit of 
 his power is more than I can describe." The 
 Crown Prince gave Dr. Russell the following account 
 of what passed at the memorable interview, re- 
 counted to him by his royal father: "The Kiag 
 spoke first. God, he said, had given the victory 
 to his arms in the war that had been declared 
 against him. The Emperor replied that the war 
 had not been sought by him. He had not desired 
 or wished for it, but he had been obliged to declare 
 war in obedience to the public opinion of France. 
 The King made answer that he was aware it was 
 not the Emperor's doing. He was quite sure of 
 it. ' Tour Majesty made war to meet public opinion, 
 but it was your ministers who created that public 
 opinion which forced on the war.' His Majesty, 
 after a pause, remarked that the French army had 
 fought with great bravery. 'Yes,' said the Emperor, 
 ' but, sire, your Majesty's troops possess a discipline 
 in which my army has been wanting lately/ The 
 King remarked that for some years the Prussian 
 army had been availing itself of all new ideas, and
 
 1870. FROM THE RHINE TO SEDAN. 279 
 
 watching the military experiments of other nations 
 before '66 and subsequently. ' Your artillery, sire, 
 won the battle,' said the Emperor 'the Prussian 
 artillery is the finest in the world.' The King 
 bowed, and repeated that they had been anxious to 
 avail themselves of the experiences of other nations. 
 'Prince Frederic Charles decided the fate of the 
 day,' remarked the Emperor; 'it was his army 
 which carried our position.' ' Prince Frederic 
 Charles ! I don't understand your Majesty. It 
 was my son's army which fought at Sedan.' ' And 
 where, then, is Prince Frederic Charles ? ' ' He is 
 with seven army corps before Metz.' At these 
 words the Emperor started, and recoiled as if he 
 had been struck ; but he soon recovered his self- 
 possession, and the conversation was continued. 
 The King inquired if the Emperor had any con- 
 ditions to make or to propose. 'None. I have 
 no power. I am a prisoner.' 'And may I ask, 
 then, where is the Government of France with 
 which I can treat ? ' 'In Paris ; the Empress and 
 the Ministers alone have power to treat. I am 
 powerless. I can give no orders, and make no 
 conditions.' ' 
 
 The interview finished, the King started on a 
 drive through his victorious army, which lasted 
 until near nightfall. He who was left spent that
 
 280 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1370, 
 
 night in the Chateau Bellevue, and next morning 
 went away into captivity at Wilhelmshohe. The 
 army of Chalons was marched out from about 
 Sedan on to the great peninsula formed by the 
 Iges bend of the Meuse, and gradually was drafted 
 off in batches by the prisoner-trains into Germany.
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 THE GERMAN EMPEROR. 
 
 BY the 6th of September the King of Prussia was 
 in Rheims, the self -constituted guest of the Most 
 Reverend the Archbishop in that ecclesiastical 
 dignitary's palace, hard by the historic old cathedral. 
 There had been but a short stay for the German 
 hosts on the field where they had gained laurels so 
 green and yet so bloody. The dark red tint had 
 hardly died out of the Meuse, the unburied dead 
 yet festered in the sun-heat, and the ruins of 
 Bazeilles yet smoked and stank, when the vanguard 
 of the Crown Prince's army shouldered their packs 
 and trudged away along the valleys of the Argonne 
 toward the fertile vineyards of Champagne, with 
 their faces ever set Paris-ward, and " Nach Paris " 
 ever on their lips. Royal headquarters made a 
 long pause in the old cathedral city, while men all 
 over Europe were asking each other whether the 
 catastrophe of Sedan had not virtually terminated 
 the war, and were hoping for the white dove of 
 peace to alight on the blood-stained battle-field.
 
 282 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isw. 
 
 But the Revolution had occurred in Paris, and the 
 leaders of the new Republic were flushed with the 
 delusion that republican institutions and untrained 
 hordes of patriots, who at the talismanic name of 
 " Republic " might be counted on to rush to arms 
 eager to fight and proud to die for la Patrie 
 emancipated, could cope with the practised general- 
 ship and the disciplined and victorious arms which 
 had crushed the regular armies of the Empire with 
 such methodised swiftness. 
 
 When William went out to war in the name of 
 the German Fatherland, he put forth that he warred 
 not with the French nation but with its ruler. 
 That ruler effaced, it remained for him to find, or 
 try to find, some person or some body as the suc- 
 cessor of the captive Emperor in some species of 
 right to dispose of the destinies of France. He 
 could not conclude peace with the French nation in 
 the gross ; that nation must set up, whether for 
 peace or for war, something tangible to be treated 
 with by the victor, if it was to be peace ; to direct 
 war, if the nation's fiat was for war. The Provi- 
 sional Government assumed the lapsed reins, and 
 was tacitly accepted by France. Then the nation, 
 through this its new mouthpiece, instead of suing 
 for peace, instead of asking what terms it might 
 expect if it had the mind to own to the military
 
 1870. THE GERMAN EMPEROR. 283 
 
 superiority of the adversary, cried out for "War, 
 war to the bitter end war without a thought or 
 dream of terms ! " William thus had no alterna- 
 tive hut to accept what was virtually a new chal- 
 lenge, and fight on. And with the new challenge 
 there confronted him a new antagonist. He was 
 now to fight, no longer with the power of the man 
 who was his prisoner, hut with the French nation, 
 with whom up till then he had proclaimed that he 
 had no quarrel ; and he fought with it hecause it 
 had taken up the quarrel that might have gone 
 with the decheance, and had made that quarrel its 
 own. The German did not quit his first position ; 
 France and the French drove him out of it, whether 
 he would or not. There was no alternative for him 
 but to march on defiant Paris. 
 
 The German cordon round Paris was effectively 
 'completed on the 21st of September, the capital 
 having closed its gates and constituted itself a 
 world to itself two days before. On the 20th the 
 Crown Prince of Prussia had ridden into Versailles 
 and hoisted the Royal standard over its prefecture. 
 The environment of Paris was made by the two 
 armies which had fought and conquered at Sedan. 
 The Crown Prince of Prussia's army held the 
 western and southern section, from the Seine at 
 St. Germain round to the Seine again at Bonneuil,
 
 284 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 1870. 
 
 where the army of the Mouse, commanded by the 
 Crown Prince of Saxony, took up the line and 
 carried it along the eastern face and round the 
 northern to the Seine again at Sartrouville, opposite 
 the Forest of St. Germain. This disposition re- 
 mained with little modification until the close of 
 the siege ; what changes of detail occurred from 
 time to time need not be recorded here. 
 
 It was not until the 14th of September that 
 the royal headquarters left Kheims and moved 
 forward to Chateau Thierry. On the following day 
 they were advanced to Meaux, within thirty miles 
 of Paris, whence in the afternoon came Mr. (now 
 Sir Edward) Malet, with a letter from Lord Lyons, 
 asking whether the King would consent that 
 Bismarck and Jules Favre should have a con- 
 ference. Next day Malet returned to Paris with 
 a letter in which Bismarck informed Jules Favre* 
 that he should be " exceedingly happy to see him," 
 and that he was sending forward Prince Biron to 
 conduct the Frenchman through the German lines. 
 Alhough the royal headquarters remained in Meaux 
 until the 19th, the French Minister up till then had 
 not shown himself. On that day the King, with the 
 Chancellor and the principal officers of the staff, 
 went to reside for a time at the Chateau of Fer- 
 rieres, about six miles nearer Paris than Meaux.
 
 isro. THE GERMAN EMPEROR. 285 
 
 On the way was heard the distant cannonade 
 accompanying a sharp engagement between troops 
 belonging to the garrison of Paris and the Bava- 
 rians on the heights of Chatillon, and M. Jules 
 Favre was met driving from Paris. The first con- 
 ference between him and the German Chancellor 
 was held in a chateau near the road; there was 
 another the same night at Ferrieres, and a third 
 there on the following morning, after Bismarck 
 had explicitly stated to his Majesty the nature of the 
 French proposals, and taken his instructions as to 
 the final reply to be given to M. Favre. That gentle- 
 man's mission was to ascertain whether the Germans 
 were willing to treat for peace on the basis of a 
 money indemnity to be paid by France for the ex- 
 penses and losses of the war. Bismarck's reply was 
 firmly in the negative. Germany would require 
 something more. It was necessary, once for all, to 
 secure Germany against the inveterate aggressive 
 policy of France, and this was only to be effected 
 by keeping part of the territory the former had now 
 conquered. The new German frontier, Bismarck 
 propounded, must include Alsace and a portion of 
 Lorraine which he explicitly defined. Against 
 this demand M. Favre protested with passionate 
 fervour, exclaiming that France would refuse to 
 cede a foot of her soil. Bismu.rck professed reluct-
 
 286 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. wo. 
 
 ance to consent to the armistice in favour of which 
 Favre argued, in order that a National Assembly 
 might be elected to decide as to the future Govern- 
 ment of France ; but ultimately consented, on con- 
 dition that the fortresses of Strasburg, Toul, and 
 Phalsburg should be placed in the German hands. 
 The Frenchman abruptly broke off the negotiation 
 when Bismarck advanced the stipulation that the 
 garrison of Strasburg should surrender as prisoners 
 of war; and returned to Paris to inform his country- 
 men that the Germans had resolved on the reduction 
 of France to the rank of a second-class power, and 
 that resistance to the death had become the duty of 
 every Frenchman. When Favre returned to Paris 
 the German investment of it had been completed, 
 Toul capitulated two days later ; and he had not 
 been back a week when Strasburg had followed the 
 example of Toul, and its garrison were prisoners of 
 war. 
 
 In Rothschild's beautiful residence at Ferri&res 
 the King lived quietly for more than a fortnight, 
 and was visited there by his son coming from Ver- 
 sailles. At length the investment of Paris had so 
 consolidated that there was no reason why the 
 King himself should not move round to Versailles, 
 and the journey thither was made on the 5th 
 of October, his Majesty holding a review of the
 
 1870. THE GERMAN EMPEROR. 287 
 
 Bavarian contingent near Villeneuve-le-Roi on his 
 way, his son having come from Versailles to meet 
 him and take part in this duty. The royal head- 
 quarters in Versailles were located in the prefecture, 
 which had been vacated by the Crown Prince a day 
 or two previously. 
 
 The entry of his Majesty into Versailles was 
 an imposing ceremonial. The avenue in which the 
 prefecture stands was lined with troops, and a large 
 number of princes, dukes, and generals had gathered 
 in its courtyard. About half-past five the cheers 
 of the troops heralded the approach of the King ; 
 and the officers in front of the prefecture ranged 
 themselves in military order. A troop of Lancers 
 galloped up, wheeled, and halted. Then came the 
 King in an open carriage; he was covered with 
 the dust of the journey, but looked well and strong. 
 The Crown Prince sat with him on his left. In 
 the midst of cheering and clangour of trumpets, 
 the lowering of the colours, and other demonstra- 
 tions of loyalty, William alighted from his carriage, 
 and was at once surrounded by his officers, with 
 many of whom he warmly shook hands. After 
 greetings, he and the Crown Prince inspected the 
 colour company forming the guard of honour, 
 drawn up on the left of the prefecture courtyard. 
 The inspection completed, his Majesty ascended the
 
 288 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1370. 
 
 steps, turned round and saluted the multitude, and 
 then passed into the entrance hall. When on this 
 5th of October the King entered the portals of the 
 Versailles prefecture, he little anticipated that he was 
 to be the occupant of that residence for five long 
 months. The stubborn resistance of Paris was to 
 transcend all expectations, and probably surprised 
 Paris itself most of all. The most liberal Grerman 
 reckoning was that the French capital might hold 
 out till Christmas, and men in the royal suite when 
 the King reached Versailles, were ready to wager 
 that their stay there would not exceed three weeks. 
 Once, it is true, within that space of time there 
 was a prospect that they might win their bets, but 
 scarcely in the way that they themselves were 
 expecting. On October 21st the garrison of Paris 
 made a fierce sortie on a large scale in the direc- 
 tion of Versailles, and succeeded by dint of hard 
 fighting in getting as far as Bougival. The 
 French inhabitants of Versailles made sure the 
 glad day of relief had dawned, and had swarmed 
 into the streets to speed with jibes those whom 
 they regarded as the departing guests. The guests 
 were only going out to fight, or to witness the 
 fighting, and duly came back again ; but while the 
 combat was raging, the King's fourgons and the 
 Crown Prince's waggons had been packed all ready
 
 1870. THE GERMAN EMPEROR. 289 
 
 for the eventuality of an enforced evacuation. It 
 was simply a precautionary measure, an instance 
 of the German preparedness to anticipate a sur- 
 prise ; but if the French had not been driven back 
 from Bougival that afternoon, it is quite possible the 
 King would not have slept in Versailles that night. 
 On more than one occasion subsequently the royal 
 baggage was packed ready for departure, but neither 
 it nor the King had to quit Versailles until his 
 Majesty was free to return to his own capital, after 
 he had ratified the terms of peace, to which France, 
 shattered and depleted, had no alternative but to 
 assent. 
 
 During thewinter of 1870-71, while William held 
 his military Court in its prefecture, Versailles was 
 a French town but in name. A German prefect 
 concerned himself with its administration; the 
 local newspaper had a German editor, and was 
 the official journal of the conquerors. German 
 soldiers on municipal duty tramped its streets along 
 with the French guardians of the peace. German 
 dignitaries, German officials, German officers, were 
 billeted in every house. German wounded lay in 
 the halls and corridors of the palace of Louis the 
 Great. The customers who depleted the cellars 
 of the Hotel des Reservoirs and the Vatel were 
 thirsty Germans of the Zweite Staffel princes and 
 T
 
 290 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. im 
 
 dukes of high degree making the campaign in the 
 suite of his Majesty or that of his son. But if 
 German in essentials during that winter, in one 
 aspect Versailles was curiously cosmopolitan. There 
 abounded war correspondents of half a dozen 
 nationalities. Thither from the ends of the earth 
 came all manner of curious people on a multiplicity 
 of errands ; sightseers pure and simple, adventurers, 
 inventors, enthusiasts, diplomatists, sanitary ad- 
 ministrators, intriguers, and volunteer go-betweens. 
 Paris and Versailles between them focussed the 
 interest of the world. Only in occasional scraps 
 men learned how the great capital bore itself in 
 its tribulation. But from Versailles daily there 
 radiated to all points of the compass countless 
 budgets of correspondence, telling how, while life 
 was gay there, while men dined and drank, and 
 visited and skated as if war and battlos were not, 
 there was hardly any hour of hardly any day or 
 night when the sound of the cannon-thunder ceased 
 to sound in every ear. 
 
 The King led a quiet and retired life, engaging 
 himself with his counsellors on the innumerable 
 problems which the ever- changing face of events, 
 both military and civil, constantly presented. 
 Always an early riser, he had read before break- 
 fast the reports from all quarters that had come in 
 during the night, and talked them over with Moltke
 
 isn THE GERMAN EMPEROR. 291 
 
 and Eoon. In the forenoon came Bismarck with 
 his budget of matter needing attention. In the 
 afternoon his Majesty generally took a drive, and 
 on two days a week a large party sat down to 
 dinner in the banquet hall of the prefecture. The 
 dinner hour on those occasions was five o'clock. 
 The table decorations, besides plate and flowers, 
 were masterpieces of sugar bakery representing 
 cannon, trophies of captured French eagles, tri- 
 colour flags, and the like; and the plate was the 
 same as that used in his campaigns by Frederic 
 the Great. Dinner did not last very long. After 
 it, tea and coffee were served in the drawing-rooms, 
 and the King came round and talked now with 
 one, now with another of his guests. The whole 
 function was over before eight, and the King 
 immediately went to his cabinet and worked till 
 bed-time. There were few Sundays on which the 
 King did not attend divine service in Louis the 
 XIV.'s chapel in the chateau of Versailles. The 
 headquarter chaplain preached the sermon on those 
 occasions. His Majesty's place was on a seat 
 placed in front of the altar, the Crown Prince by 
 his side ; behind them in serried rows the officers 
 of the two staffs, the members of the two suites, 
 and other officers, the galleries and passages crowded 
 by the German soldiery. 
 T 2
 
 292 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. ism 
 
 To record at length the military events of the 
 winter and the details of the Prussian monarch's 
 life during his stay in Versailles, would swell this 
 volume to undue dimensions. No word can be 
 said here concerning the hard fighting in and 
 about the Loire country, in the east of France, or 
 in the wide district between the English Channel 
 and where German armies stood encircling Paris. 
 Till the end came his Majesty never left the vicinity 
 of Versailles, and never even made the circuit of 
 the cordon of the environment of Paris. On 
 October 16th, as he stood in front of the prefec- 
 ture, he saw march past him the stalwart veterans 
 of the Guard Landwehr, who had come up to the 
 Paris front to strengthen the somewhat slender 
 belt of cincture, and who later were to fight so 
 valiantly and die so freely in the great final sortie 
 at Montretout. On the 21st October he stood 
 for four hours on the Marly aqueduct watching 
 the sortie made from under the cover of Valerien 
 on Bougival by Ducrot at the head of some ten 
 thousand men. There was great perturbation in 
 Versailles on the evening of 30th November, when 
 news arrived how fierce had been the fighting on 
 that day on the east side of the circle, and that 
 nightfall had left the French in possession of 
 Champigny. Until the evening of the 2nd
 
 1870-L TEE GERMAN EMPEROR. 293 
 
 December, the day on which the French had to 
 relinquish the advantages they had gained on the 
 eastern side across the Marne, and were compelled to 
 fall back into their former positions, the royal head- 
 quarters in Versailles remained prepared for with- 
 drawal at an hour's notice. On 22nd December, 
 at an early hour of a very inclement morning, the 
 King inspected a detachment of Prussian sailors 
 on their way to the south to man the gunboats on 
 the Loire which had been taken from the French. 
 After church service on New Year's Day, 1871, he 
 gave a stirring address to a mass of his troops drawn 
 up on the Place d'Armes of Versailles, and dis- 
 tributed a number of decorations and iron crosses. 
 During the siege the King frequently resorted to a 
 point of observation within easy range of the guns 
 of Mount Valerien the villa of Baron Stern at 
 Ville d'Avray, a secluded place to which access 
 was attained along a narrow lane flanked on each 
 side by high walls. The look-out place was at a 
 window opening on the roof from a darkened room, 
 and the French had no suspicion that here was the 
 chosen observatory of his Majesty and the princi- 
 pal officers of his staff. It was from this position 
 that the King watched the commencement of the 
 southern bombardment on January 5th. 
 
 Public opinion in Germany had been ripening
 
 294 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 1870. 
 
 fast in the direction of German unity, under the 
 influence of German triumphs in the field. The 
 union of the several German States under a common 
 Federal Constitution had already been accomplished 
 in October ; and early in December the proposition 
 came from King Ludwigof Bavaria to King William, 
 that the possession of the presidential rights of the 
 Confederacy vested in the Prussian monarch should 
 be coupled with the imperial title. The King of 
 Saxony spoke to the same purport ; and in one 
 day a measure providing for the amendment of 
 the Constitution by the substitution of the words 
 "Emperor" and "Empire" for "President" and 
 " Confederation " was passed through the North 
 German Parliament, which voted also an address 
 to his Majesty, from which the following is an ex- 
 tract:" The North German Parliament, in unison 
 with the Princes of Germany, approaches with the 
 prayer that your Majesty will deign to consecrate 
 the work of unification by accepting the Imperial 
 Crown of Germany. The Teutonic Crown on the 
 head of your Majesty will inaugurate, for the re- 
 established Empire of the German nation, an era 
 of power, of peace, of well-being, and of liberty 
 secured under the protection of the laws." 
 
 The address of the German Parliament was 
 presented to the King at Versailles on Sunday, the
 
 1870. THE GERMAN EMPEROR. 295 
 
 18th of December, by its speaker, Herr Simson, 
 who, as speaker of the Frankfort Parliament in 
 1848, had made the identical proffer to William's 
 brother and predecessor. There had been a solemn 
 divine service in Louis XIV. 's chapel previously, 
 and at two P.M. the deputation was received by 
 King William in the great drawing-room of the 
 prefecture. He stood in front of the great fire- 
 place in full uniform, wearing all his decorations, 
 his son on his right, and on each side the princes 
 of the new Empire and the great officers of his 
 suite and staff. The voice of the old monarch, as 
 he read his reply to the address, trembled with 
 emotion. Many of the veteran generals who stood 
 around his Majesty sobbed with joy, as in faltering 
 tones which he laboured in vain to control, the 
 words of virtual acceptance came from his lips. 
 The formal ratification of assent to the Prussian 
 King's assumption of the imperial dignity had 
 yet to be received from the minor German States ; 
 but this was a foregone conclusion, and the unifica- 
 tion of Germany really dates from that 18th of 
 December, and from the solemn ceremonial in the 
 prefecture of Versailles. It was understood that 
 in his acceptance of the imperial dignity, William 
 sacrificed his personal feelings to the request of a 
 nation, the arguments of his advisers, and the
 
 296 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isn. 
 
 desires of his relatives ; and one great inducement 
 was the gratification of the wish of his son, who 
 was warmly in favour of the imperial project. 
 
 Every obstacle cleared away, William was pro- 
 claimed the German Emperor on the 18th of 
 January, the memorable and imposing ceremony 
 being held in the Galerie des Glaces of the chateau 
 of Versailles, the noble apartment in which Queen 
 Victoria was entertained by the Emperor Napoleon. 
 The day chosen was appropriate, for it was the 
 anniversary of the coronation at Konigsberg of 
 Frederic I., the first king of the Hohenzollern 
 house. The bad weather had caused to be foregone 
 the projected State procession from the prefecture 
 to the chateau, and William drove to the great 
 gates of the latter, where he alighted, and passed 
 to the State entrance through a lane of soldiers 
 consisting of detachments from regiments in the 
 field. To those in the Galerie des Glaces the 
 crash of cannon heralded the approach of the 
 monarch. Rich and sonorous rose the massive 
 strains of the chorale chanted by the military choir, 
 as the King, helmet in hand and in full uniform, 
 moved slowly to the dais, and, bowing to the clergy 
 in front of the temporary altar, halted, and smooth- 
 ing his heavy white moustache with his disengaged 
 hand, surveyed the scene that lay before him.
 
 1871. TEE GERMAN EMPEROR. ' 297 
 
 Behind him, ranged in a semicircle, were the regi- 
 mental colours which the detachments marshalled 
 in the courtyard outside had brought with them 
 from their respective regiments. Just above 
 William as he stood there was a gigantic allegory 
 of the Grand Monarque with the subscription 
 " Le Roi ffouverne par lui m$me." On his right 
 was the Crown Prince in the uniform of a field 
 marshal ; to right and left of father and son stood 
 in a great semicircle, princes and potentates and the 
 leaders of the hosts of united Germany. Stalwart 
 and square, somewhat apart, on the extreme left 
 of the semicircle of which the monarch was the 
 centre, with a face of deadly pallor, for he had risen 
 from a sick bed, stood Bismarck, the man of all 
 others who might that day most truly say, " Finis 
 coronat opus." Psalms were sung and prayers were 
 said, and Court Preacher Rogge preached a short 
 impassioned sermon, followed by another chorale 
 in which all joined. Then his Majesty, in a loud 
 yet broken voice, read a declaration proclaiming 
 that the German Empire was re-established, and 
 that the imperial dignity so revived was vested in 
 him and his descendants for all time to come, in 
 accordance with the unanimous will of the German 
 peoples. Bismarck then read the proclamation 
 which his master addressed to the German nation.
 
 298 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isn. 
 
 As his final words rang through the hall, the 
 Grand Duke of Baden, William's son-in-law, 
 stepped forward a couple of paces, raised his helmet 
 in air, and shouted with all his force, " Long live 
 the German Emperor William. Hurrah ! " Amidst 
 a tempest of cheering, amidst waving of swords and 
 of helmets, William, King of Prussia, was hailed 
 as German Emperor, and with eyes streaming with 
 tears received the homage of princes, dukes, and 
 lords of the Empire. The first, on bended knee, 
 to kiss his father's hand was his noble and gallant 
 son. A military band outside struck up the Prussian 
 National Anthem. Louder than the music, heard 
 above the clamour of the cheering, sounded the 
 thunder of the French cannon from Mont Valerien, 
 the " Ave Caesar" from the reluctant lips of worsted 
 France. 
 
 But France was gallantly loth to accept the 
 stern fiat of adverse fate. On the day after the 
 great ceremonial in Versailles, as if in remonstrance 
 against it, the garrison of Paris made a desperate 
 sortie, in which 100,000 men took part. The close 
 and fierce engagement raged from Montretout round 
 to St. Cloud from morning until the going down 
 of the sun. The French fought with sustained 
 fury ; but all their efforts were in vain, crushed by 
 the steady, relentless fire of the serried German
 
 isn. TEE GERMAN EMPEROR. 299 
 
 artillery. And the bombardment, which had com- 
 menced on the south front on the 5th January 
 against the outlying forts, but which in a few days 
 was at least partially directed upon Paris itself, if 
 endured by the Parisians with a noble fortitude, 
 accentuated the strain of the defeated sortie and 
 of the scarcity of food. The end was approaching ; 
 but Paris endured hunger and shell-fire until the 
 morning of January 28th. At 7 P.M. on that 
 day an armistice was signed for twenty-one days. 
 The long duel had ended. On the following day 
 the French troops evacuated Mont Yalerien, and 
 the German soldiers marched in and occupied the 
 fortress. The German Emperor paid a visit to 
 that stronghold on the 30th, and looked at " La 
 Grande Josephine," the monster cannon whose shells 
 had ranged as far as the outskirts of Versailles. 
 The process of revictualling Paris began as soon 
 as the armistice was concluded, and England was 
 foremost and most zealous in the holy work of 
 charity. 
 
 The armistice was twice extended while Thiers 
 wrestled with his countrymen and with Bismarck. 
 For six long days did the French statesman contest 
 point after point with the unyielding Chancellor. 
 He appealed from Bismarck to Bismarck's master, 
 to plead that Metz should not be torn from France.
 
 300 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. im. 
 
 The Emperor received him, the Imperial Crown 
 Prince compassionated him, but they sent him 
 empty away, relegating him to the tender mercies 
 of the Chancellor. It was not until 6 P.M. of 
 the 26th February that the preliminaries of peace 
 were signed. Thiers had been told that a German 
 force would occupy Paris between the date of the 
 expiry of the armistice and the ratification of the 
 treaty by the Bordeaux Assembly, On this point 
 he did obtain some modification. A mere section 
 of Paris was indeed occupied ; but only pro forma", 
 and the occupation endured barely thirty-six hours. 
 On the 26th the Emperor transmitted a con- 
 gratulatoty circular dispatch to the Sovereign Princes 
 of Germany, which ran thus : " With a heart filled 
 with thankfulness, I announce to you that yester- 
 day afternoon the preliminaries of peace were signed 
 by which Alsace without Belfort, Lorraine with 
 Metz, was ceded to Germany. Five milliards of 
 francs are to be paid, and portions of France are to 
 remain occupied until the amount is paid. Paris 
 will be partially occupied till the ratification at 
 Bordeaux follows. We are now at the end of a 
 glorious but bloody war which was forced upon 
 us with frivolity without parallel, and in which your 
 troops have taken so honourable a part. May the 
 greatness of Germany be consolidated in peace ! "
 
 1871. THE GERMAN EMPEEOU. 301 
 
 The 1st of March was the day fixed for the 
 entry of the German troops into Paris, and on the 
 morning of that day the German Emperor held a 
 grand review on the Longchamp racecourse in the 
 Bois de Boulogne, of the troops chosen from the 
 Third Army to constitute the force of temporary 
 occupation. The long double line of horse, foot, 
 and artillery was gradually formed, stretching from 
 end to end of the racecourse, with its accurately 
 dressed front looking toward the grand stand. 
 The Bavarians had the centre, the wings consisting 
 of Prussian troops. Out to front, in the clear 
 space before the centre, stood two mounted men^ 
 the Imperial Crown Prince, the Commander of the 
 3rd Army, and General Blumenthal, his chief of 
 staff. There was a pause of expectation ; then 
 suddenly a great cheer flashed instantaneously from 
 the face of the long wall-like line. In a clash of 
 music the bands burst into " God save the King." 
 
 O 
 
 Half a dozen horsemen were galloping across the 
 racecourse, heading straight for the centre of the 
 line. The leader, an upright, broad-shouldered old 
 man, with snow-white hair, half halted his horse 
 with a hand- wave of salutation as he reached the 
 Imperial Crown Prince, then, with the latter behind 
 him, galloped on toward the right flank. The great 
 staff that had been waiting there came prancing
 
 302 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isn. 
 
 up as the old leader turned his horse's head, and 
 began his slow march along the front. Two horse- 
 men preceded him ; an interval, and then the old 
 man alone, the solitary focus of the splendid 
 picture. The white-haired soldier on the noble 
 black horse was the Emperor William. He had 
 been reported unwell ; but this great day for the 
 Empire of which he was the head seemed to have 
 cured him of his ailments. His crest was as erect, 
 his seat as firm, his bridle-hand as light, as those 
 of his gallant son who, following at the head of 
 his staff, seemed so proud of his father. The in- 
 spection completed, the cortege, following its leader, 
 turned toward the saluting point in front of the 
 pavilion, and then men noticed that the royal 
 father and son had drawn together horsehead to 
 horsehead. Potent as is etiquette, it may yield to 
 love, and father and son never loved each other more 
 tenderly than did William and his heir. The proud 
 father laid his hand on the neck of his son's horse, 
 and the suite fell back as the two conversed. The 
 march past began. The troops passing daintily 
 clean in accurate array had been otherwise engaged 
 for the previous six months than in studying the 
 business of drill and dressing. Fighting, bivouack- 
 ing, earthworking, marching, as they had been, 
 yet their parade accuracy and neatness had no
 
 187L THE GERMAN EMPEROR. 303 
 
 whit deteriorated. Even in the months of fighting, 
 marching, and bivouacking, time had been found 
 in those German ranks for the practice of methodi- 
 cal drill. 
 
 As the troops marched past, the heads of the 
 columns took their way through the glades of the 
 Bois de Boulogne, leading on toward the western 
 entrances into Paris. Already the German cavalry 
 were inside the capital, and a Bavarian hussar 
 officer had ridden his horse over the guarding 
 chains, and passed under the Arch of Triumph. 
 Down the Champs Elysees, with bands playing and 
 colours flying, poured the German infantry a 
 broad stream of armed men on whose bayonets the 
 sunlight danced. But with the soldiers as they 
 entered Paris went neither the German Emperor 
 nor his son. It was decorous at once and politic, 
 to refrain from the insolence of triumph. William 
 and the Prince went quietly back to Versailles. 
 
 That same day the Bordeaux Assembly ratified 
 the treaty, and twelve days later the last German 
 soldier marched out of Versailles, and a French 
 regiment re-garrisoned the town which for months 
 had been the residence of the German monarch. 
 He had left Versailles earlier, on the 7th of March, 
 sleeping that night in Ferrieres, after having re- 
 viewed the Army of the Meuse on the plateau of
 
 304 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isn. 
 
 Villiers, on the field whereon had been fought the 
 desperate battles of the 30th November and 2nd 
 December. On his way to the parade the Emperor 
 passed the great grave in which 800 French dead 
 had been buried ; as the troops marched past him 
 he stood where to right and to left lay thick the 
 mounds under which lay brave men who had died 
 for him and the Fatherland. 
 
 It was not until ten days later that the victo- 
 rious monarch returned to his capital. That was a 
 day that will long be remembered in Berlin. The 
 sun was bright and the sky clear. All the Linden 
 was dressed with banners. One floated from the 
 pedestal of the statue of Frederic the Great, bearing 
 the legend, " Hail, Emperor William, hail to thee 
 and to the brave German host thou leadest back 
 from victory ! Like the clash of distant bells 
 sounds the glad cheering of the conquerors. Old 
 Fritz looks down with proud glance on his descend- 
 ants, approving their valour." Long before the 
 time fixed for the arrival of the royal train, the 
 platform of the railway station was thronged with 
 notabilities. There were Bismarck in his white 
 cuirassier uniform, and Moltke and Boon, and other 
 principal persons of the great headquarter staff. 
 There was the venerable Marshal Wrangel, yet an 
 older soldier than his venerable sovereign. There,
 
 187L THE GERMAN EMPEROR. 305 
 
 too, were Vogel von Falkenstein, grim and grey ; 
 and old Steinmetz, come from his distant Posen 
 governorship. Of ladies and children of the Imperial 
 house the name was legion. In a siding opposite 
 the platform, whether by accident or design, had 
 been shunted an hospital train ; from the windows 
 of which pallid faces looked on the brilliant scene. 
 On the carriage roofs clustered convalescents, and 
 a little squad of fellows maimed at Spicheren and 
 Courcelles gave Steinmetz a cheer old "Immer 
 Vorwarts," as they styled him ; and so with gossip 
 and endless kindly greetings the moments of ex- 
 pectancy passed. 
 
 At the sound of a distant whistle, from out the 
 waiting-room stalked Bismarck ; Wrangel doffed 
 his plumed helmet ; a stream of ladies and children 
 followed Bismarck's stalwart form ; in two minutes 
 more a near rumble, and the train rolled up to the 
 platform. Then rose a mighty cheer; and there 
 at the carriage window stood the Emperor, looking 
 out on his relatives and servants. A moment later 
 and he was down the steps and kissing the Dowager 
 Queen Elizabeth. It seemed as if the women of 
 his family were mobbing him, as they crowded 
 round him for his kisses, while grandchildren hung 
 about his knees. The old man was brushing his 
 shaggy brows with the back of his hand as he 
 u
 
 306 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1871. 
 
 struggled through the womenfolk about him. In 
 his path stood the venerable Wraugel, a beam from 
 the setting sun flashing on his snow-white hair. 
 The soldier-patriarch raised his hand and tried to 
 lead off a cheer, but his voice failed him, and the 
 tears rolled down his face. His master, not less 
 moved, kissed his aged servant on each cheek. 
 The two old soldier-comrades embraced, and Stein- 
 nietz's wounded fellows on the carriage roof cheered 
 the greeting. Then the Emperor grasped Bismarck 
 by the hand and kissed him too ; and old Steinmetz 
 as well ; he kissed his way right through out of 
 sight into the waiting-room, the Empress following 
 shedding glad tears. The scene was like an April 
 day shower and sunshine, tears and smiles ; all 
 state and ceremony were swept away in the gush of 
 homely affection. When his Majesty reached the 
 palace, the cheers of his people kept him long 
 lingering on the threshold ; over and over again he 
 had to come out on to the balcony with the Em- 
 press ; and his final appearance was at the accus- 
 tomed corner window at which he had shown 
 himself on the declaration of the war. That war 
 was now finished, and William had come home 
 from his last campaign.
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 HONOURED OLD AGE. 
 
 WHEN United Germany hailed William as its 
 Emperor, the venerable monarch's life had already 
 exceeded the Psalmist's span of threescore years 
 and ten ; but he was yet to survive for many years, 
 and so exceptional was the strength of his robust 
 vitality that those years brought little for him of 
 " labour and sorrow." His vigour showed little 
 organic impairment until his long illness in the 
 spring of 1885, and it was only in the preceding 
 year that he ceased to attend reviews on horseback. 
 In its personal aspect his life ceased to be eventful 
 after the close of his last great war, except for the 
 attempts made upon it by assassins to which refer- 
 ence will presently be made. 
 
 A few days after his return to Berlin, the first 
 session of the new Grerman Parliament was opened 
 by the Emperor in full state, the place of meeting 
 being the historic " White Hall " of the old 1 " palace. 
 His speech from the throne was uttered with great
 
 308 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1371. 
 
 emotion and received with fervent enthusiasm. Its 
 expressions breathed patriotism, dignity, and mode- 
 ration. " The spirit," said William, " which ani- 
 mates the German people pervades its culture and 
 morals, and in no less degree marks the constitution 
 of its empire and its armies, guards Germany in 
 the midst of its successes against every temptation 
 to abuse the power acquired by its unity. Germany 
 willingly pays the respect claimed for its own inde- 
 pendence to the independence of all other states 
 and peoples, the weak as well as the powerful. Our 
 new Germany, as it has emerged from the fiery 
 ordeal of the recent war, will be a trustworthy 
 guarantee of the peace of Europe, because Germany 
 is sufficiently powerful and self-reliant to preserve 
 the regulation of its own affairs as an exclusive, 
 but at the same time sufficient and satisfactory 
 heritage." 
 
 While unfortunate Paris was writhing in the 
 throes of civil war, Berlin was celebrating German 
 victories. On the 16th of June, 1871, a grand 
 military display was held in honour of the suc- 
 cesses of the recent war. The troops who had 
 taken part in it were now back in their native land, 
 and a representative army, fifty thousand strong, 
 mustered on the Tempelhofer Field for the trium- 
 phal entry into the capital. Before the old Em-
 
 1371. SONOUEED OLD AGE. 309 
 
 peror, as he passed down the Linden at the head 
 of the bronzed and stalwart soldiers, rode abreast 
 "the makers of history" Bismarck, Moltke, and 
 Roon ; in the staff that followed him close, besides 
 the soldier-princes of his own honse, were thirty 
 German sovereigns and princes of reigning families, 
 who had come to swell the triumph of the chosen 
 head of the German Empire. The path of the 
 triumph all down the Linden lay between a double 
 row of captured French cannon and mitrailleuses, 
 behind which Berlin en masse thronged and cheered 
 under the waving banners. For two hours and 
 more the stream of war veterans flowed on in a 
 steady, unbroken current horse, foot, and artillery. 
 One " combined " battalion, whose ranks were made 
 up of men of every German nationality, escorted 
 the eagles, colours, and standards that had once 
 belonged to the French army. From under the 
 statue of Bliicher the Emperor looked on as hici 
 troops marched by, and the defile finished, he 
 crossed the Frederic's Bridge to where, with the 
 captured French eagles and colours grouped around 
 it, stood the yet veiled statue of King Frederic 
 William III., the father-monarch with whom 
 William had made the campaign of his early youth. 
 After a solemn religious service the Emperor un- 
 covered bhe statue amidst the cheering of his people
 
 310 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isn. 
 
 and the strains of martial music. At night the 
 capital was one great illumination the French 
 Embassy the only dark spot in the general glow 
 of variegated light. 
 
 All Europe's attention was drawn to the meet- 
 ing of the German and Austrian Emperors at 
 Gastein in August. Its ostensible cause was trivial, 
 but nobody believed that the Imperial interlocutors 
 wasted many words about the Roumanian railway 
 bonds. The spectre of socialism loomed grim and 
 large on the European horizon, threatening all fixed 
 institutions, and pointing a lean finger of warning 
 to where anarchy was distracting unfortunate 
 France. The times were pregnant with suggestive- 
 ness to monarchs that they should take joint 
 counsel for the hindrance of the spreading of the 
 dangerous sore. It was understood that the inter- 
 views at Gastein and later at Salzburg in September, 
 resulted in a cordial understanding and the settle- 
 ment of a common policy ; that Francis Joseph 
 acquiesced unreservedly in William's supremacy in 
 Germany, and that the latter engaged to leave 
 the German provinces of the Austrian Empire 
 untampered with. It is certain that the seed was 
 then sown of the Austro-German alliance, which 
 has now endured so long as almost to be entitled 
 to be regarded as venerable. Toward the end of
 
 1871-2. HONOURED OLD AGE. 311 
 
 the year the Emperor and the Imperial Crown 
 Prince joined a big-game hunting party in the 
 Hanoverian forest of Gb'hrde. That his Majesty, 
 old though he was, could distinguish himself not 
 less as a sportsman than as a soldier, was proved 
 by the fact that his share of the bag consisted of 
 twenty-one wild boars. His usual hunting-ground 
 was Silesia, the manner of life during his annual 
 visit to which region a writer thus sketches : " The 
 Emperor usually arrives with his guests the evening 
 before the battue, and takes up his quarters in the 
 hunting castle of Konigswusterhausen, where, after 
 supper, during which the finest horn music from 
 Berlin is always played, the whole company 
 assemble at a ' smoking college ' in the same hall 
 where that function used to be held in the time of 
 Frederic William I. This hall is decorated with 
 stags' horns and stuffed boars' heads, trophies of 
 animals killed by the Emperor. It contains the 
 same peculiar chairs and long oaken table in use 
 170 years ago. There the merry company relate 
 hunting stories, drink beer out of old earthenware 
 mugs, and smoke Turkish tobacco out of long clay 
 pipes till a late hour, just as in the days of Frederic 
 William I." 
 
 In September, 1872, the Emperors of Russia 
 and Austria met in Berlin as the guests of the
 
 312 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1873. 
 
 German Emperor, who had a great desire to see 
 Austria and Russia on terms of cordial amity, and 
 was equally anxious for the resuscitation of the old 
 Triple Alliance. Whatever may have been the 
 political results or no results of William's well- 
 meant efforts, the Berlin meeting was fertile in 
 evidences of personal goodwill between the Czar 
 and Francis Joseph. The Emperors spent a week 
 in gorgeous festivities and ostentatious mutual 
 cordiality. There was a state banquet in the 
 " White Hall," and the Imperial Crown Prince 
 welcomed his father's guests to a great entertain- 
 ment in the New Palace at Potsdam. While the 
 Emperors exchanged courtesies, a similar friendli- 
 ness seemed to inspire their ministers, who spent 
 days in intimate consultation with the professed 
 object of promoting harmony and goodwill. Certain 
 outcomes of the Imperial reunion were manifest. 
 The German Empire had obtained the fullest 
 recognition from its two great rivals ; scant hope 
 remained to France of accomplishing her revanche 
 with the aid of a strong foreign alliance ; and the 
 German Ultramontanes saw themselves forced to 
 renounce the prospect of finding a champion in the 
 head of the House of Hapsburg, the " born de- 
 fender of the Catholic Church." 
 
 When his guests had left him, William visited
 
 1872. HONOURED OLD AGE. 313 
 
 Marienburg, the capital of West Prussia, to 
 participate in the centennial celebration of the first 
 partition of Poland, when that province was re- 
 stored to Prussia, of which it had originally formed 
 part ; and to lay the foundation-stone of a memorial 
 to Frederic the Great. The 30th September, 1872, 
 was a memorable day for Alsace-Lorraine, the pro- 
 vince which the Franco-German War had added to 
 the German empire. At midnight of that day 
 terminated the interval of " optation," and all who 
 had not then effected their exodus were to be 
 regarded as having elected to be German subjects. 
 Fewer had chosen to emigrate than had been 
 expected; only some 45,000 persons preferred to 
 make sacrifices for the sake of remaining French ; 
 and Alsatian recruits proffered themselves for 
 service in the German army in greater numbers 
 than could be received. In this year the aristocrats 
 of Prussia made an unavailing stand for their 
 ancestral privileges, in the teeth of an intimation 
 on the part of their sovereign of his desire that 
 they should yield. The feudal peers and landed 
 proprietors were naturally averse to a measure 
 which, under the title of the Districts Administra- 
 tion Bill, proposed to remodel the social system of 
 the kingdom, by conceding representative institu- 
 tion and self-government to its villages and rural
 
 314 WILLIAM OF GEltMANY. ISTJ. 
 
 circles. The peers held that the innovation would 
 be a step toward republicanism, and that if William 
 were so ill-advised as to regard it consistent with 
 the maintenance of the monarchy, it was their 
 duty to rescue him from the ill consequences of his 
 own weakness. When the bill came on in the 
 Upper Chamber, his Majesty intimated his wish 
 that it should pass, but it was rejected by the 
 overwhelming majority of 145 to 18. After a short 
 prorogation the bill, somewhat modified, was carried 
 through the Lower House and came up again to the 
 Upper Chamber. To carry it through there neces- 
 sitated the creation of twenty-five new peers a step 
 to which his Majesty was very reluctant, but which 
 he was brought to sanction in the realisation of 
 the responsibilities of his widened position. In 
 December Bismarck resigned the Premiership of the 
 Prussian Cabinet, assigning as his reason the over- 
 pressure of duties and responsibilities. Boon proved 
 a temporary and inadequate successor. Bismarck 
 remained Chancellor of the Empire and Minister 
 for Foreign Affairs. 
 
 In 1873 the Shah of Persia was the guest of 
 the German Emperor, and later in September came 
 Victor Emmanuel of Italy, between whom and his 
 host sprang up great cordiality and friendship. 
 There was a good deal in common in the characters
 
 1875W, HONOURED OLD AGE. 315 
 
 of the two men, and they took to each other 
 instinctively. Two years later, old as he was, 
 William kept the promise he had given the King of 
 Italy, that he would return the latter's visit ; and 
 there was a great outburst of enthusiasm in Milan 
 as the two soldierly sovereigns rode along the 
 Piazza del Duomo. In 1873 William paid as well 
 as received visits. In April, long before the snow 
 had melted from the steppes, the hardy old monarch 
 journeyed to St. Petersburg, to be the guest of his 
 nephew the Czar ; and in October he went to 
 Vienna, on a visit to the Emperor Francis Joseph. 
 On the anniversary of the victory of Sedan, his 
 Majesty, with great ceremony, unveiled the "Monu- 
 ment of Victory " on the Konigsplatz, making a 
 speech in which he said : " This column of Victory 
 is a monument to the generations of what self- 
 sacrifice and perseverance, can accomplish. In 
 conjunction with our faithful allies, we strode from 
 victory to victory by the grace of God, until we 
 attained to the unity of Germany in the foundation 
 of a new empire." 
 
 It is impossible to trace the troubled course 
 of the virulent conflict which raged so long 
 between the Prussian Government and the Church 
 of Rome, and in which a section of William's 
 Boman Catholic subjects were almost inevitably
 
 316 WILLIAM OF GERMANY, 1373-5. 
 
 embroiled. Whether the enforcement of the " May 
 Laws " deserves the name of persecution, or whether 
 those statutes were rendered necessary by priestly 
 pretensions subversive of the peace of the monarchy, 
 is a question far too wide for discussion here. It 
 was remarkable to what extent, when the struggle 
 was at its bitterest, the Papists of Prussia dis- 
 sociated the sovereign from any personal responsi- 
 bility for the severities which they regarded as 
 oppression. That William suffered because of 
 the sufferings under which groaned a portion of his 
 people may be taken for granted, for he was a man 
 of a very tender heart, and had a sincere pity for 
 all suffering ; that he was driven against his own 
 sense of right into the reluctant fulfilment of his 
 duty as a Constitutional monarch is easily averred, 
 but might be harder to prove. There is no under- 
 tone of lack of personal conviction in the justice of 
 the course he sanctioned, in his famous letter to 
 Pope Pius IX., in answer to a personal epistle of 
 remonstrance from that Pontiff. William's reply 
 reads like the letter of a man who is firm on his 
 own ground ; and as it summarises the attitude of 
 Prussian legal authority against Papal pretensions, 
 its reproduction is not inappropriate. The Pope's 
 letter had insisted that the measures adopted by 
 the Prussian Government, " all aimed more and
 
 1873-s. HONOURED OLD AGE. 317 
 
 more at the destruction of Catholicism." William's 
 reply was as follows : 
 
 u I am glad that your Holiness has, as in former times, 
 done me the honour to write to me. I rejoice the more at this 
 since an opportunity is thereby afforded me of correcting 
 errors, which, as it appears from the letter of your Holiness, 
 must have occurred in the communications you have received 
 relative to German affairs. If the reports made to your Holi- 
 ness respecting German questions only stated the truth, it 
 would not be possible for your Holiness to entertain the sup- 
 position that my Government enters on a path which I do not 
 approve. According to the constitution of my States, such a 
 thing cannot happen, since the laws and Government measures 
 in Prussia require my consent as Sovereign. To my deep 
 sorrow, a portion of my Catholic subjects have organised for 
 the past two years a political party which endeavours to dis- 
 turb, by intrigues hostile to the State, the religious peace "which 
 has existed in Prussia for centuries. Leading Catholic priests 
 have, unfortunately, not only approved this movement, but 
 joined in it to the extent of open revolt against existing laws. 
 It will not have escaped the observation of your Holiness, that 
 similar indications manifest themselves at the present time in 
 several European and some Transatlantic States. It is not my 
 mission to investigate the causes by which the clergy and the 
 faithful of one of the Christian denominations can be induced 
 actively to assist the enemies of all law; but it certainly is my 
 mission to protect internal peace, and preserve the authority of 
 the laws in the States whose Government has been entrusted to 
 me by God. I am conscious that I owe hereafter an account 
 of the accomplishment of this my kingly duty. I shall maintain 
 order and law in my States against all attacks, so long as God 
 gives me the power. I am in duty bound to do this as a 
 Christian monarch, even when to my sorrow I have to fulfil 
 this royal duty against servants of a Church which I suppose
 
 318 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 acknowledge, no less than the Evangelical Church, that the com- 
 mandment of obedience to secular authority is an emanation of 
 the revealed will of God. Many of the priests in Prussia subject 
 to your Holiness disown, to my regret, the Christian doctrine in 
 tins respect, and place my Government under the necessity, sup- 
 ported by the great majority of my loyal Catholic and Evangeli- 
 cal subjects, of extorting obedience to the law by secular means. 
 I willingly entertain the hope that your Holiness, upon being 
 informed of the true position of affairs, will use your authority 
 to put an end to the agitation carried on amidst deplorable 
 distortion of the truth and abuse of priestly authority. The 
 religion of Jesus Christ has, as I attest to your Holiness before 
 God, nothing to do with these intrigues, any more than has 
 truth, to whose banner invoked by your Holiness I unreservedly 
 subscribe. There is one more expression in the letter of your 
 Holiness which I cannot pass over without contradiction, 
 although it is not based on the previous information, but upon 
 the belief of your Holiness viz., the expression that every one 
 who has received baptism belongs to the Pope. The Evangelical 
 creed, which, as must be known to your Holiness, I, like my 
 ancestors and the majority of my subjects, profess, does not 
 permit us to accept in our relations to God any other Mediator 
 than our Lord Jesus Christ. The difference of faith does not 
 prevent me from living in peace with those who do not share 
 mine, and offering your Holiness the expression of my personal 
 devotion and esteem." 
 
 It was said at the time that no incident since 
 Sedan had so powerfully stirred the German mind 
 as did the publication of the letter quoted above. 
 Addresses poured in thanking the Emperor for his 
 firmness in resisting Papal pretensions, which were 
 described as "arrogant," and he was earnestly
 
 1875. HONOURED OLD AGE. 319 
 
 entreated to enforce the laws against the Ultramon- 
 tanes " those dishonest, ambitious, and irrational 
 enemies of the German empire." Catholics and 
 Protestants alike expressed their satisfaction at the 
 independent attitude asserted by the sovereign. 
 The close of 1873 found his Majesty seriously 
 ailing; and his health and spirits alike were affected 
 by the death of the Dowager Queen Elizabeth, the 
 widow of Frederic William IV. 
 
 In 1875 a measure for the organisation of the 
 Landsturm became law; helped, no doubt, by the 
 curiously frank line of argument held by Moltke, 
 who frankly said Germany had " the respect of all, 
 but the sympathy of none ; being in fact universally 
 regarded as a dangerous neighbour." She certainly 
 was not rendered less dangerous potentially by a 
 measure which, in effect, increased her military 
 strength by half a million of men, and raised that 
 strength to the stupendous total of 2,800,000 men. 
 There was a certain political significance in the 
 effusive cordiality which characterised the Czar's 
 visit to his Imperial uncle in May of this year. 
 Eelations between France and Grermany were at 
 more than their normal tension. France was 
 engaged in an increase of her armed strength of a 
 nature which the Germans regarded as threatening 
 a special purpose. A German newspaper had bluntly
 
 S20 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. ~i875-7. 
 
 asked, " Is war in sight ? " and popular feeling 
 was stirring on the Spree as well as on the Seine. 
 Alexander took great pains to show his respectful 
 friendship for the German Emperor. At the con- 
 clusion of a review during which he had ridden at 
 the head of the " Emperor Alexander " regiment 
 of the Prussian Guard, he gave it the order, as a 
 mark of special homage, to present arms to William. 
 Such things were regarded as a confirmation of 
 the Russian Emperor's confidence in Germany's 
 moderation, with the inference that he regarded 
 France as responsible for the clouds on the horizon. 
 Alexander had previously expressed himself to the 
 effect that a cordial understanding between the 
 three Emperors was a guarantee for the maintenance 
 of peace, unless France were obstinately bent on 
 breaking it, and this visit went to heighten that 
 impression. The international irritation was 
 gradually allayed, and it was characteristic that a 
 year later Bismarck cited as an argument for 
 restrictions on the freedom of the press the ques- 
 tion quoted above, which it was hinted at the time 
 he had himself inspired. 
 
 The first day of 1877 the year of the Busso- 
 Turkish war was the seventieth anniversary of the 
 commencement of the Emperor's military life, and 
 the few soldierly sentences he spoke to the officers
 
 1877. HONOURED OLD AGE. 321 
 
 who assembled to congratulate him were character- 
 istically modest : " When I look back on the day 
 when I entered the army, I cannot but remember 
 the state of things which then existed; and from 
 the moment when my father's hand led me into the 
 army, throughout my life, my first thought has 
 been to give grateful thanks to the arbiter of our 
 destinies. My gratitude is due to all those who 
 have accompanied me in my military career and 
 joined in my efforts. I have to thank the valour, 
 devotion, and constancy of the army for the position 
 which I now offer. Prom Pehrbellin to the last 
 glorious war the deeds of the Prussian army are 
 enrolled imperishablyin the world's history. Prussia 
 has become what she was chiefly through the 
 army/' 
 
 The Emperor attained his eightieth year on the 
 22nd March, 1877, and the day was celebrated as a 
 great national festival. Over a thousand congratu- 
 latory telegrams reached the old monarch, who 
 made a point of opening them all with his own 
 hands; and all the windows of the palace were 
 decorated with birthday bouquets, from behind a 
 fragrant rampart of which he bowed his acknow- 
 ledgments to the cheering multitudes below. The 
 first to pay their duty to him were the Imperial 
 Crown Prince and Princess with their children;
 
 322 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isrt. 
 
 then followed the princes of the blood, the court 
 functionaries, ambassadors, ministers, generals, and 
 innumerable deputations from all parts of the 
 Empire. The receptions lasted till the afternoon, 
 and when they were at length finished the Emperor 
 drove to the old palace, where the King of Saxony 
 presented him, in the name of the reigning princes 
 of Germany, with Werner's picture of the memorable 
 ceremony in the chateau of Versailles. Among 
 the other presents accepted by his Majesty this day 
 were an engraving executed by Prince Henry and 
 a book bound by Prince Waldemar, the two younger 
 sons of the Imperial Crown Prince. It is among 
 the domestic customs of the Hohenzollern house 
 that each scion of it in youth learns some handi- 
 craft. William himself was a glazier ; his son is a 
 compositor. 
 
 His Majesty in the summer of 1877 paid his 
 first visit to the new Grerman province of Alsace- 
 Lorraine. In Strasburg he had from the middle 
 classes a more coidial reception than had been 
 anticipated, but it was noticed that the upper and 
 lower classes held aloof from the demonstrations. 
 Metz was unmistakably sullen. Its municipal 
 council declined to vote money to be spent in a 
 civic reception of the conqueror, and the unfortunate 
 injury to the grand old cathedral by a fire caused
 
 lew. BONOUREb OLD AGE. 823 
 
 by the German illuminations did not contribute to 
 cordiality on the part of the Messins. While 
 on his way to the autumn manoeuvres at Diissel- 
 dorf, William paid a visit to Herr Krupp at 
 Essen, where, on the anniversary of Sedan, he 
 witnessed a siege gun being fashioned by the 
 great hammer " Fritz," whose weight is 37^ tons. 
 The manoeuvres of this autumn were on an ex- 
 ceptionally extensive scale, and commencing at 
 Diisseldorf, were continued at Cologne, Baden, and 
 Darmstadt, lasting throughout the month of Sep- 
 tember. Alike of field evolutions, parades, festivals, 
 and receptions, the hale octogenarian monarch was 
 the central figure, and his activity and endurance 
 were phenomenal. Five hours' sleep sufficed him ; 
 he was up and in the saddle by 6 A.M., and mid- 
 night found him supping on lobster salad, to his 
 fondness for which some, indeed, have attributed 
 his able-bodied longevity. Near the end of the 
 year he followed the funeral procession of a 
 comrade whose longevity was yet more exceptional 
 than his own. Old Marshal Wrangel, of whom it 
 was said that " he had forgotten to die," had at 
 length, at the age of ninety -four, remembered that 
 duty; wearing uniform even on his death-bed 
 or rather sofa, for he would not go to bed so as 
 to be ready for any summons that might reach
 
 324 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. isra. 
 
 him from his sovereign. The summons came at 
 length from another King than William, and the 
 tough old Trojan, who the Berlin boys believed 
 had fought at Fehrbellin to say nothing of Hohen- 
 freidberg and Waterloo, had to obey. The Emperor 
 paid the dead soldier an unprecedented mark of 
 respect by following his coffin on foot to the 
 railway station, so violating a canon of court 
 etiquette which prescribes that the reigning 
 sovereign should participate in the funeral proces- 
 sion only of his predecessor or of a Queen Dowager. 
 In the early summer of 1878 two attempts were 
 made to assassinate the venerable monarch. On 
 May llth, as he was driving in the Linden, a crazed 
 mechanic named Hodel fired two pistol shots at 
 him from the side-walk. William exclaimed, " Is 
 it possible these shots are intended for me ? " when 
 a reply, happily ineffective, was made in the shape 
 of two more shots. None of the four took effect ; 
 but less harmless was the attempt made on June 
 3rd by Dr. Charles Edward Nobiling, a man of 
 birth and education, and an impassioned Socialist. 
 Nobiling's weapon was a double - barrelled gun 
 loaded with swanshot, and fired from a second- 
 floor window of a house on the Linden as the 
 Emperor alone in his caleche was driving toward 
 the Brandenburg Gate. Both barrels were fired,
 
 1878. HONOURED OLD AGE. 325 
 
 and the charges took effect about the head, 
 face, arms, and back of the victim. Fortunately 
 owing to the distance the charges had scattered 
 considerably; but for this their effect would 
 certainly have been fatal. Extraction was set 
 about at once, the Emperor remaining perfectly 
 composed during the protracted operation. In 
 the course of a short interval he was able to 
 concern himself in despatching a message to the 
 Shah of Persia, regretting his inability to keep 
 a dinner ens;a2;ement for the same evening with 
 
 o o o 
 
 that potentate. Over thirty shot were extracted ; 
 some he carried in him to the grave. His 
 Majesty nominated his son to be Regent while 
 he himself should remain an invalid, and the 
 Prince was thus acting for his father and sov- 
 ereign during the sittings of the Berlin Congress 
 from which Lords Beaconsfield and Salisbury 
 brought back "peace with honour." It was not 
 until December that his Majesty resumed the 
 reins, after a visit to Cologne for the inaugura- 
 tion of a monument in the capital of the Rhine 
 provinces to the memory of his father.
 
 326 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 1875. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 IMPERIAL MEMORIALS IN STONE AND BRONZE. 
 
 IN the decade that followed the close of the 
 Franco-German war, there were erected many 
 splendid monuments intended to tell Gennany to 
 all time of the great deeds accomplished during 
 the life of the Emperor. German unity that had 
 been the dream of all Germany for ages had through 
 him been completed. German poets had sung 
 of him as the modern Barbarossa, the new embod- 
 iment of the legend that made the old Red Beard 
 slumber beneath the Kyffhaeuser during the long 
 period of Germany's disunity. Sculptors and 
 architects now vied with each other in producing 
 designs of monuments and monumental structures 
 that should symbolize the splendid deeds of the 
 past, and teach in stone and bronze, the great 
 story of a life that had been consecrated to the 
 re-establishment of the Empire. Scarcely a ham- 
 let in all Germany that had not erected its monu- 
 ment in memory of its soldiers who had fallen in 
 the war. Berlin had completed hers : the beauti- 
 ful Column of Victory in the Thiergarten, com- 
 memorating Prussia's great work ; but this memo-
 
 IMPERIAL MEMORIALS IN STONE AND BRONZE. 327 
 
 rialized not only the victories of 1870 and 1871, 
 but those over Denmark in 1864, and Austria and 
 the South German states in 1866. The column 
 was a gigantic gravestone for over fifty thousand 
 Prussians who had fallen in these three great wars 
 in defence of their dynasty and their country. 
 
 Consequently, the ceremonies connected with the 
 inauguration of that monument on the 2d of Sep- 
 tember, 1873, had been almost exclusively Prus- 
 sian in character. The Emperor was attended at 
 the magnificent ceremony by all the princes of 
 Prussia, and by the General Staff of the Prussian 
 Army ; but the Princes of the Empire, Prussia's 
 allies in 1870, had not been invited, for the reason 
 that the monument itself represented victories in 
 which some of them had taken part among the 
 defeated. The foundation stone had been laid on 
 the 15th of April, 1865, on the anniversary of the 
 storming of the Dueppler breast works, and a docu- 
 ment was placed in the corner-stone, telling the 
 ''deeds of Borussia and her imperial ally in the 
 fight for the Duchies." Then came 1866 and 
 Sadowa, and the scope of the monument had to be 
 enlarged to commemorate Prussia's victories over 
 her former imperial ally and the South German 
 states. Then came 1870, and once more the mon- 
 ument had to tell .a greater story, that of the vic- 
 tories in France and the reunification of Germany 
 under Prussian leadership.
 
 328 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 1875. 
 
 Still greater monuments were yet to be com- 
 pleted, in which all the German princes and peo- 
 ples could take pride in up-building or in finishing. 
 These were the splendid National Monument on 
 the Niederwald ; the Arminius Monument on the 
 summit of the Grotenburg, in the Teutoburg 
 Forest, near Detmold, and the completion of the 
 Cologne Cathedral. In September, 1877, two 
 years after the inauguration of the monument of 
 Victory in Berlin, the Emperor went to the river 
 and there laid the foundation-stone of the grand 
 structure to be erected on the banks of the Rhine, 
 opposite Bingen, and which was unveiled with 
 brilliant ceremonies seven years afterward. It had 
 been preceded, however, by the completion and 
 dedication of the Hermann or Arminius Monu- 
 ment, in August, 1875, a monument in which all 
 the people of Germany took enthusiastic interest. 
 It remains to this day one of the most unique of 
 German memorial structures. The colossal figure 
 
 o 
 
 of Hermann, Prince of the Cheruskeans, with 
 uplifted sword, telling Germany of the glorious 
 deeds of a long gone past, stands on the highest 
 summit of Teutoburg range, overlooking the 
 ground, where in the ninth year after the birth of 
 Christ, the united German tribes defeated, and 
 slew in a three days' battle, in the defiles of the 
 forest, the forces of Varus, the Roman general 
 sent to subjugate the Teutons by Augustus, who,
 
 IMPERIAL MEMORIALS IN STONE AND BRONZE. 329 
 
 when the news was brought to him in Rome, 
 refused to be comforted, and for days and nights 
 kept exclaiming, " Varus, Varus, give me back my 
 legions." 
 
 O 
 
 The monument itself was a triumph of perse- 
 verance on the part of the sculptor, Von Bandel, 
 who spent thirty-seven years of his life in building 
 it, and who probably would have died leaving 
 his great work unfinished, had not the victories of 
 1870-71 called the attention of Germany to the 
 uncompleted structure on the Grotenburg. Eleven 
 hundred years had passed since Charlemagne had 
 destroyed the Irminsul that had been worshipped 
 by the Teutons ever since Hermann's death ; and 
 the new Irminsul had been erected on the same 
 hills, in greater beauty and with added significance. 
 For the modern Irminsul, in 1875, recalled not 
 only the deeds and symbolical figure of the first 
 great hero of German unity, but with its comple- 
 tion was celebrated the renewal of Germany's unity 
 and the completion of her strength under one whom 
 the Germans loved to style a second Armin. 
 Underneath the dome-like structure on which the 
 figure of Hermann stands had been placed a bust, 
 in relief, of the Emperor, made in bronze after a 
 model by Von Bandel from cannon captured at 
 Gravelotte. Underneath were the dates of the 
 Emperor's eventful life, and the following inscrip- 
 tion : " He united with firm hand the long divided
 
 330 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. igys. 
 
 peoples. He overcame victoriously the might and 
 craft of France. He led home to the Empire the 
 long lost children. He was, like Armin, the De- 
 liverer. A.rmin dem Better /*/ < j r ylcidi ! " 
 
 All Germany sent representatives to attend the 
 ceremonies connected with the unveiling of Von 
 Bandel's colossal monument, and to greet the new 
 Arinin, in the person of the Emperor. Fifty 
 thousand people had gathered on the summit of 
 the Grotenburg on the memorable August morn- 
 ing in 1875. In the imperial tribune sat the 
 Emperor, and about him the reigning Prince of 
 Lippe-D etmold, the Princesses of Lippe, the Crown 
 Prince of Germany, Prince Carl of Prussia, and 
 princes or representatives of the reigning houses 
 of all the German states, gallant Von der Tann 
 representing King Ludwig of Bavaria. After the 
 ceremonies a touching incident occurred. The 
 Emperor sent his chamberlain to bring the aged 
 sculptor to him. Leaning on the arm of the 
 court official, the gray -haired old man, with uncov- 
 ered head, walking slowly, ascended the steps 
 leading to the imperial tribune. The Emperor 
 arose and went to meet the old sculptor, and grasp- 
 ing his hands with great warmth, spoke affectionate 
 words to him on the completion of his great work. 
 The fifty thousand people cheered again and again, 
 and the sight will long be remembered by those 
 who witnessed it. The aged monarch through
 
 IMPERIAL MEMORIALS IN STONE AND BRONZE. 331 
 
 whom German unity had been accomplished, who 
 had been hailed by his people a second Armin, 
 stood grasping the hand of the equally aged sculp- 
 tor, who had spent the best years of his life in 
 building the noblest monument to the first Armin, 
 
 o 
 
 the Clieruskean prince who had first brought the 
 German tribes together to meet and defeat the' 
 common foe. The Emperor himself was moved to 
 tears. He spoke of the monument as a beautiful 
 one, and of Germany as at last happily united. 
 Pointing to the colossal figure and the sword held 
 aloft in the hands of the Cheruskean, he said that 
 if all Germans did their duty in the future as well 
 as they had done in the past, the Empire need 
 never fear danger from foreign foes. 
 
 Significant politically was the celebration of 
 the completion of the Cologne Cathedral, on the 
 1 5th day of October, 1880, in the presence of the Em- 
 peror, the Empress, and a brilliant concourse. The 
 beautiful gothic structure had always been looked 
 upon as a monumental symbol of the re-establish- 
 ment of the German Empire ; but had remained 
 long uncompleted during the many years that 
 Germany was disunited, and unable to assert her- 
 self in the councils of Europe. A German writer 
 said well, " It was a remarkable dispensation of 
 Providence that the same imperial hand was per- 
 mitted to fit on the capstone of the glorious Cathe- 
 dral that had previously laid the foundation of
 
 332 WILLIAM OF <; KHU.\\Y. 
 
 1880. 
 
 the Empire." The Cathedral of Cologne was 
 commenced in the year 1248, and consecrated to 
 Divine Service on the 27th of September, 1522. 
 But it was not completed during centuries. In 
 1814, ruin threatened it, when the attention of the 
 then Crown Prince of Prussia was called to its 
 condition. Frederick William III. and Frederick 
 William IV. watched the work of restoration with 
 deep interest. In 1842, Frederick William IV., 
 after he had given permission for the raising of 
 funds, through the agency of the Douibau Verein, 
 lai<l the foundation-stone of the building in its 
 present dimensions. It was then that, surrounded 
 by the princes of the Houses of Prussia, Austria, 
 Bavaria, and those of all the other courts of Ger- 
 many, holding the hammer in his hand, which was 
 to strike the last corner-stone, he uttered the 
 remarkable words : " Here, where the foundation- 
 stone lies, shall arise the most beautiful portals of 
 the world. Germany is building them. May they 
 become for Germany, by the grace of God, 
 the portals of a new, great, true era. May the 
 great work itself be a prophet to the latest gener- 
 ations of a Germany great and powerful through 
 the unity of rulers and people, a unity which may 
 enforce the peace of the world without bloodshed.'' 
 He expressed a hope that within those gates 
 would never enter that evil spirit which served 
 disunion among German princes and peoples.
 
 IMPERIAL MEMORIALS IN STONE AND BRONZE. 333 
 
 Unfortunately the brilliant ceremonies that took 
 place in Cologne in the October days of 1880, 
 were marred by the fact that the national unity of 
 which King William IV. had spoken, of which the 
 Emperor should have been the representative, was 
 not complete. The Kulturkampf had not yet 
 been ended, and many Catholics had expressed 
 the hope that the solemn and ceremorial comple- 
 tion of the Cathedral should be preceded by a 
 repeal of the May Laws. However, the cere- 
 monies at Cologne may be said to have marked 
 the beginning of the end of the religious struggle 
 and the obnoxious legislation, which was finally to 
 all intents and purposes repealed. Prince Bis- 
 marck, the author of the Kulturkampf, was absent 
 from the Cologne festival, showing that he was not 
 in accordance with the spirit that influenced the 
 Emperor, who in fact had grown weary of the 
 religious struggle in the Empire, and was inspired 
 by the wish to see all internal conflicts settled 
 before he should be called to leave his steward- 
 ship in the hands of his son. Nevertheless, in his 
 address, he carefully avoided touching on politics, 
 or even German unity. "Before us stands," he 
 said, " the finished Cathedral of Cologne, one of 
 the greatest edifices of all times, a monument of 
 pious intelligence. May these towers that shoot 
 aloft to heaven remind us that without the gracious 
 help of God, nothing on earth succeeds, Let our
 
 334 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 1883. 
 
 thanks ascend to the Royal Architect, to whose 
 exalted and creative spirit we are indebted for 
 this work, which gratefully, from century to cen- 
 tury, will stand to praise His name. Let us all 
 acclaim this glorious monument, and may it, by 
 the grace of the Almighty, bode gentle peace, in 
 all our regions, to the honour of God, and to o in- 
 own well-being." 
 
 Still more important, more in spirit with 
 the Emperor's works. and labours, was the unveil- 
 ing of the National Monument on the Nieder- 
 wald, on the Rhine, on the 28th of Septem- 
 ber, 1883, after the conclusion of the annual 
 manoeuvres at Homburg, made so memorable by 
 King Alfonso's visit to Germany. It was the most 
 popular of all the monuments erected in Germany 
 after the war, and symbolized the great idea first 
 embodied by Schneckenburger, in his poem of the 
 " Watch on the Rhine." The figure crowning 
 
 O O 
 
 Prof. Schilling's monument, is that of " Gerniania," 
 on which is typified to some degree, Ferdinand 
 Freiligrath's poetical picture of the goddess, writ- 
 ten by the stalwart '49er at the outbreak of the 
 Franco-German conflict. A beautiful bronze relief 
 on the monument, symbolically represents how all 
 the German peoples gathered round the Emperor 
 to keep the " Watch on the Rhine." In the cen- 
 tre of the picture the Emperor is seen on horse- 
 back, and around him are the figures of all the Ger-
 
 IMPERIAL MEMORIALS IN STONE AND BRONZE. 335 
 
 mart princes who reigned in 1870, and the men 
 who assisted the Emperor in the accomplishment of 
 the great work, Bismarck, Moltke, Von Roen, 
 in fact the leaders of all German troops, of all 
 arms. Every soldier, it is said, can discover in the 
 beautifully modelled group, his corps-commander, 
 his own uniform and accoutrements. The entire 
 monument memorialized 156 battles and victories, 
 among them seventeen of great magnitude, fought 
 by the Germans in 180 days ; a campaign in which 
 350,000 French soldiers were made prisoners, 
 twenty-six fortified places were taken, and 6,700 
 guns, 120 eagles and banners captured, and which 
 resulted in restoring Alsace and Lorraine to the 
 Empire and the securing to Germany of a war 
 indemnity from France of five millions of francs. 
 
 The ceremonies at the unveiling of the monu- 
 ment were the most imposing of the many national 
 demonstrations witnessed by the Emperor. All 
 classes of the population, both civil and military, 
 from all parts of the Fatherland, had gathered on 
 the Niederwald. Below, the Rhine was crowded 
 with gayly-decked steamers and boats of every 
 description, loaded to the water's edge with human- 
 ity. Shortly after noon buglers' signals announced 
 the Emperor's approach. First the band and 
 squadron of the Seventh Rhenith Hussars, the 
 King's Own, from Bonn, passed along the 
 road, followed by outriders and an open carriage,
 
 336 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 1883. 
 
 drawn by four black horses. This contained the 
 Emperor and the Crown Prince, the former in his 
 general's uniform and the latter wearing his cuiras- 
 sier doublet, with a plumed helmet, both wearing 
 the orange ribbon of the Order of the Black Eagle. 
 The imperial party comprised, besides, the Crown 
 Princess and the Princess Victoria, Princes Fred- 
 erick William, Charles Albrecht, Frederick Leo- 
 pold, and Alexander of Prussia ; King Albert of 
 Saxony, Prince Leopold of Bavaria, representing 
 King Ludwig, Prince William of Wurtemberg, 
 the Grand Duke and Duchess of Baden, the Grand 
 Duke of Hesse, with the two princes, the Grand 
 Duke of Saxe- Weimar, the Duke of Saxe-Meinin- 
 gen, the Landgrave of Hesse, the Princes of Wai- 
 deck, Pyrmont, Schwarzburg, Reuss, Saxe- Weimar, 
 Saxe-Meiningen and Hohenzollern, Prince George 
 of Saxony, and other German princes too numer- 
 ous to mention. A brilliant suite of military offi- 
 cers stood grouped on either side of the imperial 
 pavilion. Field Marshal Von Moltke was there. 
 Prince Bismarck, however, was not able to be 
 present, though the Emperor did not forget his 
 faithful Chancellor. In Prince Bismarck's retreat 
 at Friedrichsruh is a large bronze cast of the Nie- 
 derwald Monument, to which is attached a sheet of 
 note paper with the following inscription in the 
 aged Emperor's own hand : 
 
 " CHRISTMAS, 1883: The key-stone of your pol-
 
 MEMORIALS IN STONE AND llliONZE. 337 
 
 icy, a ceremony which was chiefly dedicated to 
 you, and at which you could not, I am sorry to 
 see, be present. W." 
 
 On the Emperor's arrival the imperial standard, 
 with a white cross, black eagles and crowns and 
 yellow ground, was run up on the flag-staff. It 
 was a most brilliant sight when the Emperor had 
 taken up a position in the centre of the pavilion, 
 with the Crown Prince and the King of Saxony on 
 either side, and the German princes and the digni- 
 taries of the Empire grouped around, all in gala 
 uniforms, with the highest decorations, together with 
 the grand stand filled to the last place, and the 
 dense rows of veterans' societies, singers, turners, 
 students, scholars, sculptors, architects, founders 
 and masons, with hundreds of flags and banners, 
 forming the background of this impressive picture, 
 in the centre and above which towered the huge 
 monument of colossal Germania with the uplifted 
 crown. After the members of the committee had 
 been presented, the Emperor was approached by 
 seven maids of honor, dressed in white, with scarfs 
 of the national color, and oak wreaths on their 
 brows. Frl. Marie Heyt, of Wiesbaden, delivered 
 an address written by the poet Emil Ritterhaus, 
 whose daughter, as well as the daughters of Pro- 
 fessor Schilling, the sculptor, were among the 
 chosen seven. After the announcement had been 
 made to the Emperor of the completion of the
 
 338 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 1883. 
 
 great work, the entire assemblage, numbering many 
 thousands, joined in singing the old hymn, " Nun 
 danket Alle Gott," with the accompaniment 
 of all the bands, producing a magnificent effect. 
 Then his majesty, clearly and audibly, made 
 a reply. 
 
 He said : " When Providence desires to signify 
 His will with regard to mighty events upon the 
 earth, He selects the time, countries and instruments 
 to accomplish His purpose. The years 1870 and 
 1871 were a time when such purpose was indicated. 
 Our threatened Germany arose in its love for the 
 Fatherland as one man, and with the princes at 
 the head, stood in arms as the instrument. The 
 Almighty conducted these arms, after sanguinary 
 conflicts, from victory to victory, and united Ger- 
 many took her place in the history of the world. 
 Millions of hearts have raised their prayers to God 
 and given Him humble thanks, praising Him for 
 esteeming us worthy of accomplishing His will. 
 Germany, to the remotest time, desires to give con- 
 stant expression to this feeling of gratitude. In 
 this sense the monument standing before us was 
 erected. In the words spoken at the laying of the 
 foundation stone words which my late father, 
 after the wars of Liberation of 1813 to lMf>, 
 bequeathed in iron to posterity I dedicate this 
 monument ' To the Fallen, a Memorial ; to the 
 Living, an Acknowledgment ; to the Living Gen-
 
 IMPERIAL MEMORIALS IN STONE AND BRONZE. 339 
 
 eration, a Source of Emulation. May God vouch- 
 safe it.' " 
 
 By some blunder the signal gun was fired before 
 the Emperor had concluded, and instantly the mili- 
 tary battery at Bingen, the guns on the steamboats 
 and in the villages up and down the river roared 
 forth salutes, so that although part of the Emperor's 
 address was thereby rendered inaudible, this thun- 
 der of artillery was not an unfitting accompaniment 
 to the Emperor's words. At the same moment 
 the great blue silk cloth that hitherto had covered 
 the central relief on the monument, was dropped 
 down and revealed the bronze representation of 
 the Emperor, surrounded by the princes and gen- 
 erals, while the cheers of the thousands upon 
 thousands of people stationed at the foot of the 
 Niederwald and all the favorable points in the 
 vicinity, and even on the other bank of the river, 
 came up from below amid the roaring of royal 
 salutes and the tolling of bells. Then a dramatic 
 and touching' incident occurred. The Crown 
 Prince, bending on one knee, seized and kissed the 
 Emperor's hand, whereupon father and son em- 
 braced repeatedly and kissed each other amid the 
 tremendous cheering of the assemblage. The spec- 
 tators and bands joined in the national hymn, 
 " Heil Dir im Siegeskranz," followed by " Die 
 Wacht am Rhein," and at the moment, as an eye- 
 witness says, " the sun broke through the clouds
 
 340 WILLIAM OF GEKXAXY. 
 
 1883. 
 
 victoriously and illuminated this historical scene 
 once more." Preceded by a hussar escort, the 
 Emperor and the imperial party were driven off to 
 Rudesheim and proceeded to the Rhine, where the 
 Emperor stood on a terrace by the river while a 
 flotilla of thirty great Rhine steamers, decked from 
 stem to stern with bunting and crowded with pas- 
 sengers, passed in review before him, dipping their 
 colors and firing salutes. At night, while the 
 Emperor himself went to Wiesbaden, the villages 
 and castles alons; the historic Rhine were illu- 
 
 O 
 
 minated and bonfires and blue lights flickered and 
 flamed from every summit, from the Siebengebirge 
 to the falls of Schaffhausen. 
 
 A marvellous pageant, a grand tribute by Ger- 
 many, her princes and people, to the worth of the 
 aged Emperor. But even there, while unveiling 
 the statue of Gernmnia, the monument symbolical 
 of Germany's strength and unity, the aged Emper* >r 
 had stood all day long with death lurking beneath 
 his feet. Even to the Niederwald the vile con- 
 spiracy of agitation had tracked him and had 
 placed a mine of explosives underneath the monu- 
 ment, and only Providence had saved him from 
 being hurled to death, with scores of German 
 princes and thousands of people. A rain-storm on 
 the night preceding the ceremony had fortunately 
 rendered the mines harmless. Again it seemed as 
 if the imperial life had been saved by some m ystcri-
 
 IMPERIAL MEMORIALS IN STONE AND BRONZE. 341 
 
 ous interposition. The German papers at the time 
 recalled the fact that the Emperor's life had been 
 saved when Nobiling shot at him on the Linden in 
 a strange way. Just as he was about leaving the 
 palace for his afternoon drive, he asked an atten- 
 dant standing in the lobby the reason of the unus- 
 ual and gayly dressed crowds in the streets. He 
 was informed that it was because they wanted to 
 see the Shah of Persia, who was then in Berlin. 
 "Ah," he replied, "then I must put on gala," 
 and, smiling, took off the military cloth cap which 
 he intended to wear and replaced it with his Prus- 
 sian helmet. Within a few hours he was brought 
 back to the palace wounded and bleeding. Then 
 it was found that the steel plating of the helmet 
 had warded off several shots from the Emperor's 
 head. Had the unresisting cloth been there instead 
 of the Pickdhaube the result might have been very 
 different. But for the rain-storm of the night of 
 the first and second of September, 1883, who 
 knows what the ending of the ceremonies on the 
 Niederwald would have been?
 
 342 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 CHAPTEK XV. 
 
 NEARING THE END. 
 
 In comparison with the pre-1870 period the Em- 
 peror's life during its last decade was one of great 
 calm. Family festivals came with their accus- 
 tomed regularity. Every summer, with scarcely 
 an exception, he spent a few weeks at the baths 
 of Ems or Wiesbaden, then visited his daughter 
 the Grand Duchess of Baden on Lake Constance, 
 and ended his annual " cure " by meetings with 
 brother emperors at Ischl or Gastein. Every year 
 he was present at the autumn manoeuvres of the 
 army, in different parts of the empire. Every 
 winter he was in Berlin, engaged in conscientious 
 attention to his imperial duties. He took part in 
 the annual court festivities, and gave earnest atten- 
 tion to the course of legislation having for its 
 object Germany's commercial and colonial devel- 
 opment, the well-being of German populations and 
 the continued strengthening of the military and 
 naval forces of the Empire. 
 
 Very frequently, during the last years of liis
 
 NEARIXG THE END. 343 
 
 life, reports were telegraphed to all parts of the 
 world that the Emperor would certainly not be 
 able to last much .longer. But the care of his 
 physicians and his grand constitution always 
 enabled him to pull through. Many of his most 
 serious attacks are said to have been brought on 
 by eating too generously of his favorite dishes, 
 among which lobster was one of the easily digest- 
 ible. Occasionally the rumor would get into print 
 that the famous ghostly White Lady had made her 
 appearance in the Old Schloss at Berlin, and as 
 the loyal Berlinese had a lingering belief that her 
 coming surely portended a death in the Hohen- 
 zollern family, they greatly feared that the time 
 for the Kaiser to be called away was near. It is 
 a strange superstition this connected with the 
 ghostly Countess of Orlamunde, and Hohenzollern 
 chroniclers do certainly manage to adduce some 
 curious coincidences in connection with her alleged 
 appearances. Without delving deeply into ancient 
 history it may be mentioned that in 1840 the 
 rumor was current in Berlin that the White Lady 
 had appeared shortly before the death of King 
 Frederick William III. She was also reported to 
 have been seen before the death of Prince Carl in 
 1883. She was further reported in the winter of 
 1886-7. But the Emperor lived on. In fact, he 
 himself had a strange faith in the prophecy of an 
 old gypsy woman made many years ago, that he
 
 344 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. jgrr. 
 
 would live to reach, within a few years of a com- 
 plete century. 
 
 On the 1st of January, 1877, the Emperor cele- 
 brated the seventieth anniversary of his entry into 
 Prussia's military service. All the German princes 
 congratulated him, in person or through their per- 
 sonal adjutants, together with all the field-mar- 
 shals and commanding generals of the German 
 army, the Crown Prince at their head. Among 
 the many presents that he received at the time was 
 one of a most unique character, given by the 
 officers of the first regiment of infantry of the 
 Garde, in which he began his military career. It 
 consisted of a paper-weight built up in the form 
 of a pyramid out of stones collected from every 
 battle-field at which he had been present, with the 
 name of the battle inscribed upon each stone. On 
 the 9th of February in the same year, the Em- 
 peror took especial delight in placing his grand- 
 son, the first-born of the Crown Prince, in the 
 same regiment in which he himself had first 
 served. Previous to that, on the 27th of January, 
 he had decreed that the Prince, who had hitherto 
 borne the name of Frederick William, should in 
 future be known as Prince William. At the same 
 time he invested him with the ribbon of the 
 Order of the Black Eagle, and made an address to 
 him that is worthy of being placed on record, as 
 showing the vast importance he attached to the
 
 1WT. NEARING THE END. 345 
 
 most thorough military training for the Prussian 
 princes. 
 
 After describing the condition of the Prussian 
 army under his predecessors, how it had grown in 
 strength by organization and discipline and had 
 enabled Prussia to take her present proud position 
 in the world, he said : " The Garde Corps to which 
 you now belong, and with it the regiment in which 
 you take your place, have contributed in eminent 
 measure to Prussia's glorious successes. The sym- 
 bols that I wear upon my breast are the public 
 expression of my inextinguishable thankfulness 
 and my never-ending recognition for the devotion 
 with which my army has gained victory upon vic- 
 tory. You have had in your father a grand pat- 
 tern of what a leader of war and of battles should be. 
 In the military service in which you are about to 
 enter you will meet with many things that have 
 the appearance of being insignificant : but you will 
 also learn that in service nothing is small, and 
 that eveiy stone that belongs to the building up 
 of an army must be properly formed if the entire 
 structure is to be successful and firm. So go on 
 and do your duty." 
 
 It is worthy of remark that the Emperor usually 
 composed his own speeches, or at least indicated 
 their substance and purport before they were Writ- 
 ten out. Usually, when he had to make public 
 addresses of a military character, he would jot
 
 346 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. igrt. 
 
 down the heads of subjects he wished to treat 
 upon and leave the completion to the inspiration 
 of the moment. On military subjects he was 
 wonderfully well-informed. A correspondent, 
 writing in 1887 of the Emperor's personal charac- 
 teristics, says on this point : " I was interested in 
 looking over the Emperor's library, which adjoins 
 the historical corner room, and found that the old 
 soldier's taste showed itself here as thoroughly as 
 upon the field of battle. There were about a 
 thousand books in the room, and three-fourths of 
 these were military works. Those most thumb- 
 marked were the reports of his own army. These 
 books he loves to ponder over, and containing as 
 they do nothing but the diyest reports and names 
 of unknown lieutenants, would be most tedious 
 reading for the non-martial mind. But not for 
 this old w^ar hero, who still as in his prime loves 
 to know his l children,' as he calls them, by name, 
 and there are few of them he fails to recall." But 
 his reading was not confined to military matters, 
 and an anecdote was told of him at the same time 
 that reflected the greatest credit upon his man- 
 hood and his literary taste. 
 
 Troubled with insomnia, the Emperor was 
 accustomed to command his adjutant to read him 
 to sleep, choosing the literature himself. One 
 night the adjutant was surprised to find on the 
 table a volume of Zola, which he had to read.
 
 1OT9. NEARING THE END. 347 
 
 Only a few pages had been finished, however, 
 when the aged monarch called to him to cease, 
 adding in a trembling voice : " I wished also to 
 know what the modern realistic novel could pro- 
 duce. Now I am convinced that that book is 
 excellently written, but I do not desire to hear 
 more, because for the short time which I have still 
 to live I hope to retain the illusion which I have 
 of men and women, and not to see them in all 
 their ugliness, stripped of all their virtues." Con- 
 cluding this royal criticism, we are told, he handed 
 his reader a volume of the poet Victor von Schef- 
 fel and soon fell asleep over the ideal thoughts 
 between its covers. The Emperor's relations with 
 women have indeed always been marked with the 
 gallantry characteristic of the Hohenzollerns. 
 With the Empress Augusta he celebrated his 
 golden wedding on the llth of June, 1879. Her 
 he always revered. The memoiy of his mother, 
 the sainted Queen Louise, he worshipped. She 
 was to him through life a guiding star. In Sep- 
 tember, 1879, in company with the Empress, the 
 Crown Prince, the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg- 
 Schwerin, Prince Carl of Prussia, and his grand- 
 son Prince William, he made a pilgrimage to the 
 little villa in the village of Hufen, near Koenigs- 
 berg, made sacred to him by the fact of his mother 
 residing there during her exile from Berlin. 
 Later, when a bust of Queen Louise was unveiled
 
 348 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 1881. 
 
 in the Thiergarten, at Berlin, the Emperor said : 
 " In my childhood and in my youth I could not 
 understand what she foreboded ; and yet God in 
 His grace chose me to carry to completion what 
 she foresaw, when I myself had scarcely a premo- 
 nition of what was to happen. It is clear to me 
 that God selects His instruments to do His will. 
 And this inspires me with the deepest humility 
 and the deepest thankfulness." 
 
 On the 22nd of February, 1881, the Emperor 
 rejoiced in the marriage of his favorite grandson, 
 Prince William, with the Princess Victoria of 
 Schleswig-Holstein. In March he was deeply 
 grieved when he heard of the assassination of his 
 nephew, Czar Alexander of Russia. In Septem- 
 ber of the same year, after the autumn manoeuvres 
 he went to Dantzig to meet the new Czar, Alex- 
 ander III., who came there to greet him on board 
 the Holienzollern. The presence of the Russian 
 and German chancellors gave the interview a deep 
 importance at the time. On the 18th of October 
 the Emperor, who had taken a deep interest in the 
 development of the German fleet, appointed his 
 grandson, the Crown Prince's second son, Prince 
 
 O ' 
 
 Henry now usually styled Henry the Navigator 
 a lieutenant of the navy. On the 20th of Sep- 
 tember, 1881, he attended the marriage of his 
 granddaughter, the Princess Victoria of Baden, 
 with the Crown Prince Gustav of Sweden. In Mav
 
 1883. NEARING THE END. 349 
 
 of the following year the Emperor was rejoiced 
 to hear of the birth of his first great-grandchild, 
 the son of Prince and Princess William. 
 
 Thus it came to pass that there were four 
 generations of Hohenzollerns in existence, and 
 that the successorship to the Prussian and German 
 thrones was trebly secured. The picture of the 
 four Hohenzollerns the aged Emperor holding 
 the youngest scion, the Crown Prince and Prince 
 William standing on either side is one of the 
 most popular photographs in Germany. The 
 youngest Hohenzollern was baptized with great 
 ceremony at Potsdam on the llth of June, 1882, 
 receiving the name Frederick Wilhelm Victor 
 August Ernst, the Emperor himself holding the 
 little one up at the baptismal font. During the 
 summer of 1882 the Emperor was tireless. In 
 August he met the Emperor Franz Josef at Ischl. 
 In the beginning of 1883, the 25th of January, 
 the silver- wedding of the Crown Prince and Prin- 
 cess was to have been celebrated, but had to be 
 postponed on account of the death of Prince Carl 
 of Prussia the Emperor's brother. The festival 
 ,took place, however, a few weeks later, and was 
 made memorable by the Emperor appointing the 
 Prince of "Wales, who had gone to Berlin to attend 
 the fetes, honoraiy colonel of the Pomeranian or 
 Blucher's Hussars (No. 5). The appointment was 
 of historical and symbolical significance, recalling
 
 350 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. west. 
 
 as it did the Anglo-Prussian alliance and victory 
 of Waterloo, and, as a German writer says : " not 
 merely the little, farm - house La Belle Alliance, 
 where Wellington and Blucher met after Napole- 
 on's defeat, but that beantiful alliance between 
 Prussia's Crown Prince and England's Royal 
 Daughter twenty-five years ago." 
 
 It would take a volume to treat at length all 
 the events of the Emperor's life from this time up 
 to the end. As a matter of fact they can only be 
 recorded with just appreciation in a complete 
 political history of the German Empire under 
 William L; and the admirable work of Mr. Charles 
 E. Lowe, the "Life of Prince Bismarck," really 
 obviates the necessity of making the story of the 
 Emperor's life more detailed here. Every year 
 since 1882, the aged monarch has attended the 
 military manoeuvres, and after them has visited the 
 German fleet at Kiel, the principal naval station. 
 One of the last acts of his life, in June, 1887, was to 
 attend the ceremonies connected with the cutting 
 of the first sod of the new Baltic Canal, which, 
 extending from the harbor of Kiel across Holstein 
 to the mouth of the Elbe, will, when finished, ena- 
 ble the German fleet to pass from the Baltic to the 
 North Sea and vice versa without let or hindrance. 
 The Emperor has earnestly supported the idea 
 that, in order that Germany may take her proper 
 position among the strongest powers of the world,
 
 1883. NEARING FEE END. 351 
 
 her navy must be nursed and drilled and developed 
 in the same way as was done with the Prussian 
 army. This has become a necessity, not only for 
 the eventuality of war but for times of peace, 
 since, under Prince Bismarck's guidance, Germany 
 has grown to be an extensive Colonial power, is 
 founding settlements in Africa, taking possession 
 of valuable islands in the Pacific and extending 
 her trade to all parts of the Avorld. 
 
 In September, 1883, the Emperor was present 
 at the manoeuvres at Homburg, surrounded by a 
 score of kings and princes, among them the Prince 
 of Wales, the Crown Prince of Portugal, the Duke 
 of Cambridge, the Duke of Connaught, King 
 Milan of Servia and unfortunate King Alfonso of 
 Spain, not to mention the innumerable princes and 
 princesses of Germany and .the German houses. It 
 was then that the Spanish King was appointed 
 honorary colonel of the Schleswig-Holstein Uhlan 
 Regiment No. 15, succeeding Prince Carl, the 
 Emperor's brother. The honor was purchased by 
 King Alfonso, however, at the cost of French pop- 
 ularity and insult by the populace of Paris on his 
 homeward journey. On the 17th of November of 
 the same year the Crown Prince representing the 
 Emperor paid the return visit to King Alfonso, 
 and on his way back, at the express wish of his 
 father, visited King Humbert at the Quirinal and 
 Pope Leo XIII. at the Vatican. The visit to the
 
 352 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 18S4. 
 
 Vatican was intended by the Emperor to give 
 expression to his earnest desire to have the Kul- 
 turkampf differences settled out of existence 
 before his death. The Emperor, the Crown 
 Prince is reported to have said to the Pope, 
 wished to leave the Empire not only politically 
 united but its people undisturbed by religious 
 differences in the future. 
 
 The following year was full of memorable days. 
 The 27th of February was the seventieth anniver- 
 sary of the Emperor's baptism of fire at Bar-sur- 
 Aube. On March 22 he kept his eighty-seventh 
 birthday. In July he went to Gastein to meet the 
 Emperor of Austria, and in the September follow- 
 ing took place the famous meeting of the three 
 Emperors, of Germany, Austria and Russia, at 
 Skierniewice, near Warsaw, and of the three Chan- 
 cellors, Prince Bismarck, Count Kalnoky, and M. 
 de Giers. In October, 1884, the subject of the 
 Brunswick succession came up by the death of 
 Duke William ; and the refusal of the Duke of 
 Cumberland to give up his Hanoverian claims, 
 necessitated the appointment of Prince Albrecht 
 of Prussia as regent of the Duchy. 
 
 The year 1885 passed by with its usual routine of 
 events in the imperial life. The Emperor grieved 
 for the loss of many of his old friends, Prince Aug- 
 ust of Wurtemberg, Prince Karl Anton of Hohen- 
 zollern-Sigmaringen, and also General Vogel von
 
 1833. HEARING THE EM). 353 
 
 Falkenstein and Field Marshal Baron von Man- 
 teuffel, two of the most famous leaders of the 1866 
 campaign. He had the pleasure of seeing the old- 
 est son of his only daughter, the Hereditary Grand 
 Duke of Baden, married to the Princess Hilda of 
 Nassau, daughter of Duke Adolf of Nassau, one of 
 the depossessed 1866 princes. The raising of the 
 German flag on the Caroline Islands threatened for 
 awhile to bring the Imperial Government into con- 
 ilict with that of Madrid, but the Emperor himself 
 placed the difficulty for arbitration in the hands of 
 Pope Leo XIIL, who decided in favor of the 
 ancient claims of Spain to the islands, leaving cer- 
 tain commercial rights to Germany. 
 
 On the 1st of April, 1885, the Emperor was 
 able to congratulate Prince Bismarck upon the 
 seventieth aniversary of his birthday, which was 
 celebrated in Berlin with great festivities. 
 
 The Emperor visited his famous Chancellor 
 and thanked him for the great work he had done 
 in the creation of United Germany. " It was on 
 this occasion," says Mr. Charles E. Lowe, the biog- 
 rapher of Prince Bismarck, "that the Emperor, 
 who had already exhausted all his ingenuity in 
 devising means of evincing his gratitude to his 
 Chancellor who had lavished upon him all the 
 copious armory of his decorations, made him a 
 Count and a Prince, as well as dowered him with 
 extensive acres, and always loyally clung to him
 
 354 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 1885. 
 
 through good and evil report that the aged Em- 
 peror, at the head of all the princes of his House, 
 repaired to the residence of his septuagenarian 
 Chancellor and, affectionately embracing him, with 
 tears in his eyes, begged him to accept a reduced 
 and finely executed copy of Anton von Werner's 
 colossal painting of the l Proclamation of the Em- 
 pire at Versailles,' accompanied by an autograph 
 missive. ... "To me and my House," said the 
 Emperor, " it is an especial pleasure to take part 
 in such a festival ; and by the accompanying pic- 
 ture we wish to convey to you with what feelings 
 of grateful recollection we do this, seeing that it 
 calls to mind one of the greatest moments in the 
 history of the House of Hohenzollem one which 
 can never be thought of without at the same time 
 recalling your merits. . . . Methiuks that this paint, 
 ing will enable your latest descendants to realize 
 that your Kaiser and King, as well as his House, 
 were well conscious of what they had to thank you 
 for. With these sentiments and feelings, which 
 will last beyond the grave, I send these lines: 
 4 Your grateful, faithful and devoted Kaiser and 
 King, Wilhelm.'" 
 
 A trait worthy of deepest respect in the Emper- 
 or's character has been his frankness in recognizing 
 the splendid services of the man who in history 
 will be given a place as a co-founder of Geraian 
 unity and the German Empire,
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 IN June 1886 the Emperor grieved deeply at 
 the death by suicide in Lake Starnberg of King 
 Ludwig II., of Bavaria, the young monarch who 
 had readily cast the strength of his army in favor 
 of Germany in 1870, and who had been the first 
 among the German princes to call upon King Wil- 
 liam of Prussia to assume the imperial crown at 
 Versailles in 1871. In the autumn he visited the 
 Emperor Francis Joseph at Gastein, attended the 
 military maneuvers in Alsace, and on March 22, 
 1887, he entered upon the ninetieth year of his 
 momentous life with a vigor that promised to carry 
 him through several more years to come. The 
 anniversary was celebrated with great festivi- 
 ties at Berlin. During the year he made several 
 important journeys, notably the one to Kiel, where, 
 in June, he laid the foundation-stone of the 
 Holtenau lock of the North Sea Canal. After 
 Minister van Boettecher had read the address, the 
 president of the Reichstag presented the Emperor 
 with a trowel and hammer, whereupon his Majesty 
 tapped the stone with the hammer, and in a clear
 
 356 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 1887. 
 
 voice pronounced the canal "a work of peace, 
 honor, and progress a defence in the event of 
 war, and a blessing to the Empire." In July he cele- 
 brated the seventieth anniversary of the date on 
 which he became chief of the regiment of the 
 Royal Grenadiers, at Liegnitz. He paid visits to 
 the watering-places during the summer, and in 
 September celebrated at Baden-Baden the seventy- 
 sixth anniversary of the birth of the Empress. 
 He attended the autumn maneuvers as usual, but 
 generally rode in a carriage, and not on horseback 
 as in former years. To Stettin he was accom- 
 panied by Prince William and the Princess, Prince 
 Frederick, Prince Leopold, and Count von Moltke. 
 At the close of the review of the Second Army 
 Corps, after great exertions in witnessing the 
 evolutions, he drove slowly down the long, ex- 
 tended ranks of the societies of veterans, and some- 
 times alighted from his carriage during the review. 
 A striking incident of the occasion was the ap- 
 pearance of Moltke at the head of a regiment, 
 leading it before the Emperor. There was no trace 
 of declining vigor displayed by the silent marshal 
 when he galloped on horseback to the Emperor's 
 carriage to make his report, when the Emperor 
 warmly shook hands .with him, amid the acclama- 
 tions of the onlookers. 
 
 A paragraph from an account published in the 
 London Times at the time may find space here. Tt
 
 1887. THE EX1). 357 
 
 is a picture of the Emperor as last seen among his 
 troops : 
 
 " Favored by splendid autumn weather, the Em- 
 peror to-day passed in review the Second or Pom- 
 eranian Army Corps, which put into the field on 
 a peace footing thirty-four battalions and a corre- 
 sponding force of artillery, altogether a very fine 
 body of troops, quite equal in drill and discipline 
 to the Guards in Berlin. But it was not so much 
 the military as the personal element in to-day's re- 
 dew which formed the chief object of attraction 
 to all who witnessed it. The accident which pre- 
 vented the Emperor from going to Konigsberg 
 had led the Pomeranians to fear that his visit to 
 them might perhaps be marred by the effects of 
 it ; but what was their joy and astonishment to 
 behold their nonogenarian Kaiser, punctually, as 
 usual, on the stroke of eleven, the appointed hour, 
 drive up to the head of his waiting troops look- 
 ing, as far as looks went, almost as hale and well 
 as when he reviewed them in similar circumstances 
 eight years ago, after returning from his meeting 
 with the late Czar Alexander II. at Alexandrovo. 
 After inspecting both lines of the troops, each of 
 which seemed to stretch away over dale and down 
 to the vanishing point, the Emperor drove up and 
 took position with his large and brilliant suite, 
 which included the Empress, with whom sat Prin- 
 cess William, Prince William, Prince Frederick 
 Leopold (only son of the late Red Prince), look- 
 ing all the manlier for his recent tour round the 
 world, and Field Marshal Count von Moltke, fresh 
 and straight still in spite of his eighty-seven years.
 
 358 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. igsr. 
 
 " The troops marched past twice in different for- 
 mations, and though this part of the show lasted 
 nearly two hours, the Emperor stood upright 
 most of the time in his carriage, which he occupied 
 alone, using no other support than what was af- 
 forded by a walking-stick. It was a proud mo- 
 ment for His Majesty when his grandson, Prince 
 William, led past his infantry regiment, but louder 
 still was the cheering when the twelve companies 
 of the Colberg Grenadiers came tramping past like 
 living walls, the proudest regiment on the field, 
 for their head is no less a personage than Count 
 von Moltke himself, and no one would think, to 
 see the Field Marshal pacing along so easy and 
 erect in the saddle, that he is only about three 
 years younger than the Emperor .himself physi- 
 cally almost a greater miracle still. The Emperor 
 beckons the great strategist to approach and ex- 
 tends his hand in silent gratitude and admiration 
 to him alone of all the commanders as to the man 
 who has done most to win all Germany's momen- 
 tous battles. But the multitude of onlookers was 
 moved by another touching incident, and that was 
 when the Second Cuirassiers, in all their shining 
 panoply of mail, came moving on to the majestic 
 notes of the "Hohenfriedberg March," one of the 
 finest musical achievements of Frederick the 
 Great. For this was a king who not only could 
 win great and decisive battles, but also transmit 
 the memory of them to posterity in immortal 
 strains. The chief of the Second Cuirassiers is the 
 Empress, who had donned a white mantle edged 
 with magenta, in exact harmony with the tunics 
 of her magnificent troopers, and on their approach
 
 I8B7. THE END. 359 
 
 Her Majesty rose up in her carriage, with the 
 support of her staff, and thus remained until the 
 five ponderous squadrons had defiled before her, 
 evoking loud plaudits from the spectators. These 
 cheers were partly out of compliment to the gal- 
 lantry of the Emperor, who, seeing how his now 
 rather infirm consort was engaged, had meanwhile 
 left his carriage and stepped up to the side of the 
 Empress, whose hand he kissed in recognition of 
 the splendid efficiency of her regiment and her 
 devotion to it." 
 
 After the Stettin visit, the Emperor had in- 
 tended to go to Konigsberg, but his physicians 
 forbade him doing so, fearing the results of over- 
 exertion. Nevertheless he was able afterwards to 
 go on a hunting trip to the Count von Stolberg's 
 castle, at Wernigerode, in the Harz Mountains. 
 On the 26th of October he took a long drive 
 through the mountains, and though this was fol- 
 lowed by an hour's shooting in the cold, windy at- 
 mosphere, his Majesty had still strength enough to 
 stand in the snow-storm viewing fourteen deer and 
 twelve wild swine that had fallen to his gun. At 
 night after a banquet he appeared at the castle 
 windows, and viewed by torchlight the game laid 
 out in the castle courtyard, and ended the day by 
 playing a game of billiards, going to rest appar- 
 ently as unwearied as the oldest huntsman present. 
 On his return to Berlin he was apparently in ex- 
 cellent health, and when he stepped from his low
 
 360 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. J8 88. 
 
 victoria he was described by a correspondent who 
 saw him as doing so, not as a man of over ninety, 
 but as one twenty years younger might. His 
 physicians thought him even more robust than he 
 had been for five years past, and Dr. von Lauer 
 himself is reported to have said that it was not 
 only possible but probable that he would live five 
 or six years longer. 
 
 After the visit of Czar Alexander to Berlin, the 
 Emperor's condition grew worse. His mental fac- 
 ulties frequently failed him. However, he still 
 kept to the daily routine that he had followed for 
 years. He rose every day between six and seven 
 and dressed himself with scarcely any assistance 
 from servants up to a week or two before the end. 
 Dr. von Lauer called every morning to see him 
 and to give him a sort of certificate of health. The 
 people of Berlin often grew anxious about him, 
 and during the last winter of his life there were 
 always little crowds of people standing near the 
 statue of Frederick the Great before the Palace, 
 waiting to see the Emperor appear at the famous 
 window. Sometimes, at night, the people would 
 watch to see a curious shadow-play which was 
 thus described by a correspondent. " Soon after 
 he entered the palace the crowd on Unter den 
 Linden were treated to a series of unique shadow 
 tableaux of an Emperor at supper. The impe- 
 rial shadow, as outlined on the curtain of the pal-
 
 1888. THE END, 361 
 
 ace window, ate a hearty, prolonged supper with 
 such evident relish that the crowd outside lost all 
 faith in the reports concerning the alleged serious 
 illness. Afterward, while loitering over supper, 
 the Imperial shadow unconsciously came near 
 drawing applause from his subjects outside by 
 holding within a few inches of the lamp a letter 
 which apparently contained some puzzling word. 
 The thought which occurred to the watching 
 people was that the trouble was caused by some 
 new request from his great-grandson, who is too 
 anxious for fresh toys to pay much attention to 
 the requirements of the old man's eyes. Finally 
 the shadow rose and walked unassisted to the next 
 room. The gorgeous shadow removed, the crowd 
 dispersed." 
 
 The great affliction that had fallen upon the 
 Crown Prince Frederick William had a depressing 
 influence upon the aged Emperor. The Prince 
 had been attacked by a disease of the throat that 
 his physicians believed must eventually prove fatal. 
 Under the care of Dr., later Sir, Morell Mac- 
 kenzie, and German specialists, he had been taken 
 to the Tyrol, and later to San Remo, where at last 
 the operation of tracheotomy had to be performed 
 to prevent death by suffocation. The Emperor 
 was deeply affected by the news that was sent to 
 him, and this, it is supposed, hastened on the end. 
 Suddenly, without warning, the world was startled
 
 362 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 1888. 
 
 on the morning of Thursday, March 9, by the 
 publication of despatches announcing that the 
 Emperor was dead ! The news proved to be pre- 
 mature, but there could be no doubt that the aged 
 hero was dying. The report of the last day is 
 touching. Shortly before noon Dr. von Lauer 
 issued a bulletin in which he said : " The Emper- 
 or has passed a very restless night and is very 
 weak this morning." Drs. Leuchthold and Tier-, 
 nann had remained with him during the night. 
 The Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Baden 
 and the Crown Prince of Sweden arrived during 
 
 a 
 
 the morning in a special train. The official ac- 
 counts said : 
 
 Nooisr. Since nine o'clock this morning the 
 Emporor has slightly improved. He suffers less 
 pain, but is still greatly exhausted. 
 
 At twenty-five minutes past twelve Chaplain 
 Kogel gave the last sacrament to the Emperor, 
 who was occasionally delirious before noon. 
 
 At midday the Emperor was feverish, and his 
 pulse was 108. It is stated that during an attack 
 of delirium this morning the Emperor imagined 
 that he was reviewing a battalion of the Guards. 
 
 Prince Bismarck visited the palace at noon, and 
 had a long conference with Prince William. 
 Shortly before two o'clock the Empress and the 
 Grand Duchess of Baden were with the Emperor. 
 
 At two o'clock Prince Bismarck went to the 
 bedside, and the Emperor spoke to him. His 
 condition was then unchanged. Prince Bismarck 
 left the palace at a quarter before four o'clock.
 
 1888. THE EyiJ. 363 
 
 FOUR O'CLOCK. The Emperor is not now able 
 to recognize even the Empress, and is gradually 
 sinking. An immense but silent crowd is stand- 
 ing near the palace, notwithstanding the fact that 
 a cold rain is falling. The palace is guarded by a 
 force of cavalry. 
 
 TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES PAST NINE O'CLOCK, 
 P. M. The Emperor fell into a swoon at five 
 o'clock and remained unconscious until six o'clock. 
 He afterward fell into a quiet sleep, which lasted 
 till seven o'clock. Wine and other liquid nourish- 
 ment are administered to him occasionally. 
 
 MIDNIGHT. Between eight and ten the Em- 
 peror greatly improved. He repeatedly partook 
 of soup, and drank one glass of champagne. He 
 spoke to the doctors and expressed a desire to get 
 up, but was not allowed to rise, except partially, 
 so that the bed might be rearranged. Prince Bis- 
 marck and Prince William paid the Emperor a 
 short visit at nine o'clock. 
 
 ONE O'CLOCK, A. M. The improvement in the 
 Emperor's condition continues. He is sleeping 
 soundly, and his breathing is regular. He has 
 taken substantial food, and appears to have a good 
 appetite. He was given oysters and egg and a 
 little champagne and sherry. His pulse has fallen 
 from 116 to 96. 
 
 When he is awake he is fully conscious, show- 
 ing an interest in what is passing around him. 
 He asked the Grand Duchess of Baden, who sat 
 by the bed, whether she had already dined, and 
 with whom, and then asked why she had not 
 dined with the Empress. He expressed regret 
 that he \\ as " causing so much trouble."
 
 364 WILLIAM OF GERMANY, jssa. 
 
 The scene in in the Kaiser's sick chamber 
 between four and six o'clock in the afternoon, 
 described by an English correspondent, was very 
 impressive and affecting. At four o'clock the 
 Emperor had been given up. When he rallied, 
 some sixty persons were standing around his 
 bed, among them being the Prince and Prince s 
 William, the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess 
 of Baden, the Crown Prince and Crown Princess 
 of Sweden, the Princess Frederick Charles and 
 her son, Frederick Leopold, Prince von Bismarck, 
 Count von Moltke, and the several Ministers of 
 State. The old monarch was full of fortitude. 
 He felt that his end was near, but he desired to 
 utilize the last moments of his life. Court Chap- 
 lain Kogel offered up prayers, in which the Kaiser 
 joined fervently, and then he took leave of every- 
 body, speaking individually to many of those pres- 
 ent. His mind was perfectly clear and his ideas 
 were quite consecutive. For nearly half an hour 
 he spoke with scarcely a pause, sitting up in the 
 bed. 
 
 Then he lay down for a while, received some 
 refreshment, and afterwards again conversed with 
 those around him. When he was besought to 
 husband his remaining strength, the Kaiser made 
 the characteristic reply : " No ; I feel I have not 
 much more time to live. I prefer to say all I wish 
 to say."
 
 1888, THE END. ROfl 
 
 Addressing many of his remarks directly to 
 Prince William, the Emperor went on to talk in 
 minute detail of various civil and military affairs. 
 He referred also to foreign matters and spoke of 
 the relations of the empire to France. The effect 
 of this marvelous recovery and no less marvelous 
 discourse on his Majesty's hearers was indescrib- 
 able. The doctors were astonished at the display 
 of strength. Meanwhile the room was full in- 
 deed much too crowded and Prince von Bismarck 
 demonstratively drew back in order to keep 
 others from pressing too near to the Emperor's 
 bedside. His Majesty did not exhibit the slight- 
 est fear of death, which he was prepared to meet 
 with the indomitable courage he has exhibited on 
 the field of battle. 
 
 But the end came at last, and at half -past eight, 
 on the morning of Friday, the month of March, 
 the Emperor passed away in death. The most 
 striking figure of the nineteenth century was no 
 more. He was the oldest sovereign in the world. 
 When he was born Frederick William II. (nephew 
 and successor of Frederick the Great) was King 
 of Prussia ; George III. had reigned in England 
 for thirty-seven years ; France was under the Di- 
 rectory ; in Russia Paul I. had succeeded to Cath- 
 erine II., then dead only four months ; and George 
 Washington was still President of the United 
 
 o 
 
 States. He had lived so loner that the world had
 
 366 WILLIAM OF GERMANY. wm. 
 
 almost given up the idea that he could be called 
 away. 
 
 The record of his life is a part of modern Ger- 
 man history. He had been hailed in life as the 
 second Armin, as the modern Barbarossa. With 
 him the dreams of the re-birth of the German 
 empire were realized. Germans all over the world 
 acknowledged the splendor of his efforts for Ger- 
 man unity. Under his rule, and the inspiration 
 of the Great Chancellor, Germany grew to be the 
 ruling empire of the world. He himself became 
 the bearer of the remarkable legendary idea con- 
 nected with the Red Beard, who was said to lie 
 in enchanted sleep underneath the KyrThauser, 
 awaiting the time to come forth to re-establish the 
 empire; and in 1870 he was acclaimed by the 
 German poets and historians as the risen Emper- 
 or. He made the German name respected in all 
 the world, and the Germans who remember the 
 scorn with which it was once greeted will know 
 how to appreciate the vast service that Kaiser 
 Wilhelm rendered to his people. His death al- 
 lows his son, the Crown Prince Frederick William 
 (himself already under the shadow of death), to 
 become Emperor, and the Crown Princess, the eld- 
 est daughter of Queen Victoria of England, to be 
 Empress of Germany.
 
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