Читать книгу Ten Years Near the German Frontier: A Retrospect and a Warning - Egan Maurice Francis - Страница 2

Let us trace deliberately, with as much calmness as possible, the beginning of that policy, of 'blood and iron' which made the German Empire, as we knew it yesterday, possible. It began with the tearing up of 'a scrap of paper' in 1864. It began in perfidy, treachery, and the forcible suppression of the rights of a free people. It began in Denmark; and nothing could make a normal American more in love with freedom, as we know it, than to live under the shadow of a tyrannical power, cynically opposed to the legitimate desire of a little nation to develop its own capabilities in its own way.

The Hanoverian on the throne of England in '76, – that 'snuffy old drone from a German hive' – never dared to suggest that the colonies should be crushed out of all semblance of freedom; but, suppose our language had been different from that which his environment compelled him to speak, and that he had resolved to force his tongue on our own English-speaking people; suppose that he and his counsellors had resolved that German should be the language spoken in sermons and prayers from Washington's old church in Alexandria to Faneuil Hall; suppose that all the colleges and schools of the country, as well as the law courts, were forced to use this alien tongue; that a German-speaking Empire existed to the south of us, and the minority in this German domain, arrogant, closely connected with the Hanoverian régime, ruled us with the mailed fist, would we submit without constant efforts to obtain justice?

And yet Denmark, in the province of Slesvig, has endured these things since 1864. She alone of all the world resisted the beginning of German tyranny, of German arrogant evolution; and her resistance was useless because the rest of Europe saw in the future neither the German Empire nor the Kiel Canal.

Denmark is, as every schoolboy knows, geographically part of Germany; and the Pan-Germans spoke of it benevolently as 'our Northern province.' It might long ago have been their Northern province if England and Russia had not been powers in the world and if the great Queen Louise of Denmark, a beautiful and fragile little woman, with a heart of gold and a will of steel, had not used all her wits to keep her country free by the only means of diplomacy she knew – the ties of family.

Queen Louise, the wife of Christian IX., new king of an old line, was not born in the purple, though her blood was the bluest in Europe. The beautiful princesses, her three daughters, later the Empress of Russia, Dagmar, the Queen of England, Alexandra, and the Duchess of Cumberland, Thyra, made their frocks and were taught all the household arts – for their father, royal by blood as he was, was a poor officer.

These princesses hold lovingly in remembrance the time of their poverty; these princesses love the old times. There is a villa on the Strandvej (the beach way) called Hvidhöre, white as befits the name, with sculptured sea-nymphs and pretty gardens and a path under the strand to the Sound. Here, until 1914, the Empress Dowager of Russia and the Queen of England regularly spent part of the summer and autumn. The Russian yacht, The Polar Star, and the English Victoria and Albert appeared regularly in the Sound, the officers added to the gaiety of Copenhagen and the royal ladies went to Hvidhöre, 'where,' as the Widow Queen of England said to my wife, smiling, 'we can make our own beds, as we did when we were girls.'

The servants might drop a plate or two during luncheon or stumble over a chair; but the Empresses of Russia and of India made no objections – 'the dear old people were a little blind, perhaps, but then they had served our father, King Christian.' And anything that relates to their father is sacred to these ladies; and everything concerning Denmark very dear.

In 1907 the small parties at Hvidhöre went on as usual, though the great royal gatherings at the palace of Fredensborg had ceased. Here, in the time of the old Queen Louise, from sixty to eighty scions of royalty, young and old, had often gathered under the high blue ceiling, from which looked down beautiful white gods and goddesses.

In 1907-8 King Frederick VIII. gave occasionally a dinner on Sunday night at the country house not far from Copenhagen, Charlottenlund, when it was hard to keep from turning one's back to a royalty, – there were so many crowned heads present. There, if Queen Alexandra made it plain that she wanted to speak to you, you, approaching her, found yourself with your back to the King of Greece or to King Haakon of Norway, or to the Queen of Denmark herself!

Times have changed; the circumstances which made the late mother of King Frederick so powerful in keeping 'the family' together can never occur again.

Of the four daughters of the late King Frederick, two married, one in Sweden and the other in Germany. The Danish princess, Louise, who became the wife of His Serene Highness, Prince Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Bruno of Lippe-Schaumbourg, is to the Danes a lovely and pathetic memory. They say that he treated her badly, that the bride fled from him to the protection of her parents, whom they censured for not taking her home before her death. The criticism – which even found expression in public disapproval – was unreasonable, but the mass of the Danes is always more generous than just in the treatment of its children. In 1908-9, to mention the name of Prince Friedrich was to commit a social error; he was taboo; every mother in Denmark was furious at the stories told of his injuries to their dead Princess Louise.

Princess Ingeborg, born in 1878, married the 'blue Prince,' Charles of Sweden, Duke of Westgothia. King Frederick VIII., after the failure of the German marriage, kept his two other daughters, Thyra and Dagmar, in the background. He was a very sympathetic king, and he liked to talk of ordinary affairs; he was truly much interested in the life immediately around him. 'I do not encourage princes in search of wives,' he said; 'I shall keep my daughters with me.' Princess Thyra – one cannot conceal the age of princesses, while there is an Almanach de Gotha– was born on March 14th, 1880, and Princess Dagmar on May 23rd, 1890. The Princess Thyra is of the type of her beautiful aunt, the Queen Mother of England; like her aunt, she looks much younger than her age; the Princess Dagmar has the quality of this royal family, of always seeming to be ten years, in appearance, younger than they are. They were our near neighbours for ten years, and my wife often threatened to marry them to nice 'Americans'; – King Frederick, considering this impossible, gave his consent at once! He often brought them in to tea, and they met 'nice Americans,' and seemed to like them very much.

The Emperor William – who wanted to be called the Emperor of Germany rather than the German, or Prussian Emperor, as we always called him – showed no affection for his Danish relatives; but, nevertheless, he did not underrate the value of Denmark as the 'whispering gallery' of Europe.

In the old palace of Rosenborg, in Copenhagen, there is a room so arranged that, by means of a narrow tunnel in the wall, Christian IV., a contemporary of Queen Elizabeth, could hear what his guards said, in their cabinet, at all hours of the day and night. 'There is a similar room at Potsdam,' a Dane said to me; 'William always listens when he is not speaking!' William knew what the Danes said of the German marriage; his plans did not lie in the way of annexing either of the Danish princesses, whose sympathies were not with the despoilers of the country; he had his eyes on the son of their aunt, the Duchess of Cumberland, who was later to marry his daughter. But royal marriages had ceased to strengthen or weaken Denmark; the Archduke Michael of Russia 'hung around' for a time; others came; but King Frederick walked out with his daughter, Princess Thyra, both evidently content. Princesses are expected to make marriages of 'convenience,' but Princess Thyra, like her aunt, Princess Victoria of England, does not seem inclined to make a marriage of that kind. Princess Dagmar was too young to be permitted to expect suitors, when her father lived; and the Princess Margaret, daughter of Prince Valdemar, brother of King Frederick, for whom, it was said, overtures had already been made on behalf of the growing Prince of the House of Saxony, was younger still. Denmark had ceased to be a marriage market of kings; the futility of attempting to cement international relations by royal alliances was becoming only too evident. Prince Valdemar, brother of King Frederick, had refused more than once a Balkan kingdom, and, when consulted by very great personages as to a marriage of his oldest son to the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, had answered, like his brother Frederick, that he preferred 'to keep his children at home.'

Nevertheless, the previous royal marriages and the fact that nearly every diplomat at Copenhagen was a favourite with his sovereign, sent by a relative of the court at home to please the court at Copenhagen, gave the post unusual prestige, and made 'conversations' possible there which could not have taken place elsewhere. The court circle, when one had the entrance, but not until then, was like that of an agreeable family. Nearly every minister at Copenhagen was destined for an embassy. When my predecessor, Mr. O'Brien, was translated to Tokyo, our prestige was enhanced; the Danes believed that our country but followed the usual precedent, according to which their French M. Jusserand had been made ambassador at Washington. Even the United States had begun to understand the importance of the post; and it was in the line of diplomatic usage when it was rumoured that I had been offered Vienna. I met, too, ministers to Copenhagen who considered themselves, because of royal patronage, ambassadors by brevet, and who exacted 'Excellency,' not as a courtesy but a right!

Mr. Whitelaw Reid wrote to me, speaking of my post as a 'delightful, little Dresden china court'; the epithet was pretty, and there were times, when the young princesses and their friends thronged the rococo rooms of the Amalieborg Palace, that it seemed appropriate. When the processions of guests moved up the white stairs between the line of liveried servants, some of them with quaint artificial flowers in their caps, the sight was very like a bit out of Watteau.

Bismarck had not looked on Denmark as a negligible country; he knew its importance; there was a legend that one of the few persons he really respected and feared in Europe was the old Queen Louise. Besides, he knew the history of Denmark so well, that he chose to correct the supposed taint in the blood of the Hohenzollerns by choosing an Empress for William II. of 'the blood of Struense.' This Struense, the German physician who, through the degeneracy of Christian VII., had in 1770 become the guide, the philosopher, and – it was said – the more than friend of his Queen, Caroline Matilda, tried to be the Bismarck of Denmark; but he was of too soft a mould, – the disciple of Rousseau and Voltaire rather than of Machiavelli and Cæsar Borgia. He was drawn and quartered, after having confessed, in the most ungentlemanly way, his relations with the queen, sister of King George III. of England.

It is probable that part of the Emperor's dislike to Bismarck was due to that 'mot' of the Iron Chancellor about the royal marriage he had helped to make. It was the kind of 'mot' that William would not be likely to forget. It is an axiom of courts that the child of a Queen cannot be illegitimate. Even the Duke de Morny, son of Queen Hortense of Holland, bore proudly 'Hortensias' in the panels of his carriage during the Third Empire in France. Nevertheless, though Queen Caroline Matilda had died, in her exile at Celle, protesting her innocence, it was understood that Struense was the father of the supposed daughter of Christian VII., the daughter who married into the House of Slesvig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg. Her descendant, the Princess Augusta Victoria Frederika-Louisa-Feodora-Jenny married the Emperor William II., on February 27th, 1881, at Berlin. It was a love match – at least on the side of the empress. One of the ladies in waiting at the German court once told my wife that the famous Augusta Victoria rose – the magnolia rose of our youth – was always cherished by her imperial majesty because of its association with her courtship – 'the emperor knew how to make love!' the empress said.

The appearance of Struense among the ancestors of the empress, to which Bismarck is said to have so brutally alluded, was not agreeable to the proudest monarch in Europe. Queen Caroline Matilda, sister of the second George of England, was only fifteen years of age when she came to Denmark to become the wife of Christian VII. in 1766. And, if anything could have excused her later relations with Struense (her son, Frederick VII., was undoubtedly legitimate) – it was the attitude of her degenerate husband and her mother-in-law, Julianna Maria. Having been dragged one bitter cold morning to the castle of Elsinore, she confessed her guilt; but under such circumstances of cruel oppression that the confession goes for little; circumstances, however, were against her, and the courts of Europe only remember that she was the daughter of a king, of blood sufficiently royal, to make up for her declension.

In Copenhagen, in 1908, the echoes of public opinion in London, among the higher classes at least, showed that the momentary insecurity caused by the reverses in the Boer war had passed. People had forgotten the emperor's telegram to Oom Paul. Nobody wanted war; therefore, there would be no war. 'If we have no property,' St. Francis of Assisi, pleading for his Order to the Pope, said, 'we shall need no soldiers to protect it.' It was forgotten that, reversely, if we have property, we must always have armies and fleets to protect it. It was not war that anybody wanted; but there was property to be had, which could only be had by the use of armies and fleets.

In Paris (for reasons which secret history will one day disclose, and for other reasons only too plain), the German designs were apparently not understood by high officials who directed the course of France. France made the mistake, as we are always likely to do, of reading its own psychology into the minds of its opponents. Paris believed, to use Voltaire's opinion of the prophet Habakkuk, that Germany was capable of everything, except the very thing that Germany was preparing without rest, without haste, and without shame to do – to bleed her white!

From echoes in Copenhagen, we learned, too, that in Petrograd, Germany was better understood because the Russian spies were real spies; they knew what they were about, and, being half oriental, they understood how to use the scimitar of Saladin. There were other spies who knew only the use of the battle-axe of Coeur-de-Lion; but they were often deceived though very well paid; in fact, the ordinary paid spy is a bad investment. In Belgium the Internationals talked universal peace; indeed, among others than the Internationals, the army was disliked. As in Holland, German commercial aggression was feared. The most amazing thing is that Internationalism did not weaken the morale of the heroic Belgians when the test came.

In Copenhagen, the idea of a permanent peace seemed untenable, and war meant ruin to Denmark. This was not a pleasant state of mind; but it did not induce subserviency. In the vaults of Hamlet's castle of Elsinore on the delectable Sound, Holger Dansker sits, waiting to save Denmark from the ruthless invader. There are brave Danes to-day who would follow Holger, the Dane, to the death, who believe that their country never can be enslaved; but, though the conquering Germans spared Denmark, they did not need the knowledge of the fate of Belgium to convince them of what they might expect as soon as it pleased the Kaiser to act against them. The fate of Belgium had confirmed the fears they had inherited. There is no doubt where their hearts were, but a movement – a slight movement – against Germany would have meant for the King of Denmark the fate of the King of Belgium or the King of Serbia. That he is married to a princess half German by blood would not shield him. Belgium was not spared because its queen was of German birth.

Copenhagen, as I have said, was not only a city of rumours, but a city of news. The pulse of Europe could be felt there because Europeans of distinction were passing and repassing continually, and the Danes, like the Athenians of St. Paul's time, love to hear new things. But there was and is one old query which all Denmark never forgets to ask: Will Danish Slesvig come back to its motherland? Slesvig-Holstein is the Alsace-Lorraine question in Denmark. For Slesvig Denmark would dare much. She could not court certain destruction but, in her heart, 'Slesvig' is written as indelibly as 'Calais' was written in the heart of the dying queen, Mary Tudor.

She had forgiven and forgotten the loss of her fleet and the bombardment of Copenhagen by the English in 1807 and 1814. She then stood for France and new ideas, and Tory England made her suffer for it. She lost Norway in 1814; she was reduced almost to bankruptcy; and, until 1880, she could only devote her attention to the revival of her economic life. Holstein was German; Slesvig, Danish. They could not be united unless the language of one was made dominant over the language of the other. The imperial law of Germany governed Holstein; all Slesvig legislation had since 1241 been based upon the laws of the Danish King Valdemar. To force the German law and language on Slesvig was to wipe out all Danish ideas and ideals in the most Danish of the provinces of Denmark. The attempt to Germanise Slesvig took concrete form in 1830. Desiring to bring it under German domination, Uve Lornsen, a Frisian lawyer, proposed to make the Duchies of Slesvig and Holstein self-governing states, separated from Denmark, and entirely under German influence. As, according to him, only royal persons of the male lineage could govern the united Duchies, the King of Denmark might have the title of Duke until the male line should become extinct. Uve Lornsen met remonstrances based on the laws and traditions of the Danes with the arrogant assertion, uttered in German:

'Ancient history is not to be considered; we will have it our own way now.'

Kristian Poulsen, a Dane, who knew both the German and the Danish views, opposed the beginning of a process which meant the imposition of autocratic methods on a people who were resolved to develop their own national spirit in freedom.

In Slesvig there are 3613 square miles. In the greater part of this territory, consisting of 2190 square miles, Danish was the vernacular, while 1423 square miles were populated by speakers of German. German power had secured German teaching for 220,000 people in churches and schools. The injustice of this will be seen when it is understood that only 110,000 were given opportunities, religious and educational, of hearing Danish. Danish could not be used in the courts of law. It was required that the clergy should be educated at the University of Kiel, and other officials of the state could have no chance of advancement unless they used German constantly and fluently. The teachers in the communal schools were all trained in Germany. The Danish speech was not used in a single college. In a word, the German influence, under the eyes of a Danish king and government, was driving out all the safeguards of Danish national life in Slesvig.

King Christian VIII., partly awakened to the wrongs of the Slesvigers, issued in 1840 a rescript insisting on the introduction of Danish into the law courts. The German partisans were outraged by this insult to German Kultur; no tongue but the German should be used even in Danish Slesvig. The king, the Danish court, for over two hundred years had been Germanised; the king did not dare to announce himself as a nationalist; but, against the German partisans, he decided that the Danish kings had always possessed the right of succession in Denmark, that the succession was not confined to the male line in Slesvig.

In Holstein the position was different. If the Danish line should become extinct, the succession might fall to the Russian Emperor; but Slesvig must be Danish. On the death of King Christian VIII. in 1848, feeling ran high in Denmark and in Slesvig-Holstein. In truth, all Europe was in a ferment. The results of the French revolt in 1830 were still leavening Europe. The Assembly of Holstein and Slesvig was divided in opinion. The desire of the Germans in the provinces to control the majority became more and more apparent. Danish interests must disappear, the beginning of the German 'Kultur,' not yet developed by Bismarck, must take its place. Five deputies were sent to Copenhagen, with, among other demands, a demand that the Danish part of the country be incorporated into the German confederation.

The citizens of Copenhagen had reason to believe that the Holstein counts, Moltke and Reventlow-Criminel, potent ministers and men of strong wills, might influence King Frederick VII. to give way to the Germans. The king determined to dismiss these ministers; the demands of the Town Council of Copenhagen and the people of Denmark were answered before they were made. His Majesty had 'neither the will nor the power to allow Slesvig to be incorporated in the German Confederation; Holstein could pursue her own course.'1

But the German opposition in the provinces had not been idle. Berlin had shown itself favourable to the Duke of Augustenburg, and the Prince of Noer had headed a band of rebels against Denmark and instigated the garrison of Rendsborg to mutiny on the plea that the Danes had imprisoned their king. A contest of arms took place between the two parties. Prussia interfered; but Prussia was not then what it is now. At the conclusion of a three years' war, the rebels were defeated and the King of Denmark decreed that Slesvig should be a separate duchy, governed by its own assembly. The German party so juggled the election – 'Fatherland Over All' governed their point of view, the end justified the means – that the Assembly shamefully misrepresented the Danes. It was Prussianised.

The Danes did not lose heart – Slesvig must be Danish; but if they allowed their language to disappear, there could be no hope for their nationality. On the other hand, the Germans held, as they hold to-day, that all languages must yield to theirs. The German press would have extirpated the Danish language; it was seditious; the Danes were rebels. From the Danish side to Tönder-Flensborg, the official speech and that of the people was Danish. Between the two Belts – the space can easily be traced on the map – Danish was spoken in the churches every second Sunday. In the schools both Danish and German was permitted; in the courts of law both languages were used. You made your choice! The world was deceived by an unscrupulous Assembly and the German press into the belief that Slesvig was German, lovingly German, and that the Danes were merely restless malcontents, hating the beneficent Prussian rule simply from a perverted sense of their own importance.

The crucial moment came in 1864. Denmark had no real friends in Europe. The United States, if her people had understood the matter, would have been sympathetic; but, at the moment, she was fighting for her own existence as a nation. The European powers, in spite of all their statecraft, allowed themselves to be blinded. Austria, apparently proud and noble, allowed herself, as usual, to be made the tool of Prussia. The two powers, on the false pretence that the right of Christian IX. to the succession to the duchies was involved, forced Denmark, which stood alone, to surrender Slesvig-Holstein and Lauenburg. This was the beginning of the mighty German Empire; it made the Kiel Canal possible, and laid the foundation of the German Navy. Slesvig, too, supplied the best sailors in the world. Bismarck, when he cynically treated Slesvig as a pawn in his game, had his eye on a future navy – a navy which would one day force the British from the dominion of the sea.

He had his way. He became master of the Baltic and the North Sea. Prussia, in forcing the Danish king to cede Slesvig, admitted his right to the Duchies; yet the pretext for war on Denmark had been that no such right existed. Prussia soon threw off her ally, Austria. She did not want a half owner in the Holstein Canal or in the coming fleet at Kiel.

It must be remembered that, when Christian IX. had ascended the throne of Denmark, it had been with the consent of all the great European powers. They had practically guaranteed him the right to rule Slesvig-Holstein, and yet England and France and Russia stood by and allowed the outrage to take place. France made an attempt to satisfy her conscience. In the treaty of peace France had this clause inserted:

'H.M. the Emperor of Austria hereby transfers to H.M. the King of Prussia all the right which according to the Treaty of Peace of Vienna of October 30, 1864, he had acquired in respect to the Duchies of Slesvig and Holstein, provided that the northern districts of Slesvig shall be united to Denmark, if the inhabitants by a free vote declare their desire to that effect.'

This was a 'scrap of paper' – nothing more! Nevertheless a scrap of paper may be inconvenient. Austria, never scrupulous when the acquisition of new territory was expedient, was willing to help Prussia to tear it up. Bosnia and Herzogovina raised their heads. Austria wanted help from Prussia. Here was the Prussian chance to induce her to abrogate her part in clause fifty of the peace treaty. What matter? Denmark, in time, must be German, as Slesvig was German, in spite of all right. Austria would play the same game with the Slavs as Prussia had played with the Danes. Individuals might have consciences, but nations had no system of ethics, and therefore no canons (except those of expediency), to rule such consciences as they had. Prussia treated the right of the Danes in Slesvig, guaranteed by a 'scrap of paper,' to a free vote as to their fate, with contempt. It had amused Bismarck to deceive France, the exponent of the new democracy in Europe, but that was all. Slesvig was to be crushed until it became quiescently Prussian. Prussia needed it, therefore it must be Prussian. Fiat!

This is a plain, unvarnished tale. Few of my fellow-countrymen have known it. Some who knew it hazily concluded that Slesvig had become German of its own free will that it might belong to a prosperous and great empire. Others, who remembered that, even in their struggle for freedom in 1864, the Danes paused for a moment to give us their aid at the request of President Lincoln, had a vague idea that wrong had been done somehow; but how great the wrong, and how terrible the effect of the wrong was to be on the history of the world, none of them even dreamed; and yet it was plain enough to those who watched the policy of blood and iron of this, the new Germany.

People who believed that Prussia had any respect for an engagement that might seem to work against her own designs ought to have been warned by the experience of Denmark. But there were those who believed that the acquisition of Heligoland from the British was a mere trifle, in which Germany had the worse of the bargain, as there are people who held that the Danish West Indies were of no manner of importance to us. They classed these acquisitions with that of Alaska – 'Seward's folly!'

And, in 1864, the old powers of Europe were so satisfied with their own methods, or so engaged with internal questions, that they let the monstrous tyranny of the conquest of Slesvig pass almost in silence. Prussia alone kept her eyes on one thing – the increase of her military power. In 1878 she induced Austria to abrogate her part in the treaty of Vienna of October 30, 1864. Austria agreed to give up any rights acquired by her in Slesvig-Holstein under the fifth clause of that treaty. This withdrawal (not to be irreverent, it was like the washing of the hands of Pontius Pilate) left Slesvig naked to her enemy. The Prussian autocrats chuckled when they found themselves bound by a 'scrap of paper' to the restoration of the northern districts of Slesvig to Denmark, 'if the inhabitants by a free vote declare their desire to that effect.'

The Imperial German statesmen, astute and unscrupulous, have always taken religion into consideration in making their propaganda. The German Crown Prince's sympathy with the same methods as used by Napoleon Bonaparte was perhaps inherited from his ancestors, as Napoleon, too, knew the political value of religion. The Church, an enslaved Church in a despotic state, – the reverse of Cavour's famous maxim – has always been one of statesmen's tools. They have never hesitated to use religion as the means of accomplishing the ends of the state. In fact, the Catholic Church in Germany was in great danger of being enslaved. The old wars of the popes and the emperors – so little understood in modern times – would be very possible, had the victory of Germany been a probability.

Let us see what happened in Slesvig. Since '64, Prussia has governed Slesvig. This rule has been a prolonged and constant attempt to force the Danes from their homes. A very distinguished and rather liberal German diplomatist, Count Brockdorff-Rantzau, once asked me, 'As an American, tell me frankly what is wrong with our position in Slesvig?'

'Everything,' I said. 'You seem even to assume that the religion of the people should be the religion of the state.'

'The state religion in Slesvig is as the state religion in Denmark, Lutheranism.'

'But not Germanised Lutheranism. I have the testimony of a Lutheran pastor himself, the Reverend D. Troensegaard-Hansen, to the effect that the authorities in Slesvig prefer German materialistic teaching to Danish Christianity, and that all kinds of influence is brought to bear on the clergy to make them German in their point of view. If, in the Philippines, we attempted to do the things you do in Slesvig, there would be no end of trouble.'

He laughed. 'But democrats as you are, you will never keep your promise to grant those people self-government.'

'We will.'

'Your democracy is not statesmanlike. It would be fatal for us to let the Slesvigers defy our power. They must be part of Germany; there is no way out.'

'Either you want difficulties with them or you are worrying them just as a great mastiff worries a small dog.'

'But suddenly a gymnast raises the Danish flag, or somebody utters a seditious speech in Danish, or school books are circulated in which ultra-Danish views of history are given. If a country is to be ruled by us, it must be a German country. We can tolerate no difference that tends to denationalise our population. It is a dream – the Danish idea that we shall give up what we have taken or, rather, what has been ceded to us.'

'Without the consent of the people?'

'Who are the people? When you answer that I will tell what is truth. Come, you are a democrat; by and by, when you Americans are older, you will see democracy from a more practical point of view.'

The practical point of view in Slesvig was squeezing out gradually the independence of the Slesvigers. The Dane loves passionately his home, his language, his literature. He may be sceptical about many things, but it would be difficult to persuade him to deny that the red and white flag, the Danish flag, did not come down from heaven borne by angels! His culture is Danish, and part of his life. He keeps it up wistfully even when he swears allegiance to another nation. The Danes in Denmark will never cease to regard Slesvig as their own. It is one flesh with them; but Prussia has torn this one body asunder. Fancy a 'free election' being permitted in a country ruled by Prussian autocrats or a 'free election' in Alsace-Lorraine under German rule!

The geographical position of Denmark is unfortunate. There are imperialists of all countries who hold that the little countries have no right to live; Junkerism is not confined to Germany. The geographical position of most of the little countries is unfortunate, but none is so unfortunate as that of Denmark. When the war broke out, it seemed to her people that the road to German conquest lay through her borders. The Powers That Were in Germany decided to attack Belgium, and for the moment Denmark escaped.

Do you think that it was an easy thing for a proud people to be in the position of old King Canute before the advancing ocean? The waves came on, but nobody in his wildest imaginings ever dreamed that the modern Danish Canute could stem the tide. The Danes have their army and their navy; officers and men expected to die defending Denmark. What else could they do? Death would be preferable to slavery. The Dane does his best to forget; but always the echo of the words of the sentinel in Hamlet recurs:

''Tis bitter cold, and I am sick at heart.'

No number of royal alliances counts as against a bad geographical place in the world and the evil disposition of a strong neighbour. A change of heart has come over the world since Germany induced Austria to be her catspaw in 1914. The example of a country which deliberately asserted that might makes right, and followed this assertion with deeds that make the angels weep, has shocked the world, and forced other nations to examine their consciences. After all, we are a long time after Machiavelli. After the great breakdown in Russia there was a feeling among some of the conservatives in Denmark that the cousin of the Tsar of Russia, King George of England, might have laid a restraining hand on the Russian parties that forced the Tsar to abdicate. But the very mention of this seemed utterly futile. The King of Spain, though married to an English princess, could expect little help in any difficulty, were the interests of the English Ministry not entirely his. The contemplation of these alliances offers much material for the man who thinks in the terms of history.

When President Fallières visited Copenhagen in 1908, there was a gala concert given at the Palace of Amalieborg in his honour. The President was accompanied by a 'bloc' of black-coated gentlemen, some of them journalists of distinction.

There was no display of gold lace, and the representatives of the French Republic were really republican in their simplicity. The Danish court and the diplomatic corps were splendid, decorations glittered, and the white and gold rococo setting of the concert room was worthy of it all. The Queen of Denmark – now the Dowager Queen – was magnificent, as she always is at gala entertainments, possessing, as she does in her own right, some of the finest jewels in Europe.

Fallières represented the new order. His hostess, the Queen, is the daughter of Charles XV., a descendant of Bernadotte. Representing the lines of both St. Louis and Louis Philippe was the Princess Valdemar, now dead, who, as Marie of Orleans, came of the royal blood of the families of Bourbon and Orleans.

It was interesting to watch this gracious princess, whose father, the Duc de Chartres, had been with General McLellan during our Civil War. She adapted herself to the circumstances, as she always did, and seemed very proud of the honours shown to France. The Countess Moltke-Huitfeldt, Louise Bonaparte, was not in Denmark at the time. It would have added interest to the occasion, had this descendant of the youngest brother of the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte been there.

Count Moltke-Huitfeldt, married to Louise Eugénie Bonaparte, is almost as French in his sentiments as his wife, and, for her, when the United States joined hands with France, it was a very happy day. One of the events that made the fine castle of Glorup, the seat of the Moltke-Huitfeldts, interesting was the visit of the ex-Empress Eugénie.

The Empress Eugénie, like all the Bonapartes, acknowledged the validity of the Patterson-Bonaparte marriage. She has always shown a special affection and esteem for the Countess Moltke-Huitfeldt.

The estate of Glorup, with its artificial lake and garden, in which Hans Christian Andersen often walked, was copied by an ancestor of the present count's from a part of Versailles. It was at its best during the visit of the empress, who was the most considerate of guests. The American Bonapartes were not ranked as royal highnesses for fear, on the part of Napoleon III. and Prince Napoleon, 'Plon-plon,' of raising unpleasant questions as to the succession.

Jerome himself, for a short time King of Westphalia, never pretended that his American marriage was not valid. Meeting Madame Patterson-Bonaparte by accident in the Pitti Palace, he whispered to the Princess of Würtemburg – she had then ceased to be Queen of Westphalia – 'There is my American wife.' Mr. Jerome Bonaparte was offered the title of 'Duke of Sartine' by Napoleon III. if he would give up the name of his family, which, of course, he declined to do. Under the French laws, as well as the American, he was the legitimate son of Jerome Bonaparte. The presence of the Countess Moltke-Huitfeldt would have added another interesting touch to the assemblage in Amalieborg Palace, a touch which would have served for a footnote to history. In spite of the name 'Moltke,' Count Adam and his wife are as French as the French themselves. Names in Denmark are very deceptive.

The question of war was even then, in 1908, in the air. The German diplomatists were polite to Fallières, but they considered him heavy and bourgeois, and believed that he represented the undying dislike for Germany which the French system of education was inculcating.

'If the French schools teach the rising generation to hate Germany, what is the attitude of the German educators?' I asked.

'We know that we are hated, and we teach our young to be ready for an attack from wherever it comes; but we love peace, of course.'

In 1908, it was generally thought that the Kaiser himself was inclined to keep the peace. Now and then an isolated Englishman would declare that he had his doubts, when a German traveller seemed to know too much about his country, or when amiable German guests asked too many intimate questions.

It was the custom for the older colleagues to offer the newer ones a history of the Slesvig-Holstein dispute, which dated from the fifteenth century. On my arrival, Sir Alan Johnston had presented me with a volume on the subject by Herr Neergaard, considered the 'last word' on the subject. The pages, I noticed, were uncut, so I felt justified in passing it on to the newest colleagues, taking care, in order to give him perfect freedom, not to autograph it!

It was, as a French secretary often said, 'a complication most complicated'; but one fact was clear – the deplorable position of a liberty-loving people, deprived of the essentials that make life worth living!

The great barrier to the entire domination of Prussian ideals in this area between the Baltic and the North Sea is the existence of the Danish national spirit in Slesvig. 'If the other nations of Europe had looked ahead, the power of Prussia might have been held within reasonable bounds; the war in 1870 would have been impossible; this last awful world-conflict would not have occurred. Germany would have been taught her place long ago.' How often was this repeated!

The relations between the Emperor William and the Emperor of Russia were supposed to be unusually friendly then, after the practical defeat of Russia by Japan. In older days, Queen Louise of Denmark thought she had laid the foundation for a certain friendliness; but, nevertheless, the Tsar, though closely related to the Kaiser and dominated largely by his very beautiful German wife, was never free to ignore the Slavic genius of his people. Kings and emperors – all royal folk – made up a family society of their own until this war. We have changed all that, as the man in Molière's comedy said; and yet, as a rule, German royal princesses remained Prussian in spite of all temptation, while other women seemed naturally to adopt the nationalities of their husbands. The princesses connected with the Prussian royal house seem immutably Prussian.

The Tsar, then, like the Kaiser, cousin of the King of England, the son of a mother who remembered Slesvig-Holstein and never liked the Prussians, had second thoughts. (They were nearly always wrong when his wife influenced them.) It was one thing to call the mighty Prussian 'Willie' – all royalties have little domestic names – another to break with France and to bow the Slavic head to German benevolent assimilation. The Tsar might call the Emperor by any endearing epithet, but that did not imply political friendship; King George of Greece and Queen Alexandra were very fond of each other, but the queen would never have attempted to give her brotherly Majesty the Island of Crete which he badly wanted. With the death of the queen of Christian IX., assemblies of royalties ceased in Denmark; the old order had changed.

There was no neutral ground where the royalties and their scions could meet and soften asperities by the simplicity of family contact.

The point of view in Europe had become more democratic and more keen.

Even if there had been a Queen Louise to try to make her family, even to the remotest grandchild, a unit, it could not have been done. Reverence for royalty had passed out with Queen Victoria; the idols were dissolving, and restless ideals became visible in their places.

Prussia had drawn her states into a united empire; tributary kings were at the chariot wheel of the Prussian Emperor, not because the kings so willed, but because the subjects of the kings – the commercial people, the landowners, the military caste, the capitalists, the increasingly prosperous farmers – discovered it to be to their advantage.

Bismarck's policy of blood and iron meant more money and more worldly success for the Germans. Although the smaller Teutonic states had lost their freedom, Bismarck began to pay each of them its price in good gold with the stamp of the empire upon it. To take and to hold was the motto of the empire: – 'We take our own wherever we find it!'

The old Germans disappeared; the Germans who were frugal and philosophical, poor and poetical, were emerging from the simplicity of the past to the luxury of the present.

As a rule, I found the Russian diplomatists very well informed and clever. Their foreign office seemed to have no confidants outside the bureaucratic circle. The Russian journalist, like most other journalists, was not better or earlier informed of events than the diplomatists. As Copenhagen was the place where every diplomat in the world went at some time or other, one was sure to discover interesting rumours or real news without much trouble.

While the newspapers or magazines of nearly every other nation gave indications in advance of the public opinion that might govern the cabinets or the foreign offices, the Russian periodicals gave no such clues. There was no use in keeping a Russian translator; real Russian opinion was seldom evident, except when a royalty or a diplomatist might, being bored by his silence, or with a patriotic object, tell the truth.

'What prevents war?' I asked in 1909 of one of my colleagues.

'Lack of money,' he answered promptly, repeating the words of Prince Koudacheff. 'Germany and Russia will fly at each other's throats as soon as the financiers approve of it. You will not report this to your Foreign Office,' he said, laughing, 'because America looks on war, a general European war, as unthinkable. It would seem absurd! Nobody in America and only ten per cent. of the thinking people in England will believe it! As for France, she is wise to make friends with my country, but she would be wiser if she did not believe that Germany will wait until she is ready to make her revanche. There are those in her government who hold that the revanche is a dream – that France would do well to accept solid gains for the national dream. They are fools!'

'Iswolsky is of the same opinion, I hear,' I said, for we had all a great respect for Iswolsky. But when the London National Review repeated the same sentiments over and over again, it seemed unbelievable that the Kaiser's professions of peace were not honest. Yet individual Pan-Germans were extremely frank. 'We must have our place in the East,' they said; 'we must cut the heart out of Slavic ambitions, and deal with English arrogance.' In a general way, we were always waiting for war.

In 1909, Count Aehrenthal, then a very great Austrian, told a celebrated financial promoter who visited our Legation, that war was inevitable. The Austrians and the Russians feared it and believed it – feared it so much that when I was enabled to contradict the rumour, there was a happy sigh as the news was well documented. Austria did not want war; Russia did not want war.

'But the Emperor of Germany?' I asked of one of the most honourable and keenest diplomatists in Berlin.

'He is surrounded by a military clique; he desires to preserve the rights and prerogatives of the German Empire, above all, the hereditary and absolute principle without a long war. A war will do it for him – if it is short. He himself would prefer to avoid it. Yet he must justify the Army and the Navy; but the war must be short.'

'But does he want war?'

'He is not bloodthirsty; he knows what war means, but he will want what his clique wants.'

These two diplomatists are both alive – one in exile – but I shall not mention their names. My colleagues were sometimes very frank. It would not be fair to tell secrets which would embarrass them – for a harmless phrase over a glass of Tokai is a different thing read over a glass of cold water! And, in the old days, before 1914, good dinners and good wines were very useful in diplomatic 'conversations.' Things began to change somewhat when after-dinner bridge came in. But, dinner or no dinner, bridge or no bridge, the diplomatic view was always serious.

In Denmark the thoughtful citizen often said, 'We are doomed; Germany can absorb us.' Count Holstein-Ledreborg once said, 'But Providence may save us yet.'

'By a miracle.'

It seemed absurd in 1908 that any great power should be allowed to think of conquering a smaller nation, simply because it was small. 'You don't reckon with public opinion – in the United States, for instance, – or the view of the Hague Conference,' I said.

'Public opinion in your country or anywhere else will count little against Krupp and his cannon. Public opinion will not save Denmark, for even Russia might have reason to look the other way. That would depend on England.'

It seemed impossible, for, like most Americans, I was almost an idealist. The world was being made a vestibule of heaven, and the pessimist was anathema! Was not science doing wonderful things? It had made life longer; it had put luxuries in the hands of the poor. The bad old days, when Madame du Barry could blind the eyes of Louis XV. to the horrors of the partition of Poland, and when the proud Maria Theresa could, in the same cause, subordinate her private conscience to the temptations of national expediency, were over. No man could be enslaved since Lincoln had lived! The Hague Conference would save Poland in due time, the democratic majority in Great Britain and Ireland was undoing the wrongs of centuries by granting Home Rule for Ireland, and, as for the Little Nations, public opinion would take care of them!

'What beautiful language you use, Mr. Minister,' said Count Holstein-Ledreborg; 'but you Americans live in a world of your own. Nobody knows what the military party in Germany will do. Go to Germany yourself. It is no longer the Germany of Canon Schmid, of Auerbach, of Heyse, of the Lorelei and the simple musical concert and the happy family life. Why, as many cannons as candles are hung on the Christmas trees!'

I repeated this speech to one of the most kindly of my colleagues, Count Henckel-Donnersmarck, who was really a sane human creature, too bored with artificiality to wear his honours with comfort.

'Oh, for your dress coat,' he would say. 'Look at my gold lace; I am loaded down like a camel. The old Germany, cher collègue, it is gone. I long for it; I am not of blood and iron; the old Germany, you will not find it, though you search even Bavaria and Silesia. And I believe, with the great Frederick, that your great country and mine may possess the future, if we are friends; therefore,' he smiled, 'I will not deceive you. The Germany of the American imagination, our old Germany, is gone.' He hated court ceremonies, whereas I rather like them; they were beautiful and stately symbols, sanctified by tradition. He ought to have danced at the court balls, but he never would. He was lazy. He was grateful to my wife, because she ordered me to dance the cotillions with Countess Henckel, who must dance with somebody who 'ranked,' or sit for five or six hours on a crimson bench.

The Danes had no belief that we could or would help them in a conflict for salvation, but they liked us. In 1909, when Dr. Cook suddenly came, they declared that they would take 'the word of an American gentleman' for his story of the North Pole. Sweden accepted him at once, England was divided – King Edward against Cook; Queen Alexandra for him! When Admiral Peary made his claim, the Queen of England said, – 'Thank heaven! it is American against American, and not Englishman against American.'

We were all glad of that; and I was very grateful to the Danes for showing respect for the honour of an American, in whom none of us had any reason to disbelieve. There was no warning from the scientists in the United States. The German savants accepted Dr. Cook at once. In fact, until Admiral Peary sent his message, there seemed to be no doubt as to Cook's claims, except on the part of the Royal British Geographical Society. I joined the Danish Royal Geographical Society at his reception; it was not my duty to cast aspersions on the honour of an American, of whom I only knew that he had written The Voyage of the Belgic, had been the associate of Admiral Peary, and was a member of very good clubs. Even if I had been scientific enough to have doubts, I should have been polite to him all the same.

As it was, Denmark was delighted to welcome Cook because he was an American; he had apparently accomplished a great thing, and besides, he directed attention from politics at a tremendous public crisis. The great question for the Danish Government was as usual: Shall we defend ourselves? Shall we build ships and keep a large army and erect fortresses, or simply say 'Kismet' when Germany comes? The Conservatives were for defence; the Radicals and Socialists against it. Mr. J. C. Christensen, one of the most powerful of Danish politicians, of the Moderate School, holding the balance of power, was in a tight place. Alberti, the clever Radical, had been supported by Christensen, who had been innocently involved in his fall. Alberti languished in jail, and Christensen was being horribly assailed when Dr. Cook came and Denmark forgot Christensen and went wild with delight!

In 1907-8, Denmark trembled for fear that she would lose her freedom. When would the Germans attack? The disorder in Slesvig was perennial. A bill for a reasonable defence had been proposed to the Danish Parliament. King Frederick had had great difficulty in forming a ministry. Count Morgen Friis, capable, distinguished, experienced, but with some of the indolence of the old grand seigneur, had refused. Richelieu could not see his way clear; nobody wanted the responsibility. The Socialists and the Radicals, practical, if you like, did not believe in building forts in the hope of saving the national honour.

King Frederick VIII. was at his wit's end for a premier, for, as I have said, even Count Morgen Friis, a man of undoubted ability and great influence, failed him. King Frederick, because of his desire to stand well with his people, was never popular. His glove was too velvety, and he treated his political enemies as well as he did his friends. Count Friis was known to lean towards England, and he was very popular; he would have stood for a strong defence.

Admiral de Richelieu was a man of great influence, a devoted Slesviger, and the greatest 'industrial,' with the exception of State-Councillor Andersen, in Denmark; he was not keen for the premiership, and his friends did not care that he should compromise their business interests; for, in Denmark, business and politics do not mix well.

Finally, King Frederick called on Count Holstein-Ledreborg, without doubt, with perhaps the exception of – but I must not mention living men – the cleverest man in Denmark. Count Holstein-Ledreborg was a recluse; he had been practically exiled by the scornful attitude taken by the aristocracy on account of his Radicalism, but had returned to his Renascence castle near the old dwelling-place of Beowulf. Count Holstein-Ledreborg was the last resource, he had been out of politics for many years. Although he was a pessimist, he was a furious patriot. He had a great respect for the abilities of the Radicals, like Edward Brandès, but very little for those – 'if they existed,' he said – of his own class in the aristocracy. He was one of the few Catholics among the aristocracy, and he had a burning grievance against the existing order of churchly things. The State church in Denmark is, like that of Sweden and Norway, Lutheran. Until 1848, except in one or two commercial towns where there was a constant influx of merchants, no Catholic church was permitted. The chapel of Count Holstein in his castle of Ledreborg, was still Lutheran. He was not permitted to have Mass said in it, as it was a church of the commune. This made the Lord of Ledreborg furious. There must be Lutheran worship in his own chapel, or no worship; this was the law!

There was something else that added to his indignation. One day, very silently, he opened the doors that concealed a panel in the wall. There was a very Lutheran picture indeed! It was done in glaring colours, even realistic colours. It represented various devils, horned and tailed and pitch-forked, poking into the fire in the lower regions a pope and several cardinals, who were turning to crimson like lobsters, while some pious Lutheran prelates gave great thanks for this agreeable proceeding. 'In my own chapel,' said Count Holstein, 'almost facing the altar; and the law will not permit me to remove it!'

Being an American, I smiled; thereby, I almost lost a really valued friendship.

'I shall arrange with the king to give a substitute for the chapel to the commune – a school-house or a library – and have the chapel consecrated,' he said. 'I think I see my way.'

'"All things come to him who knows how to wait,"' I quoted.

In 1909, at the time of the crisis, he accepted the task of forming a cabinet to get the defence bill through Parliament, but he made one condition with the king – that he should have his own chapel to do as he liked with. He carried the defence bill through triumphantly and then, having made his point, and finding Parliament unreasonable, from his point of view, on some question or other, he told its members to go where Orpheus sought Eurydice, and retired! He died too soon; he would have been a great help to us in the troubled days when we were trying to buy the Virgin Islands. He was my mentor in European politics, and a most distinguished man; and what is better, a good friend. At times he was sardonic. 'I would make,' he said, 'if I had the power, Edward Brandès (Brandès is of the famous Brandès family) minister of Public Worship!' (As Brandès is a Jew and a Greek pagan both at once, it would have been one of those ironies of statecraft like that which made the Duke of Norfolk patron of some Anglican livings.) Count Holstein disliked state churches. He was a strange mixture of the wit of Voltaire with the faith of Pascal, and one of the most inflexible of Radicals.

The party for the defence and for the integrity of the army and navy had its way; but, owing to the attitude of the Socialists, a very moderate way. 'If Germany comes, she will take us,' the Radicals said with the Socialists; 'why waste public money on soldiers and military bands and submarines?'

But there are enough stalwarts, including the king, Christian, to believe that a country worth living in is worth fighting for!