Читать книгу A Woman and the War - Frances Evelyn Maynard Greville Countess of Warwick - Страница 4

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Since the war began I have read numerous extracts from the press of Germany and from the contributions of German writers to American papers stating in the most unequivocal terms that the late King Edward devoted his political sagacity to the task of isolating Germany, that he promoted alliances to that end, and that he deliberately sought to compass the destruction of the German Empire.

At first I took these remarks to be no more than the rather unfortunate outpourings of the uninformed, but I have seen of late that they have been repeated with great insistence until there is a danger that they will become an article of faith, not alone in Germany but in other countries where Germans have a sympathetic following. I do not choose as a rule to discuss questions of this kind, I prefer to leave popular error to correct itself, but, having enjoyed the confidence of King Edward before and after he came to the throne, having heard from his own lips scores of times his attitude towards Germany and the Germans, it seems to be a duty to set out the plain truth. I will do so in the endeavour to sweep away one of the most ridiculous and mischievous conceptions engendered by the present evil condition of things.

Had I ever imagined that the present crisis, or, for that matter, any political development of the peaceful kind would have led to the statements I seek to refute, how easy it would have been to jot down the purport of conversations in which high policy was discussed! Fortunately, I have an excellent memory and it is reinforced by letters to which I have access, and I hope to commit the reports that have been spread abroad to the oblivion that is their proper place. I can vouch for the absolute truth of all I have to say, and I am writing with a full sense of responsibility.

In the first place the intimate relations between the English and German courts should be remembered; one of my earliest recollections is of being taken to visit the old Empress Augusta at the German Embassy. This was when I was a child, and I know I went many times, so her visits would probably have been frequent. On my writing-table is the silver and mother-of-pearl ornament that was her wedding present to me. Everybody respected the old Emperor William, and everybody admired the Crown Prince Frederick. When he married Queen Victoria's eldest daughter, the Princess Royal, who became, after the death of Princess Alice, King Edward's favourite sister, the relations between the two courts could hardly have been more amicable. Queen Victoria loved Germany and the Germans, she adored her grandson. In her eyes he could do no wrong, she even went so far as to hold him up to her eldest son as a model. On the other hand, the Princess of Wales, being a Dane, could not forget or forgive the theft of Schleswig Holstein; her sister the Russian Empress shared her suspicions of German intentions, but I never heard of one or the other originating or encouraging anti-German intrigues.

As the Kaiser grew up towards manhood his personality was hardly known; his father, the Crown Prince Frederick, a far more noble figure, monopolised attention. Beyond the fact that he was Queen Victoria's favourite grandson nothing was known about William II. Nobody thought that he would be called upon to rule before he was middle aged or elderly; his father's illness was unsuspected. But if there was no ill feeling at the English court, it is impossible to say the same of the court at Berlin. The presence of the Princess Royal was resented; many people believed, or affected to believe, that the marriage had been designed to make Germany politically subservient to Great Britain. As everybody knows, these feelings grew apace as soon as the old Emperor William had breathed his last, and when, a few months later, the Emperor Frederick passed away, the Anglophobia had spread throughout the Court circles and the young Kaiser had been tainted with the Court prejudice against his own mother. He did not treat her well; it is not too much to say that he treated her badly. She, naturally enough, complained to her brother, the Prince of Wales,—I have already said that she was now his best loved sister. He was angry on her account and spoke his mind. Relations between the young Kaiser and his uncle were already strained. I must turn back a little to explain why.

In the early days, when King Edward had arrived at man's estate and married, he sought to take a legitimate interest in state affairs. He was disposed to study and to learn, and sought, not without ample justification, to be admitted to the company of the little group of statesmen who advised the Queen and ruled the Empire. But Queen Victoria would have none of it. She practically refused her son access to the Councils of State, she instructed her Ministers to keep all state papers from him; within the compass of a limited monarchy she was determined to rule alone.

Her eldest son, finding that he was not to be accepted as a worker, decided to amuse himself. If he could not direct public policy he would at least direct fashion, if he could not assist the Foreign Office he could at least enable English Society to take rank among the smartest in Europe. So the Marlborough House set came into existence, and with its rise came the first beginnings of the Kaiser's criticism. There were two grounds for this.

In the first place King Edward's personal popularity was unbounded; wherever he went he charmed women and men, and it was quite clear that he would be a force to be reckoned with in diplomacy, when in the fullness of time he ascended the throne; on the other hand, the Kaiser lacked all the qualities that his uncle possessed in abundance. Hard-working and conscientious, he was petulant, exacting, and uncertain. Naturally, then, he found matter for grievance against the uncle who, seemingly without effort, swayed opinion and enjoyed esteem. Jealousy was the origin of disagreement.

There is another side to the antagonism. The Kaiser was always a very strict-living, sober-minded man, a model husband and father, honestly representative of the domestic virtues in the highest degree. King Edward, largely by force of circumstances, lived a life of gaiety and pleasure; whatever he did he did thoroughly; as it might not be work, it was play. He raced, yachted, shot, played cards, entertained, visited all his friends, and had a wide field of friendships. Though shrewd, worldly, and quick witted, he made certain mistakes, and these gave his nephew an opportunity that was quickly taken. Perhaps the Kaiser would utter a criticism on the spur of the moment, it would be taken up, magnified, polished, and brought over to King Edward in the finished and augmented state. By the way, I am referring, unless I state the contrary, to the years when King Edward was Prince of Wales. I use his final title to cover all the years with which I am dealing. King Edward had great gifts, and when the time came to turn them to the best account, they were invaluable to his country but, as I have said, he was not infallible. He made mistakes.

Tranby Croft provided one, his friendship for Baron Hirsch provided another; for the Baron, though he may have been a charming man-certainly his wife was a charming woman and a dear friend of mine—was an unscrupulous financier who had accumulated a vast fortune by curious and unclean methods of which the full story cannot be told, and yet for all his faults, he was not an ignoble man, but in some phases of his complex nature an idealist and philanthropist.

Berlin sneered at Baron Hirsch, Vienna was actually shocked, for in the Dual Empire a man is judged by his quarterings, and even if he should have made a huge fortune honestly and lacks quarterings he is less than the penniless, vicious, and brainless person of high descent.

King Edward smiled at the rage and spite of Vienna and Berlin. He remarked to one of his intimates that he could not allow either capital to choose his friends for him, and in order that there might be no mistake about his intentions he accepted an invitation from Baron Hirsch to shoot with him on his great estates at Eichorn. I don't know whether Baron Hirsch asked any Austrians or Germans, certainly none accepted the invitation, and King Edward found, much to his amusement, that all the other guests were Englishmen. He merely laughed, enjoyed his visit, and then, after it was over, visited the Baron in Paris, to the intense annoyance of the Jockey Club there. Perhaps it was not altogether wise to defy the conventions, but of course English Society has never been quite as exclusive as that of Berlin or Vienna.

The Kaiser chafed at his uncle's association with a mushroom financier whose record was only too well known, he chafed too when King Edward spent long hours at Homburg with the Empress Frederick who had a castle there in the days of her widowhood. The love between the brother and sister was very beautiful. She confided all her troubles to him from the early days, for oddly enough when there were family quarrels Queen Victoria sided with her grandson against the Princess Royal, but it is only right and fair to say that the Kaiser reciprocated her affection, and his grief when she passed away was heartfelt. The Homburg meetings were gall and wormwood to the Kaiser and they renewed the old fear of his uncle's popularity. When instead of going to Homburg in Germany, King Edward went to Marienbad in Austria there was still more uneasiness in Berlin's governing circles, for King Edward's extraordinary personal magnetism was known and feared, he was credited with having the power if he chose to exercise it of seriously disturbing the foundations of the Triple Alliance. The Kaiser need not have been uneasy, his uncle did not enter into political conversations.

It will be seen then that the disagreement between uncle and nephew had been little more than a sort of family quarrel intensified by the high standing of both parties. I have heard King Edward speak angrily of his nephew, but only because of the way he treated his mother, the personal gibes and criticisms did not often sting him, he merely said his nephew was suffering from megalomania and had not learned to control a rather unruly tongue. In all the years I have passed mentally in review I do not remember hearing King Edward utter a single sentence of ill-will to Germany.

The Kaiser's visits to England in the earlier days have left no special impression upon my memory. I remember dancing opposite to him in a quadrille at a Court Ball in Buckingham Palace and being present at a dinner-party given for him in a private house. His friends among the ladies of England were the wives of members of the Royal Yacht Squadron; among these was Lady Ormonde. She used to stay at Kiel for the yachting festival, as guest of the Kaiser with her husband who was then Commodore of the R.Y.S.

In all his criticisms King Edward was scrupulously fair. Even in discussing his sister's relations with her son he would add that they were both strong personalities with different sympathies and view-points, and that sustained agreement between them was probably impossible. He admired the Kaiserin frankly, as all must who know the gracious and kindly lady who in her own quiet and unobtrusive fashion has filled her life with good deeds.

Relations between King Edward and his nephew improved immensely when Queen Victoria died. Not only did the Kaiser come over to the funeral, but he seemed on that occasion to have laid aside the brusqueness that had marked earlier visits. All the Court noticed it, and King Edward commented upon it to me with very evident pleasure. The process of improvement in relations started about 1899. Through the Boer War events had been moving towards a reconciliation.

The Kaiser's correct behaviour during the war, which his frenzied telegram on the occasion of the Raid had done something to bring about, placated King Edward, and after Queen Victoria's death relations between the two men improved sensibly. The Kaiser either limited his criticisms or saw to it that they were not indiscreetly uttered. The old friendliness was resumed, and things became as they were after the attempt on King Edward's life in Denmark when the Kaiser left Berlin and met the royal train at the frontier station to congratulate his uncle upon his escape and inquire after his health. King Edward wrote to me from Sandringham on his return. After thanking me for a letter and telegram of congratulations, he said that the Kaiser came all the way from Berlin to meet his train at Altona and inquire after his health. He thought that was very kind of the Kaiser.

I remember that the Kaiser's later visits to England were quite a success. King Edward remarked to me, when his nephew was staying at Highcliffe in Hampshire for his health, how greatly he had improved in manner, how courteous and considerate he was, and how much of the old unrest and irritability seemed to have gone. Between King George, Queen Mary, and the Kaiser, relations could not have been more friendly, and when King Edward and Queen Alexandra went to Berlin he thoroughly enjoyed his visit, and told me as much on his return.

How then, it may be asked, shall we account for the Anglo-French convention of 1904, and for the meeting between King Edward and the Tsar at Réval when the foundations of friendship between England and Russia were laid? In Germany it is believed that these arrangements were aggressive in their intention and demonstrated King Edward's hostility. In both cases King Edward, absolutely faithful to the Constitution, followed the advice of his ministers, and did not discuss his personal predilections at all. After the Réval meeting I asked him his view of the political situation, and as far as my memory serves this is what he said: "Germany is our commercial rival, she has a magnificent business aptitude, she might develop with growing riches and a few adventurous statesmen a rivalry of another kind. The Réval meeting, with the French convention, will I hope put an end to the possibility. But nothing has been done that stands in the way of a good understanding between London and Berlin. I believe all sensible men desire peace. We have no quarrel with Germany or any other power."

I may add that King Edward admired Germany almost as much as he loved France. The thoroughness of the German business method, the rejection of everything slovenly in thought and action, impressed him greatly, and he once made a remarkable statement to me. It was in London in the late winter of 1909-10, a few months before he died. He came to tea and talked of German administration. "Do you know," he said, "that if this country could be controlled in the same way, we should be all the better for it? If we could be ruled by Germans just long enough to have our house put in order"—he paused, and added with a laugh—"You know the trouble is that if we once had them we could not get rid of them." This statement was made during our last conversation; I never saw King Edward again, but his words should be sufficient to show that he was not animated by an ill-feeling towards the German Empire. They are hardly the words of a man who plotted against the land ruled over by the son of the woman who was at once his favourite sister and most devoted friend.

Age, and an experience of great affairs not to be excelled by any of his contemporaries, had made King Edward a sane and philosophic observer. He possessed very few prejudices, and he never allowed his feelings as a man to stand between him and his duties as a king. But if his personal views had affected political issues it would never have been to Germany's detriment, for every criticism that I heard him utter over a long period of years has been set out here. He had a real love for his French and Austrian friends and a quiet respect for his German acquaintances. I may add that King Edward not only hated war and would have been most reluctant to take any step that might ensue it, but he regarded people with bellicose ideas as fit occupants of asylums. The fine fabric of civilisation impressed him, and he saw in war the blind force that would destroy it and leave the world laboriously and painfully to rebuild. His real interests lay in the direction of social reform, and he even found the trappings of state, in which as a rule he took delight, a little heavy when he realised that they deprived him of the right of free speech enjoyed by the humblest citizen of the realm. He made it his business to know what Germany was doing to solve the problems of unemployment, housing, and factory management, and in the last years of his life his intercourse with Liberal statesmen quickened his interest in plans for the betterment of the class that does the work. Time out of mind he spoke of what Germany had achieved in this direction, always with the frank admiration that only a good sportsman can give under all circumstances. Far from seeking to bring war about, it is with me an article of faith that had he been living in July, 1914, there would have been no war. The immense personal influence he wielded would have been thrown into the scales on the side of peace, he would have reconciled differences at the eleventh hour for he was persona gratissima in every court of Europe, and there is not among the rulers of Europe one who would not have listened when he spoke. Those who suggest that he helped to build the pyre upon which the best and bravest of nearly all the nations of the world are now being consumed, do but slander the dead and testify to their own ignorance.