Читать книгу Face to Face with Kaiserism - James W. Gerard - Страница 8

Because the German Emperor possesses talents of no mean order, because of his fiery energy, because of the charm of his conversation and personality, his ambitions for world conquest are most dangerous to the peace of the world.

Certainly of all the ruling houses of the world, the Hohenzollerns have shown themselves the most able, and of the six sons of the Kaiser there is not one who is unable or unworthy from the autocratic standpoint to carry on the traditions of the house. They are all young men who in any field of human endeavour are more than a match for men of their age, and by reason of these qualities, so rare in kings and princes, it has been easy to arouse a great feeling of devotion for the royal house of Prussia among all classes in Germany, with the possible exception of the Social Democrats. The other kings and princes of Germany have been overshadowed, mere puppets in the king business, by the surpassing talents of the Hohenzollerns, and so the task of those who, in Germany and out, hope for that evolution towards liberalism or even democracy which alone can make the nations of the world feel safe in making peace with Germany, is beset with numerous difficulties.

Before the war the Emperor turned much of his enterprising talent into peaceful channels, into the development of commercial and industrial Germany. No one has a greater respect for wealth and commercial success than the Emperor. He would have made a wonderful success as a man of business. He ought to be the richest person in the Empire, but the militaristic system which he fostered gave that distinction to another. For the richest person in Germany before the war was Frau Krupp-Bohlen, daughter of the late manufacturer of cannon. She inherited control of the factories and the greater part of the fortune of her father and was rated at about $75,000,000. It was a contest between Prince Henckel-Donnersmarck and the Emperor for second place, each being reputed to possess about sixty to sixty-five million dollars. Most of the Emperor's wealth is in landed estates, and of these he has, I believe, about sixty scattered through the Empire. The Emperor is credited with being a large stockholder in both the Krupp works and the Hamburg-American Line. What a sensation it would make in this country were the President to become a large stockholder in Bethlehem Steel or the Winchester Arms Company!

The earnings of the Krupp's factory since the War have been immense and doubtless the fortune of the Krupp heiress since then has more than doubled. The subscriptions to war loans and war charities, thrown by Frau Krupp-Bohlen and the Krupp directors as sops to public opinion, are mere nothings to the fat earnings made by that renowned factory in this war.

And what a sensation, too, would be caused in America if the Bethlehem Steel Company or the United States Steel Corporation were to purchase newspapers or take over The Associated Press in order to control public opinion! Yet the German nation stands by, apathetic, propagandised to a standstill, stuffed and fed by news handed them by the Krupps and the alliance of six great industrial iron and steel companies of western Germany.

A question which interests every inhabitant of the world to-day is, where does the ultimate power reside in Germany?

Where is the force which controls the country? The Reichstag, of course, has no real power; the twenty-five ruling princes of Germany, voting in the Bundesrat through their representatives, control the Reichstag, and the Chancellor is not responsible to either but only to the Emperor.

Consider, for a moment, the personality of von Bethmann-Hollweg, Chancellor of the Empire for eight or nine years. He lacked both determination and decision. Lovable, good, kind, respected, the Chancellor, to a surprising degree, was minus that quality which we call "punch." He never led, but followed. He sought always to find out first which side of the question seemed likely to win—where the majority would stand. Usually he poised himself on middle ground. He could not have been the ultimate power in the State.

I have a feeling that the Kaiser himself always felt in some vague way that his luck lay with America, and I imagine that he himself was against anything that might lead to a break with this country. What, then, was the mysterious power which changed, for instance, the policy of the German Empire towards America and ordered unrestricted submarine war at the risk of bringing against the Empire a rich and powerful nation of over a hundred million population?

The Foreign Office did not have this decision. Its members, made up of men who had travelled in other countries, who knew the latent power of America, did not advise this step—with the exception, however, of Zimmermann, who, carried away by his sudden elevation, and by the glamour of personal contact with the Emperor, the Princes and the military chiefs, yielded to the arguments of military expediency.

The one force in Germany which ultimately decides every great question, except the fate of its own head, is the Great General Staff.

On one side of the Königs-Platz, in Berlin, stands the great building of the Reichstag, floridly decorated, glittering with gold, surrounded by statues and filled, during the sessions of the Reichstag, with a crowd of representatives who do not represent and who, like monkeys in a cage, jibber and debate questions which they have no power to decide. Across the square and covering the entire block in a building that resembles in external appearance a jail, built of dark red brick without ornament or display, is the home of the Great General Staff. This institution has its own spies, its own secret service, its own newspaper censors. Here the picked officers of the German army, the inheritors of the power of von Moltke, work industriously. Apart from the people of Germany, they wield the supreme power of the State and when the Staff decides a matter of foreign policy or even an internal measure, that decision is final.

The peculiar relations of the Emperor to the Great General Staff make it possible for him to dismiss in disgrace a head of the Staff who has failed. But at all times the Kaiser is more or less controlled in his action by the Staff as a whole and at a time when the chief of the Great General Staff is successful, the latter, even on questions of foreign policy, claims the right then to make a decision which the Emperor may find it difficult to disregard. This is because in an autocratic government, as in any other, personality counts for much. Von Tirpitz controlled all departments of the navy, although only at the head of one. The Ludendorff-Hindenburg combination, especially if backed by Mackensen, can bend the will of the Emperor.