MORE LIGHT ON EX-KAISER.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18362, 21 April 1925, Page 6

MORE LIGHT ON EX-KAISER.

EDWARD VII. AND HIS NEPHEW. SECRET HISTORY REVEALED. CrnOH OTB O'.vy COEItESPOSDEST.) LOXDOX, March 11. Interesting disclosures of what appears to have been a long and bitter estrangement between the ex-German Emperor and King Edward VII. are made in Bir Sidney Lee's biography of the lute King. Throughout the Kaiser's youth, King Edward, then Prince of Wales, showed him "all the genial tenderness that an uncle could bestow,'' but the lad resented his mother's English leanings, and "the Prince of Wales soon excited his scorn and impatience. . . . Very Blowly and reluctantly did the Prince of Wales come to realise that, despite his sedulous endeavours to preserve the cordiality of the-atmosphere of his German family circle, ho had in his selfassertive nephew a malignant and unmannerly critic of himself.-"

As long ago as 1884 and ISSo the young Wiihelm was trviug to poison the mind of the Czar against England and her then Prince of Wales. When the .Prince visited Germany in ISS4 the future Kaiser wrote to the Czar: "The visit of the Prince of Walej has yielded and is still bringing extraordinary l'ruit, which will continue, to multiply under the hands of my mother and the Queen of England. But the English have accidentally forgotten that I exist! And I swear to you, my dear cousin, that anything I can do for You and Your country I will do, and I swear that I will keep my word! But, only it will take a long time and will have to be done very slowly." Next year he wrote: "We shall see t.he Prince of Wales here in a few days. I am not at all delighted by this unexpected apparition, because —excuse me, he is Your brother-in-law—owing to his false and intriguing nature he will undoubtedly attempt in one way or another to push the Bulgarian business—may Allah send them to Hell, as the Turk would say!—or to do a little political plotting behind the scenes with the ladies."

Studied Impertinence. The Kuiser, on his accession, fit once invited himself to St. Petersburg and Vienna, and seized the opportunity of. "putting on the Prince of Wales a deliberate affront." The Prince had accepted an invitation to Vienna, and wrote to the Kaiser asking when he would be there. The Kaiser sent no reply, but when the Prince arrived in Vienna, lie found that the Kaiser had stipulated that no royal guest but himself should be there while he was there, and had refused to meet his uncle. "The Prince took the rebuff to heart," it, is said, and went to Eoumania while the Kaiser was in Vienna. King Edward's letters show that time after time he attempted to win the Kaiser's goodwill, but the Kaiser, in spite of professions of friendship for England, rarely lost an opportunity for slandering and insulting his. uncle. His demeanour to King Edward became "more offensive and provocativo than before.'' f This was at the time when ho was trying to coax and bully England into joining the Triple Alliance, in order to have France at his mercy. The Kaiser's hopes failed, and he "wildly charged the Prince with fomenting at St. Petersburg an, insidious plot against Germany and himself." He summoned Lord Salisbury; to an interview in his yacht in the Solent (1895), and loaded his political visitor with insults for his alleged unwillingness to propitiate German sentiment." The Prince "protested against his nephew's effrontery in seeking to bully the Prime Minister of England," and Queen Victoria described the Kaiser as "this impetuous and conceited youth," forgetting, as Sir Sidney Leo remarks, that the Kaiser was just closing his 37th year.

Insults at Cowes. * Tlie Kaiser took to Cowcs that-year two new German cruisers named after victories in the Franco-Prussian war, the anniversaries of which fell during his visit, and ho made a bellicose harangue to the sailors. "The Prince," it is said, "denounced his nephew's provoeativo utterance as an affront to his hosts," and "journalistic warfare between the two countries was waged with extreme heat." The Kaiser had deliberately sought to challenge the Prince's position as a yachtsman, and "on the concluding visit to Cowcs in August, 1595, the Kaiser's spirit of racing rivalry developed darker features than before." The world, reading about Cowcs Week that year, and of the outward courtesies between the Prince of Wales and the Kaiser, little realised what was happening behind the scenes, and how gross was the Kaiser's conduct.

"He sought to take the control of the regatta, out of the hands of his uncle, the Commodore of the Boyal Yacht Squadron, and when lie was rebuffed for his presumption tried to prejudice the success of the meeting. He once again entered his yacht Meteor I. against his uncle's cutter in the race for the Queen's Cup, but, dissatisfied with tho handicapping, refused to sail, derisively leaving his uncle's Britannia to sail the course alone. Although the customary hospitalities were exchanged on board the Osborne and the Hohe'nzollern, the Kaiser spoke to and of his uncle in terms of insult. .He taunted him to the face with never having engaged in active military service, and, in private conversation with his suite, dubbed him 'the old peacock.' "

South African Troubles. Then came the South African War, and the Kaiser, while seeking to stir France and Russia against England, ■wrote letters to the Prince, in which the Prince "detected a grating double edge." Earlier, when Jameson was arrested after his raid, the Kaiser, at a Foreign Office conference in Berlin, proposed the declaration of a German protectorate over the Transvaal, and to send troops to Pretoria. The crazynature of his ideas is_ illustrated by his retort to the Chancellor, who objected that '' that would mean war with England." "Yes," was the Kaiser's reply, "but only on land." This crack-brained suggestion was put aside in favour of the historic telegram of congratulation to Kruger: "I express my sincere congratulations that, supported by your, people without appealing for the help of friendly Powers, you have succeeded by your own energetic action against armed bands which invaded your country as disturbers of the peace, and have thus been enabled to restore peace and safeguard the independence of the country against attacks from the outside."

"The evidence is clear, in spite of the Kaiser's belated assertions .to the eontrary," states Sir Sidney, "that he was disposed to go further than the Foreign Minister in strength of language." The Kaiser wrote in a "wheedling" strain to Queen Victoria: "Most beloved Grandmama"—assuring her that "never was the telegram intended as a step against- England,

ment," while at the same time he wrote to the Czar: "Now suddenly the Transvaal -Republic has been attacked in a most foul way as it seems not without England's knowledge. I have used very severe language in London, and have opened communications with Paris for common defence of our endangered interests, as French and German colonists have immediately joined lianas of their own accord to help the outraged Boers. ... I hope all will come Tight, but, come what may, I shall never allow tho British to 'stamp out the Transvaal.'' The Prince read " with jmpatiencc" the Kaiser's letter to tho Queen, and, although he recognised the futility of pursuing the controversy, his "resentment aga.inst his nephew was unappeased." Kaiser's Tortuous Mind. A now quarrel arose early in 1898 when Admiral von Senden und Bibran, the Kaiser's naval A.D.C., after a visit to London with a letter from the Kaiser to the Queen, "told the Kaiser on his return that the Prince had spoken disparagingly of Germany and its ruler." The Kaiser treated it as a deliberate affront, and bade Sir Frank Lascelles, the British Ambassador, report his grievance to Lord Salisbury. The Prince, in a letter to Sir Frank, declared the admiral's statements to be "positively untrue" and added: "I greatly resent thom as a positive insult to myself. Nobody is more anxious for friendly relations with the Emperor than I am, though on more than one occasion I have been sorely tried." Yet, when Sir Frank Lascelles communicated tho Prince's letter to the Kaiser, he was told by tho Kaiser that '' this continued hostility evinced towards him by the Prince of Wales would possibly have serious results upon the relations of the two countries." The Kaiser's tortuous mind led him to "storm against England, of which he regarded the Prinee and Lord Salisbury as tho evil geniuses," and, while he warned the Czar of his uncle's "trickery" he "drow lurid pictures, for the benefit of the English Ambassador in Berlin, of the ruin which Russia was preparing for England." Yet, a few months later, in November, 1898, he declared that "everything was coming out right," and that if England "would only adopt reasonable views he would enter into an alliance with her within twenty-four hours." Subterfuge and Tergiversation. Sir Sidney Lee traces, episodo by episode, tlie strangely contradictory and confusing story of tho personal relations between uncle and nephew. "What is the clue to the maze ? It is, as Sir Sidney says, that "the Kaiser saw in the Prince of "Wales, both while HeirApparent and while King, the most formidable rival to tho place of predominance which his magnified selfconsciousness led him to claim in the world." ' . "The Kaiser's diplomacy, in which threats migled with blandishments, was as ill-conditioned a weapon as his gesticulation in shining armour. Alike in political diplomacy and in personal controversy -he resorted to subterfuge and tergiversation, of which he had given signs in his boyhood. His habit of imputing the blankest stupidity or all degrees of Machiavellianism to his uncle as to everyone else whom he differed reflects his tortuous idiosyncrasy and the variability of hi s moods. He constantly oscillated between the two paths of cooperation with England and of defiance of her. He would one day profess in sugared accents the conviction that an alliance between the two nations was the only guarantee of the world's peace, and would next'day viciously impute every infamy to England and Englishmen and avow devotion to their enemies. His uncle and English statesmen, on whom at times ho lavished his schemingly pacific assurances,,were shrewd enough to distrust, him."

Queen Victoria's Deathbed. The last appearance of the Kaiser ixi this volume was in connexion with the death of the Queen. He was not invited to his grandmother's deathbed, and his presence was embarrassing. The Queen, we are told, barely recognised him; she seemed to mistake him for her father. But he insisted on watching at her side during her last hours—"a prominent and busy figure in thechamber of death, and when in the coming years the relations of uncle and nephew were more than usually strained the Kaiser often recalled the scene to King Edward's memory somewhat more intrusively than was always congenial." "Let me rather remember," he used to say, "the silent hour when we watched and prayed at her bedside, when the spirit of that great Sovereign Lady passed away, as she drew her last in m\r arma.'f