The New Zealand Times. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1926. THE EX-KAISER IN TRUE PERSPECTIVE

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12615, 27 November 1926, Page 4

The New Zealand Times. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1926. THE EX-KAISER IN TRUE PERSPECTIVE

The latest book sequel to the Great War is the most remarkable volume of the series. Written by a German—Emil Ludwie—based entirely on German documents, it lays, by implication, the whole responsibility for the Great War on Wilhelm 11. According to this, the whole mass of diplomatic intricacies after the fall of Bismarck, which threw the world into the war and made it end in the collapse of the great Empire founded by Bismarck, was due to the gross incompetence, arrogance, and shiftiness of the Emperor William 11. But there is a palliation. One of the Czars said, early in William’s twenties: “He is mad—badly brought up, and dishonest.” Herr Ludwig, judging to the same effect, places the basis of William’s life behaviour bn his withered left arm, and. adds the neglect and dislike of his parents as a contributing demoralising cause. The weak father and the ambitious, very strong-minded mother disliked their deformed son, and he soon returned the compliment with hatred. The parents, with liberal ideas, opposed the conservatism and autocratic views of the old Emperor and Bismarck. Moreover, by the time their eldest son had got into his ’teens, their impatience for the Imperial succession delayed by the enduring age of the Emperor, had become a fierce obsession. Over this situation Bismarck ruled with iron hand. The old Emperor who realised his great services, held to him, not because he loved him—for he did not, and disliked his arrogance—but because he realised his indispensability. The Crown Prince, who hated him, was prepared to dismiss him whenever he came to the throne, and in this was cordially abetted by his wife, who leaned towards England and English ways and English diplomacy, and knew of Bismarck’s disapproval. Their son Wilhelm was surrounded by a swarm of flatterers, chief among them Eulenberg, who came to great disaster in later years, and General Count Waldersee, both of whom detested Bismarck.

The atmosphere of the Court was much like what the atmosphere of the mediaeval Frencli Court must have been when the Kings were dominated by the Mayors of the Palace, one of whom (Pepin’s son, Charles Martel, the last Palace Mayor) in due course seized the throne. That was paralleled by the association of Herbert Bismarck with his formidable father.

In this atmosphere the young William was tossed about by a mass of intrigues, and, being taught by flatterers to believe in his own capacity, spent in vain dreaming the time he ought to have used for learning the work of the station that awaited him, until" he came to mistake good intentions magniloquently presented for solid achievement. His ancestor Frederic the Great had passed through a similar experience. But he had exceptional strength of character, and was moulded by misfortunes to greatness. William 11., on the contrary, being without sufficient character, though in many ways clever and gifted with spasmodic energy, was destroyed, and eventually destroyed his Empire, and lost his throne. The death of his father, the Emperor Frederic, placed him on the throne before he knew anything of his business of governing. He became the prey of flatterers and place-hunters, and the tremendous arrogance he had acquired in the days of waiting helped the divergences of flattering advisers to bring him and his Empire to naught. The German Government has printed much of the secret history of this period, and is arranging for the publication of more. It is entirely on this evidence that this book is founded. The conviction of the ex-Kaiser is, in fact, mostly from his own pen and those of his friends. In the face of this it will be impossible for the ex-Kaiser to hope for his restoration to power. Such hope has surely been killed by this book, written with dramatic force and the style of a true tragedian. Its proof that the tragedy of William 11. of Germany is one of the most colossal in history is irresistible. It may be propaganda, but the facts are damning.