The Woman Who Sways the Kaiser

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 201, 18 August 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Woman Who Sways the Kaiser

AN AMAZING ROMANCE OF A GROCER'S DAUGHTER.

This American woman's influence over the Kaiser and his wife alarmed his Minister,

It was she who inflamed the hatred of England which lias culminated in the war.

When Esther Lea first opened liov eyes on the world in New York more than seventy 'years ago he would have been a very bold prophet who had predicted that the infant so modestly cradled would one day be a Princess m her own right; that she would have an Empress for grand-niece, and that, far more than any other woman of her time, she would mould the history of the world in her clever hands. Such a prophet would, indeed, have been laughed to scorn; for Esther s father was then serving customers behind the counter of his modest grocer's shop in Front Street, New York; and had noly just been able to move his family from its upper rooms to a more comfortable home en College Place. Esther had thus neither birth nor wealth to start her on any career 11 ambition; she seemed, indeed, as far removed from the glittering circle of Royal Courts as from the planet Mars. But the child had the still more valuable dower of beauty and a clever brain, which has carried man/ a child, even more obscurely born, to the dizziest heights of power. Before Esther had turned her back on her schoolbooks her beauty and her charm had drawn many a lover to her feet; but the grocer's daughter would have nothing to say to any of the prosperous young business men who would so gladly have made her wife. She had already set her heart on a very different sphere, and would say jokingly to her mother "1 shall be a great lady some day.'' A PRINCE AS HUSBAND. She had just reached the verge i f young womanhood wlien her father, having accumulated, a small fortune, d : ed; and his widow carried off her throe beautiful, girls and her son to Stuttgart to complete their education —thus unconsciously playing into the hands of Fate. In the Wurtcmberg capital the arrival of the three "American beauties" caused no little sensation; and it was not long before the eldest of them found a husband in Baron von Waecliter, a handsome and courtly diplomatist, who, within a few months of hi* wedding day was sent as Ambassador to Paris, to which city, Mrs. Lea and the rest of her small family qnrckly followed her son-in-law.

Thus Esther's opportunity had come at last. She was now in the first radiant bloom of her beauty—" a tall figure of nrngled stateliness and grace; a little head, with a coronal of glorious brown hair; eyes blue as \fiolets and dancing with the joy of life, illuminating an oval face with the daintiest features, dimpled cheeks,, and a rosebud of a mouth."

Such 'ls the enthusiastic p'.cturo drawn of her at this time; and one cannot wonder that even in Paris, that city of fair women, the American girl should be hailed as a new revelation of feminline loveliness.

Nor was it long before her retinue of lovers included the Prince of SchleswigHolste'n, who, although a widower wh > had seen more than sixty years, was a strikingly handsome man, and still ft) susceptible to the charm of beauty that he lost his heart at first sight of Esther's loveliness and gave her no peace until he had made her his morganatic wife.

The grocer's daughter, although she was but the "left-handed" wife of a Pnince, had thus early found entrance to the closely guarded innner circle of Courts; and as Countess von Noer (a title conferred on her by her InisbancO was welcomed by the highest society of the Continent. But the Prince was not long destined to enjoy his new-found happmess. Indeed, within a year he left his wife a widow and his entire fortune.

For a time the Countess made he 1 ' home in Vienna, where she became so popular with Franz Josef and lie's Courtthat he created her Princess von Noer in her own right. It was not likely though, that n woman so lovely, so gifted, and so well

gilded should long remain unclaimed, and almost before she had discarded her weeds we find her standing again at the altar —this time with the young and handsome Count von Waldersee, a soldier of considerable gifts and charm who stood high in the favour o' the Emperor William and Bismarck. ARRANGED THE KAISER'S MARRIAGE. The grocer's daughter had now tha ball of Fortune at her feet. She had become a power—in a position, through, the old Emperor's admiration of, and affection for her, to influence Prussia -: policy at home and abroad. In order to make her position unassailably strong she now set to work to arrange a marriage between the young. Prince William (the Kaiser of to-day), and the Princess Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, grand-ntiece of her first husband, a girl to whom she had been more than a mother. And so cleverly did she "pull the strings" that one day in 1881 she saw her devoted " child" (as she called her) blossom into a future Empress at the altar. She had already succeeded so well in winning the devotion of Prince William that he invariably addressed her as "Tante" (aunt). Now that he was, .n fact, her nephew, wedded to a wife who was passionately attached to her, the future Emperor became still more devoted to her.

"It is really absurd," wrote a lady of the Court, at this time, "to so* what a fuss Pnince William makes of the American Countess. He is her shadow; often spends several hours daily in her company; and I really be lieve consults her as to what he shall wear, eat and drink I" But it was when William came to Irs throne in 1888 that the Countess s power reached fits full scope. Her influence over the young couple was so great that it alarmed William's Ministers, and drove his mother, the Empress, to despair. "I can do nothing," she wrote. "William is the veirest puppet in the hands of this clever and designing American woman. He takes no step without consulting her first; and he follows her advice rather than that of his wisest Ministers. What is worse, from my point of view, she estranges my son more and more from me and makes him oppose my slightest wishes." RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WAR. To his subjects his slavish devotion to the Countess was for years an unfailing cause of amusement; and at one time, "I must ask Aunt was a catch-phrase throughout Germany. It is said by those who profess to know that ever since his accession to the throne the Kaiser's policy has been inspired and directed more by the grocer's daughter than by all his Minister? combined. It was she who counselled tho darng and historic step of "dropping the Pilot" —dismissing Bismarck and taking the reins of Government mto irs own hands. With the " man of iron ' out of the way she could rule the Emperor as he willed—he had been her only rival and obstacle. It .Is she who has invariably encouraged his autocratic rule; has fed hs vanity until it has turned his brain; and has inflamed the hatred of England which has culminated in the most devastating wor of all time. Apart from her political mischiermflking. however, the Countess is a lovable woman, with a large heart and a boundless charity; and she has never lost her affection for the land which gave her obscure birth. She still retains traces of the beauty which once dazzled Europe: and although her hair is white as driven snow her figure is as erect and queenly, and her complexion almost as clear and brilliant as when, at first sight of her loveliness, the princely widower lost both head and heart half a century and more ago.

the captain told an interviewer that tJic job was not so bad as taking a torpedo-boat to Buenos Ayrcs, as lie did once. A barge, being deeper, is steadier, and can also use Ice boards, but a torpedo boat is thrown all over the place. Still, a voyage in a barge with ;i treeboard of only 20-24 niches ! Tugs have accomplished some marvellous voyages, one of 16S tons gross steamed i'rom t'.ie Clyde to fcjydncy (N.S.W.), whiie another of only 10") tons, w'.th a speed of ten knots, was taken to lquitos, an Amazon port, over 0,000 miles. She had no deck-house, and not even a boat, a pair- of davits being especially nggod up at the stern to accommodate one. Possessing room for only 31 tons of coal and burning throe a day. various ports had to lie touched by the way, a direct lino for Para being made from St. iVncent. One river boat also destined for Brazil had three decks and was flatbottomed, so that she rolled as it seems no ship could possibly roll. Tiie decks were shored up with battens, winch broke away in a storm, and the coal also got drift and played pranks. But she arrived safely, as did also a tiny steamer 60 feet long which left London for Portuguese East Africa. She was rigged with two masts as she could not carry sufficient coal for emergencies, and although a bad storm was encountered before she was clear of the Channo] her crew navigated her safely. OUR SEAWORTHY TRAWLERS. Trawlers have sailed to Japan and Australia, but it is not always real ships that these navigators of anything have to take across the ocean, and'the longest voyages are not always the most dangerous. There was that voyage of the new bow of the Sucvic from Belfast to Southampton which took six days, but even worse for the sailors are the trps across the oceans of great floating docks.

Absolutely at the mercy of the waves if anything goes wrong with the tugs towing them, tlioir crews have an unenviable time. A few years ago one broke loose and drifted for two or three days before it was picked' up again. IVo powerful tugs usually tow the pontoon on which spec'al accommodation is bnf.lt for the men, numbering ten or a dozen, and one floating dock was towed to Callao via the Straits of Magellan. Some six or seven years ago it was stated a Chinese war junk, at least a century old, was on ns way for exhibition purposes, but it never completel its voyage. It safely crossed the Pacific to San Francisco, and after being on exhibition left to round Cape Horn for the Atlantic Coast, but had to put in at various South Sea Islands, most of tho crew leaving her, having had enough of the voyage.

Native sailors were taken on board, but instead of rounding Cape Horn she turned up in the Torres Straits, where Australian Customs men thought she was not what she purported to be and was engaged in an illicit immigration effort. So she wandered, her next destination being Natal, but her captain feared she would go to pieces for he found' she was no old war junk but H vessel built especially — very roughly for exhibition purposes. When no threatened to break up at any moment another vessel was spoken, and the adventurous captain was thankful to leave the ship he had trie! <or :<■ many weary months to navigate to her port of destination.