THE PRUSSIAN.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 February 1918, Page 7

THE PRUSSIAN.

KAISER AS A YOUNG MAN. A PROPHETIC PICTURE. Twenty-nine years ago Mr. Harold Frederic, the novelist, read in t!ie face of the (then) young Crown Prince—now Emperor William—the bloodlust that all the world knows to-day. William was only .10 tlien, and Mr. Frederic (representing the New fork Times at Berlin) wrote thug about liim: This young man suggests tilt notion of a perfectly-bred sleuth-hound, under whose smooth, delicately aoft coat lie the muscles of steel, and in whose 'mouth—sinister legacy of Nature—is the inherent taste of human blood. Here is Mr- Frederic's remarkable penpicture of the Kaiser as he appeared to jiim in 1888, when he wrote tlie subjoined article, almost prophetic of the war-wrecked world of to-day:— Picture to yourself a young man in his thirtieth year, six feet in height, straight as an ash sapling, with finely formed, slender limbs, narrow hips, swelling chest, and square, broad shoulders, with a smallish head on a long, fullthroated neek, Ijeld proudly upright, and an oval face, with an aquiline, effect of profile, clear-cut, strong chin, bended nose, prominent though not high cheek-bones, and good, open forehead—all as regular in ensemble as a Greek triumphal arch —with clear, sharp, cold, gray-blue eyes, light brown hair, close cut behind but longer on the crown, and rifling from the temples to form a sort of ridge from tile parting across the brow, and a yellowish moustache loosely curled up at the ends—and you have such a portrait as words can paint of William, Crown Prince of Prussia and coming German Emperor. All Europe, with its thousand sons of Royal houses, does not present another such regal figure. The Kaiser who is dead and the Kaiser who is dying have by their photographs familiarised all the civilised world with two Striking and splendid physic*! ideas of a soldier who looked everv inch a king. But etich Tained much by the effects of heard, of line? of care in the face, and of imposing corporeal bulk. They were impressive in the sense of a noble old mastiff or of a huge, honest, shaggy, deep-chesteil hoarhnund. This young man suggests, instead, the notion of a perfectly-bred sleuth-hound, under whose smootli, delicately* soft coat lie the muscles of steel, and in whose mouth—sinister legacy of nature—is the inherent taste of human blood. Not-that his face Is sullen or saving in its expression. Its habitual cast in repose, is calm, self-possessed, somewhat meditative without wrinkles either on the brow or at the ends of the mouth. The eyes, too, are grave, in-* tent, without being severe. And I saw this face liaht up the other night when William, after bidding the English Princess good-bye at the - station turned and walked down the space cleared through the cheering crowds to his carriage with a sweet and winning smile. Nofhin" could have been more gracimis or kindly than his blond countenance as William glanced nlnnrr the rows of faces as lie walked and lifted his tinier to his cap in easy, pleased recognition of the cheers. WITHOUT CONSCIENCE OR COMPASSION. One shudders as one pats the mild, contemplative head of the bloodhound solely because of the stories iisst have been told of the terrific ferocity which lurks under this sleek and gentle exterior. In the same way you look into the face of this young heir of the Hohenzollems and remember with wondering reservations the malignant tales which have been told' of his inner nature by those who knew him best. Apparently all the women—at least all the Englishwomen—who have had to do with the bringing np of Prince William, held him in horror and detestation. I have had numerous proofs of this, although I have never been able to fasten upon any specific reasons for it. Their dislike for him is based on a general conception of his character- This view is that he is utterly cold, entirely selfish, -wantonly cruel; a young man without conscience of compassion, or any softeuin" virtues whatever. That he has great*abilities they all admit, hut they stop there. Heart he has none, upon their reckoning. And I am hound to say that if ,yon look into his face with this preconceived notion of the young man's character you can find plenty of signs which seem to substantiate it. Of course, the root of this profound i antagonism to him to he found anion* ,thc little group of English and Antflo"German ladies in the Court circles here in Berlin is his unfilial attitude toward us motljer. He has, apparently, never I,k-od her— at least, since he has attained manhood. The inner reasons for this .estrangement it is naturally impossible to discover or determine. The outer causes-or are they effects ?-are more obvious. William is verv deepiv and thoroughly Prussian. He is a livin" breathing embodiment of all the qualities and lack of qualities which, through precisely two centuries, have brought the little mark of Brandenburg up from a puny fief, with a poor, scattered population of a million and a-half, to the STStc of a great, kingdom ruling nearly SO millions of people and giving the law to all Europe. MIGHT AND RUTHLESSNESS. He is saturated with all the instincts and ideas which have raised this parvenu Prussia to its present eminence, and his character is the crown and flower of these two centuries of might and ruthlessness and spoliation exalted in*o a creed. On the other band, his mother is the 'best Royal product of a totally and fundamentally different civilisation \ ictona Adelaide is unquestionably the broadest, most liberal, and most lovable o. all the Guelfs who have been horn since Elector George first landed i n England. When I say that she is the only one of her family who at present sympathises wnolly with Mr. Gladstone I have most simply and fully indicated her disposition and bent of mind. Obviously she can have hut little i n common with a son who would handle Gladstone offhand, ami who avowedly hates England as the country whence has come all the constitutional nonsense which nowadays hampers kingship. -Out of this wide political difference between mother and son has grown a personal estrangement which evervbody in Berlin knows more or less about, and .which no doubt, strongly colors the opinions of the English circle here which have 'been quoted This feud is not rendered the jess hitter by '!,,, f flct luat the new Ka*ser sides with ' ' «ife rather thn" with Ibis son at -r. Prince WilVpm habitually sneaV-f ; mother to his associates fttid fain... rs as "the Englishwoman." Be.ostentatiously ad-

dresses her in German, although he knows English perfectly, and she has always maiie a point of having her children speak Iv.iglish i„ the family ■.circle. An old acquaintance of mine here wi<n w:is at .San Ruino a fortnight ago told me .something which lie saw with his own eyes. It. was Sunday morning, and the Imperial family were starting from the front, door of the little English villa Zirio to go to the chapel ou the esplanade to attend Anglican service. .Prince William and his mother came out ■ of the door together ahead of the others. As they stepped outside she made a movement as if to take his arm. lie drew away, said something to her in » low tone of voice, anil walked down the broad, gravelled path alone in front of her and the rest. It transpired later in the day that what he said to her was in substance this: "I am here as the personal representative of my grandfather, the German Kaiser. That? being the case, it is fitting that I should take precedence. There is nobody who could properly wall: beside me except my grandmother, the Kaiscrin Augusta. WILL OVER-RUN EUROPE. This anecdote docs not reveal a, nic« boy. But, alter ail, when a young man stands upon the threshold of an Imperial career —and we all know that it is a mere matter of months before lie will be the autocratic master of 2,000,(KX) armed men —it is not of so much importance whether he is nice or not. The real question is: What will he do! The most common answer is that he will overrun Europe. One of the really great essays of the decade, Taine's recent study of Napoleon, has its basis in the idea that the Corsican marvel was a freak of heredity—a strange, posthumous brother of the. medieval mercenary soldier of Italy, It seems veiy probable j that some future Tainu a century hence, perhaps, will write to show that William I. of Prussia, and the German Empire was a mysterious belated survival and tho ante-medieval Goth? and Vandals—an Attila born a thousand and more years after his time The young man is practically all German in blood. It is true that his mother is called English, but as a matter of fact one has to go back among her ancestors to Shakespeare's time to find a strain of anything but Teutonic blood in the Guclfs. It is true also that his great-grandmother was a daughter of <he l'sav Paul But it happens that the Roiqunolfs have scarcely a trace of Tartar blood in their veins, so steadily have ajl the males for ten generations married German wivesPrince William is, in truth, as purely North German by heredity, as wholly a product of Wend -ind Saxon, and Goth and Borussian intermixture, as 'con be found- One may call him, indeed, a culmination of the llohenzollcrn type of soldier-statesman, reached, curiously enough, hy the same crossing of blood Which produced Frederick- the Great. The mother of that wonderful warrior was also a Guelf—Sopliie Dorothea—a sister of George I. It is passing strange that when, a century and a half later, a Hohcnzollcru Crown Prince next) again takes a wife from the Brunswick House, the eldest son should again be marked by Nature for a world-fighter. Why this result should follow is not clear. Wtiat.cveT else the Guelfs may be, they distinctly are not a military family. With the doubtful exceptions of the Dukes ot York and Cumberland, the race has never produced a soldier, who could do more than avoid tripping over his sabre and falling off the saddle at a trot. Yet when a Sophie Dorothea or a Victoria Adelaide is wedded hy a Frederick William of Hohenzollern, 10, and hehold! the issue is a born captain of men. MATERIAL FOR A CONFLAGRATION. But even a Frederick or Napoleon cannot stand Europe ou its head, it may be urged, unless he has a great, compact, and unanimous mass of people at his back who are willing to place their fortunes, their peace, and their lives unreservedly in his hands; and Princo Bismarck has insisted all along upon nothing more tenaciously than that the German nation wants peace. This is all true enough. Bismarck is a patriot in ! the truest European sense of the word- I fie does want peace- His dearest wish ' lis to livo to see the Empire which he . so greatly helped to form grow homo- ! geneous and self-sustaining, expand its i manufacturers and its commerce, devel- ! op resources at home and markets abroad, and be able to comfortably hear the vast burden imposed upon it by the ' necessity of being ready hourly to de- I fend iis existence. Ever since 1871—since its foundation in fact—the German Empire has made , all sorts of sacrifices, some of them difficult and repugnant, in the interests of I peace. Bismarck has gone on adding t» the German army year after year, until to-day it numbers more fhan twice, the armed host represented here in the historic victorious review of 187-1; yet he has never been insincere in his declarations that tlhis increase of military forct

was nnulu solely lis an end to pence. Not | only was he sincere, but lie v-'s right, | Under the Kaiser who was buried last ; week tin.' Herman army was in its magnitude a ■guarantee' of peace—and it is I no less *o to-day under the noble, broad, and enlightened Kaiser, who is so painfully and manfully striving to do his duty to the lieriiian nalion and the world from within his sick chamber at Cliarlottonliiir". l\t\ i.oliody with eyes in his Wad could have passed the week just ended in Berlin without recognising- that if a fire brand .comes to the throne the material}* f.fe close-crowded upon him for e terrible conflagration. Although the groat hulk of the military visitors who tlirosg-eS to the funeral have gone home-again or back to their posts, I still have tlic sensation of being a lonesome ■ civilian in the centre of a gigantic armed camp, I