EX-KAISER’S PAST.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 March 1921, Page 5

EX-KAISER’S PAST.

SOME AMAZING SECRETS, BISMARCK’S FORBIDDEN MEMOIRS S PREPARATIONS FOR WAR. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received March 28, 7 p.m. London, March 26. The forbidden third volume of Bismarck’s memoirs, which is on the eve of publication, discloses ample reasons for the ex-Kaiser’s anxiety that they should not see the light of day. The volume demonstrates his leanings towards war, both before and immediately after he attained the Throne. Bismarck realised even when the elder Wilhelm was still alive, the ill-effects which the military society of Potsdam were exercising on young men of character, but the stinginess of the Imperial household defeated his efforts to transfer the Prince to Berlin. When twenty-seven years old the Prince applied for and was granted access to Foreign Office documents, despite his father’s strong disapproval. “Considering the unripeness and inexperience of my son,” wrote Frederick, “together with his vanity, presumptions and overweening self-estimation, it is dangerous as yet to bring him into touch with foreign affairs.” Notwithstanding the extension of this privilege, Bismarck was chagrined to find Wilhelm ascend the Throne without impressions of the internal life of Germany other than those afforded by his regimental life. While his grandfather and father were both alive the Prince drew up a brief proclamation entitled “To my future colleagues and Princes of the German Empire”, embodying views on their mutual relations, which he conceitedly affirmed were very different to his father’s views. Wilhelm requested that sealed copies of this document should be deposited in the legations of the various German Courts, but Bismarck, struck by the folly and indecency of the proceeding, advised him to burn them without delay. Wilhelm, nevertheless, contrived to convey an impression to the minor Courts that his father’s views were stricter than iris own.

Wilhelm’s first hint of mailed-fist predilections was given a month or two before his reaching the Throne. A letter he wrote shows how fully the Prussian militarists of 1888 anticipated the views and plena of their successors of 1914, and how thoroughly they permeated the man launching the world war. The militarists considered the moment favorable for attacking Russia, and,” writes Bismarck, “claiming for the general staff a more powerful influence over Imperial politics. Wilhelm considered that German and Austrian military authorities should have been called to attention in the autumn of last year, when a favorable military opportunity for warlike procedure then offered itself to both countries.” The opportunity did not come until twenty-five years later. Another remarkable pronouncement made at the same time by the future Emperor has bearing on Russia’s position to-day. He foresaw that Russia, after an unsuccessful war,' would fall as a result of critical internal troubles into quite a different state of impotence than it was likely would happen in the ease of any other European State.—Times Service.