Part 15 (1/2)
April 28, 1897. [6]
William II, the G.o.d of war and of force, is in every way responsible for events in the East. Only his friends.h.i.+p, and the many consequences of that friends.h.i.+p, have given to Abdul Hamid the courage of his ma.s.sacres, of his resistance to all efforts at reconciliation, and of his military proceedings in Greece. The German Emperor had been able to persuade the simple-minded Government of France of his peaceful and humanitarian intentions. It only needed a few of us to revolt and to express our indignation, to unmask him, and to show in its true, lurid light, the real nature of his actions, so as to enable the nations to know him for what he is. To-day he is the master of Europe; but let the power of the Kaiser be what it may (and it is a power no more capable of honesty than that of Bismarck, who lied without ceasing, forfeited without ceasing his honour, and accepted responsibility for crime), whatever conquests hereafter William II may achieve, even should we be defeated again, we shall be able to stand up before him and to his face to say, ”You will never achieve greatness!” Material greatness turns again to dust, like all matter, but moral greatness is eternal, an intangible thing, which surrounds men, invisible, and which emanates from the best amongst them.
We will leave to history, which shall surely record it, the judgment of _human_ men, of real peace-lovers, concerning William II, concerning this protector of the Red Sultan, this renegade and denier of his faith, who has sold his soul in order to govern the world through evil, through trickery, through force and through war. You have only to read the German legends, to a.n.a.lyse the souls of the traditional heroes of Germany, to see that they are indeed much more closely allied to the Turks (who have only understood Islamism under its aspects of conquest) than they are to the traditions which Europe has inherited from Greece and from her daughters, Rome and Byzantium.
The struggle of to-day lies between these two spirits: one the barbarian spirit, the spirit of conquest, which knows no other law but force, the spirit which subdues and kills, represented by Turkey and by Germany; the other, the spirit of civilisation, of love, which knows no other law than the right, the spirit which emanc.i.p.ates and vivifies, the spirit of Greece, from which European civilisation is drawn, excepting always that of the Germans and Turks. Either the East will resist the Turks, and Europe will resist Germany, or else both will relapse into barbarism, and be condemned to war without ceasing, to butcheries, to the brutality of force and all its works.
May 27, 1897. [7]
At all events they have not yet won their bet in Berlin that they would make us look ridiculous and hateful. Those very wise and well-bred people, who have been advising us to revise our national education, so as to welcome the Kaiser in 1900, have had but meagre success. As to the golden stream, which brought us the 8000 marks of the King of Prussia,[8] thank Heaven, it has not been able to drown our patriotism.
Brother Frenchmen, it is still lawful for lunatics and ill-bred people like ourselves to remember Sedan, Metz, Strasburg and Paris, as well as Kronstadt and Toulon. Then let us not forget either the first rays of sunlight which reach us from Russia, or the darkness of 1870. [9]
There is not a single German journalist (_and I wish to emphasise this fact most clearly_), even in the ultra-Prussian party, who would have dared to put his signature to such an article as one of our greatest newspapers has published concerning William II, whom it describes as ”a humanitarian thinker, a gentle philosopher, thinking only of the happiness of the human race, of appeasing ancient hatreds and removing old grudges. How joyfully would he not have restored Metz and Strasburg had he not been prevented in performing this act by the historical necessities of his position.” In proof of all which things, this article cites his telegrams of sympathy, the splendid bouquets which he has sent to our ill.u.s.trious dead, his wish to pay homage to France in 1900, etc., etc.
The journalist grown old in harness, who has dared to write such monstrous things as well as such nonsense, will no doubt be greatly astonished when I inform him that no foreign reporter, however inexperienced, of any nation great or small, is ignorant of the fact that William II is relentlessly determined to achieve the re-establishment of absolute autocracy as it was conceived by certain Emperors of Rome and Byzantium. His motto is _Voluntas Regis Supremo Lex_, which, on the occasion of his first visit to Munich, he wrote there with his own Imperial hand. On the first occasion of the opening of the States of Brandenburg, he declared that he counted on their fidelity to help him to crush and destroy everything that might oppose his personal wishes. Is it necessary to say once more for the hundredth time that he never has the oath taken by his recruits without telling them that ”they must ever be ready to fire on those who oppose his rule, even though they should be their own fathers, mothers and brothers”? The other day, did he not make his brother Prince Henry read a letter to the sailors of his war-s.h.i.+p the _Wilhelm Imperator_ (the vessel appointed to attend the Jubilee of Queen Victoria), in which letter he held up to the execration of the army and navy those ”unpatriotic” Germans who refused to provide him with millions for his wild scheme of increasing the navy, that is to say, about nine-tenths of the Reichstag? There is in Germany one inst.i.tution which commands very general respect, and enjoys traditional liberty, viz. the University. For the last year William II has opened a campaign against the liberties of University education, and the scandalous manner in which he has attacked the professors at Berlin because of the dignity with which they have defended their rights of scientific research, are known to every one except ”this brilliant Chronicler of the Boulevards.”
From one end of Germany to the other they go into ecstasies whenever, either before, during, or after his acts of politeness to France, William finds some new pretext for humiliating, humbling, or threatening us. [10]
A German pamphlet published two years ago, ent.i.tled _Caligula; a Study of Caesarian Madness_, by Mr. Quidde, achieved such a success, that hundreds of thousands of copies were bought up in a few days by the faithful subjects of the German Emperor. This pamphlet, ingeniously compiled by means of quotations from Suetonius, Dion Ca.s.sius, Philo, etc., gives a marvellous a.n.a.lysis of the character of William II. I cannot resist the pleasure of giving a few extracts from this little work, for it would appear that William II is endeavouring, since its publication, to emphasise the resemblance between himself and Caligula and Nero.
”The dominant feature in the actions of Caligula lies in a certain nervous haste, which led him spasmodically from one obsession to another, often of a self-contradictory nature; moreover, he had the dangerous habit of wanting to do everything himself. Caligula seems to have a great fondness of the sea. The strolling-player side of his character was by no means limited to his military performances. He was pa.s.sionately devoted to the theatre and the circus, and would occasionally take part himself on the stage, led thereto by his peculiar taste for striking costumes and frequent changes of clothing.
He was always endeavouring to s.h.i.+ne in the display of eloquence; and was fond of talking, often in public. We know that he developed a certain talent in this direction, and was particularly successful in the gentle art of wounding people. His favourite quotation was the celebrated verse of Homer--
There is only one Master, only one King.
Sometimes he loved the crowd, and sometimes solitude; at other times he would start out on a journey, from which he would return quite unrecognisable, having allowed his hair and beard to grow.”
Just as the names of Caligula and Nero are daily affixed in Germany to the name of William II, Herr Hinzpeter is called Senecus, General von Hahnke is known as Burrhus; there is also an Acte and a Poppea at Berlin. Frederick III is Germanicus and Prince Bismarck is called Macro, after the powerful prefect of the praetorium in disgrace. Like Nero, William II has been cruel to his mother; he is cruel to his sister, the Princess of Greece. He hates England, just as Caligula hated Brittany. With a mind like that of Nero, William II derives the greatest pleasure from the thought of degrading the French people by making them receive him with acclamation. What a triumph it must be for this grandson of William I (who defeated us but left us our honour) thus to bring us to dishonour: us, the descendants of the France of 1789, republicans in the service of a Prussian Caesar!
June 10, 1897. [11]
It should have been to the interest of France and, of Russia, and a policy of skilful strategy, to oppose Turkey when supported by the Triple Alliance, and to create around and about her, in Greece as in the Balkans, such a force of resistance as would have put a stop to her schemes of expansion, resulting from those of the Powers of the Triple Alliance. By so doing, France and Russia might have taken them in the rear and upset their plans. We were already in a position of considerable advantage, in that we could leave to the King of Prussia, the German Emperor, all the responsibility for the crimes of the Sultan, observing at the same time all those principles which would have maintained, in their integrity, the moral and Christian traditions of France and Russia. But our policy has been that of children building castles in the sand. Confronted by a triumphant Turkey, leaning on the Triple Alliance, and by a Sultan suffering from the dementia of blood-l.u.s.t, certain of the faithful friends.h.i.+p of William II, and confident in his victorious army (already 720,000 strong, and commanded by a German General Staff); confronted by such fears and threats, we have chosen to place all our hopes upon the balanced mind of William II, the generosity of the Sultan, and the loyalty of oriental statecraft! I have said it so repeatedly that I may have wearied my readers, but I say it again; ”_To their undoing, France and Russia have sacrificed their policy to Turkey, protected by Germany_.”
They are now confronted by German policy, evasive and at the same time triumphant, that is to say, in full command of the situation which it has brought about. William II is at last revealed, even to the blindest eyes, as the instigator and sole director of everything that has taken place in the East since his visit to Constantinople. He takes pleasure in advising the Sultan day by day, for he makes him do everything that he himself is prevented from doing, and he enjoys the satisfaction of being a tyrant in imagination when he cannot be one actually.
June 25, 1897. [12]
The Sultan's million of armed men, organised under a German General Staff, in a country where Germany is making every effort to possess herself of every kind of influence and every source of wealth, is not this the chief danger which Russia has to fear, and whose imminence she should clearly foresee, in dealing with a Sultan like Abdul Hamid, a man of nervous fears and bloodthirsty instincts, bound to furtherance of the sudden or premeditated schemes of William II?
July 27, 1897. [13]