Part 19 (2/2)
Queen of the Seas, take warning!
We know how William II is wont to express his pacific ideas and what is his conception of the reduction of armaments--with bl.u.s.tering threats and hosannahs in praise of rifles and cannons. On the subject of peace, the German mind has long since been fixed in its ideas. One cannot sum them up better than in the following quotation from a Berlin newspaper.
”At the Paris Salon in 1895 there was a great picture by Danger ent.i.tled 'The Great Authors of Arbitration and Peace,' depicting all those, from Confucius and Buddha down to the Tzar Alexander III, who have laboured in the cause of peace. In a note which explained the painter's work, it was said to be impossible to depict all the friends of arbitration and peace. It seems to me that such friends of peace as William II and Prince Bismarck should not have been forgotten, for, by the Treaty of Frankfort, they have brought about a lasting peace and have obtained the power required to maintain it.”
Between this German conception of peace and ours, is there not a gulf that nothing can ever bridge?
October 23, 1898. [12]
William II is in the seventh heaven. One by one he dons his s.h.i.+ning garments, which the eastern sun gladdens with silver and gold. He has made another trip on his swan, that is to say, on the white _Hohenzollern_, which carries Lohengrin to the four corners of the earth. The German Emperor's departure from Venice was a master-stroke of scenic effects, one of those subversions of history, to which the eccentric monarch of Berlin is so pa.s.sionately addicted. Nothing indeed could have been more original than to make the sons of the ancient Venetians, hereditary foes of the Turk, welcome a Protestant monarch who is the friend of the chief slaughterer of Catholics.
A Christian Emperor landing at Stamboul accompanied by his Empress, obtaining permission from the Sultan to hold a review of troops on a _Selamlik_ day, acclaimed by the Mussulman people and soldiery, exalted amidst all the pomp and splendour of the East, feasting his eyes on magic colours, the hero of unrivalled entertainments, surely it is enough to raise to a frenzy of pride the potentate who has made such things possible.
But amidst these pomps and vanities, William is by no means neglectful of his skilful and lucrative business schemes. It is said that he has secured a concession for a commercial harbour at Hadar Pasha, near Scutari. Hadar Pasha is the railhead of the Anatolian line, which belongs to a German company. Will the great commercial traveller, William II be able to persuade his sweet friend the Slayer, to make him a grant of the coaling station which he covets at Hafa? The Sultan will refuse him nothing. Will France and Russia have time to spare for lodging protests, their attention having been so skilfully diverted to Fashoda on the one hand and to China on the other? Is it not written that the two nations must unite forces if they would check the schemes of him who aspires to world-wide dominion over religion and commerce?
Though France and Russia have sometimes quarrelled over the question of the Holy Places, they cannot regard without anxiety the triumphant entry of the third thief upon the scene.
England, too, is busy with Fashoda and does not seem to be in such a position, diplomatically speaking, at Constantinople, as to be able to oppose the cession by Turkey to Germany of a Mediterranean harbour.
Moreover, the manner in which she has grabbed Cyprus leaves her without much voice to talk of the _status quo_ in the Mediterranean.
William II in Palestine! This man with his mania for glittering pomp and grandeur going to kneel at the stable in Bethlehem; the proudest and most conceited of men, the most puffed up with vainglory, treading the paths trodden by the feet of the Humblest; the most egotistical and least brotherly, coming to bow before Him who is brotherhood personified: could any spectacle be sadder for true Christians?
November 10, 1898. [13]
The Imperial pilgrim has left the Holy City, _El Cods_, as the Turks themselves have it. Amidst the silence of its holy places his turbulent majesty manifested itself in every direction. He prayed, discoursed, telegraphed, wrote and conducted inaugural functions. He made all the Stations of the Cross and preached to the German Colony in Jerusalem, telling them that amidst such surroundings ”they should be possessed of a perpetual inclination to do good.” And forthwith he proceeded to speak of his great friends.h.i.+p for the Sultan, for the individual who methodically suppresses Christians in his empire by killing them.
William has seen the tomb of David, which infidels may not approach, and whose stones only Mussulmans may lawfully tread. The very dear friend of Abdul Hamid, he whom the Turkish troops salute with the same words as they use for the Sultan, has written to the Holy See, announcing his gift of a plot of land to the German Catholic a.s.sociation in the Holy Land and adding ”that he was happy to have been able to prove to Catholics that their religious interests lie very near to his heart.”
Leo XIII might have replied: ”Sire--Let your Majesty do even more for Catholics; persuade your friend the Sultan to cease from killing them.”
November 24, 1898. [14]
William II's journey to Palestine has completely proved the thorough understanding which he has established with Abdul Hamid--that he should take possession of the Holy Places, as head of the Lutheran religion and as representative of the Catholics of his Empire. France is, therefore, no longer _de facto_ protector of Christians in the East, since she is not required to protect the German Catholics, now directly protected by their Emperor. In the Far East, William II had already refused to allow France to protect his Catholic subjects. The advantages which he derived from this decision were too great for him to abandon them elsewhere, since the murder of a single missionary had brought him Kiao-ohao.
Thus, then, ended this journey, accomplished in pomp and splendour, applauded at the same time by German Christians and by the slayers of Christians. William II has attained his object in the matter of religious influence and of the emigration of German colonists, whom the Sultan will be pleased to receive with open arms. The Kaiser paid his reckoning liberally by proposing the health of the Sultan at Damascus and by declaring his intention to help and sustain the Master and the Khalif of 300 million Mussulmans. The seed of the words thus spoken will sprout and will inspire encouragement for every kind of revolt in the Mussulman subjects of France--and, for that matter, of England also.
Whilst William II was paying his devotions at the Holy Places, giving all the impression of a pious benevolent Head of the Church, a number of horrible evictions were being carried out in Schleswig in his name and by his orders. Hundreds of families, dragged from their native soil, from their homes and kindred, were led away to the frontier on the pretext that they still clung to their belief in a ”Southern Jutland.” Day after day, for the last thirty-four years, on one pretext or another--and sometimes without any--the Danes have been discouraged from living in Schleswig. Either life has gradually been made impossible for them, or else they have been suddenly compelled to leave the house where they were born, where their elders hoped to die in peace, and their places have been filled by German colonists. A terrible exodus, shameful cruelty! But ”Germany for the Germans” is an axiom before which all must bow, big and little, rich and poor.
December 10, 1898. [15]
Mr. Chamberlain's coquetting with Germany has ceased for the time being. _The Times_, in contrast with its former hymns of praise, now contents itself with asking William II not to make difficulties for England in Europe or beyond the seas, and it adds that a friendly att.i.tude would serve the interests of German subjects in the Colonies much better than one of hostility.
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