368 



GERMANY. 



fertothe statesman's objections and give up, 

 or at least postpone, the intended alliance. 

 Prince Bismarck presented his reasons in a 

 written memorial and announced the intention 

 of laying down his office if the Empress did 

 not abandon her design. In Russia the in- 

 tended marriage seemed to be regarded with 

 indifference or even as a way of eliminating 

 Prince Alexander from the Bulgarian compli- 

 cations, since it would not be fitting for a son- 

 in -law of the German Emperor to become a 

 vassal of the Sultan, nor would he be consid- 

 ered an acceptable candidate for the throne of 

 the principality in view of the article of the 

 Berlin Treaty excluding all members of reigning 

 dynasties. Yet Prince Bismarck held firmly 

 to his opinions, while the Empress seemed 

 equally determined. They had several inter- 

 views, Prince Alexander's visit to Berlin being 

 put off several times meanwhile. The Chan- 

 cellor crisis, as it was called, lasted more 

 than a week, and ended with the sacrifice of 

 the marriage project to state reasons and the 

 continuance of Prince Bismarck in office. 

 Prince Henry, of Prussia, the younger son of 

 the Emperor, married his cousin, the Princess 

 Irene, of Hesse, in May ; and in the beginning 

 of September the Princess Sophie, Victoria's 

 younger sister, was betrothed to Constantine, 

 the Crown-Prince of Greece. 



Shortly before the Emperor's death another 

 ministerial crisis arose that gave proof of the 

 strength of his reformatory purposes. The 

 law of the Reichstag making the duration of 

 parliaments five years instead of three was 

 promptly signed by him; but when a bill of iden- 

 tical provisions in reference to the period of the 

 Prussian Diet was brought to him, he withheld 

 it for further consideration and returned it to 

 the Vice-President of the Ministry of State, 

 Robert Victor von Puttkamer, on the following 

 day, May 27, with his signature attached, and 

 an accompanying letter, saying he expected 

 that in the future the freedom of elections 

 would not be impaired by the interposition of 

 official influence. Minister von Puttkamer, an 

 extreme Conservative, whose interpretation of 

 the remarkable rescript of Jan. 4, 1882, de- 

 claring that officials were bound by their oaths 

 to promote the policy of the Government at 

 elections had earned for him the nickname of 

 " electoral patronage chief," answered the Em- 

 peror by referring to this command of his 

 predecessor and to the electoral laws, which 

 impose but slight restraints on official activity 

 at elections. The Emperor declared that the 

 law should not be published till he received 

 the required assurance, and this the Prussian 

 Minister of the Interior considered to be equiv- 

 alent to his dismissal. He accordingly ten- 

 dered his resignation, which was forthwith ac- 

 cepted. Prince Bismarck manifested surprise 

 at the retirement of his colleague, and exhibited 

 his regret in an ostentatious manner. The 

 National Liberals were disappointed at the 

 fact that the successor of Herr von Puttkamer 



was not chosen from their ranks, and as soon 

 as Herr Herrfurth, under-secretary in the In- 

 terior Department, was nominated, they threat- 

 ened to dissolve the " cartel " or electoral alli- 

 ance with the Conservatives which was called 

 into existence by Prince Bismarck's appeal to 

 the nation after the rejection of the army bill 

 and the dissolution of Parliament. Herr von 

 Puttkamer was succeeded as Vice-President of 

 the Prussian Ministry by Herr von Botticher, 

 Secretary of State for the Interior, who re- 

 ceived the appointment in August. 



The Emperor Friedrich's Diary. In the latter 

 part of September the " Deutsche Rundschau " 

 magazine, published extracts from the diary of 

 the Emperor Friedrich covering the period of 

 the French war. The editor accompanied the 

 publication with a note to the effect that the 

 extracts were received from a person to whom 

 the late Emperor had communicated the diary, 

 or portions of it, with permission to publish it 

 when three months had passed after his death. 

 The diary shows that Friedrich had pressed 

 for the immediate mobilization of the whole 

 army and navy as soon as Count Bismarck in- 

 formed him that the negotiations with France 

 in regard to the candidacy of Prince Hohen- 

 zollern for the Spanish throne had broken 

 down and that war was inevitable. At the 

 close of the war, when the question of Ger- 

 man union came up, it was Friedrich who 

 from the beginning urged the creation of the 

 empire, while the King was very reluctant to 

 take such a step until he was persuaded by the 

 Crown-Prince and the Grand Duke of Baden. 

 Bismarck said he feared that the proclama- 

 tion of the empire would cause Bavaria and 

 Wurtemberg to join their fortunes with the 

 Austrian Empire, and wished to leave the 

 question to be solved by time. He seems to 

 have resented the interposition of the prince 

 in the political question, even going to the 

 length of threatening to resign, while seeking 

 to bring about the result at which Friedrich 

 aimed at his own time and in his own way, 

 having the demand proceed from the Reichstag 

 instead of from the allied German princes; but 

 he finally deferred to the prince's views, sup- 

 ported by those of the heads of the states of 

 Baden, Oldenburg, Weimar, and Coburg, and 

 composed the letter which the King of Bavaria 

 was induced to accept as his own, inviting 

 King Wilhelm to assume the imperial crown. 

 When the matter was finally settled, the Crown- 

 Prince wrote with elation of the realization 

 of long-deferred hopes of the German people 

 and of the dreams of German poets, and re- 

 garded it as the result of his own persevering 

 efforts. When the title of " German Emperor " 

 was fixed upon, since the Bavarian plenipoten- 

 tiaries objected to that of " Emperor of Ger- 

 many," which was proposed by the Crown- 

 Prince, the King said : " My son is devoted 

 with his whole soul to the new order of things, 

 while I care not a straw about it, and only 

 cling to Prussia." 



