September 28, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
17 
The Kaiser and His People 
By Francis Gribble 
IS the Kaiser the real leader of his people or only 
the crowned prisoner of a party, pushed along in 
front ? Will this people stick to him in adversity, 
or make him a scapegoat when they realise that 
his policy has failed ? 
One thing is certain. Since Frederick the Great, the 
Hohenzollerns, though they have always been announced 
as the leaders of the people, have never really led them, 
Frederick William II. obeyed the Rosicrucians. Frederick 
William III. obeyed his mutinous generals. Frederick 
William IV. alternately obeyed the revolutionists and the 
reactionaries. William I. obeyed Bismarck, who made 
him Emperor against his will. That was the family 
tradition which William II. found established when he 
came to the throne. He resolved to break it down ; 
he tried to do so. For quite a while, it looked as if he 
had succeeded ; but then, of a sudden, something went 
wrong. His people turned on him. He was, as it were, 
whistled back and brought to heel. 
The great symbolic fact by which he proclaimed his 
independence was, of course, the "dropping of the pilot." 
He also proclaimed it in various obiter dicta, which have, 
become famous. For instance : — 
Only one is master in this Empire, and I am that one — I 
tolerate no other. 
My course is the right one, and it shall be followed. 
When I undertake anything, I carry it out. 
Supyema lex regis voluntas. 
A Favourite Pose 
It is very tempting to judge him by these utterances ; 
but it is also very easy to judge him wrongly by them. 
They represent him as he likes to picture himself rather 
than as he is — as he tried to be rather than as he succeeded 
in being. Most likely it flattered his subjects to see him 
cutting such a fine figure, and affecting to lead the Uni- 
verse by the nose. They certainly applauded the beau 
geste as long as it appeared to be successful, and were them- 
selves ready to follow as long as they were being conduc- 
ted along the road which they desired to travel. But 
then there was a hitch in the proceedings. The Universe 
resented being led by the nose, and took its measures 
accordingly ; and as those ' measures were not satis- 
factory to Germany — and as somebody had to be held to 
blame for them — there resulted a trial of strength between 
the Kaiser and German public opinion. 
That trial of strength — the famous " crisis " which 
came to a head in igo8 — is the thing to turn to if we want 
to fi.K the Kaiser's position alike in the council chamber 
and in the hearts of his people. It tells us far more than 
we can learn from any stage-managed Reichstag effect. 
From the Reichstag manifestations of August, 1914, 
we might infer that the Kaiser was firing a mine which 
his skilful diplomacy had prepared. That is the im- 
pression which they were designed to give ; and it may 
even have been communicated to the Kaiser himself. 
At the same time, it is quite at variance with the impres- 
sion one derives from the events of igo8. 
The note of the agitation of that year was this : that 
German diplomacy had been bungled, and that the Kaiser 
was responsible, and must be made the scapegoat. He 
had talked too much, and he had said the wrong things ; 
he had bluffed, and failed to follow up bluff by action. 
On the one hand he had professed a friendship for Eng- 
land which did not suit the book of those (lermans who 
had designs against the British Empire ; on the other 
hand he had aroused enmities which were bringing about 
the isolation of Germany. And therefore — . . . 
There is no need to argue about the truth of these 
charges. The essential point is that, true or false, they 
were beheved in Germany, and that the Kaiser became, 
in consequence, the most unpopular man in his own 
dominions, and th^ helpless victim of his own reptile 
Press. And another point, hardly less essential, is that 
the men who then attacked him most bitterly were pre- 
cisely the men who now profess to be the most loyal 
followers of his patriotic lead. It was not only the Social 
Democrats and the Radicals who could find no good word 
to say for him ; he was denounced with even greater 
fury by such men as Bassermann and Reventlow for 
boasting of the services which he had rendered to the cause 
of peace. One Pan-Germanist went so far as to say that, 
" whatever the circumstances, the Kaiser always fails to 
think and speak like a German," and Maximilian Harden 
even suggested abdication. " Is our King and Emperor," 
he asked, " thinking of renouncing the crown. Let us 
have no illusions. All his subjects are now in opposition 
to him." 
A Change of Chancellors 
That was the occasion on which Prince von Biilow 
promised that the Kaiser would behave better in future. 
Not long after having done so, he resigned the Chancellor- 
ship, to which Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg succeeded ; 
the interpretation put upon the change being that the 
Kaiser preferred a Chancellor who would do what he told 
him to one who insisted on telling him what to do. The 
triumph, however, was purely personal — a demonstrar 
tion which covered a surrender. The real victory rested 
with the militarists under whose influence the Kaiser fell. 
There was a revival of loyalty on their part when they 
believed that they had got him in their pocket ; but they 
do not seem to have been sure — or to be quite sure even 
now — that he was completely in their pocket ; and the 
attacks which are now nominally directed at his Chancel- 
lor are really meant for him. Putting all the criticism 
together, we may come to the following conclusions : 
(i.) According to the official German theory, the pre- 
sent " defensive " war is a necessary reply to an attempt 
on the part of the Entente Powers to " encircle " Ger- 
many. — Eiknreisungpolitik. 
(2.) The Kaiser's blunders and premature bluster are 
regarded in Germany as responsible for that combination 
against Germany which the military party considered it 
imperative for Germany to break down. 
(3.) In the days of the diplomatic preliminaries, the Kaiser 
(through his Chancellor) clung too long to the hope of 
peace, and obstructed the military preparations. When 
the war began to go badly, the Kaiser (also through his 
Chancellor) obstructed the efficient conduct of it by ob- 
jecting to certain forms of " ruthlessness." 
So that the Kaiser tends to become, more and more, 
the target of a converging German fire. From the point 
of the people who did not want the war, it is his fault that 
the war took place. From the point of view of those who 
did want the war, it is his fault that the enterprise has 
not been crowned with success. From either point of 
view, therefore, the failure which now seems imminent, 
can be laid at his door ; and the events of 1908 have 
shown us what the loyalty of Germans, whether Junkers 
or Social Democrats, amounts to, when they are persuaded 
that their Kaiser has got them into a mess. 
They do not stick to him through thick and .thin. 
On the contrary, they make him a scapegoat, and do not 
hesitate to talk about abdication ; a thing which no 
moral consideration will restrain them from doing whea 
the present failure is fully exposed. 
Mr. John Masefield's Gallipoli (Heinemann, 2s. 6d. net.) 
is based on personal experiences, for the author was for some 
months a working member of the Red Cross organisation on 
the peninsula. It is one of the most moving stories of the 
war that has yet been published, dealing with the human 
rather than the strategic side of this great adventure, and 
combining experience of war with a fine literary quaUty. 
A wealth of anecdote is contained in Forty Years at the 
Criminal Bar, by Edmund D. Purcell, barrister-at-law of 
the Middle TemiJlc. (T. Fisher Unwin. 6s.) The author 
deals not only with crimes and criminals, but also with judges 
and their ways, and his book is illuminating with regard to 
the legal view — as opposed to the lay view — of crime and 
the treatment of the criminal. It is an interesting study, 
but one that barristers as a rule will not like, for its candour 
will prove rather disconcerting with regard to the methods 
and motives of the bar, 
