January 25, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
17 
the American Civil war, the insurrection of Poland, the 
attack ofJFrance upon Mexico, and of the Central Empires « 
upon Denmark. He came into a world echoing with the 
coldly polite words addressed by the Emperor of France 
to the Austrian Ambassador upon New Year's Day : 
while wishing His Excellency personally the compli- 
ments of the season, he regretted Austria and France were 
not so friendly as formerly. 
Such words from the leader of the chief military power 
in the world set Courts trembling. Louis Napoleon had 
but to raijje a linger and beckon the King of Sardinia 
for Naples to rise against the imscrupulous Ferdinand, 
Romans against the sovereignty of the Pope, and above 
all, the Lombardo- Venetians, hating the yoke of .\ustria 
with lierce Latin passion, to defy the occupjing forces 
of Germans and Hungarians. 
Model of a Submarine ^ 
The city of Berlin was illuminated, every house hang- 
ing out the national flag in honour of a new-born prince. 
Tlie whole country gave itself up to gas and fireworks, 
torchlight processions, and fetes ; and for the time being 
politics were abandoned. No such rejoicing had ever 
been" known before in Prussia. ' It was as if a prophet 
had been born into the world. While students in their 
thousands promenaded Unter den Linden, bearing torches 
which, according to an eye witness, " resembled the 
reflection of a mighty conflagration," an American 
arrived in London with the model of his invention, a 
submarine boat in which, he claimed, a crew of twenty 
men could remain under water any length of time, pass 
imder the wooden keels of a hostile fleets fix torpedoes 
to go off by clockwork, or bore holes, and come away un- 
seen. They could also make a survey by showing above 
the surface a sight-tube no more than half-an-inch in 
diameter ; they could see their way imder the water by 
means of lights placed behind glass bulls' -eyes ; and should 
the vessel run into anything, it could be extracted with- 
out injury, having on its sharply pointed bow an outer 
case so constructed that, by reversing the screw, the 
boat could be backed, leaving the thimble fastened in 
the obstacle. 
While the British Government followed the example 
of the French, in refusing to purchase so dangerous an 
innovation, Prince Frederick William was replying to the 
congratulations of the Prussian Upper House thus : 
1 thank you most lieartily for the interest which you 
take in an event which is so important and so fortunate 
lor my family and for the country. If God shall spare 
the life of my son, my great object will be to instil into 
his mind those sentiments which attach me to my country. 
JMay God bless my efforts to make my son worthy of the 
affectionate interest with which he has been greeted. 
Concord prevailed between England and all Germany, 
but the rest of Europe smelt of gunpowder. Petty monarchs 
and two great Emperors were running to and fro, setting 
the blazing torch to war-beacons. His Holiness required 
the evacuation of the" papal states by the armies of Francis 
Joseph and Louis Nrpoleon. At the Opera House of 
Milan, when the- waiUkj chorus from " Norma " was 
rendered, the ItaHan audience rose and shouted for war. 
Immediately the Austrian officers rose in their turn, and 
answered, " Yes, gentlemen, it is war." England, strongly 
and sincerely supported by the Government of the Kaiser, 
pressed for a Congress, at which Austria no doubt would 
resign her Italian provinces in exchange for an equivalent, 
such as Moldavia and Wallachia, the Sultan being sole 
loser by tliis arrangement ; and he might regard him- 
self amply compensated by the unusual discovery of 
a few millions in his Treasury. This war, if inevitable, 
must be at all events the last to scar the face of Europe. 
Such was English opinion freely stated, and at a sitting 
of the Pmssian Chamber of Deputies the Minister for 
Foreign Affairs remarked. " The Prussian Govern- 
ment does not for one moment doubt that it will be 
able, in concert with England, to procure due respect 
to existing treaties." The Chamber manifested its 
approval by loud and 'ong applause.- 
The storm grew nearer. Francis Joseph, lamb of Austria, 
sorrowfully mouthing such platitudes as, " War is the 
scourge of mankind," moved his troops towards Turin, 
hoping to crush Victor Emmanuel, wolf of Sardinia, 
before the despot of France should cross Mont Cenis. 
Count Cavour deli\'ered to Baron Kcllersberg the defiant 
answer of Piedmont to this typically Austrian ulti- 
matum, and his Excellency was immediately accompanied 
to the frontier by a Sardinian officer. A royal threat in 
January, and Europe at war a few weeks later. Yet 
people put their confidence in princes ! An Austrian army 
marching upon the seat of Sardinian monarchy ; French 
forces disembarking at Genoa, the transports floating 
among roses and laurels ; a Russian corps threatening 
the Austrian frontier, thus publishing to the world the 
existence of a Franco-Russian understanding, with'the guns 
of the Crimea hardly rusty ; Prussia, " on account of the 
increasing uncertainty in political affairs," placing every 
army corps she possessed upon a war-footing, while de- 
manding a credit for improving the defences of the 
Baltic and fortifying her North Sea Coasts. And Eng- 
land at the civil war of politics, with a General Election 
dragging slowly on. Yet, since completing her great 
work of securing the Dardanelles to Turkey, it had been 
the boast of Britain that in future no war would find her 
unprepared. 
The Baptism 
Let us turn, during an otherwise brawling March, 
to a peaceful and domestic scene, the baptism of an 
illustrious infant in the Palace Chapel of BerUn. Not 
one monarch graced the ceremony, the belligerent 
rulers of France, Austria, and Sardinia, receiving ap- 
parently no invitation ; but among the " witnesses absent" 
let us notice, in the light of events long afterwards, 
the Queen of Great Britain, the Prince of Wales, the 
Emperor of Russia, and the King of the Belgians. Even 
tlie royal mother did not enter the chapel, but witnessed 
the reception of her son into the church from a room 
adjoining. Again the streets were dressed with flags, 
and at night the entire city was illuminated for the third 
time, the town-hall being lighted up by more than 
fifty thousand jets of gas. And the royal parents 
addressed to the public a grateful letter in these words ; 
We do not tliink we could choose a better day than that 
of the baptism of our child for addressing to the whole 
country our warmest thanks for the joy it has displayed. 
May we, with the help of God, raise up our son for the 
honour and happiness of our dear country. 
Journals recording these pious words announced also, 
without noticing an omen, how during a March gale the 
fine Channel steamer Prince Frederick William, after a 
stormy passage from England, was flung against Calais 
pier to be tossed aside, a broken vessel with dead aboard, 
the sport of wind and water. Like ships, human hopes 
may be wrecked and cast away. 
We have noticed the arrival of the ingenious American 
with his model of the first subrnarine. Mark yet a further 
coincidence ! That Saturday, when the Prussian grand- 
son of Queen Victoria became also her godson, one Captain 
Norton was, engaged in making experiments at Chatham 
with an invention for destroying battleships, to which 
he had given the name of liquid fire. A shell, charged 
with no more than a teaspoonful of his preparation, 
was fired from a large grooved rifle at pieces of thick 
planking which, a few minutes after recei\ing the charge, 
burst into flames. This composition was perhaps the same 
thing as Greek fire, under a new name, which was to be 
ignored for many years, but not for ever. 
The young child, destined by hope and belief to be a 
bringer of peace and goodwill wherever the English and 
German languages were heard in the streets ; who was 
prepared, not for glory, but, according to the promise of 
his father when addressing the thousands congregated 
beneath the glare of torchlight along Unter den Linden, 
" so that he might be fit for his future task, and worthy 
of the nation's love " ; this worshipped child, later to be 
known as William the Second, King of Prussia and Ger- 
man Emperor, slept in unconsciousness, hearing no 
sound of conflict raging round his protected cradle. 
A well loved child in truth ! And how after many 
years he loved children, and how he sympathised with 
fathers, and grieved at the suffering of mothers : are not 
these things written upon the soil of Europe for men to 
read, and marked upon the ooze of the Atlantic for 
God and his parents to consider ? 
The usual literary article "Books io Read," by Mr. 
Lncian Oldersliaw, has becu unavoidably hddover this uech 
