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Presented  to  the 

UNIVERSITY  OF  TORONTO 
LIBRARY 

by  the 

ONTARIO  LEGISLATIVE 
LIBRARY 

1980 


THE   MEMOIRS 
OF   THE 

CROWN    PRINCE 
OF   GERMANY 


THE    MEMOIRS   OF 

THE  CROWN  PRINCE 

OF  GERMANY 


54252 


ONTARIO 


1  3  •«•»  a  •-    '  •  «    *  ••    *\  I 

PRES»VA1  sU.4 
SERVICES 

1  0  «92 


THORNTON  BUTTER  WORTH  LTD 
15   BEDFORD  STREET,  LONDON,  W.C.2 


First  Published         .          .         .     May  1922 


All  Rights  reserved,  including  that  of  Translation 
Copyright  in  the  United  States  of  America 

MUNDUS   PUBLISHING    COMPANY 
AMSTERDAM 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

IMPULSUS  SCRIBENDI n 

CHAPTER  I 

CHILDHOOD  DAYS     ........  13 

1.  Boys  will  be  Boys          .          .          .         .          .         .13 

2.  My  Father's  Nature        ......  25 

3.  Princes,  Sovereigns  and  Sayings      ....  31 

CHAPTER  II 

SOLDIER,  SPORTSMAN  AND  STUDENT  .....  38 

1.  The  Value  of  Prussian  Drill   .....  39 

2.  Queen  Victoria       .......  44 

3.  Student  Life 45 

4.  In  Command  of  the  Foot-Guards    ....  50 

CHAPTER  III 

MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL        ....  57 

1.  Freely  Chosen,  Freely  Given  .....  58 

2.  Recollections  of  Russia  ......  62 

3.  Statecraft  Studies  in  Germany  and  England    .         .  66 

4.  The  Row  in  the  Reichstag     .....  85 

5.  How  the  Kaiser  Worked         .....  91 

6.  Our  pre-War  Policy        ......  94 

7.  Travel  Impressions          ......  102 

CHAPTER  IV 

STRESS  AND  STORM  ........  108 

1.  The  Cloud  on  the  Horizon      .          .         .         .         .112 

2.  The  Cloud  Bursts 119 

7 


8  CONTENTS 

STRESS  AND  STORM,  continued —  PAGE 

3.  Our  Military  and  Civil  Leaders  ....     132 

4.  My  Memorials        .         .         .  .         .         .         .     137 

5.  Hindenburg  and  Ludendorff   .  ,         .         .         .154 

CHAPTER  V 
PROGRESS  OF  THE  WAR    .......     163 

1.  Battle  of  the  Marne       ......     164 

2.  Verdun  .         .          .          .          ...         .     173 

3.  Princes  and  Politicians  at  the  Front        .         .         .183 

CHAPTER  VI 
THE  GREAT  COLLAPSE 195 

1.  Foreseeing  the  End 195 

2.  Mistaken  Proceedings      .          .          .          .         .          .198 

3.  Wilson  and  Foch  .......     218 

4.  The  Wrong  Man    .......     224 

CHAPTER  VII 

SCENES  AT  SPA 229 

1.  Schulenburg  :  Groner     .         .         .         .  .  233 

2.  The  Value  of  Ideas        ......  242 

3.  The  Forged  Abdication  ......  247 

4.  The  Council  of  Officers  ......  250 

5.  The  Kaiser's  Ejection     .         .         .         .         .         .  261 

CHAPTER  VIII 
EXILED  TO  HOLLAND 

1.  Waiting  for  Berlin           .         .  .  .         .      ,   . 

2.  Accepting  the  Inevitable         .  .  .         .         . 

3.  What  was  Done  in  My  Absence  .  .         . 

4.  Farewell  to  My  Troops  .         .  .  .         . 

5.  The  Decisive  Step.         .         .  .  A  . 

6.  Wieringen      .         .         .         .  .  . 

7.  My  Message  .         .         .         .  . 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  latest  portrait  of  the  Crown  Prince    .         .          Frontispiece 

FACING 

PAGE 

The  Kaiser  (as  Prince  Wilhelm)  with  his  eldest  son  .         .  16 

THE  CROWN  PRINCE — 

As  a  sportsman          .......  40 

As  an  artist       ........  40 

CACILIENHOF — The  Crown  Prince's  Elizabethan  House,  Pots- 
dam          .........  64 

The  Crown  Prince's  residence  at  Oels         ....  64 

The  Crown  Prince  with  his  wife  and  family       ...  96 

A  remarkable  Royal  group        ......  96 

THE  CROWN  PRINCE  IN  INDIA — 

An  antelope  hunt       .......  104 

With  his  first  elephant        ......  104 

German  Head-quarters :  the  Crown  Prince  with  General  von 

Hindenburg        ........  168 

The  Kaiser  and  Prince  Henry  of  Prussia  visit  the  Crown  Prince 

at  his  Head-quarters  in  France  .....  168 

AT  VERDUN — The  Kaiser  with  the  Crown  Prince        .         .176 

Three  Kings  visit  the  Crown  Prince's  Head-quarters  in  France  192 

THE  CROWN  PRINCE — 

In  pre-war  days          .......  200 

At  work  at  Head-quarters           .         .         .         .         .  200 

9 


io  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 
PAGE 


In  the  trenches  at  La  Fere  ;  receiving  a  report  from  General 

von  Gontar,  25th  March,  1918    .....     224 

The  Crown  Prince  in  the  midst  of  a  convoy  of  wounded, 

St.  Quentin,  1918       .......     224 

WlERINGEN — 

The  Crown  Princess  visits  the  Exile  ....  272 
The  Crown  Prince  with  a  native  ....  276 
At  work  with  farrier  Luijt,  making  horseshoes  .  .  280 

The  Crown  Prince,  Crown  Princess  and  family,  with  the 
Mayor  and  Mayoress  "......     288 

POTSDAM,  1914 — "  Sanssouci  "  (The  New  Palace)        .         .     292 

WIERINGEN,  1922 — "  The  Parsonage  "  (the  present  home  of 

the  Exile) 292 


IMPULSUS    SCRIBENDI 

March,  1919. 

IT  is  evening.  I  have  been  wandering  once  more 
along  the  deserted  and  silent  ways  between  the 
windswept  and  sodden  meadows,  through  greyness 
and  shadow. 

No  human  sound  or  sign.  Only  this  sea  wind 
driving  at  me  and  thrusting  its  fingers  through  my 
clothing.  A  March  wind  !  Spring  is  near  at  hand. 
I  have  been  here  four  months. 

In  the  vast  expanse  above  me  sparkle  the  eternal 
stars,  the  same  that  look  down  upon  Germany.  From 
the  horizon  of  the  Zuyder  Zee,  the  lighthouses  of  Den 
Oever  and  of  Texel  fling  their  beams  into  the  deepening 
night. 

On  my  return  I  find  my  companion  waiting  anxiously 
at  the  little  wicket-gate  of  the  garden.  Had  I  been 
gone  such  a  long  time  ? 

I  am  now  sitting  in  this  small  room  of  the  Parsonage. 
The  paraffin  lamp  is  lighted ;  it  smokes  and  smells  a 
little  ;  and  the  fire  in  the  grate  burns  rather  low  and 
cheerless. 

Not  a  sound  disturbs  the  silence,  save  this  ceaseless 
moaning  of  the  wind  across  the  lonesome  and  slum- 
bering island. 

Four  months  ! 

In  this  seemingly  endless  time — which  I  have  spent 
in  one  unbroken  waiting-for-something,  listening-for- 

11 


12       THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

something — the  thought  has  recurred  again  and  again 
to  me  :  "  Perhaps  if  you  were  to  write  it  out  of  your 
heart  ?  "  This  idea  has  seized  me  again  to-day ;  it 
was  my  one  companion  as  I  trudged  the  silent  roads 
this  evening. 

I  will  try  it.  I  will  write  the  pages  that  shall  recall 
and  arrange  the  past,  shall  bring  me  out  of  this  turmoil 
into  calmness  and  serenity.  I  will  retouch  the  half- 
faded  remembrances,  will  give  account  to  myself  of 
my  own  doings,  wishes  and  omissions,  will  fix  the  truth 
concerning  many  important  events  whose  outlines  are 
seen  at  present  by  the  world  in  a  distorted  and  falsified 
picture.  I  will  depict  ah1  events  honestly  and  impar- 
tially, just  as  I  see  them.  I  will  not  conceal  my  own 
errors,  nor  inveigh  against  the  mistakes  of  others.  I 
will  compel  myself  to  objectivity  and  self-possession 
even  where  recollection's  turgid  wave  of  pain,  anger 
and  bitterness  breaks  over  me  and  threatens  to  sweep 
me  along  with  it  in  its  recoil.  With  the  distant  days 
of  my  youth  I  will  begin  my  reminiscences. 


CHAPTER  I 
CHILDHOOD  DAYS 

WHEN  I  look  back  upon  my  childhood,  there  rises 
before  me  as  it  were  a  submerged  world  of  radi- 
ance and  sunshine.  We  all  loved  our  home  in  Potsdam 
and  Berlin  just  as  every  child  does  who  is  cherished  and 
cared  for  by  loving  hands.  So,  too,  the  joys  of  our 
earliest  childhood  were,  for  sure,  the  same  as  the 
joys  of  every  happy  and  alert  German  lad.  Whether 
a  boy's  sword  is  of  wood  or  of  metal,  whether  his  rock- 
ing-horse is  covered  with  calfskin  or  modestly  painted 
— this,  at  bottom,  is  all  one  to  the  child's  heart ;  it 
is  the  symbol  of  diminutive  manliness — the  sword  or 
the  horse  itself — that  makes  the  boy  happy.  We  played 
the  same  boyish  tricks  as  every  other  German  boy — 
except,  perhaps,  that  we  spoiled  better  carpets  and  more 
expensive  furniture.  Whenever  and  with  whomsoever 
I  have  talked  of  those  childhood  years,  I  have  found 
full  confirmation  of  the  truth  that — be  he  child  of 
king  or  child  of  peasant,  son  of  the  better-class  or  son 
of  the  workman — every  lad's  fancy  has  a  stage  of 
development  in  which  it  seeks  the  same  bold  adven- 
tures and  makes  the  same  wonderful  discoveries,  under- 
takes expeditions  into  roomy  and  mysterious  lofts  or 
dark  cellars  ;  there  are  happenings  with  rapidly  opened 
hydrants  which  refuse  to  close  again  when  the  water 
gushes  out,  and  secret  snowball  attacks  upon  highly 
respectable  and  punctiliously  correct  State  officials  who, 

13 


14   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

forgetting  all  at  once  their  reverend  dignity,  turn  as 
red  as  turkey-cocks  and  shout :  "  Damned  young 
rascals." 

As  far  back  as  I  can  remember,  the  centre  of  our 
existence  has  been  our  dearly-beloved  mother.  She 
has  radiated  a  love  which  has  warmed  and  comforted 
us.  Whatever  joy  or  sorrow  moved  us,  she  always 
had  understanding  and  sympathy  for  it.  All  that  was 
best  in  our  childhood,  nay,  all  the  best  that  home  and 
family  can  give,  we  owe  to  her.  And  what  she  was 
to  us  in  our  early  youth,  that  she  has  remained  through- 
out our  adolescence  and  our  manhood.  The  kindest 
and  best  woman  is  she  for  whom  living  means  helping, 
succouring  and  spending  herself  in  the  interests  of 
others  ;  and  such  a  woman  is  our  mother. 

Being  the  eldest  son,  I  have  always  stood  particu- 
larly close  to  our  beloved  mother.  I  have  carried  to 
her  all  my  requests,  wishes  and  troubles,  whether  big 
or  little ;  and  she,  too,  has  shared  honestly  with  me 
the  hopes  and  fears  of  her  heart,  the  fulfilments 
and  the  disappointments  which  she  has  experienced. 
In  many  a  difficulty  that  has  arisen  in  the  course 
of  years  between  my  father  and  myself,  she  has 
mediated  with  a  calming,  smoothing  and  adjusting 
hand.  Not  a  heart's  thought  of  any  moment,  but  I 
have  dared  to  lay  it  before  her ;  and  this  loving  and 
trustful  intercourse  continued  throughout  the  grievous 
days  of  the  war ;  nor  has  the  relationship  been  des- 
troyed by  all  the  trying  circumstances  which  now 
separate  me  from  her.  I  am  particularly  happy  to 
know  that,  in  these  painful  times,  she  is  still,  in  mis- 
fortune, permitted  to  be  the  trusty  helpmate  of  my 
sorely- tried  father  as  she  was  once  in  prosperity, 
and  I  give  thanks  to  heaven  that  it  should  be 
so.  She  has  been  his  best  friend,  self-sacrificing, 
earnest,  pure,  great  in  her  goodness,  perfect  in  her 


CHILDHOOD  DAYS  15 

fidelity.  As  her  son  I  say  it  with  ardent  pride, 
she  is  the  very  pattern  of  a  German  wife  whose  best 
characteristics  are  seen  in  the  fulfilment  of  her  duties 
as  wife  and  mother,  and,  in  her,  they  display  themselves 
only  the  purer  and  clearer  now  that  the  pomp  of  Im- 
perial circumstance  has  vanished  and  she  stands  forth 
in  her  simple  humanness. 

The  relations  between  us  children  and  our  father 
were  totally  different.  He  was  always  friendly  and, 
in  his  way,  loving  towards  us ;  but,  by  the  nature  of 
things,  he  had  none  too  much  time  to  devote  to  us. 
As  a  consequence,  in  reviewing  our  early  childhood,  I 
can  discover  scarcely  a  scene  in  which  he  joins  in  our 
childish  games  with  unconstrained  mirth  or  happy 
abandon.  If  I  try  now  to  explain  it  to  myself,  it  seems 
to  me  as  though  he  was  unable  so  to  divest  himself  of 
the  dignity  and  superiority  of  the  mature  adult  man 
as  to  enable  him  to  be  properly  young  with  us  little 
fellows.  Hence,  in  his  presence,  we  always  retained  a 
certain  embarrassment,  and  the  occasional  laxity  of  tone 
and  expression  adopted  in  moments  of  good-humour 
with  the  manifest  purpose  of  gaining  our  confidence 
rather  tended  to  abash  us.  It  may  have  been,  too, 
that  we  felt  him  so  often  to  be  absent  from  us  in  his 
thoughts  when  present  with  us  in  the  body.  That 
rendered  him  almost  impersonal,  absent-minded  and 
often  alien  to  our  young  hearts. 

My  sister  is  the  only  one  of  us  who  succeeded  in  her 
childhood  in  winning  a  warm  corner  in  his  heart.  More- 
over, all  sorts  of  otherwise  unaccustomed  restraints 
were  experienced  at  his  hands.  When,  for  instance, 
we  entered  his  study — a  thing  which  never  exactly 
pleased  him — we  had  to  hold  our  hands  behind  us  lest 
we  might  knock  something  off  one  of  the  tables.  In 
addition  to  all  this,  there  were  the  reverence  and  the 
military  subordination  taught  us  towards  our  father  _ 

j5  4'* 

co  ^Ol|uii 
o 

"* 


16     THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

from  our  infancy  ;  and  this  engendered  in  us  a  certain 
shyness  and  misgiving.  This  sense  of  constraint  was 
felt  both  by  myself  and  by  my  brother  Fritz,  though 
certainly  neither  of  us  could  ever  have  been  character- 
ized as  bashful.  I  myself  have  only  got  free  from  the 
feeling  slowly  and  with  progressive  development. 

In  recalling  my  father's  study,  I  am  reminded  of  an 
incident  of  my  childhood,  which  has  imprinted  itself 
indelibly  upon  my  memory  because  it  involved  my  first 
and  unintentional  visit  to  Prince  Bismarck.  It  was 
early  in  the  morning.  My  brother  Eitel  Friedrich  and 
I  were  about  to  go  to  Bellevue  for  our  lessons,  and  I 
was  strolling  carelessly  about  in  the  lower  rooms  of 
the  palace.  Accidentally,  I  stumbled  into  a  small  room 
in  which  the  old  Prince  sat  poring  over  the  papers  on 
his  writing-desk.  To  my  dismay,  he  at  once  turned  his 
eyes  full  upon  me.  My  previous  experience  of  such 
matters  led  me  to  believe  that  I  should  be  promptly 
and  pitilessly  expelled.  Indeed,  I  had  already  started 
a  precipitate  retreat,  when  the  old  Prince  called  me 
back.  He  laid  down  his  pen,  gripped  my  shoulder 
with  his  giant  palm  and  looked  straight  into  my  face 
with  his  penetrating  eyes.  Then  he  nodded  his  head 
several  times  and  said  :  "  Little  Prince,  I  like  the  look 
of  you,  keep  your  fresh  naturalness."  He  gave  me  a 
kiss  and  I  dashed  out  of  the  room.  I  was  so  proud 
of  the  occurrence  that  I  treated  my  brothers  for  several 
days  as  totally  inferior  beings.  It  was  incredible  !  I 
had  blundered  into  a  study  and  had  not  been  thrown 
out — not  even  reprimanded.  And  it  was  withal  the 
study  of  the  old  Prince. 

The  nature  of  our  later  education  tended  to  estrange 
us  from  our  father  more  and  more.  We  were  soon 
entrusted  entirely  to  tutors  and  governors,  and  it  was 
from  them  that  we  heard  whether  His  Majesty  was 
satisfied  with  us  or  the  reverse.  Here,  in  the  family 


THE  KAISER  (AS  PRINCE  WILHELM)  WITH  HIS  ELDEST  SON,    1887. 


CHILDHOOD  DAYS  17 

and  in  our  own  early  youth,  we  already  began  to  experi- 
ence the  "  system  of  the  third,"  the  unfortunate 
method  vhereby,  to  the  exclusion  of  any  direct 
exchange  of  views,  decisions  were  made  and  issued  by 
means  of  third  persons,  who  were  also  the  sole  mouth- 
pieces by  which  the  position  of  the  interested  party 
could  be  stated  to  the  judge.  This  principle,  so  attrac- 
tive to  a  man  of  such  a  many-sided  character  and  so 
immersed  in  affairs  as  unquestionably  the  Kaiser  has 
always  been,  took  deeper  and  wider  root  with  the 
advance  of  years,  and  in  cases  in  which  place-seeking, 
ingratiating  and  irremovable  courtiers  or  politicians 
have  gained  possession  of  posts  that  gave  them  the 
position  of  go-between,  has  caused  the  suppression 
of  disagreeable  reports  and  the  doubtless  often  quite 
unconscious  distortion  of  news  with  its  consequent 
mischief.  The  "  department "  (Kabinet),  especially 
the  Department  of  Civil  Administration,  was  funda- 
mentally nothing  but  a  "  personal  board  "  ;  the  head  of 
the  department  (chef  de  cabinet)  was  the  mouthpiece 
and  intermediary  of  any  and  every  voice  that  made 
itself  heard  in  this  sphere  of  activity ;  he  also  carried 
back  the  Imperial  decisions.  The  idea  of  such  a 
position  presupposes  unqualified  and  almost  super- 
human impartiality  and  justice — doubly  so,  when  the 
ruler  (as  in  this  case  the  inner  circle  was  well  aware) 
is  susceptible  to  influence  and  is  shaken  by  bitter 
experiences.  Then  the  responsibility  of  these  posts 
becomes  as  great  as  the  power  they  confer,  if  their 
occupant  goes  beyond  the  clearly-drawn  line  indicated 
above. 

Then,  and  still  more  when  they  tacitly  combine  their 
influences  so  as  to  strengthen  their  position,  they  and 
their  helpers  at  court  become  distorters  of  the  views 
upon  which  the  ruler  must  base  his  final  and  im- 
portant decisions.  It  is  they  who  are  really  responsible 


i8     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

for  the  wrong  decisions  that  were  issued  in  the  name 
of  the  ruler  and  which  possibly  sealed  his  fate  and 
that  of  his  people. 

But  who  would  think  now  of  discussing  the  sins 
committed  against  the  German  people  by  the  heads 
of  many  years'  standing  of  the  Civil  Department 
and  the  Marine  Department  in  the  duologues  of 
their  daily  reports  ?  Closely  and  firmly  they  held  the 
Kaiser  entangled  in  their  conceptions  of  every  weighty 
question.  If,  after  all,  a  mesh  was  rent,  either  through 
his  own  observation  or  by  the  bold  intervention  of 
some  outsider,  their  daily  function  gave  them  the  next 
morning  an  opportunity  of  repairing  the  damage  and 
of  removing  the  impression  left  by  the  interloper.  I 
am  aware  that  none  of  these  men  ever  wittingly  exer- 
cised a  noxious  influence.  Every  one  considers  his 
own  nostrum  the  only  one  and  the  right  one  to  effect 
a  political  cure. 

Turning  from  those  who  were  the  pillars  of  this  princi- 
ple back  to  the  principle  itself,  I  know  too  that  a  chef  de 
cabinet  who  would  have  influenced  and  moulded  the 
decisions  of  the  Kaiser  in  quite  another  way  might  have 
proved  a  blessing  to  the  Fatherland  and  to  us  all,  if  that 
chef  had  been  a  firm,  strong  and  steadfast  personality. 
But  unfortunately  destiny  placed  among  the  Kaiser's 
advisers  no  men  of  such  a  stamp  with  the  single  excep- 
tion of  the  clever  and  resolute  Geheimrat  von  Berg, 
whose  appointment  to  the  responsible  post  of  Chief  of 
the  Civil  Department  took  place  in  the  year  1918 — 
consequently  too  late  to  be  of  any  effective  service. 
In  general,  the  notions  of  the  rest  were  characterized 
by  dull  half-heartedness.  Wherever  they  had  to  sug- 
gest men  for  the  execution  of  new  tasks,  the  men  whom 
they  proposed  and  recommended  were  only  too  often 
mediocre.  Anyone  who  was  willing  to  go  his  own  road 
with  a  resolute  tread  was  carefully  avoided.  Hence, 


CHILDHOOD  DAYS  19 

instead  of  a  determined  course,  there  was  eternal 
tacking — instead  of  any  steadfast  and  clear-sighted 
grasp  of  the  consequences  of  such  a  policy,  there  was 
masking  of  the  imminent  dangers  and  a  deaf  ear  for 
the  louder  and  louder  warnings  of  anxiety  and  alarm, 
until  at  last  the  cup  of  fate  which  they  had  helped  to 
fill  flowed  over. 

It  was  in  the  obscurity  of  their  departments  that 
these  "  advisers  of  the  crown "  laboured,  and  it 
is  into  the  darkness  of  oblivion  that  their  names 
will  disappear.  But  the  taint  of  their  doings  will 
cleave  to  His  Majesty's  memory  where  no  more 
guilt  attaches  to  him  than  just  this  :  not  to  have  dis- 
played a  better  knowledge  of  character  in  the  choice 
of  his  entourage,  and  not  to  have  been  more  resolute 
in  dealing  with  his  advisers,  when  the  wisest  heads  and 
the  stoutest  hearts  among  all  classes  in  Germany  were 
but  just  good  enough  for  such  responsible  positions. 

It  was  a  fundamental  mistake  that  only  the  Imperial 
Chancellor  made  his  report  in  private.  All  other  minis- 
ters were  accompanied  by  the  chiefs  of  their  respective 
departments  ;  for  the  reports  of  the  Military  and  Naval 
Ministers,  indeed,  Adjutant-General  von  Plessen  was 
also  present.  In  this  way  the  Departments  acquired  a 
certain  preponderance  over  the  minister  or  the  man 
who  was  responsible. 

But  this  theme  has  led  me  far  astray.  I  must  return 
to  the  recollections  of  my  youth.  I  stopped  at  the 
system  of  the  third  party.  In  regard  to  us  boys,  the 
result  was  that  when  we  acquired  military  rank,  the 
Kaiser's  intercourse  with  us  was  generally  conducted 
through  the  head  of  the  Military  Department  or  through 
General  von  Plessen  ;  and,  indeed,  in  quite  harmless 
matters  of  a  purely  personal  nature,  we  occasionally 
received  formal  military  notices  (Kabinetts-Orders). 
Amicable  and  friendly  discussion  between  father  and 


20     THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

son  scarcely  ever  took  place.  It  was  clear  that  the 
Kaiser  avoided  any  personal  controversy  in  which 
decisions  might  be  necessary  ;  here,  again,  the  third 
party  was  interposed.  For  trivialities,  which,  under 
other  conditions,  a  few  paternal  words  might  have 
settled,  intermediaries  and  outsiders  were  employed 
and  thus  made  acquainted  with  the  affair ;  in  my 
own  case,  since  nature  has  not  blessed  me  with  a  taste 
for  such  punctilious  formalities,  the  tension  was  often 
increased.  It  is  quite  possible  that  these  gentlemen, 
who  were  penetrated  with  the  very  profound  impor- 
tance of  their  missions,  were  not  always  received  by 
me  with  a  seriousness  corresponding  to  their  own  self- 
esteem  and  that  they  rewarded  me  by  taking  the  first 
opportunity  to  express  to  His  Majesty  their  views  on 
my  immaturity  and  lack  of  courtesy  and  dignity. 
Most  certainly  these  intermediaries  are  in  no  small 
degree  answerable  for  misunderstandings,  and  for  the 
fact  that  small  conflicts  were  occasionally  intensified 
or  caused  all  kinds  of  prejudices  and  imputations. 
Sometimes  I  received  the  impression  that  these  little 
intrigues  assumed  the  character  of  mischief-making. 
Everything  I  said  or  did  was  busily  reported  to  His 
Majesty ;  and  I  was  then  young  and  careless,  and  I 
certainly  uttered  many  a  thoughtless  word  and  took 
many  a  thoughtless  step. 

In  such  circumstances  it  was  for  me  almost  an 
emancipation  to  be  ordered  before  the  Kaiser  in 
regimentals  and  to  receive  from  him  in  private  a 
thorough  dressing  down  on  account  of  some  incident 
connected  with  a  special  escapade.  It  was  then  that 
we  understood  one  another  best.  Moreover,  one  might 
often,  hi  such  colloquies,  give  rein  to  one's  tongue. 
An  absolutely  innocent  example  comes  to  my  mind. 
I  had  always  been  an  enthusiastic  devotee  of  sport 
in  all  its  forms  :  hunting,  racing,  polo,  etc.  But  even 


CHILDHOOD  DAYS  21 

here  there  were  restrictions,  considerations  and  pro- 
hibitions. One  felt  j  ust  like  a  poacher.  Thus  I  was  not 
to  take  part  in  races  or  in  drag-hunting  on  account  of 
the  dangers  involved.  But  it  was  for  that  very  reason 
that  I  liked  this  sport.  Now  I  had  just  ridden  my  first 
public  race  in  the  Berlin-Potsdam  Riding  Club,  and 
was  hoping  that  there  would  be  no  sequel  in  the  shape 
of  a  row,  when  next  morning  the  Kaiser  ordered  me  to 
appear  before  him  at  the  New  Palace  in  regimentals. 
There  was  thunder  in  the  air. 
'  You've  been  racing." 

"  Zu  befehl." 

"  You  know  that  it  is  forbidden." 

"  Zu  befehl." 

"  Why  did  you  do  it,  then  ?  " 

"  Because  I  am  passionately  fond  of  it,  and  because 
I  think  it  a  good  thing  for  the  Crown  Prince  to  show 
his  comrades  that  he  does  not  fear  danger  and  thereby 
set  them  a  good  example." 

A  moment's  consideration,  and  then  suddenly  His 
Majesty  looks  up  at  me  and  asks : 
'  Well,  anyway,  did  you  win  ?  ' 
'  Unfortunately  Graf  Koenigsmarck  beat  me  by  a 
short  head." 

The  Kaiser  thumped  the  table  irritably  :  '  That's 
very  annoying.  Now  be  off  with  you."  This  time 
my  father  had  understood  me  and  had  appreciated 
the  sportsman  in  me. 

The  older  I  grew,  the  oftener  did  it  happen  that 
serious  men  of  the  most  varied  classes  applied  to  me  to 
lay  before  the  Kaiser  matters  in  which  they  took  a 
special  interest  or  to  call  the  attention  of  His  Majesty 
to  certain  grievances  or  abuses.  I  took  such  matters 
up  only  when  I  was  able  to  inquire  into  them  thoroughly 
and  to  convince  myself  of  the  justification  for  any  inter- 
ference. Even  then  their  number  was  considerable. 


22     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

In  most  cases  the  subjects  were  disagreeable ;  and 
they  concerned  affairs  which  my  father  would  probably 
never  otherwise  have  heard  of  and  which  he  never- 
theless ought,  in  my  opinion,  to  be  made  acquainted 
with. 

The  most  difficult  matter  that  I  had  to  take  to  him 
was  unquestionably  the  one  I  was  forced  to  deal  with 
in  the  year  1907.  It  was  then  that  I  had  to  open 
his  eyes  to  the  affair  of  Prince  Philip  Eulenburg. 
Undoubtedly  it  was  the  duty  of  the  responsible  author- 
ities to  have  called  the  Kaiser's  attention  long  before 
to  this  scandal  which  was  becoming  known  to  an  ever- 
widening  circle.  But  they  failed  to  lay  the  matter 
before  him  ;  and  since  they  left  him  in  total  ignorance 
of  it,  I  was  obliged  to  intervene.  Never  shall  I  forget 
the  pained  and  horrified  face  of  my  father,  who  stared 
at  me  in  dismay,  when,  in  the  garden  of  the  Marble 
Palace,  I  told  him  of  the  delinquencies  of  his  near 
friends.  The  moral  purity  of  the  Kaiser  was  such  that 
he  could  hardly  conceive  the  possibility  of  such  aber- 
rations. In  this  case  he  thanked  me  unreservedly  for 
my  interference. 

In  contrast  with  the  Eulenburg  affair,  most  of  the 
questions  which,  on  my  own  initiative  or  at  the  sug- 
gestion of  others,  I  had  to  bring  before  His  Majesty 
were  questions  of  home  or  foreign  politics,  or  they 
concerned  leading  personages,  nay,  rather  persons 
who  were  irresolute  and  flaccid,  but  who  stuck  tight 
to  posts  which  ought  to  have  been  occupied  by  clear- 
sighted and  steadfast  men.  In  such  cases  the  Kaiser 
generally  listened  to  me  quietly,  and  frequently  he 
took  action ;  more  often,  however,  he  was  talked 
round  again  by  some  one  else  after  I  had  left.  It 
was  inevitable  that,  in  the  long  run,  my  reports  and 
suggestions  should  affect  him  disagreeably.  As  he 
travelled  very  much,  I  saw  comparatively  little  of 


CHILDHOOD  DAYS  23 

him.  In  consequence,  our  meetings  were  mostly 
encumbered  with  a  whole  series  of  communications 
and  questions  by  which  he  felt  himself  bothered.  I 
myself  was  fully  conscious  of  the  pressure  of  these 
circumstances,  but  saw  no  means  of  altering  them.  In 
any  case,  I  considered  it  my  duty  to  keep  the  Kaiser 
frankly  informed  of  all  that,  in  my  view,  he  ought 
to  know  but  would  otherwise  remain  ignorant  of. 

Notwithstanding  all  this  tension,  and  although  my 
father  was  annoyed  by  certain  idiosyncrasies  of  mine 
— above  all  by  my  disinclination  to  adopt  the  tradi- 
tional princely  manner — he  was,  in  his  own  way,  fond 
of  me,  and  in  the  secret  recesses  of  his  heart  proud 
of  me  too. 

Naturally,  much  was  whispered,  gossiped  and  written 
in  public  about  these  personal  relations  of  ours. 
If  I  had  been  a  person  to  take  all  this  sort  of 
thing  seriously,  I  might  soon  have  appeared  very 
important  in  my  own  eyes.  Repeatedly  there  was 
talk  of  marked  discord,  of  sharp  reprimands  on  my 
father's  part,  of  open  or  covert  censure.  In  all  this, 
as  I  have  shown  and  as  I  would  in  no  wise  cloak  or 
disguise,  there  was  sometimes  a  grain  of  truth — a 
grain  about  whose  significance  a  mighty  cackle  arose 
among  the  old  women  of  both  sexes.  To  reiterate, 
there  were  early  and  manifold  differences  of  opinion, 
and  many  of  them  led  to  some  amount  of  dispute. 
In  so  far  as  these  conflicts  were  concerned  with  personal 
affairs  and  not  with  political  questions,  they  were, 
at  bottom,  scarcely  more  lasting  or  more  serious  than 
those  which  so  often  occur  everywhere  between  father 
and  son,  between  representatives  of  one  generation 
and  another,  between  the  conceptions  of  to-day  and 
those  of  to-morrow ;  the  difference  lay  in  the  enor- 
mous resonance  of  court  life  which  echoed  so  dispro- 
portionately such  simple  events.  Thus,  these  rumours 


24     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

do  not  really  touch  the  heart  of  the  matter.  The 
frequently  recurring  fact  that  father  and  son  differ 
fundamentally  in  character,  temperament  and  nature, 
appears  to  me,  so  far  as  I  know  the  Kaiser  and  know 
myself,  applicable  to  us.  It  is,  indeed,  regularly 
observable  in  the  history  of  our  House. 

It  is  possible,  too,  that  there  has  come  between  us 
the  great  epochal  change  from  traditional  conceptions 
to  a  broader  view  of  life — a  change  which  seems  to 
have  inserted  itself  between  people  of  the  Kaiser's 
years  and  my  contemporaries,  and  by  which  I  have 
benefited  while  he  has  viewed  it  with  hostility.  At 
any  rate,  many  of  his  notions,  opinions  and  actions 
appeared  to  me  strange  and  even  incomprehensible  ; 
they  struck  me  so  at  an  early  period  of  my  life,  and 
the  more  so  the  older  I  grew.  The  first  group  of  the 
questions  towards  which,  even  as  a  lad,  I  felt  a  certain 
inner  opposition,  concerned  court  ceremony  as  it  was 
then  practised.  It  was  painful  to  me  to  see  people 
losing  their  freedom  through  stereotyped  and  often 
thoroughly  musty  regulations.  Each  became,  in  a  way, 
the  actor  of  a  part ;  nay,  under  the  influence  of  these 
surroundings,  men  who  were  otherwise  clever  lost 
their  own  opinion  and  yielded  here  nothing  more 
than  the  average.  Hence,  wherever  possible,  I  myself 
later  on  avoided  everything  courtly,  pompous  or  deco- 
rative ;  and,  as  far  as  was  feasible,  I  suppressed  all 
formalities  in  my  own  circle.  For  my  recreative  hours 
I  desired,  not  endless  reunions  and  ceremonious  gala 
performances,  but  unrestrained  intercourse  with  people 
of  all  kinds,  sociability  in  a  small  circle,  theatres, 
concerts,  hunting  and  sport. 

Intercourse  with  persons  of  my  own  age  always 
had  a  greater  attraction  for  me  than  association  with 
people  much  older  than  myself,  though  I  never  design- 
edly avoided  the  latter.  Furthermore,  my  natural 


CHILDHOOD  DAYS  25 

inclinations  leading  me  perhaps  more  into  actualities 
than  was  possible  to  my  father  and  giving  me  the 
chance  to  talk  with  and  listen  to  a  greater  number  of 
unprejudiced  persons  of  all  professions,  I  frequently 
felt  impelled  by  the  convictions  thus  gained  to  warn 
and  to  contradict.  But  I  have  ever  recognized  in 
the  Kaiser  my  father,  my  Imperial  overlord,  to  whom 
it  was  my  duty  as  well  as  my  heart's  wish  to  show 
every  respect  and  every  honour. 

*  *  *  *  * 

I  have  been  perusing  the  pages  which  I  penned 
recently  as  reminiscences  of  my  childhood  and  of  my 
attitude  towards  my  parents.  The  perusal  suggests 
to  me  that  my  jottings  are  not  quite  just  to  my  father's 
character,  that  they  speak  only  of  petty  weakness, 
that,  if  I  am  to  give  a  complete  sketch  of  his  person- 
ality, I  must  dwell  upon  him  more  in  detail.  When  I 
try  to  distinguish  his  deepest  characteristic,  a  word 
forces  itself  upon  my  attention  which  I  am  almost 
shy  of  applying  to  any  man  of  our  own  day,  a  word 
which  seems  hollow  and  trite  because,  like  some  small 
coin,  it  is  flung  about  so  continually  and  thought- 
lessly ;  it  is  the  word  edel  (noble) .  The  Kaiser  is 
noble  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word ;  he  is  full  of 
the  most  upright  desire  for  goodness  and  piety,  and 
the  purity  of  his  intellectual  cosmos  is  without  a 
blemish  and  without  a  stain.  Candour  that  makes 
no  reservations,  that  is  perhaps  too  unbounded  in  its 
nature,  ready  confidence  and  belief  in  the  like  trust- 
worthiness and  frankness  on  the  part  of  others,  are 
the  fundamental  features  of  his  character.  Talleyrand 
is  said  to  have  uttered  somewhere  the  maxim  :  "La 
parole  a  ete  donnee  a  I'homme  pour  deguiser  sa  pensee." 
With  my  father  it  has  often  seemed  to  me  as  though 
speech  had  been  bestowed  upon  him  that  he  might 
open  to  his  hearer  every  nook  and  bypath  of  his  rich 


26     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

and  sparkling  inner  world.  He  has  always  allowed  his 
thoughts  and  convictions  to  gush  forth  instantaneously 
and  immediately — without  prelude  and  without  pro- 
logue, an  incautious  and  noble  spendthrift  of  an  ever- 
fertile  intellect  which  draws  its  sustenance  from 
comprehensive  knowledge  and  a  fancy  whose  only 
fault  is  its  exuberance.  Moreover,  he  is  by  nature  and 
by  ethico-religious  training  free  from  all  guile  ;  he 
would  regard  secrecy,  dissimulation  or  insincerity  as 
despicable  and  far  beneath  his  dignity.  The  idea  that 
the  Kaiser  could  ever  have  wished  to  gain  his  ends 
by  false  pretences  or  to  pursue  them  by  tortuous 
routes  is  for  me  quite  unimaginable.  It  may  be  that, 
with  all  this  unreserved  and  unrestrained  self-ex- 
pression, the  passion  for  complete  frankness  implanted 
in  every  virtuous  being  found,  in  the  Kaiser,  its 
strongest  support  in  his  evident  over-estimation  of 
his  momentary  personal  influence.  In  a  personal 
exchange  of  ideas  he  believed  himself  to  be  sure  of 
immediate  victory  and  to  need  the  expedients  of 
trickery  or  dodgery  just  as  little  as  he  did  wordy 
diplomatic  skirmishing.  I  have  a  thousand  times 
observed  the  effects  of  his  personality  to  be  indeed 
very  great,  and  have  seen  men  of  otherwise  thoroughly 
independent  nature  fall  an  easy  prey  to  his  frequently 
fascinating,  though  perhaps  only  transitory,  influence. 
Nevertheless,  such  successes,  experienced  from  youth 
onwards,  and,  still  more,  the  consequent  expressions 
of  admiration  and  the  flattery  of  complaisant  friends 
and  courtiers  in  the  end  clouded  his  judgment  con- 
cerning the  expediency  of  thus  sacrificing  every  final 
reserve,  as  well  as  obscuring  his  insight  into  the  fact 
that  the  individual — even  though  he  be  an  emperor  and 
a  never  so  energetic  personality — is  of  little  ultimate 
weight  in  comparison  with  the  vast  world-shifting 
currents  of  time.  * 


CHILDHOOD  DAYS  27 

To  this  lack  of  perspective  in  estimating  his  personal 
relations  and  his  personal  influence  may  be  partly 
attributed  his  remaining  so  long  unconscious  of  the 
full  significance  of  the  approaching  danger.  Many  a 
false  estimate  was  formed  by  him  in  this  regard,  and 
his  confiding  trust  was  not  seldom  lulled  into  security 
by  clever  opponents. 

So  it  happened  that,  even  when  the  enormous 
pressure  of  economic  and  political  forces  was  uncon- 
trollably driving  the  world  towards  the  catastrophe 
of  war,  he  believed  himself  able  to  bring  the  wheels 
of  fate  to  a  standstill  by  means  of  his  influence  in 
London  and  Petrograd.  The  capacity  to  estimate 
men  and  things  correctly — that  is,  impartially  and 
objectively  and  without  any  personal  exaggeration — 
is  of  the  greatest  moment  to  rulers  and  statesmen. 
It  has  not  been  liberally  bestowed  upon  the  Kaiser, 
and  my  impression  is  that  responsible  individuals 
and  the  heads  of  the  various  "  cabinets  "  have  not, 
by  any  means,  always  intervened  with  the  energy 
necessary  to  correct  erroneous  conceptions  of  this 
description. 

In  the  depths  of  his  nature  my  father  is  a  thoroughly 
kind-hearted  man  striving  to  make  people  happy  and 
to  create  joyousness  around  him.  But  this  trait  is 
often  concealed  by  his  desire  not  to  appear  tender 
but  royal  and  exalted  above  the  small  emotions  of 
sentiment.  He  is  thoroughly  idealistic  in  thought 
and  feeling  and  full  of  confidence  towards  every  colla- 
borator who  enters  fresh  into  his  environment.  Present 
and  future  he  has  always  seen  and  gauged  in  the  mirror 
of  his  own  most  individual  mental  cosmos,  which 
became  more  and  more  unreal  as  the  secret  and  the 
open  struggle  for  our  national  existence  grew  more 
and  more  difficult  and  oppressive  both  within  the 
realm  and  without,  or  as  one  fragment  after  another 


28     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

of  this  cosmos  of  ideas  was  harshly  snatched  away  and 
crushed  by  the  hand  of  destiny. 

In  the  chivalrous  ethics  of  the  Kaiser  his  con- 
ception of  loyalty  is  of  great  moment.  He  demands 
it  without  reserve,  and  there  is  scarcely  any  derelic- 
tion which  he  feels  more  keenly  than  actions  or  omis- 
sions that  he  regards  as  breaches  of  trust.  I  quote  one 
example  :  he  has  never,  from  the  bottom  of  his  heart, 
pardoned  Prince  Biilow  for  not  giving  him  that  sup- 
port which  he  might  have  expected  in  the  November 
incidents  of  1908.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  unless  I  am 
mistaken,  those  severe  conflicts,  with  their  stormy 
Reichstag  sittings  and  their  innumerable  Press  attacks, 
meant  for  him  far  more  than  an  affront  to  his  Imperial 
position  or  dignity.  It  was  only  to  outsiders  that  they 
appeared  to  have  this  effect.  Possibly  I  was  able 
at  that  time  to  see  deeper  into  the  heart  of  my  Imperial 
father  than  anyone,  save  my  dear  mother ;  and  I  am 
firmly  convinced  that,  from  experiences  which  were 
for  him  barely  conceivable  and  scarcely  tolerable,  his 
self-confidence  received  a  blow  from  which  it  has 
never  recovered.  His  joyous  readiness  of  decision 
and  intrepid  energy  of  will,  till  then  undaunted,  were 
suddenly  broken  ;  and  I  believe  that  the  germ  was 
then  planted  of  the  lack  of  decision  and  vacillation 
noticeable  in  the  last  ten  years  of  his  life  and  especially 
during  the  war.  From  that  moment  onward,  the 
Kaiser  allowed  affairs  to  glide  more  and  more  into 
the  hands  of  the  responsible  advisers  in  the  various 
Government  departments,  eliminating  himself  and  his 
own  views  either  partially  or  even  entirely.  A  secret 
and  never-expressed  anxiety  concerning  possible  fresh 
conflicts  and  responsibilities  which  he  might  have  to 
confront  had  come  over  him.  Where  strong  hands  were 
needed,  complaisant  and  officious  persons  pushed 
themselves  forward,  and,  making  use  of  the  opportunity 


CHILDHOOD  DAYS  29 

to  usurp  functions  that  should  never  have  come 
within  their  scope,  they  dragged  into  the  sphere  of 
their  own  small-mindedness  matters  which,  so  long 
as  the  then  current  constitutional  ideas  remained 
valid,  ought  never  to  have  been  withdrawn  from  the 
range  of  the  unhampered  Imperial  will.  Still  I  will 
not  be  too  hard  upon  these  advisers  ;  I  do  not  wish 
to  be  unjust  to  them  ;  it  may  be  that,  in  the  anguish 
of  those  dark  days,  His  Majesty  was  sometimes  even 
grateful  to  them  for  so  busily  troubling  their  heads  — 
it  may  be  that  they  believed  themselves  to  be  acting 
for  the  best,  while  in  reality  creating  only  evil. 

The  Kaiser,  too,  in  those  years  of  self-repression 
and  of  weakness,  just  as  in  his  days  of  unbroken  self- 
confidence,  desired  to  do  his  best,  and  he  regarded 
as  the  best  the  peace  of  the  realm.  Nothing  should 
destroy  that  ;  with  every  means  at  his  command  he 
would  secure  that  to  the  empire.  The  terrible  tragedy 
of  his  life  and  of  his  life's  work  lay  in  the  fact  that 
everything  he  undertook  to  this  end  turned  to  the 
reverse  and  became  a  countercheck  to  his  aims,  so 
that  finally  a  situation  arose  in  which  we  were 
by  enemy  upon  enemy. 


April,  IQI 

ONTARIO 
Weeks  have  passed  since  I  last  occupied  myself  with 

these  pages.  Tidings  have  come  to  hand  which  are 
enough  almost  to  break  one's  heart  —  which  show  our 
poor  country  to  be  torn  by  internal  dissension  and 
to  be  conducting  a  desperate  struggle  with  a  pack  of 
heartless  and  greedy  "  victors."  In  the  face  of  these 
monstrous  events  and  problems,  I  have  felt  as  though 
the  individual  had  no  right  whatever  to  review  and 
determine  the  petty  incidents  of  his  own  life  and  destiny. 
Thus  spring  has  had  to  come  before  I  could  revert 
once  more  to  my  task  —  spring  with  its  sunny  green 


30     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

pastures  in  which  droll  little  lambs  are  skipping  beside 
the  dirty  winter-woolled  ewes,  and  across  which  blow 
the  clear  sea-breezes  in  ceaseless  restlessness. 

In  this  radiance  and  in  the  revived  colour  every- 
where visible,  all  things  look  better,  and  people  too 
have  more  genial  faces. 

When  I  think  of  these  first  months  here  in  the  island  ! 
With  the  best  will  to  make  the  best  of  it,  there  was 
not  much  to  be  done.  Distrust  and  reserve  in  every 
one — among  the  fisherfolk  and  among  the  peasants, 
and  among  the  tradespeople  in  Oosterland,  in  Hippo- 
lytushoef  and  in  Den  Oever.  A  shy  edging  to  one 
side  when  you  came  by  :  "  De  kroonprins  " — and 
that  was  as  much  as  to  say :  "  That  Boche — the 
murderer  of  Verdun,  the  libertine."  What  the  Entente 
with  the  help  of  their  mendacious  Press  and  their 
agents  had  hammered  into  the  minds  of  these  good 
people  had  got  thoroughly  fixed.  Nor  was  there  any 
possibility  of  an  explanation  with  them  concerning 
this  nonsense.  Moreover,  my  quarters  can  scarcely  be 
heated,  since  these  little  iron  stoves  will  not  burn,  and 
our  famous  single  lamp  smokes  and  can  only  burn 
when  petroleum  is  to  be  had.  Therefore,  as  soon 
as  it  is  dark,  one  crawls  into  bed  and  lies  there  sleep- 
less to  torture  oneself  with  the  same  matters  over 
and  over,  again,  and  gets  half  mad  with  worrying 
over  the  question  :  "  How  did  it  all  happen  ?  " — 
"  Where  lies  the  blame  ?  " — "  How  might  one  have 
done  better  ?  ' 

Now,  all  has  grown  less  hard  and  is  more  tolerable. 
To-day,  the  people  of  the  island  know  that  none  of 
all  the  slanders  that  have  been  circulated  about 
me  are  justified.  Their  distrust  has  vanished  ;  their 
simple,  unsophisticated  nature  now  meets  me  frankly. 
Every  one  greets  me  in  a  friendly  manner,  and  most 
people  shake  hands.  I  also  receive  occasional  invita- 


CHILDHOOD  DAYS  31 

tions  and  then  sit  in  these  clean  little  rooms  to  sip 
a  cup  of  cocoa  and  make  trial  of  my  acquirements  in 
the  Dutch  language. 

One  person  in  particular  has  done  much  to  enlighten 
people  and  to  smooth  my  path,  namely,  Burgomaster 
Peereboom.  At  the  outset,  he  was  the  only  one  who 
thrust  aside  all  prejudice,  and  sought  to  see  and  to 
help  the  human  individual — he  and  his  family.  And 
to  him  and  to  his  warm-hearted  and  active  wife  I  am 
indebted  for  many  a  little  improvement  in  my  modest 
household  at  the  Parsonage  as  well  as  for  many  a  wise 
hint  that  taught  me  to  understand  my  new  environ- 
ment. One  or  two  Germans  also  tendered  me  imme- 
diate help ;  among  them  the  experienced  Count 
Bassenheim  of  Amsterdam,  who  knows  Holland  as 
well  as  he  does  his  beautiful  Bavaria  ;  then  the  clever 
and  ever-faithful  Baron  Huenefeld,  formerly  vice- 
consul  at  Maastricht,  whose  care  for  me  has  been  most 
touching ;  further,  there  are  several  German  business 
men  of  Amsterdam,  faithful,  self-sacrificing  men  to 
whom  I  owe  a  lifelong  debt  of  gratitude.  And  so 
there  only  remains  unchanged  the  anxiety  as  touching 
my  old  home,  my  country,  the  longing  for  her  and  for 
those  to  whom  I  belong. 

But  not  of  that  now.  I  will  talk  here  of  that  other 
life  which  to  me,  in  the  seclusion  of  this  island,  often 
appears  so  distant  as  to  be  separated  from  the  present 
by  a  whole  train  of  years. 


Born  heir-apparent  to  a  throne,  I  was  brought  up 
in  the  particular  notions  valid  by  tradition  for  a  Prus- 
sian prince.  No  one  in  the  family  had  ever  cherished 
a  doubt  as  to  the  suitability  and  excellence  of  these 
principles,  for  in  their  youth  all  its  male  members  had 
traversed  exactly  the  same  path. 


32     THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

While  fully  recognizing  the  undeniable  value  of  the 
old  Prussian  traditions,  I  believe,  nevertheless,  that 
the  narrow,  sharply-defined  and  hedged-in  education 
of  Prussian  princes  (in  which  the  rigid  etiquette  of 
the  court  combines  with  the  anxious  care  of  the  parental 
home  to  provide  directions  for  mentor,  tutor  and 
adviser)  is  calculated  to  produce  a  definite  and  not 
very  original  product  adapted  to  ceremonial  duties, 
rather  than  a  modern  man  capable  of  taking  his  un- 
swerving course  in  the  life  of  his  times.  If  I  had 
submitted  tamely  to  the  system,  it  would  in  time  have 
led  me  into  a  position  in  which  I  should  have  been 
ignorant  of  the  world,  sequestered  and  secluded.  The 
worst  of  such  a  position  appears  to  me  to  be,  not  the 
Chinese  Wall  itself,  but  the  ultimate  incapacity  to 
see  the  wall,  so  that  the  immured  imagines  himself 
free  while  in  reality  his  mental  range  is  closely  circum- 
scribed. 

At  an  early  age,  and  certainly  at  the  outset  as  a 
mere  consequence  of  my  natural  disposition,  though 
later  with  growing  consciousness  and  maturer  judg- 
ment, I  opposed  the  efforts  to  level  out  the  indepen- 
dent features  in  me  with  the  object  of  creating  a 
"  normal  Prussian  Prince."  Two  directly  diverging 
views  were  at  work  here.  On  the  one  hand  was  the 
traditional  notion  stressed  so  emphatically  throughout 
His  Majesty's  reign,  the  notion  of  the  augustness 
(erhabenheit,  exaltedness)  of  the  ruler,  the  notion — 
figuratively  expressed  in  the  word  itself — that  the 
Prince,  King,  Kaiser  must  stand  elevated  high  above 
the  level  of  the  governed  classes  ;  on  the  other  hand 
was  my  own  conception  that  he  must  become  acquainted 
with  life  as  it  is  and  as  it  has  to  be  lived  by  people  of 
every  station.  It  remains  to  be  said  that  the  endeavour 
to  be  true  to  my  conviction  in  thought  and  act  caused 
me  many  a  struggle  and  many  an  unpleasantness. 


CHILDHOOD  DAYS  33 

The  upbringing  and  the  daily  life  of  us  children  in 
the  Imperial  parental  home  was  simple.  We  certainly 
were  not  indulged — least  of  all  by  our  military  governors. 

My  first  military  governor — I  was  then  a  lad  of  seven 
years — was  the  subsequent  General  von  Falkenhayn. 
I  remember  him  with  reverence  and  gratitude.  He 
did  not  pamper  me  ;  permitted  no  excuses  ;  and  even 
in  those  childhood  years  he  impressed  upon  me  that, 
for  a  man,  the  words  "  danger  "  and  "  fear  "  should 
not  exist.  In  the  best  sense,  he  passed  on  to  me  the 
undaunted  freshness  of  his  faithful  soldierliness.  There 
was  in  me  from  infancy  a  passion  for  horses  and  rid- 
ing. General  von  Falkenhayn  arranged  our  rides  in 
the  beautiful  environs  of  Potsdam  in  such  a  way  that 
we  had  obstacles  to  surmount.  Hedges,  fences,  walls, 
ditches  and  steep  gravel-pits  had  to  be  briskly  taken. 
He  used  to  say  on  such  occasions  :  "  Fling  your  heart 
across  first ;  the  rest  will  follow."  That  saying  I  have 
taken  with  me  through  life  ;  again  and  again,  and  in 
recent  circumstances  when  the  drab  hours  of  my  destiny 
and  my  loneliness  here  in  this  island  have  threatened 
to  stifle  me,  the  General  has  stood  before  my  mind's 
eye  and  has  helped  me  over  my  difficulties  with  his 
brave  soldierly  philosophy. 

Even  when  a  lad  I  had  to  prove  myself  as  patrol 
and  scout,  and  I  was  also  instructed  in  reading  maps. 
Gymnastics,  drill  and  swimming  were  ardently  prac- 
tised as  physical  training. 

An  event  that  made  a  deep  impression  upon  my 
young  mind  recurs  to  me.  I  was  permitted  to  present 
myself  to  Prince  Bismarck  in  due  form  and  not  in  the 
unofficial  way  in  which  I  had  done  so  when,  as  a  young- 
ster, I  suddenly  surprised  him  in  his  den.  From  my 
father  I  received  instructions  to  don  my  uniform  and 
meet  him  at  Friedrichsruh  ;  I  was  going  to  the  eightieth 
birthday  of  the  ex-Chancellor  (Alt-Reichskanzler). 


34     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

To  don  uniform  was,  even  in  that  early  period,  the 
acme  of  delight  to  my  boyish  heart ;  and  to  this  was 
to  be  added  a  visit  to  the  man  whom,  then  as  now,  a 
healthy  instinct  taught  me  to  regard  as  a  sort  of  legen- 
dary hero.  In  the  night  before  this  journey,  I  did  not 
sleep  a  wink. 

Bismarck  was  suffering  severely  from  gout,  and 
leaned  upon  a  stick  to  welcome  us  in  the  castle.  At 
lunch  he  displayed  an  astounding  liveliness  and  vigour  ; 
but,  as  a  consequence  of  the  excitement  naturally 
experienced  in  this  first  "  official  "  appearance  of  mine, 
this  general  impression  is  all  that  I  have  preserved  in 
my  recollection.  Moreover,  it  must  be  confessed  that 
I  was  rendered  somewhat  anxious  during  the  meal 
by  the  Prince's  big  boarhound,  who  suddenly  laid 
his  cold  nose  on  my  knee  under  the  table,  and 
growled  very  unmistakably  whenever,  unobserved,  I 
tried  to  free  myself  from  his  attentions. 

After  lunch,  His  Majesty  mounted  horse  and,  on  a 
piece  of  ploughland  close  to  the  castle,  awaited  Bis- 
marck at  the  head  of  the  Halberstadt  Cuirassiers,  whose 
chief  the  aged  prince  had  been  appointed.  I  had  the 
honour  of  accompanying  the  old  gentleman  in  his 
carriage.  In  a  truly  paternal  manner,  he  pointed  out 
to  me  all  the  beauties  of  the  Friedrichsruh  park.  My 
father  delivered  a  very  fine  speech  and  presented  the 
prince  with  a  sumptuously- wrought  sword  of  honour. 
The  prince  replied  with  a  few  pregnant  words. 

Then  we  returned  to  the  castle.  I  noticed  that  the 
prince  was  very  weary  and  fatigued  ;  the  prolonged 
standing  had  doubtless  put  too  great  a  strain  upon 
him.  His  breathing  was  quick  and  heavy  ;  and  finally 
he  tried  to  open  the  tight  collar  of  his  uniform,  but 
failed.  Almost  startled  by  my  own  boldness,  I  bent 
over  him  and  undid  it ;  then  he  pressed  my  hand 
and  nodded  gratefully. 


CHILDHOOD  DAYS  35 

We  left  the  same  afternoon.  On  this  beautiful  day, 
which  I  would  not,  for  all  that  is  dear  to  me,  have 
blotted  out  of  my  memory,  I  had  seen  for  the  last 
time  the  greatest  German  of  his  century. 

Our  first  scientific  education  we  received  from  our 
private  tutor.  I  cannot  approve  of  this  method,  for 
the  pupil  misses  the  stimulating  rivalry  of  comrades. 
When  I  entered  the  Cadet  School  at  Plon  as  a  lad  of 
fourteen,  in  April,  1896,  large  gaps  manifested  them- 
selves in  my  knowledge,  which  necessitated  a  good 
deal  of  extra  work. 

In  my  Plon  days  the  future  General  von  Lyncker 
acted  as  governor  to  me  and  to  my  brother  Eitel  Frie- 
drich.  He  was  a  typical  high-minded  Prussian  officer 
of  the  old  school.  His  unswervingly  serious  nature 
made  it  rather  difficult  for  him  to  enter  into  the  ideas 
of  us  immature  little  creatures  or  to  discover  the 
proper  methods  of  managing  us.  And  we  were  real 
children  at  that  time.  For  him  there  existed  only 
orders,  school,  work  and  duty,  and  again  orders  and 
duty.  When  I  grew  a  bit  older,  we  often  got  to  logger- 
heads. As  a  youth,  I  certainly  was  not  a  pattern  be- 
ing for  the  show-window  of  a  boys'  boarding-school ;  but 
that  there  was  so  much  to  complain  of  as  General  von 
Lyncker  managed  to  discover,  day  in  day  out,  I  really 
cannot  believe.  Moreover,  although  quite  uninten- 
tionally on  his  part,  his  somewhat  hard  and  unyielding 
manner  hurt  me.  But  it  was  this  very  General  von 
Lyncker  whom  the  Kaiser  afterwards  employed  as  go- 
between  when  disagreeable  conflicts  arose.  Although 
I  readily  and  gratefully  acknowledge,  that  in  this  task 
imposed  upon  him,  General  von  Lyncker  never  adopted 
the  role  of  time-serving  tale-bearer  or  consciously 
increased  the  friction — anything  of  the  kind  would 
have  been  totally  irreconcilable  with  his  sincere  and 
lofty  character — still,  I  cannot  help  saying  that  the 


36     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

importation  of  his  frequently  brusque  manner  rather 
tended  to  widen  the  breach  than  to  diminish  it. 

As  Plon  cadets,  we  were  very  fond  of  Frau  von 
Lyncker.  At  that  time  a  special  School  of  Princes  was 
formed  at  Plon  for  my  brother  Fritz  and  me.  Each  of 
us  had  three  fellow- pupils.  In  harmony  with  the 
totally  false  educational  principle  which  this  displayed, 
any  association  with  the  other  cadets  was  looked 
at  askance.  Nevertheless,  from  the  very  first  day 
onwards,  we  continually  leaped  over  the  barriers 
and  seized  every  opportunity  of  cultivating  comrade- 
ship and  friendly  relations  with  the  other  lads  of  the 
corps.  The  football,  the  rowing  matches  and  the  snow- 
ball fights  are  still  pleasant  recollections  for  me.  Many 
of  my  then  "  corps  "  companions,  drawn  from  the 
most  varied  classes,  have  become  good  friends  of  mine 
with  whom  I  have  remained  bound  by  close  ties  ever 
since.  During  the  war,  I  often  quite  unexpectedly  ran 
up  against  one  or  other  of  my  old  Plon  comrades  in 
distant  France  ;  and  then,  amid  all  the  grim  harsh- 
ness of  the  time,  the  long-lost,  care-free  days  of  youth 
rose  before  our  memories  like  a  sweet  smile. 

In  acquiescence  with  my  special  wish,  I  was  per- 
mitted to  apprentice  myself  to  a  master  turner.  Among 
the  Hohenzollerns  it  is  customary  for  every  prince  to 
learn  a  trade.  In  general,  of  course,  such  princely 
apprenticeships  must  not  be  regarded  too  seriously, 
though  the  tradition  is  a  valuable  symbol  and  "  un 
beau  geste."  Now,  while  I  will  not  assert  that  I  could 
make  my  way  in  the  world  with  my  turner's  craft,  I 
can  say  with  truth  that  I  have  practised  it  with  pleasure 
again  and  again,  and  that  master  and  apprentice  took 
the  matter  quite  seriously.  My  good  master  kept  me 
hard  at  it,  and  I  was  an  ardent  and  willing  pupil,  and 
felt  thoroughly  happy  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  turner's 
workshop  and  in  his  simple,  cleanly  household. 


CHILDHOOD  DAYS  37 

In  these  last  few  weeks  of  spring  on  my  island  I 
have  often  recalled  my  apprenticeship  at  the  lathe,  as 
just  for  exercise  I  have  been  working  in  Jan  Luijt's 
smithy,  hammering  sparks  from  the  iron  while  his  son 
plies  the  bellows. 

Our  associations  at  Plon  took  us  into  the  families  of 
the  masters,  and  we  had  also  friendly  relations  with 
the  grammar-school  boys.  Furthermore,  I  had  a  few 
"  friends  "  among  the  farmers  of  the  neighbourhood ; 
I  ploughed  many  a  piece  of  their  land,  and  I  still  re- 
member how  proud  I  was  when  my  furrow  turned  out 
neat  and  straight. 

In  the  year  1887,  that  is,  long  before  my  Plon  days, 
an  event  happened  which  I  must  recall  here,  as  it 
made  a  strong  and  vivid  impression  on  my  young  imagi- 
nation. It  was  my  first  sea-trip.  The  aged  Queen 
Victoria  was  to  celebrate  the  jubilee  of  her  reign.  My 
parents  went  to  England  to  take  part  in  the  festivity 
and  took  me  with  them.  It  was  at  a  great  garden  fete 
in  St.  James's  Park  that  I  first  saw  the  Queen — sitting 
in  a  bath-chair  in  front  of  a  sumptuously  decorated 
tent.  She  was  very  friendly  to  me,  kissed  me  and  kept 
on  fondling  me  with  her  aged  and  slightly  trembling 
hands.  Unfortunately,  I  have  no  recollection  whatever 
of  the  words  she  spoke  ;  I  only  know  that  my  boyish 
fancy  was  far  more  occupied  with  the  two  giant  Indians 
on  guard  before  the  tent  than  with  the  weary  little 
old  lady  herself. 

The  huge  multitude  in  St.  James's  Park,  and  the 
intermingling  of  representatives  of  almost  every  race, 
made  a  deep  impression  upon  me.  And  if  my  youth- 
fulness  rendered  me  unable  to  appreciate  the  symbolism 
of  the  British  world-power  embodied  in  the  picture,  it 
nevertheless  absorbed  with  awe  the  astounding  copious- 
ness of  what  it  saw  and  for  ever  preserved  me  from 
underrating  the  significance  of  the  British  Empire. 


CHAPTER  II 

SOLDIER,   SPORTSMAN  AND   STUDENT 

IF  I  regard  the  turn  of  the  century  as  the  close  of  my 
childhood  and  youth,  I  would  consider  the  years 
which  followed  as  my  apprenticeship. 

After  I  had  passed  my  matriculation  examination, 
and  following  upon  the  declaration  of  my  majority  on 
May  6,  1900,  my  father  placed  me  in  the  Leib-Kom- 
panie  of  the  First  Foot-Guards,  in  which  regiment, 
according  to  tradition,  every  Prussian  Prince  must 
first  serve.  This  was  a  good  thing ;  since  that  regi- 
ment has  always  been  conspicuous  for  its  excellence, 
and  the  young  princes  receive  in  it  a  thoroughly  strict 
training.  I  was  afterwards  appointed  lieutenant  and 
section  leader  in  the  2nd  Company,  which  my  father  had 
commanded  when  a  young  prince ;  accordingly,  I  said 
to  myself :  "  You  are  taking  here  the  first  steps  on 
the  road  which  is  to  lead  you,  through  years  of  learning, 
to  the  great  tasks  of  life." 

I  was  inspired  by  the  strongest  faith  in  my  life  and 
my  future — filled  with  a  sacred  determination  to  be 
honest  and  conscientious.  The  moment  when,  in  the 
venerable  old  Schlosskapelle  in  Berlin,  I  took  the  mili- 
tary oath  on  the  colours  of  the  Leib-Kompanie  before 
my  Imperial  father  and  Supreme  War  Lord,  still  stands 
out  clearly  before  me  in  all  its  thrilling  solemnity. 

The  barracks  of  the  First  Foot- Guards,  the  regiment 
house  and  the  Casino  of  the  Officers'  Corps,  were  now 

38 


SOLDIER,  SPORTSMAN  AND  STUDENT    39 

my  new  home  ;  the  rigid  and  plentiful  round  of  military 
tasks  were  my  new  school.  My  company  commander, 
Count  Rantzau,  was  a  typical  old,  experienced  and  con- 
scientious Prussian  officer  of  the  line.  He  himself  was 
always  punctual  to  the  minute  ;  he  never  spared  him- 
self, and  he  devoted  himself  wholly  to  his  profession  ; 
but  he  also  required  the  utmost  from  his  officers  and 
his  men.  Accuracy  in  every  detail  and  severity 
towards  slackness  were  combined  with  an  unerring  sense 
of  justice  and  a  warm  heart  which  followed  with 
human  sympathy  the  progress  of  every  one.  His 
company  revered  him.  Now,  that  excellent  man  rests 
in  French  soil  before  Rheims. 

Stern  but  just,  a  man  and  a  superior  of  the  best  type, 
honoured  and  respected  by  me  and  by  all  was  like- 
wise my  first  commander,  Colonel  von  Plettenberg. 
With  the  same  feelings,  I  recall  also  my  old  battalion 
commander,  Major  von  Pliiskow  ;  a  giant  even  among 
the  tall  officers  of  the  regiment,  he  was  famous  as  a 
drill-master  and,  despite  his  strictness,  much  liked  as 
an  ever-kind  superior. 

What  I  learned  in  the  Foot-Guards  formed  the 
foundation  of  my  entire  military  career.  The  value  of 
faithfulness  in  little  things,  the  much-decried  fatigue- 
uniform,  the  iron  discipline  and  the  abused,  because 
misunderstood,  Prussian  drill  became  clear  to  me  in 
their  full  significance  as  a  means  of  concentrating  the 
great  variety  of  heads  and  forces  into  a  single 
unit  of  the  greatest  strength.  The  army  trained  on 
these  principles  gained  the  great  and  imperishable 
victories  of  the  year  1914.  Unfortunately,  in  the  long 
course  of  the  war,  this  admirable  Prussian  method 
was  thrust  more  and  more  into  the  background, 
greatly  to  the  detriment  of  the  army  and  its  value. 

On  the  whole,  my  lieutenancy  was  an  incomparably 
pleasant  time.  I  was  young  and  healthy,  carried  out 


40     THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

my  duties  with  passionate  devotion  and  saw  life  in  sun- 
shine before  me.  A  circle  of  friends  of  like  age  with 
myself  enabled  me  to  enjoy  the  blessings  of  that  com- 
radeship which  is  the  most  important  root  whence  a 
Prussian  corps  of  officers  draws  its  strength.  To-day, 
alas,  the  green  turf  of  France  and  Russia  covers  the 
mortal  remains  of  most  of  the  brave  and  trusty  men 
who  were  then  young  and  joyous  and  faithful ;  it  is 
lonesome  around  me. 

In  those  distant  days  of  my  lieutenancy  and  for  years 
afterwards  three  dear  friends  stood  particularly  near 
to  me  ;  they  were  Count  Finckenstein,  von  Wedel  and 
von  Mitzlaff — all  of  them  at  that  time  lieutenants. 
They  shared  with  me  joy  and  sorrow  till  fate  separated 
us  for  ever.  Finckenstein  and  von  Wedel  fell  in  the 
ranks  of  our  fine  old  regiment — my  dear  Wedel  at 
Colonfey  and  brave  Finckenstein  at  the  head  of  his 
company  at  Bapaume.  Mitzlaff  was,  for  a  time,  orderly 
officer  in  my  staff ;  subsequently  he  took  over  a 
squadron  in  the  East  and  then  returned  to  the  west 
front  as  battalion  leader.  A  mournful  shroud  hangs 
over  the  memory  of  my  last  sight  of  this  trusty  comrade. 
It  was  in  the  summer  of  1918,  just  before  the  last  great 
Rheims  attack.  On  a  visit  to  the  staff  of  my  brave 
Seventh  Reserve  Division,  I  learned  by  accident  that 
my  friend  Mitzlaff  was  with  his  battalion  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood. I  at  once  drove  over  to  him  and  found  him 
in  a  little  half-demolished  farmhouse.  Seated  on  a 
broken  camp-bed,  and  sharing  some  cigarettes  and  a 
bottle  of  bad  claret  which  he  had  managed  to  rake  up 
somewhere  in  honour  of  my  visit,  we  chatted  for  a 
long  time  about  the  events  of  our  youth  and  exchanged 
many  an  anxious  word  concerning  the  future.  Both  of 
us  knew  how  matters  stood  and  how  over-fatigued  the 
troops  were.  Mitzlaff  himself,  however,  was  of  good 
cheer.  Then  we  held  each  other's  hand  for  a  good 


SOLDIER,  SPORTSMAN  AND  STUDENT    41 

while  and  parted.  I  drove  back  to  my  staff  quarters  ; 
while  he  moved  up  into  the  front  position  with  his 
men.  Three  weeks  later  I  stood  beside  his  simple 
soldier's  grave ;  a  few  days  after  I  had  bidden  him 
farewell  the  brave  fellow  had  fallen  at  the  head  of  his 
men  in  storming  the  enemy's  position.  He  was  the 
last  of  my  three  faithful  friends. 

I  remained  with  the  First  Foot-Guards  one  year. 
During  that  time  the  evening  order-slip  beside  my  bed 
determined  the  hours  of  the  following  day.  But,  in 
that  winter,  there  was  not  much  sleep  for  me  ;  for  my 
position  demanded  my  presence  at  court  festivities  and 
innumerable  private  gatherings.  Often  I  did  not  get 
to  bed  till  two  o'clock,  and  by  seven  I  was  in  the  bar- 
racks, where  my  duties  kept  me  busy  till  noon  and  again 
from  two  till  five.  Frequently,  too,  after-dinner  atten- 
dance at  the  cleaning  of  rifles,  saddlery  and  so  on  fell 
to  my  lot.  This  task  I  was  particularly  fond  of.  My 
grenadiers  sat  in  the  lamplight  cleaning  and  polishing 
their  kit.  This  provided  a  natural  opportunity  to 
approach  them  quite  closely  and  humanly  and  to 
converse  with  them  about  their  little  personal  joys, 
sorrows  and  wishes.  They  talked  of  their  homes  or  of 
their  civilian  occupations  with  brightened  eyes,  the 
fine  German  folk-songs  and  soldiers'  ballads  filling  up 
the  intervals  in  the  conversation.  To  have  shared  in 
such  an  evening  would  perhaps  have  opened  the  eyes 
of  the  clever  people  who  babble  so  much  about  the 
tyranny  and  harsh  treatment  of  the  militarism  of  that 
time. 

During  my  lieutenancy,  as  also  afterwards,  I  de- 
voted as  much  of  my  leisure  time  as  possible  to  sport. 
This  I  did,  not  merely  because  of  my  natural  inclina- 
tion for  sport,  but  also  because  I  considered  its  prac- 
tice to  be  of  particular  significance  for  the  future  head 
of  a  State ;  and  that  is,  after  all,  what  I  was. 


42     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

The  community  of  sport  is  calculated,  more  than 
anything  else,  to  remove  internal  and  external  barriers 
between  people  of  like  aims  ;  for  it  is  exactly  in  sport 
that  the  actually  and  manifestly  best  performance  is 
decisive.  Who  accomplishes  it — whether  junker, 
business-man  or  factory-hand ;  Christian,  Jew  or  Moslem 
— is  a  matter  of  indifference.  Therefore  I  have 
repeatedly  attended  bicycle  races,  football  matches, 
route  marches  and  other  sporting  events  ;  and,  on 
suitable  occasions,  I  have  promoted  them  by  the 
presentation  of  prizes.  This,  again,  is  one  of  the  things 
by  which  I  have  given  offence  :  a  properly  brought  up 
heir-apparent  should,  forsooth,  maintain  an  exalted 
position  and  hold  himself  aloof  from  such  noisy 
affairs.  Very  well,  then,  I  have  purposely  not  been 
this  ideal  of  a  stereotyped  heir-apparent ;  instead,  by 
visiting  sporting  events,  I  have  gained  an  insight  into 
the  life  and  bustle,  and  into  the  exigencies  and  desires 
of  many  classes  of  people  with  whom  otherwise,  by 
reason  of  my  upbringing  and  general  circumstances,  I 
should  never  have  come  into  contact. 

In  those  days,  however,  I  was,  above  all,  heart  and 
soul  a  soldier ;  and  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that 
in  the  evening  I  looked  forward  with  pleasure  to  my 
next  day's  duties.  The  training  and  the  association 
with  the  rank  and  file,  the  strict  old- Prussian  dis- 
cipline, the  healthy  physical  exercise  in  wind  and 
weather,  the  pride  taken  in  the  ancient  regimental 
uniform — all  this  made  me  love  the  service. 

As  with  all  things  else,  so  too  with  the  soldier's 
calling,  one  must  apply  oneself  to  the  task  in  hand 
with  one's  whole  being  and  with  real  love  and  devotion 
if  success  is  to  be  obtained.  This  is  the  spirit  that 
must  animate  both  the  officer  and  his  troops. 

Short  energetic  spells  of  work  with  the  utmost  exercise 
of  all  one's  capacity,  smartness  and  discipline,  cleanli- 


SOLDIER,  SPORTSMAN  AND  STUDENT    43 

ness  and  punctuality,  punishment  for  every  negligence 
or  passive  resistance,  but  a  warm  heart  for  the  meanest 
or  the  most  stupid  recruit,  gaiety  in  the  barracks,  as 
much  furlough  as  possible,  exceptional  distinctions  for 
exceptional  performances — in  a  word,  sunshine  during 
military  service,  formed  the  fundamental  principle 
which  guided  me. 

May,  1919. 

Two  bitter-sweet  days  have  been  mine  in  this  month 
of  May.  On  the  sixth  I  celebrated  the  thirty-seventh 
anniversary  of  my  birth.  Loving  letters  from  my  family 
and  numberless  indications  of  remembrance  from  all 
parts  of  my  German  homeland  proved  to  me  here  in 
my  seclusion  that  there  are  still  people  who  feel 
that  they  belong  to  me  and  cannot  be  alienated  from 
me  by  a  never  so  wildly  raging  campaign  of  slander. 
From  the  island  and  from  the  Dutch  mainland,  many 
touching  indications  of  love  and  sympathy  have 
also  reached  me — little,  well-meant  presents  for  the 
improvement  of  my  modest  household,  flowers  in  such 
plenty  that  the  small  narrow  rooms  of  the  parsonage 
cannot  contain  them. 

And  then,  after  all  the  unspeakably  severe  and  lonely 
experience  of  the  past  half-year,  I  was  able,  with  the 
consent  of  the  Dutch  Government,  to  leave  the  island 
towards  the  end  of  the  month  and  to  celebrate  a  day 
with  my  mother  on  the  estate  of  good  Baron  Wrangel. 
"  Celebrate  "  !  I  don't  know  whether  the  word  befits 
the  hours  in  which,  arm  in  arm  and  no  one  near,  we 
walked  up  and  down  in  the  rose-dappled  garden,  and, 
as  so  often  in  the  better  days  gone  by,  I  was  able 
unreservedly  to  pour  out,  to  my  heart's  content,  all 
that  burdened  it.  To  my  mother,  to  that  ever  sympa- 
thetic and  comprehending  woman,  so  clear-sighted  and 
wide-visioned  in  her  simple  modesty,  I  could  always 


44     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

come  in  past  years  when  my  thoughts  and  my  heart 
needed  the  kindly  and  soothing  hand  of  a  mother  to 
smooth  out  their  tangles  and  creases.  It  was  so  when 
I  was  a  child,  it  was  so  when  I  wore  my  lieutenant's 
uniform,  it  was  so  when  later  in  life  I  had  duties  to 
fulfil  in  responsible  positions  ;  and  that  it  has  remained 
so  to  this  day  has  been  proved  by  those  few  short 
hours  in  which,  after  the  first  shock  of  reunion,  we 
recovered  our  inward  equanimity.  Scarcely  ever  be- 
fore had  I  felt  so  deeply  the  measure  with  which  her 
nature  and  her  blood  had  determined  my  own. 

During  the  initial  period  of  my  service  in  the  First 
Foot-Guards,  a  sorrowful  event  at  the  beginning  of  the 
year  1901  took  me  once  more  to  London,  namely, 
the  death  of  my  great-grandmother,  the  aged  Queen 
Victoria  of  England. 

Since  the  affair  in  St.  James's  Park,  in  which  my 
boyish  imagination  had  been  too  completely  captivated 
by  the  exotic  figures  around  her  for  me  to  gain  any- 
thing but  a  purely  superficial  idea  of  the  Queen, 
I  had  seen  her  twice.  Each  time  the  features  of  her 
character  impressed  themselves  more  deeply  upon  me  ; 
my  eyes  had  been  opened  to  the  activities  of  this 
remarkable  woman,  who  maintained  to  the  end  her 
resolute  nature  and  strength  of  will. 

Now,  in  the  winter  of  1901,  I  was  to  do  her  the  last 
reverence. 

The  Queen  had  died  at  her  beautiful  Osborne  in  the 
Isle  of  Wight.  There  the  coffin  had  been  placed 
in  a  small  room  fitted  up  as  a  chapel.  Over  it  was 
spread  the  English  ensign,  and  six  of  the  tallest 
officers  of  the  Grenadier  Guards  kept  watch  beside  it. 
In  their  splendid  uniforms,  their  bearskin-covered 
heads  bowed  in  sorrow,  their  folded  hands  resting  upon 
their  sword-hilts,  they  guarded,  immovable  as  bronze 
knights,  the  last  sleep  of  their  dead  sovereign. 


SOLDIER,  SPORTSMAN  AND  STUDENT    45 

The  transport  of  the  dead  Queen  to  London  took  place 
on  board  the  Victoria  and  Albert.  During  the  entire 
passage,  which  lasted  fully  three  hours,  we  steamed 
between  a  double  row  of  ships  of  the  entire  British 
navy,  whose  guns  fired  once  more  their  salutes  to  the 
Queen. 

The  funeral  procession  through  the  streets  of  Lon- 
don was  most  impressive. 

A  moving  incident  occurred  at  Windsor  on  the  way 
from  Frogmore  Lodge  to  the  Mausoleum.  It  was  a 
bitter  winter  day  ;  and  the  train  that  brought  the 
mortal  remains  of  the  Queen  was  several  hours  behind 
time.  Just  as  the  procession  was  about  to  start,  the 
six  artillery  horses  of  the  hearse  began  to  jib  ;  one  of 
the  wheelers  kicked  over  the  pole  ;  the  coffin  began  to 
sway,  and  threatened  to  slip  from  its  platform.  Prompt 
and  brief  orders  were  at  once  given  by  the  then  Prince 
Louis  of  Battenberg,  who  was  in  command  of  the  naval 
division  drawn  up  at  the  spot.  The  horses  were  un- 
harnessed, and,  almost  before  one  could  realize  what 
had  happened,  three  hundred  British  seamen  had  their 
ropes  fixed  to  the  hearse  ;  with  calm  tread  and  almost 
noiselessly,  the  dead  Queen's  sailors  drew  their 
sovereign  to  her  last  resting-place. 

In  the  spring  of  1901,  the  period  of  my  lieutenancy 
came  to  an  end.  I  was  now  to  study,  and,  like  my 
father  before  me,  I  matriculated  at  Bonn  University. 

The  four  semesters  spent  at  the  old  alma  mater  were 
for  me  two  delightful  and  fruitful  years,  replete  with 
serious  study  and  happy  student's  life  and  filled  with 
all  the  enchantment  of  Rhenish  charm  and  merriment. 

In  accordance  with  tradition  I  became  a  member  of 
the  Borussia  (Prussian)  Corps.  Nevertheless,  I  was 
not  simply  and  solely  a  "  Bonner  Prussian  "  ;  on  the 
contrary  and  rather  in  despite  of  the  strict  forms  of 


46     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

the  corps,  I  had  many  friends  in  other  corps  of  the 
"Bonner  S.  C." 

My  sport-loving  heart  led  me  to  share  with  great 
delight  in  the  fencing-practice  which  formed  the  pre- 
paratory training  for  duelling.  Fain  would  I  have 
taken  active  part  in  the  latter  ;  but,  as  an  officer,  I  was 
only  permitted  to  use  the  unmuffled  weapon  in  serious 
affairs  of  honour.  Comprehensible  as  this  youthful  im- 
pulse still  appears  to  me  and  though  I  by  no  means  wish 
to  underrate  the  value  of  the  "  scharfen  mensur  "  for  the 
training  of  eye,  hand  and  nerve,  I  believe,  neverthe- 
less, that  our  German  studentry  exaggerated  its  value. 
As  in  the  question  of  weapons,  so  too  in  regard  to 
drinking-bouts,  I  consider  that  the  "  Trinkkomment " 
(the  drinking  code) — for  which  I  never  had  any  great 
liking  and  to  which,  as  a  student,  I  submitted  unwil- 
lingly— needs  to  be  purged  of  many  formulae  that  have 
developed  into  abuses.  This,  moreover,  is  called  for 
by  the  pressure  of  present  circumstances.  Genuine 
and  practical  love  for  the  German  fatherland,  in  its 
distress  and  humiliation,  means  work,  and  work  and 
work  again  ;  it  means  this  especially  for  our  youth, 
who,  in  the  self-training  of  their  own  personalities,  are 
preparing  values  for  the  national  entity  on  which  may 
depend  the  fate  of  the  coming  generation. 

The  hours  of  my  delightful  Bonn  days  that  were  not 
occupied  in  study  or  in  corps  life  I  employed  in  inter- 
course with  people  of  all  classes  in  the  Rhineland.  I 
accepted  gratefully  the  hospitality  of  professors,  mer- 
chants and  manufacturers,  in  whose  families  I  was 
welcomed  with  genuine  Rhenish  cordiality.  Having 
hitherto  come  into  touch  mainly  with  people  of  the 
military  class,  these  new  associations  provided  me  with 
copious  fresh  and  vivid  impressions  as  a  valuable 
additional  gain  to  the  intellectual  stimulus  of  the 
university  studies  proper.  To  these  studies  I  devoted 


SOLDIER,  SPORTSMAN  AND  STUDENT    47 

myself  with  ardour,  and  I  often  think  with  gratitude 
of  the  prominent  men  who  acted  as  my  counsellors 
and  mentors,  such  men  as  :  Zitelmann,  Litzmann, 
Gothein,  Betzold,  Schumacher,  Clemen  and  Anschiitz. 
With  special  indebtedness  I  recall  the  brilliant  lectures 
of  Zorn,  the  famous  professor  of  constitutional  law ; 
and  a  strong  bond  of  confidence  and  friendship  still 
unites  me  with  that  great  teacher. 

Out  of  my  intercourse  at  Bonn  with  intellectual 
leaders  in  the  fields  of  science,  technology,  industry 
and  politics,  there  arose  in  me  the  desire  henceforth 
to  occupy  myself  more  than  ever  before  with  the  prob- 
lems of  our  home  and  foreign  policy,  and  especially 
with  matters  of  sociology. 

Like  the  lieutenant's  period  of  my  life,  the  two  sunny 
years  at  Bonn  sped  rapidly  by.  They  brought  me  an 
abundance  of  delightful  and  valuable  experiences  :  the 
enjoyment  of  nature  in  a  world  full  of  beauty,  youthful 
knowledge,  attachment  to  select  and  clever  men, 
Rhenish  joyousness  and  the  germs  of  much  knowledge 
that  ripened  later  into  intellectual  possessions. 

Some  amount  of  travel,  undertaken  during  the  vaca- 
tions (in  the  late  summer  of  1901  through  England 
and  Holland)  and,  with  my  brother  Eitel  Fritz,  at  the 
close  of  my  university  career,  also  helped  to  widen  my 
intellectual  vision.  The  impressions  afforded  me  I 
welcomed  with  an  awakened  and  more  receptive  mind 
than  ever  before. 

When  I  recall  those  travels,  two  figures  particularly 
stand  out  before  me  as  lifelike  and  undimmed  as  though 
not  years  but  only  days  or  at  most  weeks  separated 
me  from  them.  These  are  Abdul  Hamid,  the  last  of  the 
Sultans  of  the  old  regime,  and  Pope  Leo  XIII.  Strange 
as  it  may  seem,  these  two  men,  who,  in  their  natures 
and  in  their  world,  differed  in  the  extreme  both  out- 
wardly and  inwardly,  are  inseparably  united  in  my 


48     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

mind  by  circumstances  from  which  I  can  scarcely 
detach  myself.  In  the  solemn  completeness  of  the 
Vatican,  seemingly  so  untouched  by  haste  or  time,  and 
in  the  fairyland  of  the  Sultan's  court,  so  entirely 
remote  from  every  occidental  standard  and  law,  there 
was  revealed  to  me  something  utterly  new  and  unsus- 
pected, something  into  which  I  entered  with  astonish- 
ment. These  men — the  most  remarkable  Pope  of  the 
twentieth  century  (for  whose  spiritualized  being  I 
could  not,  for  a  moment,  feel  anything  but  the  deepest 
awe)  and  the  ruthless,  almighty  Padishah  (in  whose 
presence  I  quickly  recovered  my  self-possession) — both 
had  the  same  expression  of  eye.  Penetrating,  clever, 
infinitely  pondering  and  experienced,  they  looked  at 
you  with  their  grey  eyes,  in  which  age  had  drawn 
sharply-defined  white  rings  around  the  piercing  pupils. 

The  picture  that  awaited  my  brother  Eitel  Fritz  and 
myself  as  we  arrived  at  Constantinople  on  board  the 
English  yacht  Sapphire  on  a  wonderful  spring  morning, 
was  absolutely  enchanting  ;  and  the  events  of  the  few 
days  during  which  we  were  guests  at  the  Golden  Horn 
deepened  the  impression  that  we  were  dreaming  a 
dream  out  of  the  Arabian  Nights. 

Shortly  after  our  arrival  in  the  harbour,  the  Sultan's 
favourite  son  came  to  welcome  us  in  the  name  of  his 
father  ;  and  towards  noon  the  Estrogul  Dragoons — 
excellent-looking  troops  on  small  white  Arabs — escorted 
us  to  the  Yildiz  Kiosk,  where  the  Sultan  received  us 
at  the  head  of  his  General  Staff  and  his  court  suite. 

Abdul  Hamid  was  an  exceptionally  fascinating  per- 
sonality— small,  bow-legged,  animated,  a  typical  Arme- 
nian Semite.  He  was  exceedingly  friendly,  I  might 
almost  say  paternal,  towards  us. 

We  were  quartered  in  a  very  beautiful  kiosk  of  the 
enormous  Palace  buildings  of  the  Yildiz.  About  half 
an  hour  after  we  had  occupied  our  rooms,  the  Sultan 


SOLDIER,  SPORTSMAN  AND  STUDENT    49 

came  to  pay  us  a  return  visit.  He  arrived  in  a  little 
basket-chaise,  driving  the  nimble  horses  himself  and 
followed  on  foot  by  his  entire  big  suite.  This  included 
many  elderly  stout  generals,  and  as  the  Sultan 
drove  at  a  trot  and  these  good  dignitaries  were  deter- 
mined not  to  be  left  behind,  their  appearance  when  they 
got  to  the  palace  was  anything  but  ravishing. 

The  rules  of  the  country  permitted  Abdul  Hamid  to 
speak  nothing  but  Turkish ;  consequently,  our  conversa- 
tions with  him  had  to  be  interpreted  sentence  by 
sentence  and  were  excessively  wearisome.  Moreover, 
the  old  gentleman  understood  our  French  perfectly, 
and  when  I  happened  to  tell  him  some  humorous 
anecdote  or  other,  it  was  most  amusing  to  see  him 
laughing  heartily  long  before  the  dragoman,  with  the 
solemnity  of  a  judge,  had  given  him  the  translation. 

In  the  evening  a  banquet  was  to  be  given  in  our 
honour.  Where  this  was  to  take  place  no  one  knew 
at  first,  since  the  Sultan's  fear  of  would-be  assassins 
was  so  great  that  he  took  the  precaution  to  keep  the 
time  and  place  of  such  festivities  secret  as  long  as 
possible.  At  the  last  minute,  therefore,  and  much  to 
the  confusion  of  the  marshals  of  his  court,  he  issued 
the  command  for  the  dinner  to  be  given  in  a  great 
reception-room. 

The  Sultan  and  I  sat  at  the  head  of  an  interminably 
long  table.  Every  one  else,  including  my  poor  brother, 
had  to  sit  sideways  so  as  to  face  the  Padishah ;  there 
was  not  much  chance  of  eating  anything,  but  the  sight 
of  the  Sultan  is  as  good  as  meat  and  drink  to  a  believ- 
ing Mohammedan. 

It  struck  me  that  my  exalted  host  was  wearing 
a  very  thick  and  ill-fitting  uniform,  till  a  sudden 
movement  on  his  part  revealed  to  me  the  fact  that  he 
had  a  shirt  of  mail  concealed  underneath  it.  In  con- 
versation he  evinced  great  interest  in  all  German  affairs 

D 


50     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

and  proved  to  be  thoroughly  informed  on  the  most  varied 
subjects ;  we  discussed  naval  problems,  the  recent 
results  of  Polar  research,  the  latest  publications  on  the 
German  book  market  and,  above  all,  military  questions. 

The  days  that  followed  were  no  less  interesting  than 
the  first.  We  visited  the  sights  of  the  city  and  its 
environs,  and  the  old  gentleman  displayed  a  touching 
care  for  our  welfare. 

On  the  last  day  of  our  sojourn  he  invited  us  to  a 
private  dinner  in  his  own  apartments.  The  only  other 
people  present  were  my  attendants,  the  German  Am- 
bassador and  the  Sultan's  favourite  son.  The  Sultan, 
who  was  very  fond  of  music,  had  asked  me  to  play  him 
something  on  the  violin.  The  Prince  accompanied  me 
on  the  piano,  and  we  played  an  air  from  Cavalleria 
Rusticana,  a  cavatina  by  Raff,  and  Schumann's  Trdu- 
merei.  Then  there  followed  an  affecting  incident.  As 
a  surprise  for  the  old  gentleman,  I  had  practised  the 
Turkish  National  Anthem  with  my  army  doctor,  Ober- 
stabsarzt  Widemann  ;  and  as  soon  as  we  had  finished 
playing  it,  the  Sultan,  who  seemed  to  be  deeply  moved, 
flung  his  arms  about  me ;  then,  at  a  sign  from  him, 
an  adjutant  appeared  with  a  cushion  on  which  lay 
the  gold  and  silver  medal  for  arts  and  sciences,  and 
this  the  Ruler  of  all  the  Ottomans  pinned  to  my  breast. 
Then  he  showed  us  his  private  museum,  containing  all 
the  presents  received  by  him  and  his  ancestors  from 
other  European  princes.  Here,  among  a  great  quantity 
of  trash,  were  grouped  a  number  of  beautiful  and 
valuable  articles.  Thus,  I  recall  an  amber  cupboard 
presented  by  Frederick  William  I. 

This  meeting  with  old  Abdul  Hamid  has  remained 
for  me  one  of  the  most  interesting  encounters  that  I 
have  ever  had  with  foreign  princes. 

In  my  twenty-second  year  I  was  appointed  to  the 


SOLDIER,  SPORTSMAN  AND  STUDENT    51 

command  of  the  2nd  Company  of  the  First  Foot-Guards. 
The  abundance  of  work  involved  by  this  responsible 
position  for  the  next  two  and  a  half  years  brought  me 
the  greatest  satisfaction.  That  I  was  entrusted  with  this 
particular  company  rilled  me  with  peculiar  pleasure,  as 
I  had  become  acquainted  with  all  my  non-commissioned 
officers  when  a  lieutenant.  The  heads  of  companies, 
squadrons  and  batteries  form,  in  conjunction  with  the 
regimental  commanders,  the  backbone  of  the  army, 
inasmuch  as,  within  the  scope  of  their  duties,  the  value 
of  the  individual  as  leader  and  trainer  has  a  chance 
of  making  itself  felt.  But  not  much  inferior  to  the 
personal  importance  of  the  head  of  the  company  must 
be  ranked  the  personality  of  the  serjeant-major,  signifi- 
cantly dubbed  in  Germany  the  "  company's  mother." 
My  own  sergeant-major,  Wergin,  was  a  devoted  and 
conscientious  man  who  set  an  example  to  all  in  the 
company.  Early  and  late  his  thoughts  were  occupied 
with  the  royal  Prussian  service,  and  he  was,  at  the 
same  time,  continually  busied  about  the  welfare  of  his 
hundred  and  twenty  grenadiers. 

In  themselves  the  labours  which  fell  to  us  captains 
in  the  First  Foot-Guards  were  light  and  gratifying. 
The  corps  of  non-commissioned  officers  was  complete 
and  consisted  throughout  of  thoroughly  efficient  men  ; 
while  the  recruits  of  each  year  were  excellent,  all  of 
them  being  well-educated  young  fellows  and  represent- 
ing, in  many  cases,  the  fourth  generation  of  service 
with  the  regiment  or  even  with  the  same  company. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  was  a  certain  difficulty  in  the 
bodily  dimensions  of  the  men.  The  height  of  many  of 
them  was  altogether  out  of  proportion  to  their  breadth, 
and  it  was  necessary  to  exercise  great  care  lest  they 
should,  at  the  outset,  be  subjected  to  over-exertion. 
Furthermore,  my  tall  grenadiers  could  eat  an  incredible 
quantity  of  food !  With  my  company  and  with  the 


52     THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

troops  afterwards  entrusted  to  me,  I  laid  great  stress 
upon  smartness  and  discipline.  Our  combined  move- 
ments and  our  drill  as  a  whole  were  worth  seeing,  and 
the  grenadiers  themselves  were  proud  of  their  unim- 
peachable form. 

My  general  principles  were  short  but  very  energetic 
spells  of  duty  ;  for  the  rest,  leave  the  men  as  much  as 
possible  unmolested ;  plenty  of  furlough,  fun  in  the 
barracks,  excursions,  visits  to  the  sights  of  the  town 
and  its  surroundings,  occasional  attendance  at  theatres, 
a  minimum  of  disciplinary  punishments.  My  men 
soon  knew  that,  when  he  had  to  punish  them,  their 
captain  suffered  more  than  they  did  themselves.  I 
endeavoured  to  work  upon  their  sense  of  honour,  and 
that  was  nearly  always  effective. 

Of  course,  in  the  foregoing,  the  duties  and  labours  of 
a  company's  captain  are  anything  but  exhausted. 
Apart  from  all  questions  of  military  service,  he  must 
be  a  true  father  to  his  soldiers ;  he  must  know  each 
individual  and  know  where  the  shoe  pinches  in  every 
particular  case.  Just  this  phase  of  the  officer's  calling 
gave  me  the  greatest  pleasure,  and  its  exercise  gained 
for  me  the  confidence  and  the  attachment  of  every  one 
of  my  grenadiers.  They  came  to  me  with  their  troubles 
both  small  and  great,  and  I  felt  myself  happy  in  their 
firm  and  honest  confidingness.  Some  fine,  charming 
young  fellows  have  passed  thus  through  my  hands. 
Many  a  one  I  met  again  afterwards  in  the  war  ;  many 
a  one  now  rests  in  foreign  soil,  true  to  the  motto  on  the 
helmet  of  our  first  battalion  :  Semper  tails. 

Despite  this  passionate  and  devoted  attention  to  my 
duties  with  the  First  Foot-Guards,  in  which  regiment 
I  made  closer  acquaintance  with  my  two  former  adju- 
tants and  future  lords-in-waiting — the  conscientious 
Stiilpnagel  and  the  faithful  Behr — I  was  not  purely 
and  solely  a  soldier  during  those  years.  The  Bonn 


SOLDIER,  SPORTSMAN  AND  STUDENT    53 

impetus  continued  active,  and  the  living  questions  of 
politics,  economics,  art  and  technical  science  occupied 
even  more  of  my  leisure  time  than  in  the  years  that 
had  opened  my  eyes  to  their  importance. 

Whereas,  in  the  year  of  my  lieutenancy,  I  had  joined 
with  a  certain  interest  and  curiosity  in  all  the  Court 
festivities  that  came  in  my  way,  an  ever-increasing 
dislike  for  the  pomp  of  these  affairs  began  to  develop 
within  me  as  my  judgment  matured.  The  much  too 
frequently  repeated  ceremonial,  maintained  as  it 
was  here  in  rigid  form,  appeared  to  me  often  enough 
to  be  an  empty  and  almost  painful  anachronism.  How 
many  deeply  reproachful  or  gently  admonitory  glances 
have  I  not  received  from  the  eyes  of  court  marshals 
whose  holiest  feelings  I  had  wounded  !  But  here,  as 
in  so  many  other  spheres,  the  exaggeration  of  the 
circumscribed,  the  "exalted,"  the  congealed,  had 
impelled  me  to  a  noticeable  nonchalance — not  by  any 
means  always  intentional,  often  enough  involuntary 
and  as  though  a  reaction  was  bound  to  take  place  of 
its  own  accord. 

Court  festivities  !  Thinking  of  them  reminds  me  of 
a  man  for  whom  and  for  whose  art  I  always  cherished 
the  greatest  veneration,  and  the  sight  of  whom  on 
these  occasions  invariably  filled  me  with  pleasure  and 
brought  a  smile  to  my  lips.  This  was  Adolf  Menzel.  His 
appearance  was  generally  preceded  by  a  tragi-comedy 
in  his  home  and  on  the  way  to  the  Palace,  for  he 
was  so  deeply  absorbed  in  his  work  till  the  last  moment 
that  no  amount  of  subsequent  haste  in  dressing  could 
enable  him  to  arrive  in  time.  In  his  later  years  an 
adjutant  of  my  father's  was  always  sent  to  fetch  him, 
and  this  messenger  often  enough  had  to  help  in  getting 
him  dressed.  But  it  was  all  to  no  purpose  ;  he  still 
came  late. 

Indelibly  imprinted  on  my  memory  is  Menzel  as  I 


54     THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

saw  him  at  the  celebration  of  the  Order  of  the  Black 
Eagle.  On  this  occasion,  the  Knights  wear  the  big  red 
velvet  robes  and  the  chain  of  this  high  order.  The 
little  man,  whom  none  of  the  robes  would  fit,  struggled 
wildly  the  whole  time  with  his  train,  at  which  he  kept 
looking  daggers  from  his  spectacled,  but  expressively 
flashing,  eyes. 

At  the  close  of  the  ceremony,  it  was  customary  for 
the  knights  to  defile,  two  by  two,  before  the  throne,  to 
make  their  obeisance  to  the  Kaiser  and  to  leave  the 
chamber.  According  to  the  order  of  rank,  it  always 
happened  that  the  dwarfish  Menzel  was  accom- 
panied by  the  abnormally  tall  hausminister ,  von  Wedel. 
When  this  ill-matched  couple  stood  before  the  throne, 
the  sight  was  in  itself  sufficient  to  fill  one  with  a 
warm  sense  of  amusement.  But  when,  at  the  same 
time,  the  artist  was  aroused  in  MenzeFs  bosom,  it  was 
difficult  to  restrain  one's  hilarity.  Menzel  seemed  to 
forget  altogether  where  he  was,  and  I  have  seen  him, 
entirely  captivated  by  the  picturesqueness  of  the  scene 
before  him,  give  his  head  a  sudden  jerk,  set  his  arms 
akimbo  and  stare  long  and  fixedly  at  my  father. 
Meantime  old  Wedel  had  delivered  his  correct  court 
bow  and  was  marching  off,  when,  to  his  horror,  he 
noticed  his  partner  still  planted  before  the  throne. 

I  don't  know  which  delighted  me  more  at  that 
moment,  whether  the  perplexed  and  dismayed  face  of 
the  hausminister,  who  felt  himself  implicated  in  an  un- 
heard-of breach  of  traditional  etiquette,  or  the  little 
genius,  who,  turning  his  head  first  one  way  then  the 
other,  gazed  at  the  Kaiser,  heedless  of  those  waiting 
impatiently  behind  him  for  the  space  in  front  of  the 
throne.  In  the  end,  Wedel  took  courage  and  plucked 
Menzel  by  the  sleeve.  This  interruption  greatly 
annoyed  the  seemingly  very  choleric  master  of  the 
brush.  If  a  look  can  foam  with  rage,  it  was  the  one 


SOLDIER,  SPORTSMAN  AND  STUDENT      55 

that,  with  head  thrown  back,  Menzel  flung  up  into 
the  eyes  of  his  tall  companion.  Then,  gathering  up 
the  skirts  of  his  robe,  he  stumbled,  angry  and  offended, 
out  of  the  room.  It  was  as  though  he  seemed  to  be 
saying  to  himself  :  "  Bah  !  What  a  gathering,  where 
one  may  not  even  look  at  people  for  a  bit." 

Time  and  again  have  I  stood  and  chatted  with  him 
at  such  court  ceremonies.  He  was  full  of  dry  humour, 
sarcasm  and  criticism.  Nothing  escaped  his  notice ; 
and  since,  little  by  little,  people  had  ceased  to  expect 
from  him  a  strict  subordination  to  rules,  he  had  come 
to  regard  himself  as  a  species  of  superior  outsider  and 
perhaps  felt  fairly  happy  in  the  exceptional  position, 
which  certainly  provided  him  with  many  an  artistic 
suggestion. 

For  my  part,  as  already  stated,  these  festivities,  in 
which  everyone  made  a  show  of  his  own  vain-glory, 
soon  lost  all  attraction  for  me.  Their  rigid  mechanical 
nature  became  dreary ;  their  stiff  pomp  was  like  a  mosaic 
made  up  of  a  thousand  petty  vanities  set  in  consequen- 
tially of  every  shade.  I  perfectly  well  recognized 
that  ceremonial  festivities  necessitated  a  certain  for- 
mality ;  but  it  appeared  to  me  that  they  ought  also 
to  be  animated  by  an  innate  freedom,  and  of  this  there 
was  scarcely  a  trace  perceptible. 

In  free  and  unconstrained  intercourse  with  capable 
men  of  every  category,  with  artists,  authors,  sportsmen, 
merchants,  and  manufacturers,  I  found  greater  stimu- 
lus than  in  these  courtly  shows.  Moreover,  as  a  lover 
of  sport  and  the  chase,  I  gave  my  physical  frame  its  due 
share  in  cheerful  exertion. 

Withal,  I  felt  the  vexation  of  having  continually  to 
take  into  consideration  my  position  as  Prince.  In 
everything  that  I  undertook,  I  was  surrounded  by 
people  who — with  the  best  intentions,  no  doubt,  but 
much  to  my  annoyance — rehearsed,  again  and  again, 


56     THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

their  two  little  maxims :  "  Your  Imperial  Highness  must 
not  do  that,"  and  "  Your  Imperial  Highness  must  now 
do  this."  Any  attempt  to  repulse  these  admonitions 
or  to  introduce  the  freedom  of  action  of  a  free  being 
into  this  fusty  formalism  met  with  a  total  lack  of 
understanding.  It  was,  therefore,  best  to  let  people 
talk  and  to  do  what  seemed  most  simple  and  natural. 

Only  one  person  showed  any  sympathy  with  my 
chafing  at  restraint  or  any  comprehension  of  my  desire 
to  be  a  little  less  "  Crown  Prince  "  and  a  little  more  of  a 
contemporary  human  being.  It  was  my  dear  mother. 
Ever  and  again,  when  I  sat  talking  with  her  on  such 
matters,  I  felt  how  much  of  her  nature  she  had  passed 
on  to  me — only  what  in  my  blood  offered  masculine 
resistance  had  ultimately  accommodated  itself  and 
quieted  down  in  her.  For  this  self-resignation  she 
undoubtedly  drew  never-failing  energy  from  the  deep 
religiousness  of  her  nature. 

To  the  strictly  religious  character  of  her  ethical 
views  is  also  to  be  attributed  her  urgent  desire  that 
we,  her  sons,  should  enter  wedlock  '  pure "  and 
untouched  by  experiences  with  other  women.  With 
this  object  in  view,  she  and  those  around  us  whom 
she  had  instructed  endeavoured  to  keep  us,  as  far  as 
practicable,  aloof  from  anyone  and  every  one  who 
might  possibly  lead  us  astray  from  the  straight  paths 
of  virtue.  Undoubtedly  my  mother,  in  her  thoughts 
and  purposes,  was  inspired  by  the  best  intentions  in 
regard  to  us  and  to  our  moral  and  physical  welfare  ; 
and,  whatever  nonsense  may  have  been  early  circu- 
lated about  me,  I,  at  any  rate,  cannot  have  greatly 
disappointed  her. 


CHAPTER  III 

MATRIMONIAL   AND    POST-MATRIMONIAL 

June,  1919. 

WROTE  letters  first  thing.  Then,  after  breakfast, 
two  hours  at  the  anvil  in  the  smithy.  Luijt  told 
me  that  an  American  had  offered  twenty-five  guilders 
for  a  horseshoe  that  I  had  forged.  Might  he  give  him 
one  ?  These  people  are,  after  all,  incorrigibly  ready 
to  inspire  the  likes  of  us  with  megalomania — even 
when  we  sit  on  a  grassy  island  far  from  their  madding 
crowd.  At  one  time  they  used  to  pick  up  my  cigarette- 
ends  ;  and  now,  for  a  piece  of  iron  that  has  been 
under  my  hammer,  a  snob  offers  a  sum  that  would 
help  a  poor  man  out  of  his  misery  in  the  old  homeland. 
It  is  not  surprising  to  me  that  many  a  one,  under  the 
influence  of  this  cult,  has  become  what  he  is  !  No, 
we  are  not  always  the  sole  culprits ! 

I  left  Luijt  and  went  down  to  the  sea,  stripped  and 
plunged  in.  How  that  washes  the  wretchedness  out  of 
you  for  a  while  and  makes  you  forget  the  whole  thing ! 

About  noon,  I  told  my  dear  Kummer,  who  has 
been  with  me  for  some  time,  the  story  of  the  American. 
He  is  on  fire  with  enthusiasm  !  "  Twenty-five  guilders, 
at  the  present  rate  of  exchange  !  I'd  keep  on  making 
horseshoes  for  those  Johnnies  the  whole  day." 

After  dinner,  looked  through  the  old  notes  of  the 
battles  at  Verdun  and  worked  at  the  subject  for  the 
book.  Took  a  walk  with  Kummer. 

57 


58     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

And  now  it  is  evening  again. 

Another  day  passed.     How  long  will  it  be  now  ? 

On  a  beautiful  and  memorable  summer's  day  of 
the  year  1904,  in  fir-encircled  Gelbensande,  the  seat 
of  the  Dowager  Grand-duchess  Anastasia  Michailovna 
of  Mecklenburg,  I  was  betrothed  to  Cecilie,  Duchess 
of  Mecklenburg.  Not  quite  eighteen  years  of  age,  she 
was  in  the  first  blush  of  youth  and  full  of  gaiety  and 
joyousness.  The  years  of  her  childhood,  in  the  society 
of  her  somewhat  self-willed  but  loving  and  beautiful 
mother,  had  been  replete  with  serene  happiness. 

On  a  bright  June  day  of  the  following  year,  my 
beautiful  young  bride  gave  me  her  hand  for  life.  She 
entered  Berlin  on  roses ;  she  was  received  by  the 
welcoming  shouts  of  many  thousands ;  she  started 
upon  her  new  career  upborne  by  the  love  and  sym- 
pathy of  a  whole  people.  And  as,  on  that  day,  I  rode 
down  the  Linden  with  my  2nd  Company  to  form  the 
guard  of  honour,  the  warm-hearted  participation  of 
all  that  great  throng  touched  me  very  deeply.  More- 
over, the  city  and  the  happy  faces,  the  many  pretty 
girls  and  the  roses  all  over  the  place,  presented  an 
unforgettable  picture.  My  grenadiers  naturally  felt 
that  they  quite  belonged  to  the  family  and  stepped  out 
smartly. 

A  kind  destiny  permitted  my  choice  to  be  free  from 
all  political  or  dynastic  considerations.  It  fell  upon 
her  to  whom  my  heart  went  out,  and]  who  gave  me 
her  hand  as  freely  and  whole-heartedly  in  return. 
Our  union  was  the  outcome  of  genuine  and  sincere 
affection. 

Shall  I  take  any  notice  of  all  the  nonsense  that 
has  been  talked  and  written  concerning  my  wedded 
life  ?  If  the  good  people  who  have  such  "  brilliant 
connections"  and  consequently  such "  intimate  insight  " 
and  "  reliable  information  "  would  but  be  a  little 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL   59 

less  self-important !  I  can  say  this  :  whenever  the 
newspapers  printed  such  things  as  "  The  Divorce  of 
the  Crown  Prince  Imminent,"  my  wife  and  I  had  a 
good  laugh  over  the  matter.  What  a  craving  for 
sensation  possesses  the  public ! 

I  can  only  thank  my  wife  from  the  bottom  of  my 
heart  for  having  been  to  me  the  best  and  most  faithful 
friend  and  companion,  a  tender  helpmate  and  mother, 
forbearing  and  forgiving  in  regard  to  many  a  fault, 
full  of  comprehension  for  what  I  am,  holding  to  me 
unswervingly  in  fortune  and  in  distress. 

She  has  presented  me  with  six  healthy  and  dear 
children  whom  I  am  proud  of  with  all  my  heart  and 
for  whom  I  feel  a  longing  as  often  as  I  stroke  the 
head  of  one  of  these  flaxen-haired  little  fisher-lads 
here.  May  my  four  boys  some  day  be  brave  German 
men,  doing  their  duty  to  their  country  as  true  Hohen- 
zollerns  ! 

During  the  time  of  severe  torment  that  followed 
Germany's  downfall,  my  wife  stuck  to  her  post  with 
exemplary  faithfulness  and  bravery  and,  in  a  hundred 
difficult  situations,  proved  herself  to  possess  that 
strong,  noble  nature  for  which  I  love  and  revere  her. 

After  all,  "  war  "  has  made  its  way  into  our  married 
life! 

In  1915,  the  Crown  Princess  paid  me  a  two-days' 
visit  in  my  head-quarters  at  Stenay.  At  four  o'clock 
in  the  morning  of  the  second  day,  there  began  a  French 
air  attack  manifestly  aimed  full  at  my  house,  which, 
at  that  time,  had  no  bomb-proof  cellar  or  dug-out. 
A  direct  hit  would  undoubtedly  have  meant  thorough 
work.  The  attack  lasted  two  hours.  In  that  time, 
twenty-four  aeroplanes  dropped  bombs  around  us  and 
a  hundred  and  sixty  bombs  were  counted.  Several 
of  them  landed  only  a  few  yards  from  the  house,  and, 
unfortunately,  claimed  a  number  of  victims.  It  was 


60     THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

the  severest  air  attack  that  I  had  ever  experienced, 
and  was  a  test  to  the  nerves  in  which  my  wife  showed 
the  greatest  courage  and  calmness.  The  way  in  which 
she  stood  the  strain  was  magnificent. 

Following  upon  my  captaincy  in  the  First  Foot- 
Guards,  I  was  now  to  be  appointed  to  the  command 
of  a  squadron.  Through  the  mediation  of  his  Excel- 
lency, von  Hiilsen,  I  requested  His  Majesty  to  entrust 
me  with  a  squadron  of  the  Gardes  du  Corps.  At  first, 
His  Majesty  wished  to  appoint  me  to  the  Hussars. 
Ultimately,  he  gave  way  and  placed  me,  in  January, 
1906,  at  the  head  of  the  Leib-eskadron  of  the  Gardes 
du  Corps,  though,  instead  of  the  handsome  uniform 
of  that  regiment,  he  ordered  me,  by  special  decree, 
to  wear  the  uniform  of  the  Queen's  Cuirassiers. 

In  this  new  position,  my  love  of  horses  found 
once  more  a  wide  field  of  activity,  and  I  look  back 
with  great  satisfaction  to  the  delightful  period  during 
which  I  was  attached  to  this  proud  regiment,  whose 
glorious  traditions  are  so  intimately  bound  up  with 
the  history  of  the  Brandenburg-Prussian  State.  That 
it  was  no  mere  parade  troop  was  proved  at  Zorndorf 
and  again  in  the  gigantic  struggle  of  the  world-war. 
It  was  a  bitter-sweet  joy  to  me  to  receive,  only  a  few 
days  ago,  a  loving  sign  that  the  old  and  well-tried 
members  of  the  body-squadron  had  not  forgotten 
their  former  leader  in  his  present  misfortune  :  on  my 
birthday,  May  6,  a  small  album  containing  the  signa- 
tures of  the  officers  and  gardes  du  corps  of  the  old 
squadron  found  its  way  to  my  quiet  island.  Of  the 
officers  and  of  the  gardes  du  corps  !  How  many  names 
are  wanting !  East  and  west  repose  those  whose 
names  are  not  in  the  album.  My  thoughts  wander 
in  both  directions  to  greet  the  brave  dead. 

Here,  although  it  belongs  to  a  later  period,  I  would 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL    61 

say  a  word  about  my  appointment  to  the  third  mili- 
tary weapon — the  artillery.  To  render  me  familiar 
with  it,  I  was  appointed,  in  the  spring  of  1909,  to  the 
command  of  the  Leib-batterie  of  the  First  Field  Artillery. 
I  felt  particularly  happy  in  this  excellent  regiment — 
excellent  both  from  a  military  standpoint  and  in  its 
comradeship ;  and  I  recall  with  sincere  gratitude  the 
assistance  given  me  by  my  faithful  mentor,  Major  the 
Count  Hopfgarten,  and  his  manifold  suggestions  in 
matters  relating  to  artillery. 

Even  at  that  time,  the  mode  of  employing  our  field- 
artillery  and,  to  some  extent  also,  our  mode  of  firing, 
struck  me,  in  some  points,  as  out  of  date  when  com- 
pared with  French  regulations.  About  five  years 
later,  the  experiences  of  the  war  demonstrated  that 
the  French  army  really  had  gained  a  start  of  us  in 
the  development  of  this  weapon.  With  us  the  tech- 
nology of  artillery  had  dropped  behind  the  eques- 
trology ;  the  horse  had  obtained  too  many  privileges 
over  the  cannon. 

As  personal  adjutant,  I  asked  and  obtained  the 
services  of  Captain  von  der  Planitz.  This  excellent 
and  well-trained  officer,  whom  I  shall  ever  gratefully 
remember  as  a  sincere  and  noble  man  and  as  my 
long-standing  and  trusted  companion  and  counsellor, 
fell  as  commander  of  a  division  in  Flanders. 

A  report  is  being  circulated  by  the  newspapers  which 
purports  to  come  from  an  eye-witness  of  the  murder 
of  Tsar  Nicholas,  and  to  reveal,  in  all  its  horrors,  his 
bloody  end. 

This  description,  whose  ghastliness  is  only  enhanced 
by  its  cold  objectivity,  I  read  this  morning.  Ever 
since,  as  the  rain  outside  has  continued  to  pour  down 
ceaselessly,  my  thoughts  have  reverted  again  and 
again  to  this  poor  man,  to  him  and  those  around 


62     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

him,  on  the  two  occasions  that  I  came  into  closer 
contact  with  him — first,  as  his  guest  in  Russia,  and 
afterwards  on  the  one  occasion  that  he  was  our  guest 
in  Berlin. 

Now,  as  I  write  these  lines  in  recollection  of  him,  it 
is  night. 

When  I  first  met  Tsar  Nicholas  at  Petrograd  in 
January,  1903,  he  was  in  the  height  of  his  power. 
I  had  been  dispatched  to  take  part  in  the  Benediction 
of  the  Waters.  The  court  and  the  troops  formed  an 
exceptionally  brilliant  framework  to  the  celebration. 
But  the  Tsar  himself,  who  was  at  bottom  a  simple 
and  homely  person  and  most  cordial  and  unconstrained 
in  intimate  circles — appeared  irresolute,  I  might  almost 
say  timid,  in  his  public  capacity.  The  ravishingly 
beautiful  Empress  Alexandra  was,  in  such  matters, 
no  support  for  him,  since  she  herself  was  painfully 
bashful,  indeed  almost  shy.  In  complete  contrast  to 
her,  the  Dowager  Empress  Maria  Feodorovna,  embodied 
perfectly  the  conception  of  majesty  and  of  the  grande 
dame,  and  she  exercised  also  the  chief  influence  in 
the  political  and  court  circles  of  Petrograd.  It  was 
particularly  noticeable  how  little  the  Tsar  understood 
how  to  ensure  the  prestige  due  to  him  from  the  mem- 
bers of  his  family,  i.e.  from  the  grand  dukes  and 
grand  duchesses.  When,  for  instance,  the  company 
had  met  previous  to  a  dinner,  and  the  Imperial  couple 
entered,  scarcely  a  member  of  the  family  took  any 
notice  of  it.  An  absolutely  provocative  laxity  was 
displayed  on  such  occasions  by  the  Grand  Duke 
Nicholai  Nicholaievitch,  who,  by  the  way,  did  not 
hesitate,  in  conversation  with  me,  to  give  fairly  pointed 
expression  to  his  dislike  of  everything  German.  In 
vain  did  I  look  for  traces,  in  Petrograd,  of  the 
old  friendship  between  Prussia  and  Russia ;  English 
and  French  were  the  linguistic  mediums  ;  for  Germany 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST- MATRIMONIAL    63 

no  one  had  any  interest ;  more  often  than  not  I  even 
came  across  open  repugnance.  Only  two  men  did 
I  meet  with  who  manifested  any  marked  liking  for 
Germany,  namely  Baron  Fredericks  and  Sergei  Juli- 
vitch  Witte,  who,  a  few  years  later,  was  made  a  count. 
With  Witte  I  had  a  long  talk  upon  the  question  of  a 
new  Russo-German  treaty  of  commerce,  in  the  course 
of  which  the  politician,  with  his  far-sighted  views  of 
finance  and  political  economy,  maintained  emphatic- 
ally that,  in  his  opinion,  the  healthy  development  of 
Russia  depended  closely  upon  her  proceeding  economic- 
ally hand  in  hand  with  Germany. 

The  fear  of  assassins  was  very  great  at  the  Court. 
Among  the  many  precautionary  and  preventive 
measures  which  I  saw  taken  everywhere,  one  that  I 
met  with  on  paying  the  Tsar  a  late  evening  visit  made 
a  deep  impression  upon  me.  In  the  vestibule  of  his 
private  apartments,  the  Emperor's  entire  bodyguard 
of  about  one  hundred  men  were  posted  like  the  pieces 
on  a  chessboard.  It  was  impossible  for  anyone  to 
pass  ;  and  my  entrance  created  the  greatest  alarm 
and  excitement. 

Within  the  inner  circle  of  his  family,  the  Emperor 
was  an  utterly  changed  being.  He  was  a  happy, 
harmless,  amiable  man,  tenderly  attached  to  his  wife 
and  children.  From  the  Empress,  too,  disappeared  that 
nervousness  and  restlessness  which  took  possession 
of  her  in  public ;  she  became  a  lovable,  warm-hearted 
woman  and,  surrounded  by  her  young  and  well-bred 
daughters,  she  presented  a  picture  of  grace  and  beauty. 
I  spent  some  delightful  hours  there. 

On  the  second  occasion,  my  wife  and  I  were  invited 
to  Tsarskoe  Selo.  Here  I  might  have  imagined  myself 
on  the  country  estate  of  some  wealthy  private  magnate, 
save  that,  at  every  step,  the  police  and  military  pre- 
cautions reminded  me  that  I  was  the  guest  of  a  ruler 


64     THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

who  did  not  trust  his  own  people.  Tsarskoe  stands  in 
a  great  park.  Outside  the  palings  was  drawn  up  a 
cordon  of  Cossacks  who  trotted  up  and  down  night 
and  day  to  keep  watch.  Within  the  park  stood 
innumerable  sentinels,  while  inside  the  palace  one 
saw  everywhere  sentinels  in  couples  with  fixed  bayonets. 
I  said  to  my  wife  at  the  time  that  it  made  you 
feel  as  though  you  were  in  a  prison,  and  that  I  would 
rather  risk  being  bombed  than  live  permanently  such 
a  life  as  that. 

A  distressing  motor  drive  still  remains  vivid  in  my 
memory.  The  Tsar  wanted  to  show  us  the  palace 
on  the  lake-side.  We  started  off  in  a  closed  carriage. 
It  was  the  first  time,  for  months,  that  the  Emperor 
had  left  Tsarskoe.  The  drive  lasted  about  four  hours. 
The  impression  was  cheerless  and  deeply  depressing. 
Every  place  we  passed  through  seemed  dead;  no 
one  was  permitted  to  show  himself  in  the  streets 
or  at  the  windows — save,  of  course,  soldiers  and 
policemen.  Weird  silence  and  oppressive  anxiety 
hung  over  everybody  and  everything.  To  be  forced 
to  conceal  oneself  like  that !  It  was  a  life  not  worth 
living. 

We  also  took  part  in  a  great  military  review.  The 
Guards  looked  brilliant ;  and,  true  to  their  ancient 
tradition,  they  later  on  fought  brilliantly  in  the  war. 
An  uncommonly  picturesque  impression  was  made  by 
the  bold-looking  Don,  Ural  and  Transbaikal  Cossacks 
on  their  small,  scrubby  horses. 

The  reception  in  the  family  circle  was  as  hearty  as 
on  my  first  visit.  For  hours  we  canoed  about  the 
canals,  and  discussed  exhaustively  many  a  political 
problem.  These  talks  convinced  me  that  the  Tsar 
cherished  sincere  sympathy  for  Germany,  but  was 
too  weak  to  combat  effectually  the  influence  of  the 
great  anti-German  party ;  the  Dowager  Empress  and 


THE  CROWN  PRINCE'S  ELIZABETHAN  HOUSE,   POTSDAM. 


THE  CROWN  PRINCE'S  RESIDENCE  AT  OELS. 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL    65 

the  Grand  Duke  Nicholai — both  pronounced  opponents 
of  Germany — possessed  the  upper  hand. 

Tsar  Nicholas  was  not,  in  my  judgment,  the  person- 
ality that  Russia  needed  on  the  throne.  He  lacked 
resolution  and  courage  and  was  out  of  touch  with  his 
people.  As  a  simple  country  gentleman,  he  might 
perhaps  have  been  happy  and  have  had  many  friends  ; 
but  he  did  not  possess  the  qualities  essential  to  lead  a 
nation  to  the -full  development  of  its  powers  ;  possibly, 
indeed,  his  timid  mind  scarcely  dared  even  contemplate 
the  merest  shadow  of  such  qualities. 

Deeply  tragical  appeared  to  us,  even  at  that  time 
the  weakly  and  continually  ailing  little  heir-apparent, 
Alexis  Nicholaievitch.  Though  already  nine  years 
old,  he  was  usually  carried  about  like  a  little  wounded 
creature  by  a  giant  of  a  sailor.  With  anxious  and 
trembling  tenderness  the  parents  clung  to  this  fragile 
offspring  of  the  later  years  of  their  wedlock,  who  was 
expected  some  day  to  wear  the  imperial  crown  of 
Russia. 

All  over  !  Gone  in  blood  and  horror  this  little 
wearily  flickering  life. 


After  I  had  completed  another  two  and  a  half  years 
of  military  service,  I  felt  a  lively  desire  to  fill  in  the 
very  considerable  gaps  in  my  knowledge  of  political 
and  economic  affairs.  Wishes  repeatedly  expressed 
by  me  in  the  matter  had  hitherto  been  disregarded, 
which  was  the  more  remarkable  as,  in  the  history  of 
our  house,  the  ruler  for  the  time  being  had  always 
treated  the  timely  preparation  of  the  heir-apparent  for 
his  future  career  as  a  particularly  urgent  duty  of  the 
office  conferred  upon  him.  Consequently,  I  felt  myself 
ill-u%ed  in  being  thus  denied  the  opportunity  to  grasp 
and  fathom  subjects  whose  mastery  was  essential  for 


66     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

me.  Without  exaggeration,  I  can  say  that  I  had  to 
wrestle  tenaciously  and  uncompromisingly  for  admis- 
sion to  an  environment  in  which  I  might  acquire  this 
indispensable  knowledge. 

It  was  therefore  with  all  the  greater  satisfaction 
that,  in  October,  1907,  I  welcomed  the  Kaiser's  finally 
consenting  to  attach  me  to  the  bureau  of  the  Lord 
Lieutenant  at  Potsdam,  to  the  Home  Office,  to  the 
Exchequer,  and  to  the  Admiralty.  I  was,  however, 
to  wait  a  while  before  being  initiated  into  questions 
of  foreign  policy ;  these  were  treated  as  a  trifle  mys- 
terious— and  as  though  they  lay  within  the  sphere  of 
some  occult  art.  For  the  present,  therefore,  I  was 
to  have  the  opportunity  of  attending  lectures  on 
machine  construction  and  electrotechnics  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Technology  in  Charlottenburg,  where  I 
might  acquire  a  more  extensive  acquaintance  with  these 
subjects  which  had  always  aroused  my  peculiar  interest. 

Thus  the  obstacles  that  had  heretofore  stood  in  my 
way  were  now  removed ;  doors  that  had  been  kept 
religiously  closed  to  me  at  last  opened  to  my  hankering 
for  knowledge. 

My  determination  to  acquire  knowledge  in  the  various 
ministries — greatly  facilitated  by  my  father's  orders 
to  supply  me  with  every  desired  information — speedily 
led  to  my  occupying  myself  busily  with  the  great 
questions  of  the  day  and  their  international  inter- 
dependence ;  and  thus  I  soon  found  myself  absorbed 
in  the  study  of  the  German  and  the  foreign  Press. 

The  pulse  of  our  life  is  the  newspaper  :  in  it  beats  the 
heart  of  the  times  ;  inertness  and  activity,  lassitude  and 
fever  here  both  impress  and  express  themselves,  and, 
for  him  who  has  to  care  for  the  well-being  of  the  entire 
national  organism,  they  become,  under  certain  circum- 
stances, admonishing  and  warning  voices.  In  that  year 
of  study  which  I  devoted  to  the  Press,  my  first  modest 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL   67 

gain  was  that  I  learned  to  estimate  clearly  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  newspaper  for  those  who  are  willing  to  hear, 
to  see,  and  to  recognize  ;  yes,  for  those  who  will  hear, 
see,  and  recognize,  and  are  not  blinded  to  the  signs  of 
the  times  by  an  ostrich-like  psychology  either  imposed 
upon  them  or  voluntarily  adopted. 

Of  course,  I  had  read  the  newspapers  before,  in  the 
ordinary  acceptation  of  the  term.  Mainly,  I  had  con- 
fined myself  to  journals  of  the  conservative  type 
and  colourless,  well-disposed  news-sheets ;  though  I 
had,  at  any  rate,  read  them  unmutilated  by  anybody 
else's  scissors.  Now,  I  ploughed  my  way  daily  through 
the  whole  field  from  the  Kreuzzeitung  to  the  Vorwdrts  ; 
and  often  an  article  marked  by  me  found  its  way  to 
the  proper  persons  to  give  me  the  required  explana- 
tions and  enlightenment. 

Consequently,  in  regard  to  particular  cultural  and 
political  questions,  I  soon  arrived  at  a  point  of  view 
which  showed  me  the  problems  from  quite  a  different 
angle  from  that  adopted  by  His  Majesty  on  the  ground 
of  the  press-cuttings  and  the  reports  presented  to  him. 
The  humour  of  history  was  grotesquely  inverted  :  the 
King  was  guided  ad,  usum  delphini,  and  the  Dauphin 
drew  his  knowledge  out  of  the  fullness  of  life.  By 
reason  of  this  deeper  insight  into  the  driving  forces 
of  the  masses  and  of  the  times,  many  of  the  fundamental 
notions  kept  to  by  the  Kaiser  in  his  method  of  govern- 
ment appeared  to  me  to  have  lost  their  roots  and  to 
be  no  longer  reconcilable  with  the  spirit  of  modern 
monarchy  with  its  wise  recognition  of  recent  develop- 
ments and  current  phenomena. 

Besides  the  German  state  organization,  there  was 
another  which,  at  that  time,  aroused  my  special  interest, 
namely,  the  British.  I  had  been  about  a  good  deal  in 
England,  and,  in  many  an  hour's  talk  on  this  fascinating 
subject  my  great-uncle,  King  Edward,  had  lovingly  in- 


68     THE  CROWN   PRINCE   OF  GERMANY 

structed  me  concerning  England's  political  structure,  in 
which  I  recognized  many  a  feature  of  value  to  our 
younger  development.  When  I  recall  these  memorable 
conversations,  in  which  my  part  was  that  of  a  thoroughly 
unsophisticated  young  disciple  of  a  successful  past- 
master  and  fatherly  friend,  it  strikes  me  that  the  King 
wanted  to  bestow  upon  me  something  more  than  a 
simple  lesson  in  the  conditions  of  England  ;  it  was 
rather  as  though  this,  in  his  own  way,  highly  talented 
man  recognized  that  the  ideas  which  had  governed 
the  first  two  decades  of  my  father's  reign  had  been 
leading  further  and  further  from  the  lines  along  which 
the  monarchy  of  Germany  ought  to  develop,  if  that 
monarchy  were  to  remain  the  firmly-established  and 
organic  consummation  of  the  State's  structure ;  it 
was  as  though  he  clearly  and  consciously  meant  to 
call  my  attention  to  this  danger  point,  in  order  to 
warn  me  and  to  win  me  to  better  ways  even  at  the 
threshold  of  my  political  career. 

All  that  my  old  great-uncle  imparted  to  me  out  of 
the  fullness  of  his  observation  and  experience  I  gladly 
accepted  and  developed,  and  doubtless  it  has  had  its 
share  in  forming  my  views  concerning  the  Kaiser's 
maxims  of  government  and  in  my  feeling  a  strong 
inclination  for  the  constitutional  system  in  operation 
in  England. 

During  this  period  of  eager  study,  I  received  from 
Admiral  von  Tirpitz,  the  head  of  the  Admiralty,  some 
particularly  deep  and  stimulating  impressions.  In 
him  I  found  a  really  surpassing  personality,  a  man 
who  did  not  stare  rigidly  at  the  narrow  field  of  his 
own  tasks  and  duties,  but  who  saw  the  effects  of  the 
whole  as  they  appeared  in  the  distant  political  perspec- 
tive and  who  served  the  whole  with  all  the  comprehen- 
sive capacities  of  his  ample  creative  vigour. 

The  great  work  of  producing  a  German  navy  had 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL    69 

been  entrusted  to  him  by  the  Kaiser,  and  his  life,  his 
thoughts  and  his  activities  were  entirely  filled  with  the 
desire  and  determination  to  master  the  enormous 
task  for  the  good  of  the  empire  and  in  spite  of  all 
external  and  internal  opposition.  How  well  he  suc- 
ceeded has  been  proved  by  the  Battle  of  Jutland,  which 
will  ever  remain  for  him  an  honourable  witness  and 
memorial — Jutland,  where  the  fleet  created  by  him 
and  inspired  by  his  mind  passed  so  brilliantly  through 
its  baptismal  fire  in  contest  with  the  immensely 
stronger  first  navy  of  the  world.  Germany  had  then 
every  reason  to  be  proud  of  the  glorious  valour  and 
exemplary  discipline  of  her  young  bluejackets. 

Only  in  one  fundamental  question  did  I,  in  that 
year  of  co-operation,  differ  from  the  Lord  High  Admiral. 
He  held  firm  to  the  conviction  that  the  struggle  with 
England  for  the  freedom  of  the  seas  must,  sooner  or 
later,  be  fought  out.  His  object  was  the  "  risk  idea," 
that  is  to  say,  he  maintained  that  our  navy  must  be 
made  so  strong  that  any  possible  contest  with  us  would 
appear  to  the  English  to  be  a  dangerous  experiment 
because  the  chances  of  the  game  would  then  be  too 
great — chances  that  could  not  be  risked  without 
involving  the  possibility  of  the  English  dominion  of 
the  seas  being  entirely  lost.  To  the  ideal  principle 
underlying  this  defence  theory  I  did  not  shut  my  eyes  ; 
but,  considering  our  political  and  economic  position, 
it  seemed  to  me  that  its  form,  which  presupposed  our 
being  the  sole  opposing  rival  of  England  at  sea,  did 
not  permit  its  realization.  I  was  rather  of  opinion 
that  the  "  risk  idea  "  could  only  ripen  into  a  healthy, 
vigorous  and  real  balance  of  power  at  sea,  if  the  counter- 
poise to  England  were  formed  in  combination  with 
another  Great  Power  whose  land  forces  for  this  purpose 
would  not  come  into  consideration,  but  whose  navy  in 
conjunction  with  our  own  would  yield  a  force  adequate 


70     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

to  gain  the  respect  and  restraint  aimed  at.  In  this 
way,  if  the  thing  were  at  all  feasible,  not  only  could 
an  immense  reduction  of  our  naval  burden  be  effected, 
but  it  would  be  easier  to  overcome  the  great  danger 
of  the  whole  problem,  namely,  the  smothering  of  our 
sea-forces  before?  their  goal  had  been  reached ;  for  I 
always  frankly  maintained  and  asserted  that  the 
British  would  never  wait  until  our  "  risk  idea " 
had  materialized,  but,  consistently  pursuing  their  own 
policy,  would  destroy  our  greatly  suspected  navy 
long  before  it  could  develop  into  an  equally-matched 
and — in  the  sense  of  the  "  risk  idea  " — dangerous 
adversary. 

That,  in  point  of  fact,  the  will  to  adopt  such  a  radical 
course  was  not  wanting  was  further  proved  to  me 
recently  on  reading  Admiral  Fisher's  book.  He  states 
the  matter  with  astounding  candour  in  the  following 
way :  "  Already  in  the  year  1908,  I  proposed  to  the 
King  to  Copenhagen  the  German  navy." 

In  consequence  of  our  political  isolation,  all  my 
doubts  and  considerations  had  to  remain  doubts  and 
considerations.  An  ally  whose  navy  came  into  con- 
sideration as  an  adjunct  to  ours  we  did  not  possess. 
Nor  would  an  alliance  with  Russia,  such  as  was 
aimed  at  by  Tirpitz,  have  given  us  the  help  of  such  a 
navy. 

When  the  various  efforts  to  bring  about  an  under- 
standing over  the  naval  question  had  all  failed,  the  right 
moment  and  the  last  chance  arrived  for  England  to 
try  conclusions  with  the  German  navy  with  some 
likelihood  of  success.  The  opportunity  of  war  in 
the  year  1914  offered  that  chance,  and  provided  also 
an  unexampled  war-cry ;  there  were  binding  treaties 
to  be  kept,  and  England  could  likewise  appear  as  a 
spotless  hero  and  the  protector  of  all  small  nations. 

In  all  this,  too,  it   was   naturally  not  the  naval 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL    71 

problem  per  se  which  induced  England  to  seize  this 
opportunity  of  joining  in  a  war  against  Germany.  Sea- 
power  is  world-power ;  our  navy  was  the  protecting 
shield  of  our  world-wide  trade  ;  it  was  not  the  shield, 
but  the  values  which  it  covered,  at  which  the  blow 
was  aimed,  in  the  not  over-willingly  waged  war. 
The  motive  forces  which  urged  towards  war,  towards 
final  settlement,  across  the  Channel  were  the  same 
that  had  previously  effected  our  economic  isolation ; 
they  grew  out  of  England's  struggle  for  existence  with 
the  vast  development  of  German  industry  and  German 
commerce.  Her  attempted  strangling  of  these  in 
pre-war  years  had  failed ;  the  German  expansion 
continued.  Hence  England  gave  up  the  endeavour 
to  avoid  war ;  the  final  settlement  must  be  faced. 
No  one  who  knew  the  situation  could  doubt  that  Eng- 
land would  make  the  utmost  use  of  such  an  excellent 
opportunity  as  that  provided  by  our  treatment  of  the 
Austro-Serbian  dispute.  Only  lack  of  political  insight 
on  the  part  of  our  statesmen  could  overlook  all  this 
and  hope  for  the  neutrality  of  England,  as  Bethmann 
Hollweg  did. 

And  when  we  were  once  involved  in  war  with  England 
and  problems  of  attack  were  presented  to  our  navy 
in  place  of  the  defensive  tasks  for  which  it  had  been 
created,  it  was  a  fatal  blunder  to  keep  it  out  of  the 
fray,  or  to  deny  a  free  hand  in  its  employment  to  Grand 
Admiral  von  Tirpitz,  who  knew  the  instrument  forged 
by  him  as  no  one  else  could.  The  parties  who,  at  that 
time,  had  to  decide  concerning  the  fate  of  the  navy 
failed  to  win  that  immortality  which  lay  within  their 
reach.  Although  it  lay  within  arm's  length  of  both 
von  Miiller  and  Admiral  Pohl,  neither  of  these  men 
has  succeeded  in  gaining  immortality.  Everybody 
clung  to  Bethmann's  notion  of  carrying  the  fleet  as 
safe  and  sound  as  possible  through  the  war  in  order 


72     THE  CROWN   PRINCE   OF  GERMANY 

to  use  it  as  a  factor  in  possible  peace  negotiations— 
an  idea  that  was  scarcely  more  sensible  than,  say,  the 
idea  of  carrying  the  army  and  its  ammunition  intact 
through  the  war  with  a  like  purpose.  People  philo- 
sophized over  distant  possibilities  and  missed  the  hour 
for  acting ! 

Admiral  von  Tirpitz  was  a  highly  talented  and  strong- 
willed  man  looked  up  to  by  the  entire  navy.  His 
sense  of  responsibility  and  his  resoluteness  personified, 
as  it  were,  for  them  the  fighting  ideal  of  his  weapon, 
and  I  am  still  convinced  that  he  would  have  turned 
the  full  force  of  the  fleet  against  England  as  rapidly 
as  possible.  Such  an  attack,  carried  out  with  fresh 
confidence  in  one's  own  strength  and  under  the  con- 
viction of  victory,  would  not  have  failed.  That  such  a 
view  is  not  in  the  least  fantastic  and  is  shared  by  the 
enemy  is  evidenced  by  a  passage  in  Admiral  Jellicoe's 
book,  in  which  he  writes  : 

"  With  my  knowledge  of  the  German  navy,  with 
my  appreciation  of  its  performances  and  with  a  view 
to  the  spirit  of  its  officers  and  its  men,  it  was  for  me 
a  great  surprise  to  see  the  first  weeks  and  months  of 
the  war  pass  by  without  the  German  navy  having 
conducted  any  enterprises  in  the  Channel  or  against 
our  coasts.  The  possibilities  of  an  immediate  employ- 
ment of  the  German  forces  succeeding  I  should  not 
have  underrated." 

But,  as  Goethe  says,  enthusiasm  is  not  like  herrings ; 
it  cannot  be  pickled  and  kept  for  years ;  and  the 
spirit  of  attack,  patriotic  pride  and  discipline  cannot 
be  preserved  or  bottled.  In  our  navy,  so  proud 
and  powerful  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  these 
qualities  withered  and  decayed  because  that  navy  was 
not  allowed  to  prove  its  strength,  was  not  used  at  the 
right  moment. 

Hence,  the  weapon  which  failed  to  strike  when  it 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL    73 

ought  to  have  struck  finally  turned  against  our  Father- 
land and  helped  to  bring  about  our  defeat. 

I  have  perused  the  sheets  written  yesterday.  These 
jottings  of  mine  will  not  constitute  a  regular  and  well- 
arranged  book  of  reminiscences  reproducing  events  in 
their  exact  order  of  time.  I  had  intended  to  write  of 
my  initiation  into  the  affairs  of  the  Admiralty 
and  of  my  work  with  Admiral  von  Tirpitz,  so  profit- 
able to  me  ;  and,  in  the  ineradicable  bitterness  of 
my  recollections,  I  sped  into  the  events  of  later  years. 

In  mentioning  the  "  risk  theory  "  of  Tirpitz,  I  touched 
upon  our  political  isolation.  On  this  subject  there  is 
perhaps  much  more  to  be  said. 

When,  soon  after  the  completion  of  my  labours  at 
the  Admiralty,  I  penetrated  further  and  further  into 
the  problems  of  the  foreign  policy  of  the  empire,  I 
repeatedly  found  confirmation  of  the  fact  that,  as  I 
had  observed  during  my  travels,  our  country  was  not 
much  loved  anywhere  and  was  indeed  frequently  hated. 
Apart  from  our  allies  on  the  Danube  and  possibly  the 
Swedes,  Spaniards,  Turks  and  Argentines,  no  one 
really  cared  for  us.  Whence  came  this  ?  Undoubtedly, 
in  the  first  place,  from  a  certain  jealousy  of  our  immense 
economic  progress,  jealousy  of  the  unceasing  growth  of 
the  German  merchant's  influence  on  the  world  market, 
jealousy  of  the  great  diligence  and  of  the  creative  intel- 
ligence and  energy  of  the  German  people.  England, 
above  all,  felt  her  peculiar  economic  position  threatened 
by  these  circumstances.  This  was  naturally  no  reason 
for  us  to  feel  any  self-reproach,  since  every  people 
has  a  perfect  right,  by  healthy  and  honourable  endeav- 
ours, to  promote  its  own  material  well-being  and  to 
increase  its  economic  sphere  of  influence.  By  fair 
competition  between  one  nation  and  another,  human- 
ity as  a  whole  attains  higher  and  higher  stages  of 
civilization.  Only  ignorant  visionaries  can  imagine 


74     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

that  progress  in  the  life  of  the  individual,  of  the  peoples 
or  of  the  world  can  be  reckoned  upon  if  competition 
be  barred. 

But  it  was  not  alone  jealousy  of  German  efficiency 
that  gained  for  us  the  aversion  of  the  great  majority ; 
we  had  managed  by  less  worthy  qualities  to  make 
ourselves  disliked.  It  is  imprudent  and  tactless  for 
individuals  or  peoples  to  push  themselves  forward  with 
excessive  noisiness  in  their  efforts  to  get  on  ;  distrust, 
opposition,  repulsion  and  enmity  are  thereby  provoked. 
But  this  is  the  fault  into  which  we  Germans,  both 
officially  and  individually,  have  lapsed  only  too  often. 
The  openly  provocative  and  blustering  deportment,  the 
attitude  adopted  by  many  Germans  abroad  of  con- 
tinually wishing  to  teach  everybody  and  to  act  as 
mentors  to  the  whole  world,  ruffled  the  nerves  of 
other  people.  In  conjunction  with  the  stupidity  and 
bad  taste  of  a  similar  character  proceeding  from 
leading  personages  and  public  officials  at  home  and 
readily  heard  and  caught  up  abroad,  this  attitude  did 
immense  damage,  more  especially,  again,  in  the  case  of 
England,  who  felt  herself  particularly  menaced  by 
modern  Germany. 

In  many  a  political  chat,  that  was  as  good  as  a 
lesson  to  me,  my  great-uncle,  King  Edward  VII — with 
whom  I  always  stood  on  a  good  footing  and  who 
was  undoubtedly  a  remarkable  personality  endowed 
with  vast  experience,  as  well  as  great  wisdom  and 
practicality — repeatedly  expressed  his  anxiety  lest  the 
economic  competition  of  Germany  would  some  day 
lead  to  a  collision  with  England.  "  There  must  be 
a  stop  put  to  it,"  he  would  say  on  such  occasions. 

Facing  all  these  facts  squarely,  and  remembering 
that  England's  forces  had  always  been  employed 
against  that  Continental  Power  which  at  any  given 
moment  happened  to  be  the  strongest,  I  felt 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL    75 

that,  sooner  or  later,  the  German  Empire  would 
inevitably  become  involved  in  a  war  unless  the  oppo- 
sition between  it  and  England  were  removed. 

Personally,  I  considered  it  desirable  to  strive  for  an 
understanding  with  England  on  economic,  economico- 
political  and  colonial  questions.  I  did  not,  however, 
entertain  any  illusions  as  to  the  difficulty  of  such  an 
undertaking.  I  was  quite  aware  that  any  such  effort 
presupposed  a  thorough  discussion  both  of  the  naval 
programme  and  of  economic  matters.  The  object 
appeared  to  me  well  worth  the  sacrifice,  for  the  relaxa- 
tion of  the  political  tension  to  be  followed  ultimately 
by  an  alliance  with  England  would  not  merely  have 
secured  peace,  but  would  have  provided  us  with  advan- 
tages amply  compensating  for  the  concessions  indi- 
cated. Prince  Billow,  with  whom  I  once  talked  about 
this  delicate  question,  referred  me  to  a  saying  of  Prince 
Bismarck's,  namely,  that  he  was  quite  willing  to  love 
the  English,  but  they  refused  to  be  loved.  For  an 
alliance  with  England,  which,  while  not  involving  the 
sombre  risk  of  war  with  Russia,  would  have  been 
calculated  to  bind  England  really  and  seriously,  he 
seemed  at  that  time  not  at  all  disinclined.  But  as, 
according  to  him,  Lord  Salisbury,  the  British  Prime 
Minister  in  the  early  years  of  the  century,  was  not  to 
be  persuaded  to  such  an  alliance,  he  thought  to  do 
better,  under  the  circumstances,  by  adopting  a  "  policy 
of  the  free  hand."  Similar  answers  were  given  me 
by  all  the  other  leading  statesmen  of  the  realm  to 
whom  I  opened  up  my  ideas  :  an  understanding  with 
England,  they  said,  was  impossible ;  England  would 
not  have  it ;  or,  if  a  basis  were  found,  we  should  lose 
by  the  whole  affair.  But  their  reasons  failed  to  con- 
vince me.  Why,  a  glance  across  the  black,  white  and 
red  frontier-poles  showed  that,  all  around  us,  political 
feats  quite  different  from  ours  had  been  performed  ;  but 


76     THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

they  had  been  performed  by  men  who  understood  their 
profession  and  the  signs  of  the  times.  Nor  do  I  con- 
sider that,  in  the  years  to  which  I  refer  here,  England 
was  ill-disposed  or  could  not  have  been  won  over,  even 
though  matters  were  no  longer  handed  to  us  on  a 
silver  salver  as  they  had  been  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Boer  War,  when  Joseph  Chamberlain  quite  openly 
tried  to  bring  about  an  alliance  between  Germany, 
England  and  the  United  States.  Yet  the  possibility 
of  starting  again  where  we  had  then  failed  was  anything 
but  irretrievably  lost.  Nevertheless,  I  had  to  accept  the 
fact  that  Prince  Biilow  and  his  politicians  were  not  to 
be  persuaded  to  a  serious,  well-grounded  understanding 
with  England  ;  they  seemed  thoroughly  satisfied  with 
the  outwardly  good  and  courteous  relations,  they  con- 
sidered the  situation  well  tested  and  satisfactory,  and 
saw  no  reason  to  regard  it  as  so  acute  or  threatening. 
For  the  future,  therefore,  I  endeavoured  to  think  the 
matter  over  on  the  rigid  lines  laid  down  by  the  Wil- 
helmstrasse.  Assuming  it  to  be  impossible  to  alter  the 
antagonism  with  England  or  to  bridge  the  rift  started 
during  the  Boer  War  by  the  over-hasty  Kriiger  telegram 
(the  responsibility  for  which,  by  the  way,  has  been  quite 
unjustifiably  laid  upon  the  Kaiser),  the  only  possible 
and  profitable  ally  left  for  us  in  Europe  was  Russia.  If 
we  had  an  alliance  with  Russia,  England  would  never  risk 
a  war  with  us ;  nay,  she  would  have  to  be  content  so  long 
as  this  alliance  did  not  menace  her  Indian  dominions. 
Consequently  every  effort  should  be  made  to  re-knit  the 
bond  which,  subsequent  to  Bismarck's  retirement,  had 
been  broken  by  the  denunciation  of  the  re-insurance 
treaty;  every  thing  ought  to  be  done  to  loosen  the  Franco- 
Russian  Alliance  and  to  draw  Russia  into  co-operation 
with  ourselves.  This,  too,  was  no  easy  task  ;  but  there 
was  a  prospect  of  succeeding,  if  we  supported  Russia's 
wishes  in  regard  to  the  Dardanelles  and  the  Persian  Gulf. 


MATRIMONIAL  AND   POST-MATRIMONIAL   77 

I  talked  at  the  time  with  Turkish  politicians  about 
the  matter,  and  found  them  anything  but  unapproach- 
able in  regard  to  the  question  of  a  free  passage  through 
the  Dardanelles.  Moreover,  opposition  to  this  solu- 
tion was  scarcely  to  be  feared  from  our  allies  Austria- 
Hungary.  Here,  therefore,  I  seemed  to  see  a  suitable 
starting-point. 

From  all  these  considerations  France  was  excluded, 
since,  after  the  weakening  of  Russia  by  the  war  in  the 
Far  East,  we  had  missed  the  opportunity  of  coming  to 
a  complete  understanding  with  the  well-intentioned 
Rouvier  Cabinet  in  the  early  summer  of  1905.  In  the 
meantime,  by  skilful  cultivation  of  the  idea  of  revenge 
against  Germany,  even  the  bitterness  towards  England 
caused  by  the  Fashoda  affront  had  been  dissipated. 
The  conditio  sine  qua  non  for  any  agreement  would  be 
the  sacrifice  of  at  least  a  part  of  the  Reichsland,  a 
thing  which  we  could  not  even  discuss  in  times  of  peace. 

But,  neither  during  Billow's  chancellorship  nor  Herr 
von  Bethmann's  was  any  energetic  action  under- 
taken or  well-defined  programme  adopted  by  the 
Government  to  bring  about  an  understanding  with 
England  or  to  link  up  our  policy  with  Russia.  People 
clung  to  the  hope  of  sailing  round  any  possible  rocks 
of  war ;  they  wished  to  offend  nobody  and  there- 
fore conducted  a  short-term  hand-to-mouth  policy  which 
had  no  longer  anything  in  common  with  the  clever 
and  wide-spun  conceptions  of  the  Bismarck  tradition. 

As  a  consequence,  very  depressing  misgivings  often 
overcame  me  when  I  thought  what  notions  our  leading 
statesmen  entertained  concerning  our  political  position. 
That  they  misconstrued  the  seriousness  of  affairs  I 
refused  to  believe,  for  the  fact  of  our  isolation  was 
sufficient  to  prove  even  to  the  most  inexperienced 
observer  with  any  sound  common  sense  that  with  our 
peace  policy  of  "  niemand  zu  Liebe  and  niemand  zu 


78    THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

Leide  "  (without  consideration  of  persons)  we  were  in 
danger,  between  two  stools,  of  coming  to  the  ground. 
Hence  I  was  forced  merely  to  look  on  at  the  incompre- 
hensible calm  with  which  our  political  leaders  guided 
the  realm  through  those  times,  while  our  opponents' 
ring  closed  tighter  and  tighter. 

The  game  was  an  unequal  one  ! 

It  was  unequal  in  the  personages  that  faced  each  other 
as  exponents  of  the  two  sets  of  effective  forces.  On 
this  side  was  His  Majesty,  who,  down  to  the  crisis  of 
November,  1908,  ruled  with  great  self-confidence  and 
a  perhaps  too  assiduously  manifested  desire  for  power ; 
beside  him,  and  severely  handicapped  by  all  the  various 
moods  and  political  sympathies  and  antipathies  of  the 
Kaiser,  stood  Prince  Biilow,  whose  place  was  taken 
the  following  summer  by  Theobald  von  Bethmann. 

On  the  other  side  was  King  Edward  VII,  and  beside 
him  and  after  him  half  a  dozen  strong,  clear-headed 
men  who,  misled  by  no  sentiment,  worked  along  the 
lines  of  a  firmly-established  tradition  to  accomplish 
the  programme  mapped  out  for  England  and  England's 
weal. 

I  repeat  it :    the  game  was  unequal. 

I  do  not  underestimate  the  great  talents  which,  in 
the  most  difficult  circumstances,  enabled  Prince  Biilow, 
time  and  again,  to  bridge  over  rifts,  to  effect  compro- 
mises and  adjustments,  and  to  disguise  fissures.  But 
he  was  not  a  great  architect ;  he  was  not  a  man  of 
Bismarck's  mighty  mould ;  he  was  not  a  Faust  with 
eyes  fixed  on  the  heights  and  the  far  horizon  ;  no,  he  was 
none  of  these,  but  he  was  a  brilliant  master  of  little 
remedies  with  which  a  man  may  save  himself  from  an 
evil  to-day  for  a  possibly  more  bearable  one  to-morrow ; 
he  was  a  serious  politician  who  had  thoroughly  learned 
his  craft  and  exercised  it  with  graceful  ease;  firm 
in  the  possession  of  this,  he  was  therefore  no  charlatan  ; 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL    79 

he  was  a  reader  of  character,  too,  who  knew  how  to 
deal  with  his  men — a  personality. 

Of  all  post-Bismarckian  chancellors,  Prince  Billow 
strikes  me  as  far  and  away  the  most  noteworthy ; 
indeed,  I  would  place  him  well  beyond  the  limitations  of 
this  very  relative  compliment,  which  really  does  not  say 
much.  He  understood  perfectly  how  to  defend  his 
policy  in  the  Reichstag ;  and  his  speeches,  with 
their  genuine  national  feeling,  scarcely  ever  missed 
their  mark.  Moreover,  he  could  negotiate,  he  showed 
skill  and  tact  in  personal  intercourse  with  parliamen- 
tarians, foreigners  and  pressmen ;  and,  like  no  one 
else  since  the  first  chancellor,  he  gave  a  due  place  in 
his  calculations  to  the  value  of  the  Press  and  of  public 
opinion.  I  look  back  with  pleasure  to  my  conversa- 
tions with  him.  What  a  sprightly,  supple  intellect ! 
What  sound  sense  !  What  excellent  judgment  of  men 
and  of  problems. 

He  was  also,  I  consider,  the  best  man  at  our  disposal 
in  the  summer  of  1917  ;  and  I  greatly  regretted,  at  that 
time,  his  not  being  called  to  the  chief  post  after  Beth- 
mann's  exit.  His  peculiar  character  would  assuredly 
have  understood  how  to  bring  about  fruitful  co-opera- 
tion between  the  Government  and  the  Higher  Com- 
mand ;  I  believe,  too,  that  this  adroit  diplomatist  would 
have  succeeded  in  finding  a  way  out  of  the  difficulties 
of  the  world-war,  and  that  he  would  have  effected 
a  peace  that  would  have  been  tolerable  for  our  country. 

On  each  of  the  two  occasions  when  a  fresh  chancellor 
was  to  be  appointed,  I  advised  His  Majesty  to  choose 
either  him  or  Tirpitz — unfortunately,  without  success  1 
The  reappointment  of  Billow  as  chancellor  would  not 
have  been  prevented  by  the  aversion  which  the  Kaiser 
had  conceived  for  him  during  the  events  of  Novem- 
ber, 1908,  if  the  proper  influential  parties  had  assidu- 
ously supported  his  selection.  I  was  able  to  ascertain 


8o    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

that,  on  both  occasions,  the  necessary  precautions 
had  been  taken  to  ensure  Billow's  being  passed  over 
by  the  Kaiser. 

Yonder  stood  the  King. 

I  am  aware  that  there  is  a  tendency  (not  by  any 
means  confined  to  the  general  public)  to  impute  to 
King  Edward  a  personal  hatred  of  Germany — a 
diabolical  relish  for  destruction  which  found  expression 
in  making  a  noose  for  the  strangling  of  our 
country.  To  my  mind  such  a  presentation  of  his 
character  is  totally  lacking  in  reality.  Among 
others,  my  father  has  never  viewed  King  Edward 
without  all  sorts  of  prejudices,  and  has  consequently 
never  formed  a  just  estimate  of  him.  That  trait  which 
was  so  often  to  be  observed  in  the  Kaiser,  of  readily 
attributing  his  positive  failures  to  the  activities  of  indi- 
viduals and  of  regarding  them  as  the  result  of  machina- 
tions directed  against  him  personally,  may  here  play 
some  part.  But  there  was  doubtless  always,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  what  I  might  call  a  latent  and  mutual 
disapproval  present  in  the  minds  of  these  two  men, 
notwithstanding  all  their  outward  cordiality.  The 
Kaiser  may  have  felt  that  his  somewhat  loud  and 
theatrical  rather  than  genuine  manner  often  struck 
idly  upon  the  ear  of  King  Edward,  with  his  experience 
of  the  world  and  his  sense  of  realities,  that  it  encountered 
scepticism,  was  perhaps  even  sometimes  received  with 
ironic  silence,  that  it  met  with  a  sort  of  quiet  obstruc- 
tion too  smoothly  polished  to  present  any  point  of 
attack,  yet  easily  tempting  the  Kaiser  to  exaggerate 
his  manner. 

As  I  knew  King  Edward  from  my  earliest  youth 
and  had  ample  opportunity  of  talking  with  him  on 
past  and  present  affairs  almost  up  to  his  death,  my 
own  conception  of  his  character  is  a  totally  different 
one.  I  see  in  him  the  serene,  world-experienced 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL    81 

man  and  the  most  successful  monarch  in  Europe 
for  many  a  long  day.  Personally,  he  was,  as  long  as  I 
can  remember,  extremely  friendly  to  me,  and,  as  I 
have  said  before,  he  took  a  most  active  interest  in  my 
development.  In  the  year  1901,  just  after  the  pass- 
ing of  the  Queen,  he  invested  me  with  the  Order  of 
the  Garter ;  the  ceremony  took  place  at  Osborne, 
and  King  Edward  addressed  to  me  an  exceedingly 
warm-hearted  and  kinsmanlike  speech  ;  I  was  then 
on  the  threshold  of  my  twentieth  year,  and  my  great- 
uncle  seemed,  from  what  he  said,  to  feel  a  sort  of 
responsibility  for  my  welfare.  His  sense  of  family 
ties  was  altogether  strongly  marked ;  to  see  him 
in  the  circle  of  his  Danish  relatives  at  Copenhagen 
filled  the  beholder  with  delight ;  there  he  was  simply 
the  good  uncle  and  the  amiable  man. 

Often  have  we  sat  talking  for  hours  in  the  most 
unconstrained  fashion  while  he  lay  back  in  a  great 
easy  chair  and  smoked  an  enormous  cigar.  At  such 
times,  he  narrated  many  interesting  things,  some- 
times out  of  his  own  life.  And  it  is  from  what  he 
imparted  to  me  and  from  what  I  saw  with  my  own 
eyes  that  I  have  formed  my  picture  of  him — a  picture 
that  contains  not  a  single  touch  of  intrigue  or 
trickery,  a  picture  that  reveals  him  as  a  brilliant 
upholder  of  his  country's  interests,  and  one  who,  I 
am  convinced,  would  rather  have  secured  those 
interests  in  co-operation  with  Germany  than  in  oppo- 
sition to  her,  but  who,  finding  the  former  way  barred, 
turned  with  all  his  energies  to  the  one  thing  possible 
and  needful,  namely,  the  assurance  of  that  security 
per  se. 

Owing  to  the  great  length  of  his  mother's  reign, 
Edward  VII  did  not  come  to  the  throne  till  he  was  a 
man  of  very  ripe  age.  As  Prince  of  Wales  he  had 
enjoyed  to  the  full  his  excessively  long  period  of  pro- 


82     THE  CROWN   PRINCE   OF  GERMANY 

bation.  On  leaving  his  parental  home  with  an  excellent 
training  and  education,  he  rushed  into  life  with  an 
ardent  thirst  for  pleasure  and  sport.  In  this  way  he 
passed  through  all  circles  and  all  strata  of  society — 
good,  bad  and  indifferent — and  nothing  human 
remained  alien  to  him.  Just  as  an  old  mariner  now 
at  peace  on  shore  talks  of  the  voyages  weathered 
in  years  gone  by,  so  did  King  Edward  speak  to  me  of 
those  experiences  of  his  which  had  drawn  from  the 
public  harsh  and  adverse  judgments.  Yet,  for  him 
and  for  his  country,  those  restless  years  became 
fruitful.  His  clear,  cool  and  judicial  insight,  and 
his  practical  common  sense  brought  him  an  unerring 
knowledge  of  mankind  and  taught  him  the  difficult 
art  of  dealing  properly  with  differing  types  of  humanity. 
I  have  scarcely  ever  met  with  any  other  person  who 
understood  as  he  did  how  to  charm  the  people  with 
whom  he  came  into  contact.  And  yet  he  had  no 
vanity,  he  showed  no  desire  to  make  any  impression 
by  his  urbanity  or  his  conversation.  On  the  contrary, 
he  almost  faded  into  the  background ;  the  other 
person  seemed  to  become  more  important  than  him- 
self. Thus  he  could  listen,  interject  a  question,  be 
talked  to  and  arouse  in  each  individual  the  feeling 
that  he,  the  king,  took  a  most  kindly  interest  in  his 
thoughts  and  actions — that  he  was  fascinated  and 
stimulated  by  him.  In  this  way  he  gained  the  friend- 
ship and  attachment  of  a  great  number  of  people — 
above  all  of  those  who  were  of  value  to  him. 

In  his  own  country,  his  taste  for  sport  secured  him 
an  enviable  position.  He  owned  a  superb  racing  stud, 
devoted  himself  with  great  enthusiasm  to  yachting, 
and  was  perhaps  the  best  shot  in  England.  In  his 
outward  appearance  and  bearing  he  was  the  grand 
seigneur  and  finished  man  of  the  world. 

It  is  thus  that  I  see  the  King,  and  the  qualities  that 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL    83 

served  him  in  carrying  out  his  policy.  An  excellent 
reader  of  character  and  a  cool  tactician,  he  gained 
permanent  successes  wherever  he  interposed  his  per- 
sonality. It  was  his  influence  that  drew  France  into 
the  entente  cordiale  with  England  in  spite  of  Fashoda ; 
and  it  was  he,  personally,  who  attracted  the  Tsar 
further  and  further  away  from  Germany  and  won  him 
for  England,  notwithstanding  the  great  commercial 
rivalries  of  the  Far  East  and  in  Persia. 

And  all  this  to  what  end  ?  To  destroy  Germany  ? 
Certainly  not !  But  he  and  his  country  had  recognized 
that,  for  some  years,  the  curve  of  Germany's  commercial, 
economico-political  and  industrial  progress  had  been 
such  that  England  was  in  danger  of  being  outstripped. 
Here  he  had  to  step  in.  As  an  agreement  could  not  be 
effected,  commercial  isolation  became  his  instrument 
for  curtailing  our  development.  War  with  Germany 
the  King,  I  believe,  never  wanted.  I  believe,  too, 
that  not  only  would  he  have  been  able  to  prevent  the 
outbreak  of  war,  but  that  he  would  in  fact  have  pre- 
vented it.  I  believe  so,  because  his  statesmanlike 
foresight  would  have  recognized  both  the  revolutionary 
dangers  and  the  risk  run  by  the  Great  Powers  of  Europe 
of  losing  authority  and  influence  in  world-competition 
if — armed  as  never  before — they  tore  and  lacerated 
each  other  by  war  among  themselves.  I  will  go  fur- 
ther, and  assert  that,  with  the  acknowledged  status 
enjoyed  by  him  in  Europe  and  in  the  world  at  large, 
King  Edward,  if  he  had  lived  longer,  would  probably 
not  have  stopped  at  the  creation  of  a  Triple  Entente 
but  would  perhaps  have  built  a  bridge  between  the 
Entente  and  the  Triple  Alliance  and  thus  have  brought 
into  being  the  United  States  of  Europe.  He,  but  only 
he,  could  have  done  it. 

Those  who  came  after  him  have  placed  the  outcome 
of  his  labours  at  the  service  of  Russia   and  France ; 


84     THE   CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

and  therewith  began   the  war,  long,  long  before  the 
sword  itself  was  unsheathed. 

In  the  face  of  all  this  and  in  sure  and  certain  anticipa- 
tion of  this  final  settlement,  it  became  the  bounden  duty 
of  the  German  Empire  to  arm  itself  as  thoroughly  as 
possible  and  to  demand  a  similar  fighting-power  from 
Austria,  which  country,  under  the  influence  of  the 
Archduke  Francis  Ferdinand  and  the  men  selected  by 
him,  had  become  politically  very  active.  This  was 
the  least  we  could  do  to  ensure  some  prospect  of  an 
honourable  and  tolerable  settlement.  And  that  there 
was  danger  in  the  air  was  proved  not  merely  by  the 
general  aspect  of  the  political  skies  ;  the  feverish  and 
unconcealed  warlike  preparations  of  the  Entente  were 
clearly  directed  against  us  and  showed  that  they  meant 
to  be  ready  and  then  to  await  the  right  watchword  for 
a  rupture.  France  exhausted  her  man-power  and  her 
finances  in  order  to  maintain  a  disproportionately 
large  army ;  Russia,  in  return  for  French  money, 
placed  hundreds  of  thousands  of  peasants  in  sombre 
earth-hued  uniforms  ;  Italy  turned  greedy  eyes  on 
Turkish  Tripoli  and  built  fortress  after  fortress  along  the 
frontiers  of  her  deeply-hated  ally,  Austria.  England 
watched  this  activity  and  launched  ship  after  ship. 

In  spite  of  these  huge  dangers,  our  own  preparations 
were  limited  to  the  minimum  of  what  was  essential ;  and 
if  proofs  were  required  that  we  did  not  desire  the  war,  it 
would  suffice  to  point  out  that  it  did  not  find  us  pre- 
pared as  we  ought  to  have  been.  So  far  as  my  very 
circumscribed  capacities  and  my  feeble  influence  went 
in  the  years  preceding  the  war,  I  persistently  advocated, 
in  view  of  the  menacing  situation,  an  augmentation 
of  our  military  resources. 

Not  much  was  done,  however.  The  last  Defence 
Bill  of  1913  had  to  be  forced  down  the  throat  of  the 
Imperial  Chancellor  von  Bethmann  Hollweg.  The  re- 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL    85 

equipment  of  the  field  artillery  could  not  be  carried 
out  before  the  outbreak  of  war,  with  the  result  that 
the  superior  French  field-guns  gave  us  a  great  deal  of 
trouble  for  a  long  time. 


I  am  speaking  here  of  the  Bethmann  era,  and  yet  I 
do  not  wish  to  pass  from  the  period  of  Prince  Billow's 
chancellorship  without  dwelling  for  a  little  on  one  of 
the  most  perturbing  incidents  in  the  life  of  the  Kaiser, 
namely,  the  conflict  of  November,  1908. 

In  the  Reichstag  sitting  of  the  tenth  of  November — 
ten  years  to  the  day  before  everything  came  to  an  end 
in  the  journey  to  Holland — the  storm  began  to  howl 
and  lasted  throughout  the  following  day.  The  causes 
are  known. 

What  were  the  real  facts  of  the  case  ? 

In  the  year  1907,  while  staying  with  the  retired 
General  Stuart- Wortley  at  Highcliffe  Castle  in  the  Isle 
of  Wight,  my  father  had  entered  into  a  number  of 
informal  conversations  in  which,  undeniably,  several 
unguarded  and  therefore  injudicious  remarks  and 
statements  escaped  him.  With  the  help  of  the  English 
journalist,  Harold  Spender,  these  remarks  were  after- 
wards worked  up  by  Wortley  into  the  form  of  an 
interview  to  be  published  in  the  Daily  Telegraph.  The 
manuscript  was  forwarded  to  the  Kaiser  with  a  re- 
quest that  he  would  give  his  consent  to  its  publication. 
In  a  perfectly  loyal  way,  the  Kaiser  sent  it  on  to  the 
Imperial  Chancellor  and  asked  him  for  his  opinion. 
The  proceedings  were  consequently  all  absolutely  cor- 
rect ;  and  nothing  improper  had  occurred,  unless  the 
remarks  themselves  are  to  be  characterized  as  such  ; 
and  even  then,  one  must  give  the  Kaiser  credit  for 
having  made  them  with  the  object  of  improving  Anglo- 
German  relations,  just  as  General  Stuart- Wortley,  with 


86     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

the  same  intention,  conceived  the  idea  of  making  them 
known  to  a  wider  public. 

The  manuscript  was  returned  to  the  Kaiser  with  the 
remark  that  there  was  no  objection  to  its  being  pub- 
lished— only,  unfortunately,  through  negligence  and 
a  number  of  unfortunate  coincidences,  none  of  the 
gentlemen  who  were  responsible  for  this  judgment  had 
actually  read  the  text  with  any  care.  And  so  the 
mischief  began. 

For  two  days  the  Reichstag  raged  at  the  absent 
Kaiser  ;  two  groups  of  representatives  of  almost  every 
party  poured  out  their  pent-up  floods  of  indignation ; 
all  the  dissatisfaction  with  his  methods  and  his  rule 
that  had  been  accumulating  for  two  decades  now  burst 
forth  in  an  unchecked  torrent.  And  yet  the  man  who 
was  called  upon  by  my  father's  trust  to  stand  by  his 
Imperial  master,  to  cover  and  to  defend  him,  that  man 
failed,  that  man  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  shuffled  off 
with  a  scarcely  concealed  gesture  of  resignation. 
Nerves,  it  may  be  said.  Possibly.  The  only  man  who, 
on  that  occasion,  chivalrously  rushed  into  the  breach  in 
defence  of  his  King  was  the  old  and  splendidly  faithful 
deputy  von  Oldenburg.  Considering  the  general 
indignation  that  had  arisen,  the  task  before  which 
Prince  Biilow  stood  was  indisputably  very  difficult ; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  perfectly  comprehensible 
that  the  Kaiser — who,  in  this  case,  had  acted  quite 
correctly,  and  now  saw  himself  suddenly,  and  for  the 
first  time,  face  to  face  with  the  almost  universal 
opposition  of  the  nation — was  rudely  torn  out  of  his 
security  and  unsuspecting  confidence  and  felt  that  he 
was  deserted  and  abandoned  by  the  Chancellor. 

Meantime,  the  Press  storm  continued  and  produced 
day  after  day  a  dozen  or  two  of  accusing  and  disap- 
proving articles. 

My  father  had  returned.    Prostrated  by  these  exciting 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL    87 

and  violent  events  and  still  more  by  the  lack  of  under- 
standing he  had  met  with,  he  lay  ill  at  Potsdam.  The 
incomprehensible  had  happened  :  after  twenty  years, 
during  which  he  had  imagined  himself  to  be  the  idol 
of  the  majority  of  his  people  and  had  supposed  his 
rule  to  be  exemplary,  disapproval  of  him  and  of  his 
character  had  been  quite  unmistakably  pronounced. 

It  was  under  these  circumstances  that  I  was  urgently 
called  to  the  New  Palace.  At  the  door,  my  mother's 
old  chamberlain  awaited  me  to  say  that  Her  Majesty 
wanted  to  see  me  before  I  went  to  the  Kaiser. 

I  rushed  upstairs.  My  mother  received  me  imme- 
diately. She  was  agitated,  and  her  eyes  were  red. 
She  kissed  me  and  held  my  head  before  her  in  both 
hands.  Then  she  said  : 

'  You  know,  my  boy,  what  you  are  here  for  ?  ' 

"  No,  mother." 

'  Then  go  to  your  father.     But  sound  your  heart 
well  before  you  decide." 

Then  I  knew  what  was  coming. 

A  few  minutes  later  I  stood  beside  my  father's 
sick-bed. 

I  was  shocked  at  his  appearance.  Only  once  again 
have  I  seen  him  thus.  It  was  ten  years  later,  on  the 
fatal  date  at  Spa,  when  General  Groner  struck  away 
his  last  foothold  and,  with  a  shrug,  coldly  destroyed 
his  belief  in  the  fidelity  of  the  army. 

He  seemed  aged  by  years  ;  he  had  lost  hope,  and  felt 
himself  to  be  deserted  by  everybody ;  he  was  broken 
down  by  the  catastrophe  which  had  snatched  the 
ground  from  beneath  his  feet ;  his  self-confidence  and 
his  trust  were  shattered. 

A  deep  pity  was  in  me.  Scarcely  ever  have  I  felt 
myself  so  near  him  as  in  that  hour. 

He  told  me  to  sit  down.  He  talked  vehemently, 
complainingly  and  hurriedly  of  the  incidents  ;  and  the 


88     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

bitterness  aroused  by  the  injustice  which  he  saw  in 
them  kept  reasserting  itself. 

I  tried  to  soothe  and  encourage  him. 

I  stayed  with  him  for  quite  an  hour  sitting  on  his 
bed,  a  thing  which,  so  long  as  I  can  remember,  had 
never  happened  before. 

In  the  end,  it  was  arranged  that,  for  a  short  time, 
and  till  he  had  completely  recovered  from  his  illness, 
I  should  act  as  a  kind  of  locum  tenens  for  the  Kaiser. 

In  exercising  this  office,  I  kept  entirely  in  the  back- 
ground, and  was  soon  released  from  the  duties  alto- 
gether, since,  in  a  few  weeks,  the  Kaiser  was  seemingly 
himself  again. 

Seemingly !  For,  as  I  have  already  said,  he  has 
never  really  recovered  from  the  blow.  Under  the  cloak 
of  his  old  self-confidence,  he  assumed  an  ever-increasing 
reserve,  which,  though  hidden  from  the  outside  world, 
was  often  more  restricted  than  the  limits  of  his  consti- 
tutional position.  In  the  war,  this  personal  modesty 
led  to  his  being  almost  completely  excluded  from  the 
military  and  organizing  measures  and  commands  of  the 
Chief  of  his  General  Staff.  Those  of  us  officers  who 
had  an  insight  into  the  business  of  the  leading  military 
posts  could  not  but  regret  this  fact,  as  we  had  un- 
reservedly admired  the  sound  judgment  and  the  keen 
military  perception  of  the  Kaiser  even  in  operations 
on  a  grand  scale.  During  the  war,  I  had  frequent 
occasion  to  discuss  the  entire  strategic  situation  with 
my  father,  and  I  generally  received  the  impression  that 
he  hit  the  nail  on  the  head. 


July,  1919. 

Bright  midsummer  days  are  now  passing  over  the 
island  in  which  I  have  lived  for  some  three-quarters  of 
a  year. 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL    89 

Three-quarters  of  a  year  in  which  the  closely  circum- 
scribed space  and  its  inhabitants  have  become  dear  to 
me,  in  which  the  vast  silence  and  the  sky  and  the  sea, 
the  privacy  and  the  seclusion  have  brought  me  much 
that  I  had  never  before  possessed — change  and  ripen- 
ing in  my  own  nature,  changes  in  my  views  and  judg- 
ments on  the  things  that  lie  behind,  around  and  before 
me.  It  is  not  inactive  reverie  with  me,  for  each  day 
is  filled  up  from  morning  till  night  with  letter-writing, 
with  my  reminiscences,  diaries,  reading,  music,  sketch- 
ing and  sport. 

I  am  not  unhappy  in  my  loneliness,  and  I  almost 
believe  that  to  be  due  to  all  the  unstifled  desire  to  pro- 
duce which  is  still  pent  up  within  me  and  makes 
me  hope  in  spite  of  everything — makes  me  hope 
that  the  future  will  somehow  open  up  the  possibility 
of  my  working  as  a  German  for  the  German  Father- 
land. 

Anxieties  as  to  the  pending  request  of  the  Entente  for 
my  extradition  ?  That  is  a  question  constantly  repeated 
in  the  letters  sent  by  good  people  at  home  and  I  can 
only  repeat  as  often  :  No,  that  really  will  not  turn  my 
hair  grey. 

I  have  a  longing  for  home,  for  my  wife,  for  my 
children.  Often  it  comes  over  me  suddenly,  comes 
through  some  accidental  word,  through  a  recollection, 
a  picture.  The  other  day,  as  I  had  just  got  out  my 
violin  and  was  about  to  play,  I  couldn't  bring  myself 
to  do  so,  so  strongly  had  this  yearning  taken  possession 
of  me. 

And  then  at  night !  The  windows  are  wide  open, 
and  one  can  hear  the  distant  plash  of  the  sea  and  often 
the  deep  lowing  and  bellowing  of  the  cattle  in  the 
pastures.  Heinrich  Heine  says  somewhere :  "  Denk'ich 
an  Deutschland  in  der  Nacht,  bin  ich  um  meinen 
Schlaf  gebracht." 


90     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

In  the  June  days  just  gone  by,  came  the  news  that 
the  Versailles  "  Diktat  "had  been  signed.  The  Peace 
Treaty  !  The  word  will  scarcely  flow  from  my  pen,  in 
consideration  of  this  rod  of  chastisement,  this  birch  that 
blind  revenge  has  bound  for  us  there,  in  consideration 
of  this  closely- woven  network  of  chains  into  which  our 
poor  fatherland  has  been  cast.  Preposterous  demands, 
that  even  with  the  very  best  intentions  no  one  can 
fulfil !  Brutal  threats  of  strangling  in  the  event  of 
any  failure  of  strength  !  Withal,  unexampled  stupidity 
— a  document  that  perpetuates  hatred  and  bitterness, 
where  only  emancipation  from  the  pressure  of  the  past 
years  and  new  faith  in  one  another  could  unite  the 
peoples  into  a  fresh  and  peacefully  reconstructive 
community. 

There  remains  only  trust  in  the  oft-tried  energy  and 
capacity  of  the  German  himself,  who,  time  after  time 
when  gruesome  fate  has  led  him  through  darkness  and 
the  depths,  has  found  the  way  up  to  the  light  again  ; 
and  there  remains,  too,  the  great  truth  of  universal 
history,  that  folly  in  the  long  run  wrecks  itself. 

Poverty-stricken,  Germany  and  the  German  people 
go  to  meet  the  future.  The  wicked  treaty,  that  rests 
upon  the  question  of  war-guilt  as  upon  a  huge  lie,  has 
torn  from  them  colonies,  provinces  and  ships.  Work- 
shops are  destroyed,  intellectual  achievements  stolen, 
competition  in  wide  spheres  of  activity  violently 
throttled.  The  treaty  prepares  for  Germany  the 
bitterest  humiliation ;  it  purposes  to  strangle  and 
destroy  her  in  unappeased  hate  and  unabated  terror. 

But,  in  spite  of  it  all,  Germany  will  persist  and  will 
flourish  once  more ;  and  a  time  will  come  when  this 
enforced  pact  will  be  talked  of  only  as  an  infamy  of  a 
bygone  day. 

I  wish  the  homeland  tranquillity  and  internal  peace 
in  which  to  get  back  to  its  wonted  self,  in  which  this 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL    91 

earthly  kingdom — exhausted  by  unheard-of  sacrifices 
and  damaged  by  the  blows  of  fate — may  recover  its 
strength.  And  I  should  like  to  share  in  its  new  era  ! 
Yet,  the  only  service  I  can  render  to  my  country  is  to 
stand  aside  and  continue  to  bear  this  exile. 

The  short  space  of  time  during  which  I  was  entrusted 
with  the  task  of  acting  as  the  Kaiser's  representative 
gave  me  a  deeper  insight  than  at  any  previous  period  of 
my  life  into  the  mechanism  of  his  work  as  head  of 
the  government,  into  the  manner  in  which  he  was 
kept  informed  by  the  various  officials  and  into  the 
disposal  of  his  time.  Although,  from  years  of 
cursory  observation,  I  was  fairly  familiar  with  the 
outlines  of  this  mechanism,  I  clearly  remember  that 
the  closer  acquaintance  I  now  made  with  its  frame- 
work filled  me  with  the  greatest  amazement.  That 
I  speak  of  it  here  with  unreserved  candour  is  evidence 
that  I  do  not  regard  my  father  as  ultimately  and 
solely  responsible  for  the  existing  state  of  affairs. 
If  you  remove  the  mask  of  monarchy,  the  Kaiser 
is,  by  nature,  simple  in  his  character ;  and  if  he 
allowed  these  evils  to  arise  around  him,  his  share 
in  them  was  due  partly  to  the  out-of-date  upbringing 
caused  by  an  old-fashioned  conception  of  the  royal 
dignity,  and  even  more  to  his  innate  harmony  with 
the  settled  forms  of  his  environment  and  his  renuncia- 
tion of  that  simplicity  and  directness  which  would 
better  have  become  his  deepest  nature.  As  a  conse- 
quence, there  developed,  little  by  little,  out  of  the  zeal 
displayed  by  those  around  him  for  the  pettiest  affairs, 
a  vast  ceremoniousness  that  robbed  the  simplest  pro- 
ceedings of  their  naturalness,  that  removed  every  little 
stone  against  which  the  monarch  might  have  struck  his 
foot,  and  that  was  fain  to  drown  every  whisper  that 
might  be  disagreeable  to  his  ear.  In  the  course  of 
decades,  this  system  deprived  the  Kaiser  more  and 


92     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

more  of  his  capacity  to  meet  hard  realities  with  a  firm, 
resolute  and  tenacious  perseverance. 

How  can  a  man  accustomed  to  expect  as  a  matter 
of  course  the  spreading  of  a  carpet  before  his  feet  for 
every  step  he  takes,  sustain  himself  when  he  is  sud- 
denly confronted  with  really  serious  conflicts  in  which 
nothing  can  help  him  but  his  own  resolution  ? 

Time  seemed  to  be  no  object  in  ceremonial  affairs ; 
and,  while  spent  on  them,  it  often  could  not  be  found 
for  questions  that  demanded  serious  and  calm  con- 
sideration. 

Not  only  for  me  but  for  many  a  minister  and  state 
secretary,  it  was  often  quite  a  feat  to  break  through 
the  protective  ring  of  zealous  gentlemen  who  wished 
to  prevent  His  Majesty  being  "  worried "  with 
troublesome  affairs  and  to  save  him  from  over-fatigue 
and  annoyance.  Even  when  the  ring  was  penetrated, 
one  had  not,  by  any  means,  gained  one's  point ;  I 
remember  many  a  case  in  which  one  Excellency 
or  another  who  had  come  to  report  to  the  Kaiser  on 
some  burning  question  went  away  with  an  admir- 
able impression  of  the  animation,  the  vigour  and  the 
communicativeness  of  His  Majesty,  and  possibly  with 
enriched  knowledge  concerning  some  department  of 
research  or  technology,  but  without  having  unburdened 
himself  on  the  burning  question  with  which  he  came. 
Anyone  who  failed  to  proceed,  more  or  less  unceremon- 
iously, with  his  report  might  well  find  himself  listening 
instead  to  a  report  of  the  Kaiser's  on  the  subject  in  hand 
based  upon  preconceived  notions  ;  the  would-be  adviser 
would  then  be  dismissed  without  ever  having  found 
an  opportunity  of  stating  his  own  views. 

I  have  already  hinted  that  the  Imperial  Chancellory 
prepared  for  the  Kaiser  a  filtered  version  of  public 
opinion  in  the  form  of  press-cuttings.  The  preparation 
of  this  material  appeared  to  me  to  be  too  much  inspired 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL    93 

with  the  desire  to  exclude  the  disagreeable  and  even 
the  minatory — to  be  pleasant  rather  than  thorough. 
Many  things,  therefore,  that  ought  to  have  come  under 
the  Kaiser's  eyes,  even  if  they  were  not  exactly  gratify- 
ing, were  never  seen  by  him.  In  much  the  same  plane 
lay  the  consular  reports.  They  were  often  nothing 
more  than  amusing  chats  and  serial  stories.  When  these 
"  political  reports  "  passed  through  my  hands  in  1908, 
I  missed  any  clear  judgment  of  the  situation,  any  clear, 
sharply-defined  presentation  or  positive  suggestion. 

A  favourable  exception  among  the  communications 
sent  in  by  our  representatives  abroad  was  to  be  found 
in  the  reports  of  the  naval  officers  in  command. 
They  were  evidently  drawn  up  by  men  whose  eyes 
had  been  trained  to  look  broadly  at  the  world,  to  see 
things  as  they  really  are  and  to  form  a  just  estimate 
of  the  whole ;  they  were  filled  with  calm  and  practical 
criticism,  and  furnished  cautious  and  far-seeing  sug- 
gestions. 

August,  1919. 

The  last  few  days  have  brought  me  again  one  or  two 
welcome  visitors  from  the  homeland — above  all,  excel- 
lent Major  Beck,  to  whom  I  am  attached  by  so  many 
hard  experiences  shared  in  the  army.  Hours  and  hours 
were  spent  in  taking  long  walks  and  sitting  together — 
sometimes  talking,  sometimes  silent.  And  during  those 
hours,  the  prodigious  struggle  of  the  past  came  vividly 
before  me  again — especially  the  last  anguish  that  fol- 
lowed our  failure  at  Rheims,  the  unceasing  decay  of 
energy  and  confidence,  and  then  the  end. 

A  few  Dutch  families  have  also  been  to  see  me  ;  and 
Ilsemann  came  over  from  Amerongen,  and  had  much 
to  tell  me  about  my  dear  mother  ;  she  suffers  severely, 
is  physically  ill,  and  will  not  give  way,  knows  only 
one  thought,  namely,  the  welfare  of  my  father  and  of 


94     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

us  all,  has  only  one  wish,  which  is  to  lighten  for  us 
what  we  have  to  bear. 

But  the  best  visit  is  still  to  come.  My  wife  and  the 
children  are  to  spend  a  short  time  with  me  here  in  the 
island.  How  we  shall  manage  with  such  limited  room 
and  such  a  lack  of  every  accommodation  I  don't  know 
myself — but  we  shall  do  it  somehow.  It  was  touching 
to  see  the  ready  proffers  of  help  that  were  made  on  the 
mere  report  of  my  expecting  my  wife  and  children. 
Not  merely  in  the  island — where  every  one  now  likes 
me  and  where  the  Frisian  reserve  has  long  given  place 
to  hearty  participation  in  my  joys  and  sorrows — but 
from  yonder  on  the  mainland  also. 

In  a  day  or  two  Miildner,  my  untiring  and  faithful 
companion  in  this  solitude,  is  to  go  to  Amsterdam  for 
some  shopping  and  other  errands.  In  one  of  the  rooms, 
the  wall-paper  is  to  be  renewed ;  all  sorts  of  house- 
hold utensils  need  replenishing ;  and  Amsterdam 
friends  are  going  to  lend  me  furniture.  The  parsonage 
is  to  become  more  respectable  ;  in  its  present  condition, 
it  would  really  be  quite  impossible  for  it  to  lodge  a 
lady.  These  excellent  people  of  mine  are  working 
feverishly. 


But  to  get  back  to  my  subject.  I  stopped  at  my 
recollections  of  our  foreign  policy  in  the  years  prior  to 
the  war.  Closely  connected  with  it  were  our  home 
politics.  Here,  too,  we  suffered  from  the  same  lack  of 
resolution,  firmness  and  foresight.  People  fixed  their 
eyes  upon  the  things  of  to-day  instead  of  on  those  of 
to-morrow.  Hence  only  half-measures  were  taken, 
and  everybody  was  dissatisfied. 

Ever  since  I  began  to  concern  myself  with  politics 
I  have  become  more  and  more  convinced  that  our  home 
policy  should  develop  along  more  liberal  lines.  It  was 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL    95 

clear  to  me  that  one  could  no  longer  govern  on  the 
principles  of  Frederick  the  Great — still  less  by  out- 
wardly imitating  his  manner.  Just  as  little  could  I 
sympathize  with  the  continually  yielding  and  generally 
belated  manner  in  which  our  liberal  reforms  were 
carried  out.  The  almost  systematic  method  of  first 
refusing  altogether  and  then  finding  oneself  obliged  to 
grant  a  part  of  what  was  demanded  appeared  to  me 
doubtful  and  dangerous.  A  foresighted  and  well- 
timed  liberal  policy  ought  to  have  been  able  to  reject 
inordinate  demands  from  whatever  quarter  they  came, 
and  thus  to  maintain  a  just  balance  of  forces  for  the 
welfare  of  the  whole.  Such  government  would  also 
have  been  able  to  reckon  with  a  certain  constancy  of 
parliamentary  grouping.  But  after  the  collapse  of  the 
Billow  bloc — which  certainly,  in  itself,  presented  no 
very  great  attractions — the  only  policy  we  had  was 
Bethmann's  "  governing  over  the  heads  of  the  parties  " 
with  its  convulsive  beating-up  of  majorities  for  each 
case  as  it  arose  and  its  silencing  of  the  minorities. 

In  so  far  as  they  could  be  fitted  into  the  historically 
determined  development  of  the  State,  the  political 
and  economic  aims  of  the  social  democratic  party,  as 
representing  a  large  section  of  organized  labour, 
ought  to  have  been  taken  into  consideration  unequi- 
vocally and  without  any  misconstruction  or  suppression 
of  what  was  possible  ;  though  the  Government  had  no 
reason  and  no  right  to  allow  themselves  to  be  pushed 
or  driven  on  every  question. 

In  its  ideological  endeavours  to  entice  the  social 
democrats  away  from  their  policy  of  negation  into  the 
sphere  of  productive  co-operation,  and  in  its  miscon- 
ception of  the  fact  that,  for  purely  tactical  reasons,  the 
social  democrats  of  that  period  would  not  give  up  their 
policy  of  opposition  within  the  then  existing  consti- 
tution, Bethmann's  Government  allowed  itself  to  be 


96     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

exploited  and  weakened  by  the  extraordinarily  well 
managed  and  well  disciplined  social  democratic  party. 
To  the  other  parties  little  attention  was  paid.  More- 
over, the  fact  was  altogether  overlooked  that,  in  their 
humane  and  progressive  spirit,  social  legislation  and 
the  care  for  workmen  in  Germany  were  already  a  very 
long  way  ahead  of  all  measures  of  the  kind  in  other 
countries  and  that  this  great  work  had  been  ardently 
promoted  by  the  Kaiser.  As  in  its  attitude  towards  the 
opposition,  so  upon  the  questions  of  Poland  and  Alsace- 
Lorraine,  the  policv'of  the  Government  was  uncertain 
and  almost  invariably  harsh  where  it  ought  to  have 
been  yielding  an^l  yielding  where  it  ought  to  have  been 
firm.  Absolutely  nothing  was  done  in  the  way  of 
economic  mobilization  to  meet  the  eventuality  of  war, 
although  there  could  be  no  doubt  that,  if  an  ultima 
ratio  ensued,  England  would  at  once  endeavour  to  cut 
us  off  from  every  oversea  communication  and  that,  in 
respect  to  food-stuffs  and  raw  materials  of  every  kind, 
we  should  be  thrown  on  our  own  stocks  and  resources. 

As  in  all  problems  of  foreign  policy,  so  again  in  this 
question,  the  only  man  in  the  Government  who  showed 
any  understanding  for  my  fears  and  anxieties  was 
Admiral  von  Tirpitz. 

In  the  eight  years'  chancellorship  of  Herr  von  Beth- 
mann  Hollweg,  I  over  and  over  again  took  the  oppor- 
tunity of  talking  to  him  about  the  attitude  of  the 
Government  towards  foreign  and  home  affairs.  Here, 
in  one  and  the  same  sentence  in  which  I  write  that  I 
always  found  him  to  be  high-principled  in  thought  and 
action  and  a  man  of  irreproachable  honour,  I  wish  to 
say  that  we  were  not  friends  and  that  an  impassable 
chasm  lay  between  his  mentality  and  my  own.  In  the 
post  for  which  we  ought  to  have  sought  for  the  best,  the 
boldest,  the  most  far-sighted  and  the  wisest  of  states- 
men, there  stood  a  bureaucrat  of  sluggish  and  irresolute 


Fron 
\\ 


k  Row  (left  to 
Ight)  —  Wilhelm, 
,ouis  Ferdinand, 
rown  Princess 
ecilie. 

/  Rou — Friedrich 
i  1  h  e  1  in ,  the 

own  Prince  with 

ene     Alexandra, 

ubertus. 


Back  Ron' — Prince  Joachim  of 
Prussia,  Duchess  of  Bruns- 
wick, Duke  of  Brunswick. 

Second  Row — Prince  Oscar  of 
Prussia,  Princess  August 
Wilhelm  of  Prussia,  the 
Crown  Prince,  Prince  Eitel 
Friedrich. 

Front  Rou — Princess  Eitel 
Friedrich,  the  Crown  Prin- 
cess, Prince  Adalbert,  and 
Prince  August  Wilhelm  of 
Prussia. 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL    97 

character,  his  mind  in  a  reverie  of  weary  and  resigned 
cosmopolitanism  and  tranquil  acceptance  of  unalterable 
developments.  People  liked  to  call  him  the  "  Philoso- 
pher of  Hohensinow."  I  never  succeeded  in  discover- 
ing a  trace  of  philosophic  wisdom  in  the  languid  nature 
of  this  man,  who  dropped  so  easily  into  tactless  fatalism 
and  who  qualified  even  every  upward  flight  with  the 
parrot  cry  of  "  divinely  ordained  dependency."  His 
hesitating  heart  had  no  wings,  his  will  was  joyless,  his 
resolve  was  lame. 

This  man,  eternally  vacillating  in  his  decisions  and 
overborne  by  any  contact  with  natures  of  a  fresher  hue, 
was  certainly  not  the  proper  person,  in  the  years 
prior  to  the  war — least  of  all  in  the  three  that  immedi- 
ately preceded  its  outbreak — to  represent  German 
policy  against  the  energetic,  resolute,  quick-witted  and 
inexorable  men  whom  England  and  France  had  selected 
as  exponents  of  their  power. 

Even  in  the  days  when  I  was  attached  to  the  various 
ministries  for  purposes  of  study,  many  people  of  excel- 
lent judgment  told  me  that  it  was  easy  to  discuss 
questions  with  Bethmann,  but  the  disappointing  thing 
about  it  was  that  one  never  reached  any  conclusive 
result ;  for,  whatever  the  seemingly  final  outcome  might 
be,  he  had — after  musing  for  a  while,  one  more  sentence 
to  utter,  and  that  sentence  began  with  the  word 
"  nevertheless."  This  word  "  nevertheless  "  stands 
for  me  like  a  motto  above  Herr  Bethmann  Hollweg's 
political  career. 

On  one  single  occasion  I  allowed  myself  to  be  swept 
into  a  marked  demonstration  against  him  before  the 
whole  world,  and  I  readily  admit  that  this  public 
utterance  of  my  opinion  would  have  been  better  left 
unspoken.  It  will  be  remembered  that,  in  the 
Reichstag  sitting  of  November  9,  1911,  I  gave  clear 
expression  to  my  approval  of  the  speeches  hurled  against 


98     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

Herr  von  Bethmann's  and  Kiderlen-Wachter's  policy  in 
the  Morocco  affair,  at  first  aggressive  and  afterwards  re- 
tracting, which  had  brought  us  a  severe  diplomatic  check. 
At  the  time,  the  Press  of  the  Left  hastened  to  stigmatize 
me  as  a  battering-ram  of  extravagant  and  bellicose 
pan-German  ideas.  Nothing  of  the  kind  !  The  case 
was  quite  different !  The  drastic  methods  of  Kiderlen, 
the  wanton  provocation  implied  by  the  dispatch  of 
the  Panther  to  Agadir,  was  just  as  disagreeable  to  me 
as  the  hasty  retreat  which  followed  Lloyd  George's 
threats  in  his  Mansion  House  speech  :  both  bore  testi- 
mony to  the  groping  uncertainty  of  our  leadership,  a 
leadership  which  failed  to  see  what  an  unhappy  effect 
was  produced  on  the  minds  of  the  other  side  in  the 
dispute  by  the  first  step,  and  how  much  the  second 
impaired  our  prestige  in  the  eyes  of  the  world.  Thus, 
it  was  from  the  feeling  that  political  tension  had 
risen  to  fever  heat  that,  on  that  Qth  November,  1911, 
I  spontaneously  applauded  those  speeches  which  were 
directed  against  the  feeble  and  oscillating  policy 
of  the  Government. 

What  a  curious  part  coincidence  plays  in  our  affairs  ! 
Once  again  the  gth  November  stands  marked  in  the 
book  of  my  remembrances — three  years  after  the  great 
Reichstag  storm  over  the  Kaiser  interview  in  the 
Daily  Telegraph,  and  seven  years  to  the  day  before 
the  last  act  of  the  collapse  in  Berlin  and  Spa  !  A 
discussion  of  the  incident  speedily  followed.  On  the 
same  evening,  as  a  matter  of  fact. 

To  begin  with,  the  Kaiser  admonished  me.   Very  well. 

Then  I  gave  vent  to  my  thoughts  and  feelings  ;  and 
I  blurted  out  all  my  fears  for  the  future,  my  wishes  for 
the  suppression  of  a  shilly-shally  policy.  I  spoke  with- 
out the  slightest  reserve  ;  and  once  more  I  was  forced 
to  take  note  of  the  fact  that  the  Kaiser  was  incapable 
of  listening. 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL    99 

In  the  end  we  dined  together  in  a  not  particularly 
talkative  mood. 

Then,  at  His  Majesty's  request  and  in  his  presence, 
Bethmann,  who,  withal,  was  once  again  highly  interest- 
ing and  to  the  point,  gave  me,  the  " Frondeur," along 
lecture  which  did  not  succeed  in  convincing  me. 

Politics,  even  high  politics,  are  not  an  occult  science. 
The  times  are  dead  and  gone  in  which  they  could  be 
conducted  with  Metternich-like  ruses.  They  can  nowa- 
days dispense  with  apercus  of  speech  and  with  the 
jabot  of  the  Congress  of  Vienna  just  as  well  as  with  the 
monocle  of  a  later  epoch  of  development.  But  they 
presuppose,  besides  all  the  things  that  are  obvious  and 
the  things  that  can  be  learned,  a  few  such  things  as 
practical  common  sense  to  reduce  all  their  problems  to 
the  simplest  formulae,  knowledge  of  human  character, 
and  an  eye  for  the  general  mentality  of  the  peoples 
with  whom  one  has  to  reckon. 

Herr  von  Bethmann  Hollweg — who,  by  the  way,  knew 
scarcely  anything  of  foreign  countries — possessed  none 
of  these  things ;  and  neither  Kiderlen-Wachter  nor 
Secretary  of  State  Jagow  was  the  man  to  fill  the  gap 
with  his  intellectual  talents. 

True,  there  were,  in  our  diplomatic  service,  men  of 
quite  another  category,  who  thought  broadly  and  saw 
clearly ;  but  people  were  content  to  know  that  they  filled 
posts  abroad  where  their  voices  could  be  heard,  but 
where  their  influence  upon  the  conduct  of  foreign  politics 
was  bound  to  remain  very  slight.  I  have  not  the  least 
doubt  that  such  men  as  Wangenheim  and  Marschall — 
even  Mont  and  Metternich — would  have  understood 
how  to  give  a  timely  turn  to  our  foreign  policy  so  as 
to  guide  it  into  the  proper  and  the  constant  way. 

Just  this  very  Herr  von  Kiderlen  used  to  be  praised 
by  Bethmann  as  the  great  political  light  from  the  East. 
Personally,  too,  I  myself  liked  this  agreeably  unaffected 


loo    THE  CROWN   PRINCE   OF  GERMANY 

and  courageous  Swabian,  despite  his  panther-like  leap 
into  the  china-shop  of  Agadir.  But  I  was  not  impressed 
with  his  special  suitability  for  the  highly  important  post 
of  Foreign  Secretary,  the  more  so  as  he  entirely  lacked 
the  most  important  quality  for  such  a  position,  namely 
the  capacity  to  see  things  from  other  people's  points  of 
view.  He  not  only  utterly  failed  to  consider  the  men- 
tality of  France  and  England,  but  he  did  not  even 
appreciate  the  political  tendencies  of  Roumania,  the 
country  in  which,  for  ten  years,  he  had  had  charge  of 
Germany's  interests. 

That  sounds  almost  like  a  bad  joke,  and  it  is,  after 
all,  only  an  example  of  what  a  poor  reader  of  character 
the  Chancellor  himself  was  and  how  limited  was  the 
horizon  of  his  staff  at  the  Foreign  Office. 

But  it  is  incumbent  upon  me  to  furnish  evidence  for 
my  views  as  to  Herr  von  Kiderlen's  knowledge  of  Rou- 
mania. On  returning  from  my  Roumanian  travels  in 
April,  1909,  I  told  my  father  I  had  received  the  impres- 
sion that  there  was  only  one  person  in  Roumania  who 
was  friendly  to  us,  namely  King  Carol  himself.  The 
leading  political  circles,  who  were  only  waiting  for  the 
decease  of  the  aged  King,  were  thoroughly  and  firmly 
under  French  and  Russian  influence.  The  sympathies  of 
the  Crown  Princess  were  directed  towards  England,  and 
the  Crown  Prince  was  very  much  under  her  influence. 
Consequently,  I  could  not  help  thinking  that,  in  the 
event  of  war,  Roumania  would  fail  her  allies,  even 
if  she  did  not  go  over  to  the  other  party  altogether. 
His  Majesty  sent  me  to  the  Secretary  for  Foreign 
Affairs  in  Wilhelmstrasse  to  report  my  impressions. 
Herr  von  Kiderlen-Wachter  listened  with  complaisant 
superiority,  and  smiled.  He  thought  I  must  be  mis- 
taken ;  believed  I  must  have  had  a  bad  dream ;  the 
whole  of  Roumania,  with  which  he  was  as  familiar  as 
with  his,  own  hat  ("  wie  sei'  Weste'  tasch")  was,  to  the 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL  101 

backbone,  our  sterling  ally.  "  Sozusage'  mundel- 
sicher !  "  Soon  afterwards,  we  had  to  face  the  trend 
of  events  that  followed  upon  King  Carol's  death. 

But,  after  all,  what  is  the  false  estimate  of  Roumania 
in  comparison  with  the  erroneous  conception  formed 
by  Herr  von  Bethmann  Hollweg  and  his  Excellency 
von  Jagow  concerning  the  attitude  of  England  ?  They 
remained  hoodwinked  in  the  matter  until,  in  August, 
1914,  Sir  Edward  Goschen  tore  the  bandage  from  the 
Chancellor's  dismayed  and  horror-struck  eyes. 

Because — be  it  said  to  his  credit — he  had  repeatedly 
made  mild  and  inadequate  attempts  at  a  rapprochement 
with  England  without  encountering  any  fundamental 
opposition,  and  because  he  knew  that  England  had 
repeatedly  stated  in  Paris  that  she  desired  to  avoid  a 
provocative  policy  and  did  not  wish  to  participate  in  a 
war  set  on  foot  by  France,  Bethmann  imagined  that 
the  rapprochement  had  thriven  to  such  an  extent  as  to 
preclude  England's  joining  in  war  against  us  at  all. 
But  the  last  effort  made  in  the  year  1912  by  inviting 
Lord  Haldane,  the  Minister  of  War,  to  come  to  Berlin, 
had  also  been  a  failure.  It  had  failed  because,  mean- 
time, the  relations  of  England  to  France  and  thereby 
to  Russia  had  become  too  intimate  ;  so  that  even  the 
great  sacrifice  which  Admiral  von  Tirpitz  declared 
himself  prepared  to  make  in  the  question  of  the  Navy 
Bill  in  exchange  for  a  British  neutrality  clause  was 
ineffective.  England  was  determined  to  maintain  her 
"  two  keels  for  one  "  standard  under  all  circumstances. 
Sir  Edward  Grey  declined  to  enter  into  any  engagement 
on  account  of  "  existing  friendship  for  other  Powers  "  ; 
and  thereupon  matters  became  clear  to  anyone  who 
had  eyes  to  see. 

Nor  did  Haldane  make  any  secret  of  England's  atti- 
tude in  the  event  of  war  with  France  and  Russia  ;  as 
the  Kaiser  told  me  himself  later,  Haldane  informed 


102   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

our  ambassador,  Prince  Lichnowsky,  in  a  visit  concern- 
ing political  questions,  that  under  the  suppositions 
stated  and  irrespective  of  which  side  might  set  the  ball 
rolling,  his  Government  could  not  agree  to  a  defeat  of 
France  by  us  and  a  consequent  domination  of  Germany 
on  the  Continent.  They  would  intervene  in  favour  of 
the  Powers  allied  with  England. 

One  finds  it  difficult  to  understand  that,  in  spite  of 
this  fact,  the  gentlemen  at  the  Foreign  Office  and 
above  all  the  Minister  responsible  for  our  foreign  policy 
continued  to  live  on  calmly  and  self-complacently  in 
their  world  of  dreams  during  those  perilous  and  menac- 
ing times.  The  ears  of  our  politicians  had  caught  up 
the  voices  from  Paris  in  which  they  heard  England's 
desire  for  peace  and  they  allowed  themselves  to  be 
misled  by  the  alluring  idea  that  England  would  main- 
tain peace  in  Europe  in  any  circumstances ;  they 
assumed  that  the  serious,  warning  words  spoken  by 
Lord  Haldane  in  London  were  intended  solely  to  pre- 
vent a  breach  of  peace  on  the  part  of  Germany. 


I  have  again  run  off  the  track  of  my  story  ;  it  seems 
that  I  cannot  even  make  a  chronicle  of  the  affairs. 
But  I  must  try  to  take  up  the  thread  again. 

Down  to  the  year  1909,  I  had  visited,  sometimes 
alone  and  sometimes  in  my  father's  suite,  England, 
Holland,  Italy,  Egypt,  Greece,  Turkey  and  a  few  dis- 
tricts of  Asia  Minor.  My  stay  in  these  countries  had 
always  been  relatively  short,  but  had  sufficed  to  provide 
me  with  valuable  opportunities  of  comparison  and  to 
convince  me  of  the  necessity  for  seeing  more  of  the  world. 

It  was,  therefore,  a  great  satisfaction  to  my  desire 
for  further  knowledge  when,  in  1909,  my  father  con- 
sented to  my  undertaking  an  extensive  tour  in  the  Far 
East.  My  wife  accompanied  me  as  far  as  Ceylon  and 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL  103 

then  went  to  Egypt ;  while  I  proceeded  to  travel 
through  India.  The  British  Government  had  prepared 
for  my  journey  in  the  most  friendly  way ;  so  that  I 
really  obtained  a  great  deal  of  information.  In  every 
detail  and  everywhere  I  went,  I  met  with  the  greatest 
hospitality.  I  recall  with  special  pleasure  Lord  Har- 
dinge,  Sir  Harold  Stuart,  Sir  John  Hewett  and  Sir  Roos 
Keppel.  The  Maharajah  of  Jaipur  and  the  Nizam 
of  Hyderabad  also  provided  me  with  a  splendid 
reception. 

In  India  my  love  of  hunting  and  sport  was  satisfied 
to  my  heart's  content.  The  magnificence  of  Indian 
landscape  and  of  Indian  architecture  opened  up  a  new 
world  to  me.  The  profusion  of  experiences  of  all  kinds 
offered  to  me  I  welcomed  with  all  the  susceptibility 
and  power  of  enjoyment  natural  to  my  youth ;  I 
wished  to  devote  myself  unrestrictedly  to  all  that 
was  great  and  novel,  and  I  sometimes  forgot,  per- 
haps, that  I  had  to  fill  a  ceremonial  role,  that  people 
expected  to  find  in  me  the  son  of  the  German  Emperor 
and  the  great-grandson  of  the  Queen. 

Of  all  the  impressions  I  received  the  greatest  and 
most  lasting  was  that  made  upon  me  by  the  organizing 
and  administrative  talent  of  the  English.  It  struck 
me,  too,  as  a  noticeable  peculiarity,  that,  in  the  various 
branches  of  administration,  comparatively  very  young 
officials  were  employed,  but  that  they  were  energetic 
and  were  invested  with  great  independence  and  respon- 
sibility. Extensive  and  healthy  decentralization  pre- 
vailed generally.  Everywhere  I  was  impressed  by  the 
vast  power  of  England,  whose  greatness  the  German 
people,  before  the  war,  frequently  and  grossly  under- 
valued, intoxicated  as  they  were  with  their  own  rapid 
rise. 

But  it  became  just  as  clear  to  me  how  enormous 
was  the  competition  which  Germany  created  for  the 


104    THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

British  in  the  markets  of  the  Far  East.  Thus,  many 
an  English  merchant  told  me,  in  confidential  talk, 
that  it  could  not  go  on  like  this — England  could  not 
and  would  not  allow  herself  to  be  pushed  to  the  wall 
by  us.  I  myself,  during  the  sea- voyage,  noticed  that 
we  met  about  as  many  German  merchant  vessels  as 
British  ones.  Moreover,  the  muttered  curse,  "  Those 
damned  Germans !  "  occasionally  reached  my  ear. 

Omens  of  a  gathering  storm  ! 

When,  later  on,  I  talked  of  these  observations  to  the 
responsible  parties  at  home,  the  warning  was  treated 
very  light-heartedly.  That  some  English  shopkeeper 
or  another  swore  when  we  spoiled  his  business  for  him 
didn't  matter  in  the  least ;  the  man  should  give  up 
his  "  week-end  "  and  work  as  our  people  did,  then 
he  would  have  no  need  to  swear.  Besides,  we  really 
wanted  to  live  in  peace  with  those  gentlemen.  "  And 
your  Imperial  Highness  has  seen  for  yourself  how  you 
were  received  there."  Thus,  there  was  not  much  to 
be  done.  I,  for  my  part,  knew  that  the  "  shopkeeper  " 
was  England  herself,  that  no  one  over  there  was  willing 
to  sacrifice  his  week-end,  and  that  my  reception  was 
an  act  of  international  courtesy  and  nothing  more. 
The  will  to  live  at  peace  with  others  has  significance 
only  if  one  knows  and  adopts  the  means  by  which 
that  peace  may  be  realized. 

After  my  return  and  in  pursuance  of  His  Majesty's 
commands,  I  visited  with  my  wife  the  courts  of  Rome, 
Vienna,  St.  Petersburg,  and  St.  James's,  the  last  on  the 
occasion  of  the  coronation. 

Everywhere  we  met  with  the  most  friendly  personal 
reception ;  but  everywhere,  too,  appeared  warning 
signs  of  the  conflict  and  danger  which  were  gathering 
ominously  around  Germany. 

The  journey  to  England  we  performed  on  board  the 
new  and  heavily  armoured  cruiser  Von  der  Tann. 


AN  ANTELOPE  HUNT. 


WITH  HIS  FIRST  ELEPHANT. 
THE   CROWN    PRINCE    IN    INDIA. 


\ 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL  105 

This  excellently-constructed  vessel  aroused  the  utmost 
excitement  in  England.  During  the  great  naval  review 
in  the  Solent,  it  was  interesting  to  observe  the  British 
naval  officers  and  sailors  devoting  the  greatest  atten- 
tion to  our  Von  der  Tann.  For  the  war  vessels  of 
other  nations  they  displayed  not  the  slightest  interest. 
Their  judgment  was  expressed  in  unbounded  praise  of 
the  wonderful  lines  of  the  ship  and  of  the  practical 
distribution  of  her  guns. 

During  the  coronation  festivities  in  London,  the 
reception  accorded  to  me  and  my  wife  by  all  classes  of 
the  population  was  exceptionally  cordial.  The  English 
Press  also  welcomed  us  warmly ;  and  during  those  days 
we  noticed  nothing  of  the  hatred  of  Germany.  But  if 
an  eloquent  illustration  were  needed  of  how  misleading 
it  is  to  draw  conclusions  from  the  signs  of  sympathy 
shown  towards  princes  and  heirs-apparent,  such  an 
illustration  is  to  be  found  in  an  experience  of  our  own. 
It  has  remained  as  a  signum  vanitatis  in  my  memory. 

As  King  George  and  Queen  Mary  at  the  close  of  the 
coronation  ceremony  left  Westminster  Abbey,  spon- 
taneous cheers  rose  from  the  assembly.  Immediately 
afterwards,  the  foreign  princes  moved  down  the  gigantic 
church,  and,  as  the  Crown  Princess  and  myself  reached 
the  middle  of  the  nave,  the  same  spontaneous  cheers 
that  had  greeted  the  King  and  Queen  were  accorded 
to  us.  Afterwards  I  was  told  by  English  people  that 
I  might  be  "  proud  of  myself  "  ;  for  never  before  in  the 
history  of  England  had  a  foreign  princely  couple  received 
such  an  ovation  in  Westminster  Abbey.  Four  years 
later  we  were  at  war  ;  four  years  later,  the  man  whom 
they  then  cheered  had  become  a  "  Hun." 

Here  I  should  like  to  mention  an  incident  in  my 
London  sojourn  which  casts  a  light  on  the  ideas  of  a 
leading  English  statesman  of  that  day.  The  Foreign 
Secretary,  Sir  Edward  Grey,  was  introduced  to  me, 


106   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

and,  in  the  course  of  the  thoroughly  animated  conversa- 
tion which  ensued,  I  made  the  incautious  remark  that, 
in  my  opinion  and  with  a  view  to  a  certainty  of  peace, 
it  would  be  far  and  away  the  wisest  thing  for  Germany 
and  England,  the  two  greatest  Teutonic  nations — the 
strongest  land  Power  and  the  strongest  sea  Power — 
to  co-operate ;  they  could  then,  moreover  (if  it  must 
be  so),  divide  the  world  between  them.  Grey  listened, 
nodded  and  said :  '  Yes,  true,  but  England  does  not 
wish  to  divide  with  anybody — not  even  with  Germany." 
In  Vienna,  the  then  heir-apparent,  Francis  Ferdin- 
and, spoke  with  me  very  earnestly  and  very  anxiously 
about  the  dangerous  Serbian  propaganda  ;  he  foresaw 
an  early  European  conflict  in  these  intrigues  that 
Russia  was  fanning.  I  had,  for  a  long  time,  been 
watching  with  discomfort  the  growing  dependence  of 
our  Near  East  policy  upon  the  ideas  of  the  Vienna 
Ballplatz  ;  consequently,  the  remarks  of  the  Archduke 
raised  in  my  mind  grave  doubts  concerning  this  shift- 
ing of  our  political  focus  from  Berlin  to  Vienna  ;  these 
doubts  continued  to  worry  me  from  that  day  onwards, 
but  the  unreserved  expression  I  gave  to  them,  both  in 
the  Foreign  Office  and  in  the  presence  of  individual 
representatives  of  our  diplomatic  service,  was  all  in 
vain.  The  fears  that  Germany  would  some  day  become 
fatally  dependent  upon  the  superior  diplomacy  of 
Austria-Hungary,  as  expressed  with  such  anxious  pre- 
science by  Prince  Bismarck  in  his  last  memoirs,  seemed 
to  me  to  have  long  ago  found  their  fulfilment.  In  the 
Vienna  Belvedere,  under  the  influence  of  the  strangely 
suggestive  words  of  this  dangerously  ambitious 
Archduke,  who  was  prepared  to  act  an  anything  but 
modest  part  and  who  was  as  clever  as  he  was  ruthless, 
the  definite  feeling  came  over  me  that,  as  a  result  of 
this  too  great  dependence,  we  should  sooner  or  later 
become  involved  in  a  conflict  brought  about  for  the 


MATRIMONIAL  AND  POST-MATRIMONIAL  107 

purpose  of  promoting  the  ambitions  of  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  dynasty ;  the  Archduke  was  putting  out 
feelers  and  developing  ideas  which  should  enable  him 
to  see  what  he  might  expect  from  me.  Destiny  took 
the  game  out  of  the  hands  of  that  undoubtedly  remark- 
able man,  and  made  of  him  the  spark  which  was  to 
kindle  the  great  conflagration.  But,  after  bringing 
him  to  a  bloody  end,  it  spared  us  none  of  the  bitter 
effects  of  our  dependence  and  subordination ;  the 
results  of  the  excessive  Viennese  demands  upon  Serbia 
involved  us  in  the  war  against  our  will.  On  July  28, 
1914,  when  Serbia  had  accepted  almost  all  the  points 
of  the  Austrian  ultimatum,  my  father  annotated  thus 
the  telegram  which  brought  the  news  of  Serbia's  sub- 
mission :  "A  brilh'ant  performance  within  a  limit  of 
48  hours.  That  is  more  than  one  could  expect.  A 
great  moral  success  for  Vienna  ;  but  with  it  disappears 
every  reason  for  war,  and  the  Austrian  minister,  Giesl, 
ought  to  have  remained  quietly  in  Belgrade.  After 
that,  I  should  never  have  given  orders  for  mobilization." 
I  quote  this  telegram  and  its  marginal  notes,  because 
they  prove  irrefutably  the  peaceful  desires  of  Germany 
and  the  Kaiser.  They  prove  our  goodwill,  in  spite 
of  which  our  destiny — bound  to  the  policy  of  the  Vienna 
Ballplatz  to  the  extent  of  vassalage — moved  on  its 
fated  path. 

In  Russia,  where,  as  already  stated,  I  sojourned  with 
my  wife  after  my  Indian  travels,  I  received  the  impres- 
sion that  the  Tsar  was  as  friendly  to  Germany  as  ever, 
but  that  he  was  less  able  to  put  his  friendliness  into 
action.  He  was  completely  enmeshed  by  the  Pan-Slav 
and  anti-German  party  of  the  Grand  Duke  Nicholai 
Nicholaievitch  and  powerless  to  oppose  that  prince, 
who  quite  openly  displayed  his  hatred  for  Germany. 


CHAPTER  IV 

STRESS    AND    STORM 

September,  1919. 

THE  beautiful,  happy  days  are  passed  which  I  was 
able  to  spend  here  with  my  dear  wife  and  the 
boys,  the  days  in  which  we  all  wanted  to  enjoy  the  brief 
pleasure  like  simple  rustic  holiday-makers,  and  in  which 
I  purposely  tried  to  forget  that  my  nearest  and  dearest 
were  staying  for  only  a  short  sojourn  with  a  voluntary 
exile. 

By  nature  and  upbringing  I  am  not  sentimental, 
and  I  will  not  lose  myself  in  sentimental  emotions ; 
but  I  can  honestly  say  that  the  island  is  more  desolate 
than  ever,  now  that  I  have  to  go  my  walks  between  the 
pastures,  along  the  irrigation  canals,  up  the  shore  and 
through  the  villages  without  my  wife  and  without  the 
boys.  In  their  childish  way,  the  little  fellows  found 
everything  that  was  strange  and  new  to  them  here 
incomparably  delightful,  thought  it  all  a  thousand  times 
finer  than  the  best  that  they  had  in  our  own  Cicilienhof 
at  Potsdam  or  at  Ols.  Everywhere  I  now  miss  those 
boys,  miss  the  inquiring  remarks  of  those  youngest 
ones  who  really  made  their  first  acquaintance  with 
their  father  here  in  the  island,  miss  continually  the 
kind,  wise  and  understanding  words  of  the  wife  who 
has  so  many  sorrows  and  worries  of  her  own  to  bear 
and  who  yet  never  loses  courage.  Over  there,  at 
Hippolytushof ,  we  stowed  the  little  fellows  in  the  house 

108 


STRESS  AND   STORM  109 

of  the  ever-ready  Burgomaster  Peereboom  —  for  we 
had  no  room  for  them  in  my  parsonage  —  and  there 
they  were  soon  the  friends  and  confidants  of  all  the 
lads  anywhere  near  their  own  age.  In  our  Oosterland 
cottage,  quarters  were  found  only  for  my  wife  and  her 
companion.  Everything  now  seems  empty,  since  it  is 
no  longer  filled  with  her  fun  at  the  primitive  glories 
and  makeshifts  of  our  "  bachelor's  household." 

On  her  way  home  she  stayed  at  Amerongen. 

It  is  depressing  to  read  what  she  writes  about  things 
there.  Our  dear  mother  suffering,  and  yet  untiringly 
occupied  with  the  Kaiser,  with  my  brothers,  my 
little  sister  and  her  grandchildren  ;  my  father  bitter 
and  not  yet  able  to  release  himself  from  the  ever- 
revolving  circle  of  brooding  about  the  things  that  have 
been. 

It  is  a  very  different  thing  whether  the  will  and 
vital  courage  of  a  man  of  thirty-six  years  are  to  with- 
stand the  test  of  such  a  terrible  strain  of  destiny,  or 
whether  a  man  of  sixty  is  to  see  shattered  before  him 
his  life's  work  that  he  had  regarded  as  imperishable. 

In  the  last  few  days,  my  thoughts  have  re 
him  over  and  over  again.  S? 


At  the  time  that  I  was  about  to  start  on  my 
tour,  my  military  career  had  reached  the  point  where 
I  was  to  receive  the  command  of  a  cavalry  regiment. 
It  was  a  matter  of  great  moment  to  me  ;  and,  con- 
sidering the  political  situation,  I  did  not  wish  to  be 
too  far  away  from  the  centre  of  government,  from  those 
men  who  had  to  cook  the  broth  in  the  serving  out  of 
which  I  was  at  the  time  so  interested. 

In  this  matter  of  the  army  I  could  not  approach  the 
Kaiser  directly.  My  appointed  intermediary  was  the 
chef  du  cabinet  militaire,  General  von  Lyncker.  I 


no   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

discussed  the  affair  with  him  and  asked  for  the  Gardes 
du  Corps.  Herr  von  Lyncker,  who  treated  my  request 
quite  impartially  and  without  any  prepossession,  enter- 
tained great  doubts  ;  he  told  me  that  His  Majesty 
would  almost  certainly  not  consent ;  rather  than  raise 
this  "  problem  "  again,  they  would  prefer  to  drop  my 
suggestion.  From  the  trend  of  the  conversation,  more- 
over, it  was  observable  that  the  inner  circle  of  His 
Majesty's  advisers  and  certain  government  offices  did 
not  passionately  share  my  wish  that  I  should  remain 
near  the  centre  of  government. 

I  therefore  asked  for  the  King's  Uhlans  in  Hanover 
or  the  Breslau  Life  Cuirassiers  ;  and  Herr  von  Lyncker 
said  that  this  would  not  create  any  difficulty,  and  he 
would  advise  His  Majesty  accordingly.  I  was  content ; 
after  all,  Hanover  and  Breslau  did  not  lie  quite  beyond 
the  world  and  one  might  keep  fairly  in  touch  with  things 
from  either  place. 

Such  was  the  situation,  when  I  left  for  India.  But 
at  Peshawar  I  read  in  an  English  newspaper  that  His 
Majesty  had  appointed  me  to  the  command  of  his  First 
Life  Hussars  at  Langfuhr  by  Danzig. 

My  prime  feeling  was  one  of  disappointment,  not 
only  because  my  wishes  had  been  once  more  totally 
pushed  aside,  but  because  it  seemed  to  be  a  sort  of 
principle  to  refuse  the  fulfilment  of  the  wishes  of  us 
sons  in  military  matters.  Nor  was  this  all.  The 
remote  position  of  Danzig  and  the  bleak  climate,  which 
I  feared  especially  on  my  wife's  account,  were  not 
particularly  alluring.  Contrary  to  my  expectations, 
everything  turned  out  capitally,  and,  but  for  my 
worries  about  the  general  situation  of  affairs,  the  two 
years  and  a  half  spent  in  Danzig  became  the  happiest 
time  of  my  life. 

We  lived  in  a  small  villa  which  scarcely  afforded 
sufficient  room  for  my  already  considerable  family. 


STRESS  AND  STORM  in 

But  we  made  ourselves  very  comfortable  and  led  a 
happy  and  peaceful  life. 

It  was  for  me  an  honour  and  a  pleasure  to  be  the 
commander  of  that  fine  old  regiment.  The  officers 
were  all  young — a  companionable  mixture  of  nobles  and 
commoners.  The  serious  and  faithful  character  of  my 
old  regimental  adjutant,  Count  Dohna,  I  recall  with 
particular  pleasure.  Most  of  the  officers  were  the  sons 
of  landed  proprietors  in  East  and  West  Prussia  whose 
fathers  and  grandfathers  had  worn  the  Black  Attila 
and  the  Death's  Head  of  the  Body  Hussars.  Similarly, 
the  regiment  recruited  its  non-commissioned  officers 
and  men  almost  exclusively  from  among  the  young 
countrymen  of  East  Prussia,  West  Prussia,  and 
Posen,  tip-top  soldiers  who  brought  with  them  from 
their  homes  a  love  of  horses  and  an  understanding  of 
how  to  look  after  them.  Finally,  the  horses  them- 
selves were  excellent ;  and  we  were  the  only  white- 
horse  regiment  in  the  army. 

The  love  for  riding  which  had  been  in  me  from 
childhood  could  now  have  full  sway.  In  accordance 
with  the  convictions  gained  by  experience,  I  limited 
riding-school  drill  to  the  minimum,  and  laid  chief 
weight  upon  cross-country  work  and  jumping,  in  which 
really  first-class  results  were  obtained.  Great  stress 
was  laid  upon  foot-practice  and  firing,  more  perhaps 
than  was  then  customary  with  many  a  hardened  out- 
and-out  cavalryman.  The  war  showed  that  this  train- 
ing is,  even  for  cavalry,  a  thing  that  should  not  be  in 
any  way  neglected. 

I  did  my  best  to  maintain  a  love  and  liking  for  the 
service  among  my  Hussars.  I  had  a  nice  commodious 
casino  installed  for  the  use  of  the  non-commissioned 
officers,  as  well  as  comfortable  quarters  for  the  men. 
The  men  who  had  been  in  the  ranks  for  a  year  or  more 
were  lodged  separately  from  the  recruits  to  prevent 


H2   THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

possible  difficulties.  In  the  leisure  hours  there  were 
plenty  of  outdoor  games.  Towards  the  end  of  my 
time,  we  had  a  well-trained  football  team  in  which 
the  officers  took  part. 

It  was  during  this  period  of  my  life  that  Deutschland 
in  Waffen  was  published,  a  picture-book  for  young 
Germans.  The  preface  which  I  wrote  for  it  has  been 
unjustly  taken  to  indicate  that  I  had  ranged  myself 
among  the  firebrands  of  war.  Nothing  was  ever  further 
from  my  thoughts  ;  nor  can  an  impartial  perusal  of 
my  paragraphs  discover  such  a  meaning  in  them.  The 
preface  was  written  in  consequence  of  the  increasing 
dangers  that  threatened  us  ;  it  was  directed  against 
sordid  materialism  and  pointed  out  to  the  youth  of 
Germany  that  it  was  their  duty  and  honour  to  fight,  if 
necessary,  for  their  country.  It  was  the  admonition 
of  a  German  and  a  soldier  to  the  rising  generation  of 
Germans,  whose  young  energies  and  whose  patriotic 
spirit  of  self-sacrifice  we  could  not  dispense  with  in 
the  hour  of  need. 

Since  my  demonstration  against  Bethmann  Hollweg's 
Morocco  policy,  I  was  labelled  as  a  war-inciter  by 
every  blind  pacifist  in  Germany  and  by  their  friends 
abroad  whenever  I  came  before  the  public.  So  it  was 
in  the  case  of  this  little  dissertation  on  our  army  :  people 
sought  in  it  evidence  of  the  character  unjustly  ascribed 
to  me.  Similarly  they  imagined  they  had  pinned  me 
tight  when,  a  short  time  afterwards,  I  came  forward 
in  another  public  affair,  namely  the  Zabern  incident, 
which  obtained  such  unfortunate  notoriety. 

Our  policy  in  the  Reichslanden  (Alsace-Lorraine) 
had  for  years  caused  me  great  anxiety.  My  visits  to 
these  provinces,  as  well  as  the  reports  of  many  of  my 
comrades  in  the  garrisons  of  the  west  frontier,  and  the 
honest  descriptions  given  me  of  conditions  there  by 
those  familiar  with  them,  had  opened  my  eyes  to  the 


STRESS  AND   STORM  113 

realities  of  the  situation.  Sugar-plums  and  the  whip 
had  prevailed  ever  since  1871.  The  results  corres- 
ponded to  the  tactics.  The  last  period  had  been  one 
of  sugar-plums,  and  the  reichsldndische  constitution 
had  been  its  culmination.  French  propaganda  now 
had  it  all  its  own  way  and  did  whatever  it  pleased. 
The  pro-French  notables  set  the  fashion  and  called 
the  tune  for  the  civil  administration.  The  military 
were,  in  a  sense,  merely  tolerated  by  the  irredentist 
circles.  Just  one  example  to  illustrate  the  pre-war 
conditions  in  the  German  Reichslanden  and  the  attitude 
of  the  government  authorities.  Two  of  my  flying- 
officers  told  me  one  day  that,  in  the  year  1913,  a  great 
French  presentation  of  the  colours  took  place,  and  they 
—the  military — were  advised  not  to  show  themselves 
in  the  streets  on  that  day  lest  the  sight  of  their  Prus- 
sian uniform  might  irritate  the  French.  Under  such 
conditions  it  was  that  the  conflict  arose.  The  civil 
population  had  heckled  the  Prussian  military,  the 
officer  had  defended  himself,  and  then  the  whole  world 
suddenly  howled  at  Prussian  militarism.  At  this 
moment,  at  a  time  when  foreign  countries  and  the 
never- wanting  sophistical  advocates  of  absolute  justice 
in  our  own  poor  Germany  were  doing  everything  to 
discredit  our  last  and  only  asset,  our  army,  in  the  eyes 
of  friend  and  foe,  I  readily  and  "  without  the  proper 
reserve,"  as  it  was  said,  took  my  stand  by  my  comrades 
who  were  so  hard  pressed  by  the  attacks  of  public 
controversy.  I  wired  to  General  von  Deimling  and  to 
Colonel  von  Reuter.  That  is  all  true.  But  that  I  sent 
the  colonel  a  telegram  containing  the  words,  "  Immer 
feste  druff "  I  learned  from  the  newspapers,  and  thanks 
to  the  falsifying  imagination  of  those  peace-lovers  who, 
with  this  invention,  sought  perhaps  to  strengthen  the 
great  longings  for  peace  all  around  us.  In  truth  I 
had  telegraphed  to  Colonel  von  Reuter  as  a  comrade 


H4   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

that  he  should  take  severe  measures,  since  the  prestige 
of  the  army  was  at  stake.  If  Lieutenant  von  Forstner 
had  been  condemned,  every  hooligan  would  have  felt 
encouraged  to  attack  the  uniform.  An  untenable 
situation  would  have  been  sanctioned,  doubly  unten- 
able in  the  Reichslanden,  where,  in  consequence  of  the 
lax  attitude  of  the  civil  authorities,  the  military  already 
found  themselves  in  the  most  difficult  circumstances. 
I  should  like  to  have  seen  what  would  have  happened 
in  England  or  France,  if  an  officer  had  been  provoked 
as  Lieutenant  von  Forstner  was. 

But  we  were  in  Germany.  German  public  opinion 
had  once  more  a  pretext  for  busying  itself  with  me  in 
conjunction  with  the  events  described ;  the  old  talk 
about  a  camarilla,  about  the  war  firebrand  and  the 
frondeur  of  Langfuhr  were  dished  up  again  in  the 
leading  articles  of  the  scribblers.  If  they  were  to  be 
believed,  I  had  once  again  made  myself  "  impossible." 
The  highest  dignitaries  wore  the  doubtful  faces  pre- 
scribed for  such  occasions  of  national  mourning,  and 
His  Majesty  was  highly  displeased. 

Schiller  says  in  William  Tell :  ' '  The  waters  rage  and 
clamour  for  their  victims  "  ;  and  another  passage  runs  : 

'Twas  blessing  in  disguise  ;  it  raised  me  upwards." 

Out  of  the  blue  and  with  great  suddenness  every- 
thing happened.  His  Majesty  took  my  regiment  from 
me  and  ordered  me  to  Berlin,  so  that  my  overgrown 
independence  might  be  curtailed  and  my  doings  better 
watched.  I  was  to  work  in  the  General  Staff. 

In  this  way  a  circle  was  completed :  the  desire  not  to 
have  me  too  near  the  central  authorities  had  sent  me 
to  Langfuhr  by  Danzig ;  the  desire  to  have  me  within 
reach  brought  me  back  again  ;  in  both  cases,  a  little 
indignation  and  a  little  annoyance  played  their  part. 

At  any  rate,  among  the  incorrigible  pacifists  who 
wished  to  disperse  with  pretty  speeches  the  war-menace 


STRESS  AND  STORM  115 

already  hanging  above  the  horizon,  indignation  was 
aroused  by  my  farewell  words  to  my  Hussars.  I  had 
called  it  a  moment  of  the  greatest  happiness  to  the 
soldier  "  when  the  King  called  and  March  !  March  ! 
was  sounded."  According  to  them  I  ought  doubtless 
to  have  told  my  brave  comrades  some  pretty  fairy 
tale. 

When  I  rode  for  the  last  time  down  the  front  of  my 
fine  regiment  and  the  farewell  shouts  of  my  Hussars 
rang  in  my  ears,  my  heart  became  unspeakably  heavy. 
It  was  as  though  a  still  small  voice  whispered  that  this 
was  the  farewell  to  a  peaceful  soldier's  life  which  I  was 
never  again  to  know.  What  I  was  now  to  leave  had 
all  been  so  beautiful,  so  happy  and  so  replete  with 
honest  labour. 

In  foreign  soil,  sleeping  their  eternal  sleep,  now  rest 
many — too,  too  many — of  the  bright  and  capable 
young  comrades  of  my  beloved  and  courageous  regiment 
of  Hussars  whose  uniform  I  was  delighted  and  proud 
to  wear  throughout  the  war.  Among  them  lies  my 
cousin,  Prince  Frederick  Charles  of  Prussia,  a  par- 
ticularly undaunted  rider  and  soldier.  My  memory 
will  be  with  them  all  in  grateful  sadness  as  long  as  I 
live. 

£  4>  £  4>  4> 

Perhaps  I  ought  to  have  torn  up  the  sheets  I  wrote 
yesterday  and  to  have  re-written  them  in  a  different 
style.  When  I  read  them  through  to-day,  I  found  in 
them  a  note  of  irritability  that  I  would  prefer  not  to  in- 
troduce into  my  memoirs.  But  I  shall  let  them  remain 
as  they  are  ;  they  bear  witness  to  the  bitterness  which 
still  possesses  me  when  I  recall  that  last  year  before 
the  war  and  the  absurdity  of  our  "  ostrich  "  policy. 
What  a  sorry  humour  comes  over  me  when  I  remember 
how  they  dubbed  me  the  instigator  of  a  "  fresh,  free, 
rollicking  war  "  because  of  my  warning  :  "  Then  pre- 


n6   THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

serve  at  least  your  last  for  the  grave  day  and  keep 
yourselves  armed  for  the  struggle  that  is  surely 
coming  !  ' 

The  truth  is  that  I  was  clearly  conscious  of  the 
terrible  seriousness  of  our  position,  that  I  neither  was 
nor  am  a  Cassandra  filling  the  halls  of  Troy  with  verses 
of  lament,  but  a  man  and  a  soldier.  Yet  people  in 
our  beloved  homeland  took  it  very  ill  that  I  was  the 
latter,  and  they  do  so  still. 

For  the  winter  1913-14  I  was  ordered  to  the  Great 
General  Staff  for  purposes  of  initiation  and  study.  My 
instructor  was  Lieutenant-General  Schmidt  von  Kno- 
belsdorf,  who  became  afterwards  my  Chief  of  General 
Staff  in  the  Upper  Command  of  the  Fifth  Army.  In 
matters  of  military  science  I  owe  much  to  His  Excel- 
•ency  von  Knobelsdorf.  He  was  a  brilliant  teacher  in 
every  domain  of  tactics  and  strategy.  His  lectures 
and  the  themes  he  set  for  me  were  masterpieces.  His 
chief  maxim  was  :  clearness  of  decision  on  the  part  of 
the  leader  ;  translation  of  the  decision  into  commands  ; 
leave  your  subordinates  the  widest  scope  of  personal 
responsibility. 

My  appointment  to  the  General  Staff  gave  me  an 
exhaustive  insight  into  the  enormous  amount  of  work 
it  performed.  I  was  able  to  penetrate  into  the  superb 
organization  of  the  whole,  to  become  acquainted  with 
the  maintenance,  the  recuperation  and  the  movements 
of  the  army,  and  to  form  an  opinion  concerning  the 
defensive  forces  of  other  nations.  In  the  operations 
department  I  heard  lectures  on  the  proposed  concen- 
tration of  the  armies  in  the  event  of  war. 

From  the  lectures  and  discussions  concerning  a  possible 
world  war,  I  obtained  the  impression  that  the  British 
army  and  its  possibilities  of  development  in  case  of 
war  were  treated  too  lightly.  People  seemed  to  reckon 
too  much  with  the  disposable  forces  of  the  moment, 


STRESS  AND  STORM  117 

and  too  little  with  the  value  of  what  might  be  created 
under  the  pressure  of  war  and  resistance.  I  knew  some- 
thing of  the  English  and  their  army  from  my  various 
visits  and  from  personal  observation,  and  I  knew,  too, 
their  great  talent  for  organization  as  well  as  their  skill  in 
improvising.  If  a  conceivable  war  were  carried  through 
successfully  before  these  talents  could  be  brought 
into  play,  the  estimates  of  our  General  Staff  might 
prove  correct,  but  not  otherwise.  The  Russian  army 
I  also  considered  not  to  have  been  always  rated  at  its 
full  significance. 

In  regard  to  our  western  neighbour  and  presumably 
immediate  adversary,  I  have  only  to  recall  that  France, 
at  that  time,  despite  her  considerably  smaller  popula- 
tion, maintained  an  army  almost  as  large  as  ours. 
To  do  so,  she  levied  eighty  per  cent,  of  her  men,  whereas 
we  contented  ourselves  with  about  fifty  per  cent. 

The  general  view  of  the  peace  strength  in  the  event 
of  a  war  such  as  that  which  actually  occurred  may  be 
put  thus  :  For  Germany  not  quite  900,000  troops  and 
for  Austria- Hungary  about  500,000 — together,  roughly 
1,400,000  men  on  the  side  of  the  Central  Powers.  On 
the  other  hand,  Russia  alone  provided  the  Entente  with 
well  over  2,000,000  soldiers,  to  whom  were  to  be  added 
those  of  France  and  Belgium.  Thus,  even  at  the  out- 
set of  the  war,  we  were  outnumbered  in  the  ratio  of 
two  to  one.  Reckoning  the  quality  of  the  German  as 
high  as  you  please — and  to  place  him  very  high  was 
quite  justifiable — the  odds  were  too  great. 

With  all  that,  we  had,  in  1914,  an  army  that,  in 
every  way,  was  brilliantly  trained  ;  and  consequently, 
in  the  summer  of  that  year,  when  the  die  was  cast,  we 
took  the  field  "  with  the  best  army  in  the  world." 

But,  so  far  as  provision  for  war  was  concerned,  we 
had  unfortunately  not,  in  our  peace  preparations, 
attained  the  maximum  of  striking  energy.  We  were 


n8   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

far  from  having  exploited  all  our  resources  of  strength 
in  people  and  land  or  mobilized  them  in  time.  That 
the  Great  General  Staff  had  repeatedly  expressed  urgent 
wishes  in  this  matter  I  can,  myself,  testify.  The  fault 
did  not  lie  there.  Nor  did  it  lie  with  the  German 
Reichstag,  which,  in  consideration  of  the  menacing 
seriousness  of  the  situation,  would  not,  despite  its  party 
differences,  have  refused  to  provide  the  German  sword 
with  all  possible  force  and  keenness,  if  the  responsible 
Ministers  had  used  all  their  weight  to  this  end.  But 
it  seemed  then,  as  it  had  done  in  peace  time,  as  though 
all  communications,  suggestions  or  inquiries  issuing 
from  military  quarters  and  especially  from  the  General 
Staff,  fell  on  barren  ground.  Close  co-operation  was, 
under  such  circumstances,  impossible. 

In  that  very  year  1914,  a  question  arose  which  was 
viewed  from  totally  different  standpoints  by  the  two 
parties.  The  Russians  began  to  make  a  compre- 
hensive redisposition  of  their  troops.  Quite  evidently 
the  centre  of  gravity  was  being  shifted  towards  the 
German  and  Austrian  frontiers,  which  felt  more  and 
more  the  pressure  of  these  amassments.  From  the 
interior  of  Russia,  also,  the  General  Staff  received 
news  of  curious  troop  movements.  How  were  these 
proceedings  to  be  explained  ?  The  military  view 
that  they  gave  us  good  reason  to  be  prepared  for  any 
event  was  met  by  the  watery  explanation  that  the 
affair  was  only  a  test  mobilization ;  and,  in  stupid 
anxiety  lest  a  definite  clearing  up  of  the  matter  might 
"  start  the  avalanche,"  the  political  gentlemen  adopted 
the  attitude  of  "  Wait  and  see." 


Subsequent  to  the  "summer  visit  of  the  General 
Staff  to  the  Vosges  under  the  leadership  of  its  chief, 
von  Moltke,  I  received  a  few  weeks'  furlough,  which 


STRESS  AND  STORM  119 

I  spent  in  West  Prussia.  Early  in  July,  I  joined  my 
family  in  a  charming  little  villa  presented  to  us  by 
the  town  of  Zoppot.  It  was  a  magnificently  brilliant 
summer,  and  the  days  went  swiftly  by  in  such 
recreations  as  swimming,  rowing,  riding  and  tennis. 
Zoppot  was  filled  with  strangers,  including  many  Poles. 

In  the  midst  of  this  serene  peacefulness,  I  was 
startled  by  the  gruesome  telegram  which  brought 
me  the  tidings  of  the  Archduke's  assassination.  That 
this  political  murder  would  have  serious  consequences 
was  obvious.  But  this  gloomy  conviction  remained, 
for  the  moment,  confined  to  my  own  bosom ;  not  a 
soul  among  our  leading  statesmen  thought  it  necessary 
to  hear  my  views  or  to  inform  me  of  those  of  our 
Ministers.  Neither  from  the  Imperial  Chancellor,  nor 
from  the  Foreign  Office,  nor  from  the  Chief  of  the 
General  Staff,  did  I  learn  a  thing  about  the  course 
of  affairs. 

The  Kaiser  was  cruising  in  Norwegian  waters, 
which  I  had  to  take  as  an  indication  that  nothing 
unusual  was  to  be  anticipated.  Only  the  newspaper 
reports  strengthened  my  belief  that  serious  develop- 
ments were  on  the  way.  From  Danzig  merchants 
who  had  just  returned  from  Russia  I  also  received 
news  indicating  that  an  extensive  westward  movement 
of  Russian  troops  was  taking  place  ;  though,  naturally, 
I  had  no  means  of  checking  the  correctness  of  this 
information. 

It  was  also  from  the  Press  that  I  gleaned  my  first 
information  concerning  the  Austrian  ultimatum.  Its 
wording  left  the  door  open  to  every  possibility,  accord- 
ing to  the  political  attitude  adopted  towards  it  by  our 
Foreign  Office.  To  me  it  seemed  quite  self-evident 
that  the  Wilhelmstrasse  ought  to  assume  an  inde- 
pendent position  and  certainly  ought  not  to  allow  itself 
to  be  drawn  once  more,  as  unhappily  had  previously 


120   THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

been  the  case,  into  the  wake  of  a  pronounced  Austrian 
policy. 

To  these  days,  in  which  the  world  faced  such 
tremendous  decisions,  belongs  an  interlude,  a  painful 
one  for  me,  that  was  once  more  to  reveal  to  me,  just 
before  the  eleventh  hour,  the  chasm  between  my  own 
conception  of  things  and  the  Imperial  Chancellor's. 
It  was  my  last  peace  conflict  with  Herr  von  Bethmann 
— in  reality  a  matter  of  no  consequence  and  one  of 
which  I  speak  here  only  because,  at  the  time,  it  was 
dragged  into  the  newspapers  and  capital  made  of  it 
to  my  detriment. 

I  had  given  expression  to  my  interest  in  the  utter- 
ances of  two  Germans  who,  like  myself,  saw  the 
gathering  storm  and  raised  their  voices  in  warning. 
The  one  was  the  retired  lieutenant-colonel,  D.  H. 
Frobenius,  who  had  published  a  political  pamphlet  called 
The  German  Empire's  Hour  of  Destiny  ;  the  other  was 
Professor  Gustav  Buchholz,  who  had  delivered  a  speech 
on  Bismarck  at  Posen.  The  wording  of  my  telegram 
to  Frobenius  ran  :  "I  have  read  with  great  interest 
your  splendid  brochure  '  Des  Deutschen  Reiches 
Schicksalsstunde '  and  wish  it  the  widest  circulation 
among  the  German  people. — Wilhelm  Kronprinz." 

These  "  bellicose  manifestations "  ("  Kriegs- 
hetzerischen  Kundgebungen ")  Herr  von  Bethmann 
considered  calculated  to  "  compromise  and  cross " 
("  kompromittieren  und  kontrekarrieren ")  his 
firmly  established  policy ;  and  he  found  time,  on 
July  20,  to  address  personally  to  His  Majesty  a 
long  telegram  complaining  of  my  action  and  request- 
ing him  "  to  forbid  me  by  telegram  all  interference  in 
politics."  Thereupon,  in  a  telegram  from  Balholm 
dated  July  21,  the  Kaiser,  appealing  to  my  sense 
of  duty  and  honour  as  a  Prussian  officer,  reminded 
me  of  my  promise  to  refrain  from  all  political 


STRESS  AND  STORM  121 

activity ;  accordingly  and  without  any  discussion 
as  to  whether,  in  my  telegram  quoted  above,  anything 
more  could  be  found  than  the  thanks  of  an  inter- 
ested and  approving  reader,  I  wired  to  His  Majesty 
on  July  23  :  "  Commands  will  be  carried  out."  At 
that  moment  I  had  other  matters  to  worry  about  than 
disputes  with  Herr  von  Bethmann  over  the  limits 
of  my  right  to  thank  some  one  for  a  book  that  had 
been  sent  me. 

The  next  thing  I  learned  touching  the  great  problem 
was  that  the  Kaiser  had  arrived  at  Kiel  on  board  the 
Hohenzollern  on  the  morning  of  the  26th,  and  that 
he  had  proceeded  immediately  to  Potsdam.  That 
was  comforting,  since,  if  there  were  any  prospect  of 
maintaining  peace,  he  would  exert  himself  to  the 
utmost  to  do  so. 

Then  silence  again.  Then,  in  the  newspapers,  which 
we  seized  eagerly  :  "  Grey  has  suggested  to  Paris, 
Berlin  and  Rome  concerted  action  at  Vienna  and 
Belgrade — the  crown  council  in  Cetinje  has  resolved 
upon  mobilization." 

Distinctly  and  clearly,  as  though  it  were  but  yester- 
day, I  still  recall  the  3oth  of  July.  My  adjutant 
Miiller  and  I  were  lying  in  the  dunes  sunning  ourselves 
after  a  delightful  swim,  when  an  urgent  telegram 
was  brought  me  by  special  messenger.  It  contained 
His  Majesty's  orders  for  me  to  come  at  once  to 
Potsdam.  We  now  saw  the  full  seriousness  of  the 
situation. 

I  started  immediately. 

On  the  3 ist  there  was  a  supper  at  the  New  Palace, 
at  which  my  uncle,  Prince  Henry,  was  also  present. 

After  supper,  His  Majesty  walked  up  and  down  in  the 
garden  with  myself  and  Prince  Henry.  He  was  exces- 
sively serious ;  he  did  not  conceal  from  himself  the 
enormous  peril  of  the  situation,  but  he  expressed  the 


122    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

hope  that  a  European  war  might  be  avoided ;  he 
himself  had  sent  detailed  telegrams  to  the  Tsar  and 
to  the  King  of  England  and  believed  he  might  anticipate 
success. 

Some  difference  arose  between  my  uncle  and  myself 
through  my  asserting  that,  if  it  came  to  war,  England 
would  most  assuredly  take  the  side  of  our  adversaries. 
Prince  Henry  contested  this.  Thus  I  found  here  the 
same  optimism  that  had  clouded  the  views  of  the 
Imperial  Chancellor,  who,  to  the  last  moment,  held  firm 
and  fast  to  his  belief  in  England's  neutrality.  His 
Majesty  was  in  some  doubt  as  to  the  attitude  which 
England  would  adopt  in  the  event  of  war. 

My  last  conversation  on  this  question  with  the 
Imperial  Chancellor,  von  Bethmann  Hollweg,  took 
place  at  the  Palace  in  Berlin  on  August  2.  It  is 
stamped  into  my  memory — sharp  and  indelible ;  the 
impressive  hour  in  which  it  occurred  enhanced  the 
depth  and  significance  of  the  effect,  which,  with  final 
and  terrible  clearness,  once  more  revealed  to  me,  on 
the  threshold  of  war,  that  our  only  prospect  of  success 
lay  in  the  strength  of  the  German  army. 

On  that  2nd  of  August,  I  had  just  taken  leave  of  my 
father  to  join  the  army.  My  car  stood  ready.  As  I  was 
about  to  leave  the  little  garden  between  the  palace 
and  the  Spree,  I  met  the  Chancellor  coming  in  to  report 
to  His  Majesty,  and  we  spent  a  few  minutes  in  talk. 

Bethmann  :  Your  Imperial  Highness  is  going  to  the 
front  ? 

Myself :    Yes. 

Bethmann  :    Will  the  army  do  it  ? 

Myself  :  Whatever  an  army  can  do  we  shall  do  ;  but 
I  feel  constrained  to  point  out  to  Your  Excellency  that 
the  political  aspect  of  the  stars  under  which  we  are 
entering  the  war  is  the  most  unfavourable  that  one  can 
imagine. 


STRESS  AND  STORM  123 

Bethmann  :    In  what  way  ? 

Myself :  Well,  that  is  clear :  Russia,  France,  England 
on  the  other  side ;  Italy  and  Roumania  at  most 
neutral — though  even  that  is  improbable. 

Bethmann  :  Why,  that  is  impossible.  England  will 
certainly  remain  neutral. 

Myself  :  Your  Excellency  will  receive  the  declaration 
of  war  in  a  few  days.  There  is  only  one  thing  to  be 
done  :  to  find  allies.  In  my  opinion,  we  must  do 
everything  to  induce  Turkey  and  Bulgaria  to  conclude 
alliances  with  us  as  soon  as  possible. 

Bethmann  :  I  should  consider  that  the  greatest  mis- 
fortune for  Germany. 

I  stared  at  him  puzzled,  till  I  perceived  the  connexion 
between  his  remark  and  what  had  gone  before.  In 
his  incomprehensible  ideology  he  meant  that,  by  such 
alliances,  we  might  forfeit  the  friendship  and  the 
certain  neutrality  of  England — friendship  and  neutrality 
that  existed  only  in  his  own  head. 

As  soon  as  I  grasped  this,  our  conversation  was  at  an 
end.  I  saluted  him  and  drove  off. 

There  was  only  one  hope,  one  support,  on  which 
we  could  lean  ;  that  was  the  German  people  in  arms, 
the  German  army.  With  that  we  might  perhaps 
succeed  in  our  task  despite  our  diplomatists  and  despite 
the  naive  imaginings  of  this  Chancellor,  who  was  so 
spiritually  minded  that  he  was  almost  completely 
out  of  touch  with  mundane  realities. 

The  incredible  conception  of  our  political  situation, 
as  revealed  by  Herr  von  Bethmann  Hollweg  in  the 
conversation  just  cited,  is  apparent  also  in  the  report 
of  the  British  Ambassador,  Sir  Edward  Goschen,  on 
his  decisive  interview  with  the  Chancellor  the  next 
day.  According  to  that  report,  Herr  von  Beth- 
mann, now  that  he  was  at  last  bound  to  see  be- 
fore him  England's  true  face,  admitted  with  emotion 


124   THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

that  his  entire  policy  had  collapsed  like  a  house  of 
cards. 

Since  those  fateful  summer  days  of  the  year  1914, 
I  have  thought  much  and  often  about  these  incidents  ; 
and  here  in  the  solitude  of  the  island  I  have  pondered 
more  and  more  over  the  matter.  The  blue,  the  red 
and  the  white  books  of  the  various  countries  have 
furnished  me  with  many  a  hint  as  to  the  actual  pro- 
ceedings of  the  weeks  immediately  before  the  war. 
And  I  find  myself  obliged  to  formulate  a  judgment 
in  even  more  severe  terms  than  before  :  in  those 
fateful  days  Bethmann  Hollweg's  policy  and  the 
Foreign  Office  failed  more  completely  than  might  have 
been  looked  for  from  the  example  of  preceding  years. 

That,  in  a  war  between  Austria  and  Serbia,  Russia 
would  back  Serbia  and  France  Russia,  and  so  on,  was 
known  to  every  amateur  politician  in  Germany. 
Instead  of  critically  examining  Austria's  action  and 
saying  categorically  to  the  Ballplatz  :  '  We  shall  not 
wage  war  for  Serbia,"  people  did  as  I  had  feared ; 
they  allowed  themselves  to  be  completely  taken  in  tow 
by  Austria.  That  is  what  happened,  and,  in  my 
opinion,  none  of  the  other  representations  of  the  case 
by  the  Foreign  Office  go  to  the  root  of  the  matter. 
The  totally  incomprehensible  attitude  of  the  Foreign 
Office  placed  us  in  quite  a  false  light ;  so  that  the 
Entente,  adducing  the  outward  appearance  as  proof, 
assert  that  we  declined  the  mediation  of  England 
because  we  wished  to  go  to  war. 

Withal,  this  Foreign  Office  was  so  sure  of  itself  that 
it  allowed  the  Kaiser  to  proceed  to  Norway,  the  Chief 
of  the  General  Staff  to  stay  at  Carlsbad,  and  His  Excel- 
lency von  Tirpitz  to  remain  on  furlough  in  the  Black 
Forest. 

Thanks  to  an  incredibly  blind  management  of  our 
foreign  affairs,  we  just  blundered  into  the  world  war. 


STRESS  AND  STORM  125 

So  remarkable  was  the  incompetence  of  our  responsible 
authorities  that  the  world  refused  to  believe  us,  refused 
to  regard  such  simplicity  as  possible,  took  it  to  be  a 
cleverly  chosen  mask  behind  which  was  hidden  some 
particularly  cunning  scheme. 

When  the  Kaiser  returned  from  Norway,  it  was  too 
late  to  accomplish  anything.  Destiny  took  its  course. 

Middle  of  July,  1920. 

For  considerably  more  than  half  a  year  I  have  not 
had  in  my  hands  these  sheets  on  which  I  had  set 
down  a  review  of  my  life  and  of  my  immediate 
surroundings  down  to  the  outbreak  of  war  and,  at  the 
same  time,  my  impressions  and  reminiscences  of  the 
events  which  led  up  to  it.  Not  that  I  had  given  up 
the  idea  of  sketching  the  incidents  of  the  war  in  a 
similar  way,  but  because,  in  the  progress  of  the  work, 
it  soon  appeared  necessary  to  lift  these  out  of  the  scope 
of  personal  reminiscences  and  to  mould  them  into  the 
form  of  an  historical  presentation  of  the  events  of  the 
war. 

Consequently,  from  October  of  last  year  till  now, 
my  task  has  been  the  recording  of  the  purely  military 
happenings  which  from  the  day  we  took  the  field 
I  shared  and  experienced  in  common  with  the  troops 
entrusted  to  me,  during  the  long  days  of  the  war  as 
leader  of  the  Fifth  Army  and  as  Commander-in-Chief 
of  the  "  Kronprinz  "  group  of  armies. 

All  the  great  events  that  took  place  in  those  years 
and  all  the  sufferings  that  I  had  to  wrestle  with  and  to 
endure  I  have  conscientiously  noted  down.  In  this  way 
there  has  been  laid  the  foundation  of  a  presentation  of 
the  tremendous  military  performances  of  that  fellowship 
whose  members  stood  as  comrades  under  me  and  with 
me  in  the  field.  It  is  a  presentation  which,  the  more  I 
occupied  myself  with  it,  tempted  me  more  and  more  to 


126    THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

make  the  utmost  use  of  the  copious  material  in  my 
possession  ;  I  was  attracted,  too,  by  the  thought  of 
erecting  to  my  faithful  fellow-soldiers  a  chaste  and 
simple  monument  in  the  shape  of  a  straightforward 
and  unadorned  story  of  their  doings. 

The  account  that  I  have  given  in  it,  as  a  soldier, 
of  those  bloody  and  yet  immortally  great  four  and  a 
half  years,  will  not  fit  into  the  framework  of  what  I 
have  already  recounted  in  these  pages.  It  is  military 
technical  writing  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word, 
and  is  to  take  the  form  of  a  separate  and  complete 
volume. 

These  considerations  have  led  me  to  decide  upon 
lifting  the  picture  of  the  military  enterprises  and 
battles  bodily  out  of  these  present  memoirs  and  to 
proceed,  as  before,  with  the  frank  and  free  description 
of  my  most  personal  impressions  and  experiences  and 
my  attitude  towards  the  most  weighty  problems 
brought  before  me  by  the  war  and  into  which  I 
was  swept  by  the  general  collapse  and  ruin. 

But  before  returning  to  my  memories  of  that 
more  remote  past,  I  should  like  to  say  something  of 
the  eight  or  nine  months  which  have  elapsed  since  I 
wrote  of  them  last  in  this  manuscript. 

If  anyone  had  said  to  me  last  autumn  :  When  the 
New  Year  comes,  and  spring,  and  summer,  you  will 
still  be  in  this  island  and  far  from  your  home,  I  should 
not  have  believed  him,  should  scarcely  have  been 
able  to  bear  the  thought  of  it.  Thus  the  never-failing 
hopes  of  a  progressive  restoration  of  our  homeland 
to  fresh  order  and  tranquillity,  coupled  with  the  work 
which — alongside  of  everything  else  brought  by  the 
days,  months  and  seasons — I  have  never  interrupted 
for  any  length  of  time,  have  helped  me  over  this  period. 
Friends  also,  who  have  visited  me  in  my  solitude  and 
brought  me  a  kind  of  echo  from  the  world,  have  helped 


STRESS  AND  STORM  127 

to  lighten  my  sequestered  lot ;  so,  too,  have  the  good 
simple  people  around  me,  who,  since  they  made  the 
acquaintance  of  my  wife,  have  grown  doubly  fond 
of  me  ;  finally,  there  is  my  faithful  comrade,  Major 
von  Miildner,  who,  in  self-sacrificing  devotion,  shares 
with  me  this  solitude  and,  ever  and  again,  takes  upon 
himself  a  thousand  and  one  troubles  and  worries  in 
order  to  spare  me  the  burden. 

Who  were  all  the  people  that  came  ?  In  autumn 
there  was  that  fine  editor,  Prell,  a  thorough  German, 
who  conducts  the  Deutsche  Wochenzeitung  in  the 
Netherlands,  accompanied  by  his  colleague,  Mr.  Ros- 
tock. This  German- American  gave  me  some  interest- 
ing descriptions  of  anti-German  war  propaganda  in 
America.  He  also  brought  with  him  a  propaganda 
picture  which  is  said  to  have  met  with  great  success 
over  there  ;  it  represented  me  armed  as  an  ancient 
Teutonic  warrior  fighting  women  and  children  in  the 
attack  on  Verdun.  Another  visitor  was  Captain  Konig, 
the  famous  commander  of  the  Deutschland  submarine. 
Then  there  were  Mr.  Kan,  the  Secretary  General  to 
the  Home  Office,  a  strictly  correct  Dutch  state  official, 
to  whose  truly  humane  care  I  owe  so  much — and  His 
Excellency,  von  Berg,  formerly  Supreme  President  of 
East  Prussia  and  afterwards  Chief  of  the  Department  of 
Home  Affairs,  who  has  proved  one  of  the  best  and  most 
unerringly  faithful  advisers  of  our  House  in  fortune 
and  misfortune  ;  he  belongs  to  the  distant  "  Borussia  " 
days  of  Bonn,  was  a  friend  of  the  Kaiser's  in  his 
youth  and  is  one  of  the  men  who,  with  deep  human 
comprehension,  have  remained  true  to  the  lonely 
ageing  man  at  Amerongen. 

The  winter  has  set  in  with  comfortless  and  sombre 
severity.  The  anniversary  of  my  landing  in  the 
island  was  shrouded  in  greyness  and  mist,  like  the 
day  itself.  Leaden  clouds  lay  heavy  over  the  sea  and 


128    THE  CROWN   PRINCE   OF  GERMANY 

over  the  little  island ;  and,  day  and  night,  tempests 
swept  across  the  dykes  and  scourged  the  unhappy 
country.  A  few  days'  work  with  Major  Kurt,  my 
former  clever  and  indefatigably  active  intelligence 
officer,  constituted  a  welcome  respite. 

Shortly  before  Christmas,  Miiller,  my  old  adjutant 
and  chief  of  staff,  arrived  with  Christmas  presents 
from  home — presents  sent  by  relatives  and  touching 
tokens  of  affection  from  modest  unknown  persons. 
For  the  German  children  who,  at  the  time,  were 
staying  with  good  people  in  the  island  to  recuperate 
from  the  gruesome  effects  of  the  famine  blockade,  I 
arranged  a  Christmas  feast  in  the  little  Seeblick  Inn 
at  Oosterland,  with  a  Christmas  tree  and  all  sorts  of 
presents  and  old  German  carols. 

On  December  23,  the  small  and  intimate  circle  of  my 
household  celebrated  Christmas  in  the  parsonage ;  and 
next  day  Miildner  and  I,  accompanied  by  two  gentle- 
men appointed  by  the  Dutch  Government,  crossed  over 
to  the  mainland  and  proceeded  to  Amerongen  to  keep 
Christmas  with  my  parents  in  the  hospitable  home 
of  Count  Bentinck.  A  few  months  before — in  October 
— I  had  seen  my  father  for  the  first  time  since  that 
9th  of  November  of  the  previous  year,  on  which  day, 
after  grave  talks,  I  had  left  him  in  Spa  under  the  assured 
conviction  that,  in  spite  of  all  opposition,  he  would 
remain  with  the  army. 

Ineffaceable  is  the  image  left  to  me  of  that  man  with 
silver  grey  hair  standing  in  the  light  of  the  many 
candles  on  the  tall  dark-green  tree ;  still  there  rings 
in  my  ear  the  unforgettable  voice  as,  on  that  Christmas 
Eve,  he  read  the  Gospel  of  the  first  Noel :  "  Glory  to 
God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth  peace,  goodwill 
toward  men." 

On  the  27th  I  travelled  back  to  Wieringen. 

The  New  Year  came,  and  its  days  resembled  the 


STRESS  AND   STORM  129 

days  of  the  year  gone  by.  "  Peace  on  earth "  ? 
Hatred  and  revenge  more  savage  than  ever  before  ! 
The  unbroken  determination  to  destroy  on  the  part  of 
France,  who  cannot  pardon  us  the  mendacity  of  her 
theses  on  war-guilt !  The  newspapers  once  more  full  of 
inflammatory  comments  on  the  extradition  question  ! 
And,  very  amusing  for  me,  the  wild  rumours  of  my 
approaching  or  even  accomplished  flight  in  an  aero- 
plane, a  submarine  or  God  knows  what !  On  one 
occasion  two  American  journalists  actually  appeared 
in  my  cottage  and  asked  permission  to  assure  them- 
selves of  my  presence  here  with  their  own  eyes.  I 
willingly  consented  to  their  request. 

In  the  beginning  of  February,  the  official  extradition 
list  was  made  known — nine  hundred  names,  with  mine 
at  the  head.  On  that  occasion,  for  the  first  time,  I 
interrupted  the  aloofness  of  my  life  here  in  this  island, 
and  addressed  a  telegram  to  the  Allied  Powers  offering 
to  place  myself  voluntarily  at  their  disposal  in  lieu 
of  the  other  men  claimed.  This  step,  a  simple  outcome 
of  my  feelings,  evoked  no  reply  from  any  one  of  the 
Powers  and  was  extensively  misinterpreted  both  at 
home  and  abroad. 

Buoyed  up  by  the  reports  in  the  various  newspapers, 
I  lived  on  into  March  in  the  hope  that,  despite  all 
the  after-effects  of  the  revolution  fever  and  party 
strife,  our  homeland  was  on  the  road  to  internal 
tranquillity  and  consolidation.  This  belief  was  sud- 
denly crushed  by  the  news  of  the  Kapp  putsch  and 
its  important  consequences.  Over  and  above  the 
pain  caused  by  this  relapse  into  sanguinary  disturb- 
ances, the  incident  meant  for  me  a  bitter  disappoint- 
ment of  my  hopes  that,  at  perhaps  no  very  distant 
date,  I  might  venture  to  return  to  my  place  within  my 
family  and  on  German  soil  without  risk  of  introducing 
fresh  inflammable  matter  into  the  Fatherland.  Events 


130    THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

had  clearly  shown  that  the  hour  of  my  return  had 
not  yet  come,  that  possibly  it  still  lay  in  the  distant 
future.  Considering  the  mentality  manifested  by 
the  homeland,  I  was  forced  to  fear  that  I  might  become 
the  apple  of  discord  among  opposing  parties,  to  fear 
that — hold  aloof  from  all  political  affairs  as  I  might— 
my  return  would  be  made  the  countersign  for  fresh 
struggles  for  and  against  existing  conditions  by  one  party 
or  another  without  any  consideration  of  my  wishes  in 
the  matter.  The  reasons  which,  on  November  n, 
1918,  had  decided  me,  with  a  heavy  heart,  to  go  to 
Holland,  proved  to  be  still  valid ;  hence,  if  I  were  not 
to  render  my  sacrifice  null  and  void  by  failure  half- 
way to  its  completion,  I  had  still  to  remain  and  to 
endure. 

I  frankly  concede  that  those  March  days,  in  which, 
with  intense  bitterness,  I  struggled  through  to  this 
conviction,  held  some  of  the  hardest  hours  of  my  life. 
The  fifteen  months  spent  on  my  island  in  primitive 
surroundings  and  far  from  every  intellectual  stimulus 
and  from  all  culture  had  been  rendered  tolerable  by 
the  belief  that  the  end  of  my  solitude  and  the  re- 
entrance  into  the  circle  of  my  people  and  into  the  life 
of  German  labour  were  within  measurable  distance  of 
being  accomplished.  The  goal  had  seemed  to  be 
attainable  in  perhaps  a  few  months.  This  open  outlook 
had  enabled  me  to  endure  really  very  great  hardships 
with  courage,  and  the  thought  that  it  was  now  only  a 
little  while  longer  had  been  my  best  solace.  In  this 
way  everything  acquired  the  character  of  the  transi- 
tory and  provisional. 

It  would  have  been  stupid  self-deception  for  me  to 
try  to  maintain  this  confidence  after  those  days  of 
March.  The  old  wounds  that  had  been  ripped  open 
again  could  not  be  healed  in  months ;  it  would  take 
years  for  that. 


STRESS  AND  STORM  131 

It  is  strange  how  small  external  aids  of  nature 
often  give  us  sudden  strength  to  overcome  the  severest 
mental  conflicts  that  have  lasted  for  days  and  nights 
together.  I  quite  clearly  see  a  day  at  the  end  of  March. 
I  smell  the  keen  sea-breeze  and  the  vapours  rising  from 
the  soil  as  the  earth  awakened  in  the  early  spring. 
From  the  study  in  my  parsonage  a  small  verandah, 
bitterly  cold  in  winter,  communicates  with  the  veget- 
able garden — long  and  narrow  like  a  towel  and  not 
much  bigger.  On  the  day  in  question,  I  was  standing 
in  the  doorway  of  the  verandah  and  looking  pensively 
across  the  desolate  winter-worn  garden.  In  the 
previous  spring  we  had  let  everything  grow  as 
rank  and  wild  as  it  pleased.  Why  not  ?  We 
should  be  gone  in  three  months  or  so.  But  now, 
at  the  sight  of  the  tangled  and  unkempt  beds,  the 
raggedness  of  the  shrubs,  and  the  paths  weather- 
worn by  frost  and  rain,  I  felt  suddenly  the  impulse 
to  do  something  here.  Against  a  little  kennel-like 
shed  attached  to  the  house  there  leaned  a  spade,  j 
snatched  it  up  with  an  ardent  will,  and  set  to  digging. 
I  went  on  and  on  till  my  back  ached.  The  work  of 
that  hour  was  a  relief  from  the  inner  burden  I  bore. 
I  would  not  let  the  time  pass  in  vainly  waiting  for 
the  hour  of  my  return  home.  Strive  for  the  attain- 
ment of  your  wishes  and  your  longings,  but  accept 
the  hardships  of  the  times  and  so  live  that  they,  too, 
may  help  to  determine  the  future.  Since  that  morning, 
I  have  worked  daily  in  our  little  garden.  It  is  restored 
to  order.  Some  one  will  reap  the  fruits — I  or  another. 

That  was  in  the  days  of  the  Kapp  putsch.  I  must 
say  something  more  about  this  unhappy  episode. 
Feeling  and  believing  that  a  monarchical  government, 
which  stands  above  all  party  differences,  best  suits 
the  peculiar  political  and  complex  conditions  of  our 
homeland — of  the  German  country  and  the  German 


132    THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

people — I  should  not  be  true  to  my  convictions  if  I 
did  not  frankly  state  that  I  can  understand  the  tempta- 
tions and  allurements  which  enmeshed  so  many  excel- 
lent, experienced  men  of  high  ideals  in  this  mistaken 
enterprise.  That  they  lacked  a  proper  comprehension 
of  the  new  situation  created  by  the  collapse  of  Ger- 
many and  consequently  had  not  the  necessary  strength 
to  withstand  the  temptation  of  the  moment  I  deeply 
regret.  To  reckon  with  facts,  even  when  the  facts 
do  not  respond  to  our  wishes,  is  more  essential  for 
us  Germans  than  ever,  because  our  prime  and  weightiest 
duty  towards  ourselves  and  our  successors  is  first  to 
rebuild  our  demolished  house,  and  every  particle  of 
strength  squandered  in  pursuing  other  aims  is  lost  to  the 
main  object.  So  soon  as  that  house  stands  once  more 
grand  and  firm  on  the  soil  of  our  home,  our  disease- 
stricken  and  debilitated  German  national  feeling  will 
find  its  strength  again  in  its  pride  over  what  has  been 
done. 

What  more  have  I  to  report  ?  A  mild  spring  has 
come — my  second  spring  in  the  island.  My  parents 
have  removed  to  their  new  residence. 


In  his  "Memories,"  published  towards  the  end  of 
1919,  Lord  Fisher  says  with  blunt  candour  : 

'  The  essence  of  War  is  Violence." 

"  Moderation  in  War  is  Imbecility." 

"  It  is  the  duty  of  the  Government— of  any  Govern- 
ment— to  rely  very  largely  upon  the  advice  of  its  mili- 
tary and  naval  counsellors  ;  but  in  the  long  run,  a 
Government  which  is  worthy  of  the  name,  which  is 
adequate  in  the  discharge  of  the  trust  which  the  nation 
reposes  in  it,  must  bring  all  these  things  into  some  kind 
of  proportion  one  to  the  other,  and  sometimes  it  is  not 
only  expedient,  but  necessary,  to  run  risks  and  to 


STRESS  AND  STORM  133 

encounter  dangers  which  pure  naval  or  military  policy 
would  warn  you  against." 

If  we  admit  the  correctness  of  these  maxims  of  Lord 
Fisher — and,  for  my  own  part,  I  do  not  hesitate  to 
subscribe  to  them — we  find  in  them  a  keen  criticism 
of  the  attitude  of  our  Imperial  Government,  since, 
throughout  the  war,  there  was  no  such  co-operation 
between  them  and  the  Higher  Command,  and,  above 
all,  there  was  no  such  preponderance  of  the  Govern- 
ment. The  Imperial  Government,  which  ought  to  have 
uttered  the  final  and  decisive  word  in  all  matters 
touching  the  sphere  of  politics,  played  much  too  pas- 
sive a  part.  In  critical  moments,  when  events  clam- 
oured for  decision  and  for  action,  little  or  nothing  was 
done.  At  the  best,  the  Government  "  weighed  con- 
siderations," "  made  inquiries,"  swayed  between  the 
"to  be  sure  "  of  their  discernment  and  the  "  but 
nevertheless  "  of  their  fear  of  every  activity,  so  that 
the  right  moment  was  allowed  to  pass  unseized.  So  it 
came  about  that  the  Higher  Command  occasionally 
interfered  more  in  questions  of  home  and  foreign 
policy  than,  according  to  its  province,  it  ought  strictly 
to  have  done.  It  is  this  which  now  forms  the  principal 
accusation  against  General  Ludendorff.  But  the 
Higher  Command  did  so,  because  it  was  forced  to 
do  so  ;  it  did  so  in  order  that  something,  at  any 
rate,  might  be  undertaken  for  the  solution  of  pressing 
questions,  that  things  might  not  simply  disappear  in 
sand.  If,  therefore,  the  public  blamed  General  Luden- 
dorff, and  still  blame  him,  for  having  ruled  like  a  dictator 
inasmuch  as  he  meddled  with  all  political  affairs,  and 
with  problems  of  substitutes  of  every  kind,  food,  raw 
materials  and  labour,  no  one  acquainted  with  the  actual 
circumstances  and  events  is  likely  to  deny  that  there 
is  a  grain  of  truth  in  the  assertion.  He  will  have  to 
point  out,  however,  that  General  Ludendorff  was  com- 


134   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

pelled  to  interfere  by  the  inactivity  and  weakness  of 
the  authorities  and  personages  whose  right  and  whose 
duty  it  was  to  deal  with  the  tasks  arising  out  of  the 
matters  in  question.  I  could  not  contradict  Ludendorff 
when  he  used  to  say  to  me  :  "  All  that  is  really 
no  business  of  mine ;  but  something  must  be  done, 
and  if  I  don't  do  it,  nothing  will  be  done  at  home  " 
— meaning,  by  the  Government.  In  such  moments, 
my  heart  well  understood  this  energetic  and  resolute 
man,  albeit  my  reason  told  me  that  there  was  too, 
too  much  piled  upon  his  shoulders.  Every  man's 
capacities  have  their  limit ;  and  no  day  has  more 
than  24  hours.  Hence  it  was  impossible  for  one  man, 
even  one  of  our  best,  to  supervise  and  direct  both  the 
enormous  machine  of  our  Higher  Command  and  also 
every  department  of  our  economics  and  of  our  home 
and  foreign  policy.  The  necessity  of  adapting  himself 
to  such  excessive  tasks  was  bound  to  cause  some 
detriment  to  the  powers  of  the  most  highly  gifted  person. 
The  unfavourable  issue  of  the  Battle  of  the  Marne 
in  September,  1914,  frustrated  the  prospects  of  Schlief- 
fen's  programme  of  first  rapidly  prostrating  France 
and  then  dealing  with  Russia.  That  we  were  faced 
with  a  war  of  indefinite  duration  now  seemed  probable, 
and,  personally — in  the  year  1915 — I  came  to  the 
conclusion  that,  in  the  event  of  an  excessive  prolonga- 
tion of  the  war,  time  would  be  on  the  side  of  our 
adversaries.  It  was  bound  to  give  them  the  oppor- 
tunity of  mobilizing  the  immeasurable  resources  of  the 
world  which  lay  like  a  hinterland  behind  their  fronts. 
It  would  give  them  the  chance  of  marshalling  these 
against  us,  while  our  mewed-up  Central  Europe  had  to 
confine  itself  to  the  exploitation  of  its  own  raw  material 
which,  moreover,  had  not  been  supplemented  by  any 
systematic  pre-war  preparation.  Time,  too,  would 
afford  our  adversaries  opportunity  to  levy  and  train 


STRESS  AND  STORM  135 

enormous  armies  and  to  reduce  to  a  minimum  the  calls 
made  upon  the  individual  fighter  ;  whereas  we  should 
be  forced  to  demand  from  every  German  the  sacrifice 
of  his  last  ounce  of  energy,  thus,  in  the  end,  exhausting 
our  strength  by  the  inequality  of  the  terms  imposed. 
From  the  moment  that  this  was  recognized,  it  be- 
came the  duty  and  task  of  the  leading  statesman,  the 
Imperial  Chancellor,  continually  to  consider  political 
steps  for  the  conclusion  of  the  war  more  or  less  inde- 
pendently of  the  plans  and  views  of  the  military 
leadership.  Whatever  successes  were  achieved  by  the 
army,  were  they  never  so  brilliant,  the  far-sighted 
politician  ought  to  have  made  use  of  them  solely  and 
simply  as  footholds  and  rungs  for  him  to  climb  by ; 
on  no  account  ought  he  to  have  been  dazzled  by  them  ; 
on  no  account  ought  he  to  have  adopted  towards  the 
Higher  Command  the  attitude  :  "  Finish  your  work 
first ;  then  it  will  be  my  turn,  for  the  present  there  is 
nothing  for  me  to  do."  But  had  Herr  von  Beth- 
mann  Hollweg  the  least  capacity  either  to  will  vigor- 
ously or  boldly  to  dare  anything  ?  Had  he  survived  the 
terrible  collapse  of  his  "England  theory  "  or  the  political 
hara-kiri  of  his  declaration  of  August  4, 1914,  as  a  man 
psychically  unimpaired  ?  Be  that  as  it  may,  our  political 
destiny  continued  to  remain  entrusted  to  this  man, 
whose  hands  had  been  palsied  by  ill-starred  enter- 
prises and  whose  eyes  had  acquired  the  lack-lustre  of 
resignation.  When  I  seek  for  any  energy  in  Bethmann 
Hollweg,  there  occurs  forcibly  to  my  mind  an  episode 
told  to  me,  with  every  guarantee  for  its  veracity,  by  a 
Hamburg  shipowner  in  the  summer  of  1915.  Ballin, 
he  said,  had  called  on  the  Imperial  Chancellor 
and,  out  of  the  wealth  of  his  knowledge  concerning 
world  affairs,  had  urgently  talked  to  him  about  the 
general  situation.  When  he  stopped,  Bethmann  heaved 
a  deep  sigh,  drew  his  hand  across  his  forehead  and 


136   THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

said :  "  I  only  wish  I  were  dead.  ..."  In  order  to 
rouse  him  out  of  his  lethargy,  Ballin,  with  an  attempt 
to  laugh,  replied  :  'I  dare  say  you  do.  No  doubt 
it  would  just  suit  you  admirably  to  lie  in  your  coffin 
all  day  long  and  watch  other  people  working  and 
worrying." 

Quite  certainly  it  would  have  been  no  easy  matter, 
and  for  that  discouraged  heart  it  would  have  been 
impossible,  to  detach  one  of  our  enemies  from  the 
alliance  and  come  to  a  separate  understanding  with 
him  ;  but  that  it  would  have  been  useless,  as  the  Foreign 
Office  assumed,  to  make  the  attempt,  I  failed  to  see 
during  the  war,  and  I  fail  to  see  still.  Separate  peace 
might,  I  conceive,  have  been  concluded  perhaps  with 
Russia,  say  in  the  early  summer  of  1915,  immediately 
after  our  break  through  at  Gorlice.  Still  the  difficulties 
of  negotiating  with  Russia  at  that  time  were  very 
great.  Nicholai  Nicholaievitch  and  the  entire  Russian 
war  party  were  at  the  helm  of  affairs,  the  Entente 
agreement  to  conclude  no  separate  peace  was  still 
quite  young,  and  Italy's  entrance  into  the  war  dated 
only  from  May.  But,  for  all  that,  it  is  impossible 
to  say  what  attitude  Russia  would  have  adopted  to- 
wards proposals  on  our  part  if  they  had  included  the 
preservation  of  her  frontier-line  of  August  i,  1914, 
and  a  big  financial  loan  or  the  guarantee  of  her  financial 
obligations  towards  France. 

In  any  case,  the  chances  of  a  separate  arrangement 
with  Russia  were  excellent  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
summer  of  1915,  when  Russia  was  in  very  serious 
military  difficulties  and  the  Tsar  had  appointed  the 
admittedly  pro-German  Stuermer  to  the  premiership. 
I  considered  it,  at  the  time,  an  unmistakable  sign  of 
willingness  to  negotiate,  and  I  urged  our  leaders  to 
grasp  the  opportunity.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  the 
course  of  the  summer  and  in  the  early  autumn,  numer- 


STRESS  AND  STORM  137 

cms  deliberations  of  a  general  character  were  carried  on 
and  terms  considered  ;  but  all  this  took  place  privately 
among  German  diplomatists  or  extended  only  to  con- 
versations between  them  and  the  Higher  Command. 
Practical  deductions  which  might  have  resulted  in  the 
inauguration  of  relations  with  Stuermer  were  not  dis- 
cussed. We  got  no  further  than  empty  lamentations 
and  futile  complaints  that  the  war  had  completely  cut  us 
off  from  all  possibility  of  communicating  with  people 
across  the  frontier,  that  we  could  not  join  them,  "  the 
water  was  much  too  deep." 

If  it  be  contended  that  it  is  all  very  easy,  now  that 
the  war  has  been  lost,  to  come  forward  and  say,  "  I 
always  told  you  so  ;  if  you  had  listened  to  me,  things 
might  have  turned  out  differently,"  I  would  meet  such 
not  altogether  unjustifiable  arguments  by  quoting  some 
thoughts  and  suggestions  from  a  memorial  drawn  up 
and  addressed  by  me  to  all  persons  concerned  on  De- 
cember 18,  1915,  that  is  to  say,  at  a  time  when  such 
ideas  might  have  borne  fruit.  In  this  memorial,  I 
maintained  that  we  ought  to  strain  every  nerve  to 
achieve  a  separate  peace  with  one  of  our  opponents. 
Russia  appeared  to  me  to  be  the  most  suitable.  At  the 
end  of  the  memorial  I  wrote  : 

'  What  our  people  have  accomplished  in  this  war 
will  only  be  properly  valued  by  historians  of  a  future 
date.  But  we  will  not  flatter  ourselves  with  any 
complaisant  self-deception.  The  sacrifice  of  blood 
already  made  by  the  German  people  is  enormous.  .  .  . 
It  is  not  my  office  here  to  marshal  the  figures  ;  but  a 
series  of  very  grave  indications  ought  to  make  us  con- 
sider how  long  we  can  continue  to  fill  up  the  gaps  in 
our  army.  I  am  quite  aware  that,  if  we  were  to 
drain  our  national  energy  in  the  same  way  as  France, 
the  war  might  be  continued  for  a  very  long  time.  But 
this  is  just  what  ought  to  be  avoided.  Every  one  who 


138    THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

is  at  all  in  intimate  touch  with  the  front  is  deeply 
saddened  when  he  sees  what  children  now  find  their  way 
into  the  trenches.  We  ought  to  consider  that,  after 
the  war,  Germany  will  need  forces  to  enable  her  to 
fulfil  her  mission.  I  will  not  speak  here  of  the  financial 
situation  because  I  am  not  in  a  position  to  form  a 
competent  opinion.  In  an  economic  sense,  Germany 
has  adapted  herself  to  the  circumstances  of  the  war 
most  admirably ;  but  still,  in  this  domain  also  there 
should  be  the  desire  not  to  prolong  the  war  unneces- 
sarily, as  that  would  cause  too  heavy  a  loss.  More- 
over, despite  all  the  wise  measures  of  the  Government, 
the  progressive  rise  in  the  cost  of  living  continues 
to  weigh  upon  the  poorer  classes  of  the  population,  and 
there  is  a  great  lack  of  fodder  in  the  country.  All  this, 
with  all  that  it  involves,  makes  a  curtailment  of  the 
war  very  desirable  ;  so  that  the  answer  to  the  question 
'  What  can  we  attain  ?  '  is  simply  this  : 

"If  we  get  a  separate  peace  with  Russia,  we  can 
make  a  clean  sweep  in  the  west.  If  this  is  impossible, 
we  ought  to  endeavour  to  bring  about  an  under- 
standing with  England.  Only  in  one  of  these  ways  is 
it,  I  believe,  feasible  to  bring  the  end  within  sight ; 
and  an  end  must  be  made  visible,  unless  we  are  to 
fight  on  till  our  country  is  utterly  exhausted. 

"  Our  present  favourable  situation  makes  it  possible 
to  proceed  on  the  lines  suggested." 

That  is  what  I  wrote  and  advocated  before  Christ- 
mas, 1915.  It  had  no  effect  whatever;  I  might  as 
well  have  shouted  to  the  winds. 

Similar  circumstances  came  about  in  the  following 
year ;  but  it  was  not  until  the  autumn  of  1916  that  the 
Imperial  Chancellor  had  carried  his  meditations  to  the 
conclusion  that  there  was  no  prospect  of  a  separate  peace 
with  Russia  :  Russia,  he  said,  was  under  the  dictation  of 
England,  and  England  was  for  continuing  the  war. 


STRESS  AND   STORM  139 

Meantime  we  had  truly  gained  a  success  which  was 
bound  to  exclude  all  possibility  of  an  amicable  under- 
standing with  Tsarist  Russia  :  we  had  created  the 
Kingdom  of  Poland  and,  in  the  summer  of  1916,  we 
had  drafted  a  Polish  programme  that  could  not  but  be 
like  a  blow  in  the  face  to  the  Tsar  and  to  all  Russia. 
Stuermer  fell ;  and,  in  the  early  spring  of  1917,  the  Tsar 
was  swept  off  the  throne  by  the  waves  of  the  revolution 
which  the  Entente  had  been  promoting.  During  the 
months  which  followed  the  outbreak  of  that  revolution, 
the  East  front  was  quiet.  It  was  not  until  the  last 
day  of  June  that  the  Russians  attacked  again  under 
Brussilov.  A  fortnight  later,  our  counter-attack 
pierced  their  lines  at  Tarnopol  and  a  great  victory  was 
gained  over  the  already  decaying  Russian  army. 

At  about  the  same  time,  namely  on  July  12,  Beth- 
mann  resigned.  In  the  main,  the  Chancellor's  remarks 
in  his  second  volume  concerning  my  share  in  the  pro- 
ceedings are  correct,  and  I  have  nothing  of  moment 
to  add  to  them.  Herr  Michaelis,  a  man  of  unproven 
political  possibilities  and  concerning  whose  capacities 
or  incapacities  no  one,  at  that  time,  was  able  to  express 
a  convincing  judgment,  took  over  the  inheritance. 
According  to  what  I  heard,  Valentini,  wringing  his 
hands  and  crying,  "  A  kingdom  for  a  chancellor," 
stumbled,  in  his  search,  across  this  official,  who  within 
the  scope  of  his  previous  sphere  of  activity  had 
certainly  merited  well.  I  myself  had  never  yet  met 
Dr.  Michaelis.  He  was  now  introduced  to  me  as 
an  exceptionally  capable  man  to  whom  one  might 
apply  the  proverb :  "  Still  waters  run  deep."  This 
was  in  July,  1917,  just  before  his  presentation  to 
the  Kaiser ;  and  when,  at  the  command  of  His 
Majesty,  I  was  to  negotiate  with  the  party  leaders  at 
Schloss  Bellevue  in  connexion  with  the  Bethmann 
crisis,  the  conversation  turned  upon  the  burning 


140   THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

question  of  the  situation  created  by  the  action  of 
Erzberger  in  the  Reichstag  Committee,  and  still  more 
upon  the  bad  impression  made  upon  the  enemy  by 
the  matter  and  form  of  the  peace  resolution,  whose 
drafting  was  so  impolitic,  unwise  and  clumsy  that  it 
had  seriously  injured  our  interests.  Instead  of  being 
the  expression  of  a  genuine  desire  for  peace  on  the 
part  of  an  unbroken  combatant,  this  resolution 
looked  like  a  sign  of  military  weakness  and  waning 
resistance.  Only  the  reverse  of  the  desired  effect  could 
be  expected.  I  found  Michaelis  in  general  quite  of 
my  own  opinion  ;  but  I  could  not  induce  him,  in  this 
short  interview,  to  disclose  his  own  ideas,  and  conse- 
quently I  could  form  no  image  of  the  plans  he  carried 
in  his  pocket  for  grappling  with  the  exceedingly  diffi- 
cult task  which  was  to  fall  to  him  as  Bethmann's  heir. 
But,  in  Dr.  Michaelis,  the  best  of  intentions  coupled 
with  pious  confidence  was  recognizable.  That  was 
not  exactly  a  great  deal ;  but  I  said  to  myself :  "  He 
is  about  to  present  himself  to  His  Majesty,  he  knows 
your  antipathy  to  the  policy  prevailing  hitherto  and  does 
not  know  how  much  he  can  venture  to  say  to  you  ;  you 
must  wait  and  see."  In  any  case,  the  change  of  Chan- 
cellors appeared  to  provide  the  right  moment  for  me 
to  risk  raising  my  voice  once  again  and  to  place  my 
view  of  things  before  the  deciding  authorities.  I  was 
induced  to  take  this  course  by  the  conviction  that,  after 
all  the  criticism  which  I  had  expressed  upon  the  Beth- 
mann  Hollweg  Government,  a  judgment  upon  a  system 
which,  with  Bethmann's  exit,  had  come  to  a  certain  formal 
close,  should  not  exhaust  itself  in  rejection  and  negation; 
I  felt  that  he  who  claimed  the  right  to  criticize 
assumed  the  duty  of  proposing  something  better  and 
of  defending  it  both  in  the  present  and  in  the  future. 

Consequently,  in  the  summer  of  1917,  while  we  were 
fighting  in  Russia,  I  worked  out  another  memorial  and 


STRESS  AND  STORM  141 

laid  it  simultaneously  before  the  Kaiser,  the  Imperial 
Chancellor  and  the  Higher  Command.  It  came  into 
being  in  the  days  when,  as  leader  of  my  army,  I  had 
just  gained  on  the  Aisne  and  in  Champagne  an  exten- 
sive defensive  victory  against  an  attempt  of  seventy- 
nine  French  divisions  to  pierce  my  lines ;  and  I  will 
gladly  leave  it  to  public  opinion  to  decide  whether, 
in  this  memorial,  the  "  war  fanatic  "  and  "  victor  "  is 
speaking  or  whether  it  is  a  witness  to  my  desire  for  an 
honourable  peace.  This  memorial  was  written  after  a 
conversation  with  the  clever  and  politically  far-seeing 
Dr.  Victor  Naumann,  but  only  those  paragraphs  refer- 
ring to  our  foreign  policy  have  any  significance  for  my 
then  attitude  towards  the  peace  question  in  the  East. 
I  quote  here  the  principal  passages,  because,  taken 
together  as  a  whole,  they  show  my  attitude  at  that  time 
towards  many  other  important  questions  connected 
with  the  war : 

'  The  change  in  the  leadership  of  the  empire,  with 
which  is  to  begin  a  new  era  in  German  and  Russian 
policy,  will  naturally  necessitate  the  drawing  up  of  a 
balance  concerning  the  past,  in  order  to  find  a  more  or 
less  reliable  basis  for  future  plans.  In  my  opinion, 
therefore,  the  following  points  must  be  determined : 

1.  What  stocks  have  we  of  raw  materials  of  every 

kind? 

2.  What  is  our  maximum  capacity  for  working  up 

these  materials  ? 

3.  What  stocks  of  coal  do  we  possess  ? 

4.  What  stocks  of  food  and  fodder  have  we  ? 

5.  What  is  the  position  of  our  transport  facilities  ? 
'  When  this  has  been  determined,  it  will  be  necessary 

to  decide  how  many  military  recruits  Germany  can 
call  up  and  train  next  year  without  imperilling  her 
absolutely  essential  economic  capacity. 


142     THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

"  But  this  is  not  all.  We  must  also  consider 
moral  values,  the  mood  of  the  people  ;  and  in  testing 
these,  one  may  with  tolerable  certainty  predict  that  the 
longing  for  peace  in  the  masses  of  the  population  has 
become  very  strong.  The  enormous  sacrifices  of  blood 
during  the  three  years  of  war  already  endured— 
sacrifices  which  have  cast  almost  every  German  home 
and  every  German  family  into  mourning — the  pros- 
pect of  further  heavy  losses  of  valuable  human  life, 
the  mental  depression  caused  and  augmented  by  priva- 
tions of  every  kind,  the  dearth  of  food  and  coal — all 
these  things  combined  have  awakened  a  dissatisfaction 
in  wide  circles  of  the  people  (and  not  by  any  means 
only  among  the  social  democrats)  which  is  as  hamper- 
ing to  the  prosecution  of  the  war  as  it  is  disintegrating 
to  the  monarchical  idea. 

"  If  it  be  added  that  the  assured  hope  of  a  rapid  con- 
clusion of  the  U-boat  warfare  has  not  been  fulfilled, 
this  serious  mood  ceases  to  be  surprising. 

'  We  ought  to  construct,  from  the  best  available 
data,  schedules  of  the  resources  of  our  allies  parallel 
with  those  drawn  up  concerning  our  own  ;  for  only  so 
can  we  learn  what  we  have  to  expect  and  what  we  can 
accomplish. 

"  All  this  information  in  regard  to  ourselves  and  our 
allies  having  been  collected,  we  shall  have  to  obtain  an 
approximately  accurate  knowledge  of  the  forces  and 
reserves  of  the  enemy.  Without  exposing  oneself  to  the 
reproach  of  being  a  pessimist,  one  may  say  at  once 
that  a  comparison  of  the  schedules  will  scarcely  turn 
out  favourable  to  ourselves.  The  natural  deduction  is 
that,  even  at  the  best,  an  attack  on  our  part  is  no 
longer  to  be  thought  of,  but  only  a  maintenance  of  our 
position  coupled  with  intensive  prosecution  of  the  U-- 
boat warfare  for  a  certain  period.  If  this  expires 
without  having  brought  us  any  hope  of  a  cessation  of 


STRESS  AND   STORM  143 

hostilities,  we  must  seek  the  peace  which  our  diploma- 
tists will  meanwhile  have  been  preparing.  This  duty  is 
all  the  more  incumbent  upon  us  inasmuch  as  we  must 
say  to  ourselves  that  our  chief  ally,  Austria-Hungary, 
by  reason  of  her  economic  and,  still  more,  her 
political  conditions  at  home,  will  be  unable  to  prose- 
cute the  war  for  more  than  a  moderate  length  of  time. 
I  need  scarcely  add  that  in  Turkey  also  the  situation 
is  anything  but  rosy. 

"  Now  I  do  not  for  one  moment  overlook  the  fact 
that  our  adversaries  also  find  themselves  in  a  difficult 
position  or  that  they  dread  another  winter  campaign 
extremely.  Yet,  there  are  two  factors  which  have 
recently  brought  about  a  certain  change  of  feeling.  The 
first  is  America's  entrance  into  the  struggle,  and  the  hopes 
which  it  has  awakened ;  the  second  is  the  over-hasty 
action  of  the  Reichstag  (the  peace  resolution) ,  which  in 
enemy  and  neutral  countries  is  regarded  as  an  absolute 
declaration  of  bankruptcy.  To-day,  in  London  and 
Paris,  and  even  in  Rome,  people  believe  that  they  may 
wait  for  us  to  lay  down  our  arms,  since  it  is  now  only 
a  question  of  time. 

"  Now,  what  are  we  to  do  so  that  we  may  continue 
with  honour  and,  if  possible,  with  success,  despite  all 
these  things  ?  First,  what  are  we  to  do  at  home  ? 
We  must  have  maintenance  of  the  lines  of  demarcation 
between  the  individual  offices  of  the  empire  without 
prejudice  to  united  action.  Although,  therefore,  the 
leading  Minister  bears  the  full  responsibility  for  our 
home  and  foreign  policy,  wholesome  co-operation  with 
the  Higher  Command,  the  Admiralty,  etc.,  is  indis- 
pensable. The  larger  federal  States  must  also  be  kept 
informed  as  to  our  situation.  Serious  attention  must 
continue  to  be  paid  to  the  regulation  of  our  coal 
and  food  supplies. 

"Foreign  Policy. — Here   again    only   one  will  can 


144     THE  CROWN   PRINCE   OF  GERMANY 

dominate,  but  it  must  be  supported  by  the  mutual 
and  candid  information  of  the  directing  offices,  e.g. 
the  Foreign  Office,  the  Higher  Command,  the  Admir- 
alty. Candour  towards  our  allies  is  a  duty.  So  far 
as  possible  we  must  spare  the  neutrals  and  defer  to 
their  wishes. 

"  Every  idea  of  seeking  peace  via  England  is  to  be 
given  up,  and  a  resolute  endeavour  made  to  obtain 
peace  with  Russia.  There  is  hope  that,  with  the  repulse 
of  the  present  attack,  a  change  of  mood  will  take  place 
in  Russia  ;  then  we  must  seize  the  right  opportunity. 
We  may  also  advise  the  neutrals  that,  in  general,  we  are 
not  averse  to  peace  on  the  basis  of  the  status  quo  ante; 
they  will  let  the  other  side  know.  Simultaneously, 
deft  negotiators  must  use  persuasion  with  the  Rus- 
sians. 

"  It  is  almost  certain  that  the  West  will  decline.  On 
the  other  hand  it  may  be  hoped  that  Russia  will  seek 
peace.  In  this  case,  we  shall  have  created  a  situation 
which  will  render  England — already  groaning  under 
the  effects  of  the  U-boat  privations — somewhat  dubious 
as  to  whether  she  and  her  allies  shall  fight  on  or,  within 
a  reasonable  time,  enter  into  negotiations  with  us. 
Should  Russia  not  give  way,  then  we  can  come  before 
the  people  and  say  :  '  We  have  done  everything  to  bring 
about  peace.  It  is  now  demonstrated  that  our  enemies 
wish  to  destroy  us ;  therefore  we  must  strain  every 
nerve  to  frustrate  their  aim/  Possibly  such  action  may 
bring  us  unsuspected  help  out  of  the  ranks  of  the 
people.  In  any  circumstances,  it  is  our  duty  to 
work  for  a  not  too  distant  peace  ;  for,  unless  the 
U-boats  shall  have  brought  England  to  reason  within 
the  next  few  months,  their  further  employment  will 
not  have  the  same  effect  as  heretofore.  Distress  with 
us  will  increase,  and  the  replenishment  of  our  reserves 
of  men  will  become  more  difficult  from  day  to  day. 


STRESS  AND  STORM  145 

The  vital  energy  of  our  people  will  be  diminished  by 
further  blood-letting ;  in  the  interior,  strikes  and 
revolts  may  occur ;  a  failure  in  the  production  of 
ammunition  may  render  us  defenceless.  The  financial 
burden  of  the  empire  will  swell  to  gigantic  propor- 
tions ;  our  allies  will  possibly  seek  a  separate  peace ; 
the  neutrals  may  be  forced  to  join  the  enemy. 

'  To  carry  out  a  policy  properly  one  must  have  the 
courage  to  look  facts  in  the  face.  A  danger  recognized 
is  a  danger  half  surmounted.  Just  now  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  dynasty,  the  maintenance  of  the  German 
Empire,  and  the  existence  of  the  German  people,  are 
all  at  stake.  If  our  enemies  dictate  peace,  the  last 
syllable  of  Hohenzollern,  Prussian  and  German  history 
will  have  been  written.  It  dare  not  come  to  that ; 
and  therefore,  it  is  our  duty,  if  it  so  must  be,  to  obtain 
a  peace  of  compromise.  Such  a  peace  would  truly  be  a 
disappointment ;  but  an  indefinite  prolongation  of  the 
war  might  see  us,  in  the  spring  of  1918,  facing  the  whole 
world  alone,  deprived  of  our  allies,  bleeding  from  the 
cruel  wounds  of  a  three  and  a  half  years'  war  and 
threatened  with  destruction. 

"If  we  conclude  an  early  peace  with  our  eastern 
adversary,  Russia  will  lie  open  to  us  as  a  domain  for 
economic  expansion.  If  that  peace  comes  too  late, 
then  we  come  too  late,  because  the  Americans  will 
have  gained  a  firm  footing  in  that  vast  realm.  But 
we  must  also  remember  that,  with  an  early  peace,  we 
should  have  financially  won  the  war. 

"  One  thing  is  certain  :  if  we  but  maintain  ourselves 
in  this  war,  we  shall  be  the  real  victors,  because  we 
shall  have  fought  the  whole  world  without  being 
destroyed.  This  will  procure  us  after  the  war  an 
unexampled  prestige  and  an  enormous  increase  of 
power.  Our  position  resembles  that  of  Frederick 
the  Great  prior  to  the  Peace  of  Hubertsburg.  He 

K 


146   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

stands  rightly  recorded  in  history  as  the  victor,  be- 
cause he  was  not  defeated. 

(Signed)  "  WILHELM, 

"  Crown  Prince  of  the  German  Empire  and 
of  Prussia." 

In  March,  1918,  roughly  three-quarters  of  a  year 
after  the  drafting  of  my  memorial,  we  concluded  a 
peace  with  revolutionary  Russia.  What  a  peace ! 
Pn  the  one  hand  with  the  dominating  demeanour  of 
the  victor  who  dictatorially  imposes  his  will — on  the 
other  hand  yielding  and  accommodatingly  trustful  in 
questions  that  concerned  our  very  vitals.  Joffe  was 
permitted  to  come  to  Berlin  and  circulate  his  roubles 
in  Germany  for  the  world  revolution.  Once  more  the 
old  half-and-half  methods. 

No,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  the  Government  did  not 
make  a  sufficiently  earnest  effort  to  supplement  the 
work  of  the  sword  with  vigorous,  prompt  and  ade- 
quate political  measures. 

In  quoting  the  memorials  addressed  by  me,  in 
December,  1915,  'and  in  July,  1917,  !to  the  Kaiser, 
the  Higher  Command  and  the  Imperial  Chancellor,  I 
have  demonstrated  that,  during  the  war,  I  urgently 
advocated  preparing  the  way  for  a  peace  by  com- 
promise. Of  course  the  drafts  referred  to  were 
only  two  of  the  many  efforts  which  I  made  in  the 
same  direction.  It  would  vastly  exceed  the  limits 
proposed  for  these  memoirs  if  I  were  to  give  chapter 
and  verse  for  ah1  that  I  undertook,  subsequent  to  the 
Battle  of  the  Marne,  for  the  carrying  out  of  my  idea, 
which  I  never  recanted,  that  the  indefinite  prolonging 
of  the  war  would  be  intolerable,  both  for  those  at  the 
front  and  those  at  home,  as  well  as  the  urgent  need 
for  a  compromise,  and  how  advantageous  (even  though 
it  might  appear  scarcely  beneficial  at  first)  this  com- 


STRESS  AND  STORM  147 

promise  would  be  compared  with  a  similar  agreement 
reached  after  complete  exhaustion.  Besides  this, 
from  my  own  knowledge  gained  in  personal  contact 
with  soldiers  and  civilians,  I  made  attempts  to  correct 
the  erroneous  and  all  too  optimistic  ideas  entertained 
in  certain  high  quarters  about  the  privations  of  the 
people  at  home,  the  powers  of  endurance  of  the  troops 
at  the  front,  who  had  been  overburdened  during  the 
past  year,  and  about  many  similar  questions.  To  all 
these  things  I  may  refer  later  on. 

"  But,"  many  will  say,  "  in  public  and  especially  to 
the  troops,  the  Crown  Prince,  more  than  once,  both  by 
word  of  mouth  and  in  writing,  expressed  and  demanded 
determination  to  conquer  and  confidence  of  victory. 
He  wished  to  prevent  certain  German  journals,  which 
tended  to  shake  this  confidence,  from  reaching  the 
front." 

Yes,  most  assuredly  I  did !  And,  in  doing  so,  I  fulfilled 
my  duty  as  an  officer  and  a  soldier,  just  as  I  fulfilled 
my  duty  as  a  politically  thinking  man  and  as  Crown 
Prince  of  the  German  Empire  and  of  Prussia,  when  I 
endeavoured  to  induce  the  proper  authorities  to  face 
unwelcome  facts  and  to  strive  for  a  peace  by  com- 
promise. I  am  unhesitatingly  of  opinion  that  each 
of  these  actions,  apparently  so  opposite,  was  perfectly 
justified  and  indeed  complementary.  What  I  regret 
is  simply  the  fact  that,  as  an  adviser  without  political 
responsibility,  I  possessed  neither  the  means  nor  the 
power  successfully  to  influence  the  persons  politically 
responsible,  and  that  I  had  to  look  on  while  political 
resolutions  and  irresolution  were,  as  I  believed,  deter- 
mining adversely  the  destiny  of  Germany. 

I  referred  just  now  to  my  suggested  prohibition 
at  the  front  of  various  journals  which  systematically 
injured  our  prospects  of  winning  the  war.  At  that 
time  the  Democrats  talked  with  great  indignation 


148   THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

about  a  deliberate  gagging  of  the  Press  and  of  the 
public  if  the  idea  were  carried  out — at  that  time, 
forsooth,  when  it  was  essential  to  guard  for  its  one 
single  task  the  army  on  whose  fighting  powers  every- 
thing depended  and  to  shield  it  from  any  deteriorating 
or  disintegrating  influences.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
nothing  was  done  ;  the  evil  was  permitted  to  continue 
its  work  of  corrosion. 

Only  with  the  support  of  a  people  determined  to 
win  and  convinced  of  victory  could  the  Government 
risk  steps  to  bring  about  a  separate  peace — an  under- 
standing with  one  or  another  of  our  adversaries. 
Every  effort  in  this  direction  was  futile,  nay,  pernicious 
and  damaging,  when  we  gave  the  impression  of  being 
unable  to  continue  the  war  and  of  urgently  needing 
peace.  Useless  and  senseless,  therefore,  were  the 
offers  of  peace  publicly  trumpeted  out  to  the  world — 
offers  which  also  gave  no  clear  notion  of  what  we  really 
wanted.  These  offers — as  any  statesmen  ought  to 
have  foreseen — only  served  to  strengthen  our  enemies' 
hopes  of  an  early  collapse  of  our  country,  to  increase 
their  confidence  and  their  determination  to  hold  on 
till  the  "  knock-out  blow,"  all  to  our  detriment,  all 
to  our  doom. 

Determination  to  win  and  confidence  of  victory 
sufficient  to  last  out  the  war  and  bring  it  to  a  happy 
issue  could  only  be  maintained  in  the  nation  or  in  the 
army  if  there  stood  at  the  head  of  affairs  not  merely 
vigorous  and  bold  military  leaders  but  also  an  equally 
capable  Government,  which,  during  the  bloody  struggle 
on  land,  at  sea,  in  the  air,  should  not  for  one  second 
lose  control  of  the  numberless  threads  of  its  foreign 
policy  and  which  should  never  allow  the  slightest  favour- 
able movement  of  events  in  the  war-fevered  world  to 
escape  the  grasp  of  its  ever-ready  hand — a  Govern- 
ment that,  with  keen  foresight edness,  yet  with  wise 


STRESS  AND  STORM  149 

recognition  and  consideration  of  what  was  possible,  was 
able  to  see  before  it  the  road  along  which  it  could 
lead  the  country  as  rapidly  as  possible  to  a  happy 
and  honourable  peace. 

***** 

The  only  Government  that  could  be  a  sure  guide  to 
satisfactory  peace  was  one  that,  by  means  of  a  wise 
home  policy,  had  under  complete  control  all  the  various 
elements,  classes,  members  and  parties  of  the  entire 
people. 

That  it  was  particularly  difficult  to  concentrate  into 
one  dynamic  entity  the  variety  of  opinions,  wishes  and 
impulses  of  a  people  so  inclined  to  internal  differences 
and  quarrels  as  the  Germans  is  quite  true.  The  sense 
of  nationality  that,  in  such  countries  as  England  and 
France,  fused  all  parties  into  a  single  will  for  the 
whole  duration  of  the  war,  unfortunately  underwent 
manifest  disintegration  among  us  Germans  by  reason 
of  the  multiplicity  of  party  views  which  soon  began  to 
be  active,  and  through  which  the  idea  of  a  party  truce 
was  undermined  and  our  vigour  of  attack  weakened. 
Nor  was  it,  by  any  means,  only  among  the  parties  of 
the  left  that  such  sins  were  committed  against  the 
great  idea  of  unselfish  patriotism.  By  leaving  to  the 
war-speculator  unlimited  independence  and  unbounded 
opportunities  of  profit  and  by  not  organizing  properly 
the  industries  essential  to  the  existence  of  the  struggling 
State,  our  mistaken  economic  policy  was  responsible 
for  the  early  reappearance  of  the  old  social  and  econo- 
mic animosities,  which  soon  became  very  bitter. 
Moreover,  an  absolutely  morbid  tendency  to  a  mistaken 
objectivity  at  all  costs  repeatedly  drove  a  large  section  of 
our  German  people,  even  during  the  war,  into  extensive 
discussions  and  to  self-examination  that  bordered 
upon  mental  penance.  This  was  done  openly  be- 
fore the  whole  world,  and  ultimately  made  the  world 


150   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF   GERMANY 

believe  that  the  conscientious  amongst  us  doubted  the 
justice  of  our  deeds  and  aims.  In  England,  all  parties 
had  only  one  principle  for  every  programme  and 
every  action  of  their  Government,  the  strong  principle 
of  a  firmly-established  nation,  the  principle  of  "  right 
or  wrong — my  country." 

A  miserable  hero  of  such  mistaken  objectivity,  a  man 
in  whose  heart  the  bright  flame  of  the  greater  idea 
could  never  blaze  up,  was  the  first  War  Chancellor. 
His  Reichstag  declaration  on  August  4, 1914,  concerning 
our  advance  into  Belgium,  is  the  great  and  bitter 
classic  example  of  his  incapacity  to  understand  either 
the  soul  of  his  own  people  or  the  mentality  of  our 
adversaries.  On  that  4th  of  August,  1914,  before  a 
single  shot  had  been  fired  over  yonder,  we  Germans  had 
lost  the  first  great  battle  in  the  eyes  of  the  world. 

And  blind  he  remained  to  all  the  events  and  develop- 
ments around  him  throughout  the  long  years  of  the 
war  during  which  we  had  to  put  up  with  him. 

Thus,  he  stressed  again  and  again  the  special  merits, 
as  he  called  them,  of  the  social-democratic  party  in 
offering  to  co-operate  at  the  outset  of  the  war.  As 
though,  at  that  time,  the  working  masses  would  not 
simply  have  swept  away  their  leaders  if  they  had  dared 
to  pronounce  against  co-operation  !  At  that  moment 
the  entire  German  people  were  unanimous  in  their 
deep  conviction  that  we  were  entering  upon  a  war 
forced  upon  us,  an  unavoidable  war  from  which  we 
could  find  deliverance  only  by  resolutely  and  victor- 
iously struggling  through  to  an  assured  peace.  That 
many  a  leader  of  the  extreme  left  never,  in  his  heart 
of  hearts,  desired  a  complete  German,  victory,  seems 
to  have  remained  long  hidden  from  the  Chancellor's 
perception.  At  any  rate,  he  did  nothing  to  combat  their 
efforts  to  undermine  the  confidence  of  the  masses  in 
the  German  cause. 


STRESS  AND  STORM  151 

General  Ludendorff  complains  bitterly  in  his  war 
memoirs  that  the  Government  at  home  did  scarcely 
anything  to  keep  alive  the  "  will  to  victory  "  in  the 
German  people,  or  to  combat  energetically  the  tendency 
to  defaitisme.  I,  too,  could  not  resist  the  impression 
that,  during  the  war,  the  proper  authorities  permitted 
these  tendencies  to  grow  without  adopting  energetic 
counter-measures.  Defaitisme,  which,  regardless  of 
every  other  consideration,  was  rigorously  crushed  in 
France,  England  and  America,  as  a  principle  adverse  to 
the  necessities  of  the  hour  and  opposed  to  the  interests 
of  the  State,  was  allowed  to  run  riot  with  us.  Our 
Government  were  powerless  to  cope  with  it,  yet  believed 
themselves  able  to  silence  and  neutralize  anti-national 
conduct  by  weakly  indulgence.  Nervelessly  they  let 
things  take  their  course,  seemingly  reluctant  to 
picture  to  themselves  the  fatal  end  to  which,  sooner 
or  later,  it  all  must  lead. 

Wherever  difficulties  and  impediments  arose,  recourse 
was  had  to  small  remedies,  to  half -measures,  to  extrav- 
agant concessions  flung  down  with  both  hands  or  to 
a  hesitating  and  belated  compliance.  They  made 
shift  with  patchwork  until  no  more  patching  was 
possible  and  everything  fell  to  pieces.  Civil  dictators, 
conscious  of  their  path  and  with  eyes  fixed  on  victory, 
like  Clemenceau  and  Lloyd  George,  were  altogether 
wanting  among  us.  The  longer  the  war  lasted,  the  more 
autocratic  and  severe  became  the  government  of  the 
hostile  countries  and  the  more  vacillating  and  yielding 
our  own.  The  munition  workers  at  home  were  granted 
fabulous  wages  to  keep  them  in  a  good  temper.  The 
only  effect  was  that  their  cupidity  was  increased,  a 
higher  premium  put  upon  shirking,  the  soldier  at  the 
front  irritated  and  deprived  of  his  willingness  to 
fight.  Why  was  not  every  calling  of  importance  to 
the  war  made  compulsory  ?  Why  were  not  the  men 


152    THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

called  up  for  work  at  home  placed  in  the  same 
category  as  to  wages  and  rations  as  those  under 
the  colours  ?  People  talk  ad  nauseam  of  the  dutiful 
home  warriors!  'War"  employer  and  "war"  em- 
ployee ought  both  to  have  been  swept  up  by  the 
organization  of  "  war  '  industry. 

For  the  organization  of  industry  at  home,  the  Auxili- 
ary Service  Act  (Hilfsdienstgesetz)  was  ultimately 
adopted.  But  it  was  due  to  the  initiative  of  the  Higher 
Command,  whose  business  it  was  not ;  and  when  it 
came,  what  a  mutilated  thing  it  was  ! 

Irresolute  and  somewhat  unfortunate  was  likewise 
the  attitude  of  the  Government  towards  the  Prussian 
Suffrage  question  during  the  war.  The  Social  Demo- 
crats, making  a  watchword  of  the  idea,  carried  on  a 
vigorous  propaganda  and — while  our  armies  were 
engaged  in  the  severest  struggles  and  their  welfare 
depended  upon  the  smooth  working  of  the  industrial 
mechanism  at  home — even  did  not  hesitate  to  throw 
out  threats  of  a  strike. 

Two  courses  were  open  to  the  Government.  One 
was  to  say  that  war  time  was  unsuitable  for  dealing 
with  changes  of  the  constitution,  especially  as  the 
best  part  of  the  people  were  then  under  arms  at  the 
front  and  consequently  unable  to  take  part  in  the 
reorganization  ;  but  then  they  would  have  had  to 
pull  themselves  together  and  ruthlessly  repress  every 
agitation  aimed  in  a  different  direction.  The  other 
course  was  for  the  Government  to  decide  upon  a 
revision  of  the  Suffrage  Act,  but  in  that  case  they 
ought  not  to  have  hesitated  to  arrange  for  a  speedy 
dissolution  of  the  House  of  Deputies,  and  should 
have  resorted  to  every  possible  means  to  carry  out 
their  purpose. 

The  Government  once  more  adopted  the  fatal 
method  of  half-measures. 


STRESS  AND   STORM  153 

When  His  Excellency  von  Valentin!,  the  chef  du 
cabinet  civil,  brought  me  the  so-called  "  Easter  mes- 
sage "  in  1917,  I  expressed  to  him  my  astonishment  at 
this  patchwork,  and  pointed  out  to  him  that  such  a 
decree  would  satisfy  nobody,  that  the  Government 
would  before  long  be  forced  to  grant  direct  suffrage 
and  it  would  be  better  to  do  it  straight  away  as  a 
spontaneous  act  of  His  Majesty.  Valentini  replied  : 
'  The  direct  secret  ballot  is  out  of  the  question  ;  what 
is  proposed  is  a  plurality  vote  similar  to  the  Belgian 
arrangement."  Count  von  der  Schulenburg,  Chief  of 
the  General  Staff  of  my  army,  was  present  at  this 
conversation. 

August,  1920. 

Since  I  last  had  these  sheets  in  my  hand,  our  parents 
and  we  children  have  suffered  a  heavy  blow  :  my 
brother  Joachim,  utterly  broken  down,  has  passed 
out  of  this  life.  Immediately  on  receipt  of  the  news, 
I  travelled  to  Doom,  in  order  to  be  with  my  mother 
in,  at  any  rate,  the  first  and  severest  hours  of  her 
sorrow.  What  a  mountain  of  suffering  destiny  has 
heaped  upon  our  poor  ailing  mother's  heart ! 

At  the  beginning  of  the  month,  my  brother  Oscar, 
who  had  arrived  at  Doom  just  after  me,  came  to  see 
me  here  in  the  island.  Eitel  Friedrich  was  also 
here  ;  and  so,  little  by  little,  they  are  all  making 
acquaintance  with  the  small  plot  of  earth  on  which  I 
have  lived  for  over  twenty  months.  I  can  imagine  that, 
when  they  happen  to  have  good  weather  here  for  their 
short  stay,  the  place  will  not  seem  so  very  dreadful 
to  them.  It  was  a  great  pleasure  to  me  to  receive  a 
visit  from  my  old  and  trusted  Maltzahn,  who,  when 
he  came  to  see  us  at  the  front,  shared  with  me  many 
an  anxiety  concerning  our  internal  situation.  At  the 
end  of  the  month  my  wife  is  to  come  here  again — this 
time  with  all  four  boys. 


154   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

In  these  personal  recollections  of  mine,  I  feel  impelled 
to  say  a  few  words  about  the  two  men  whose  names 
enshrine,  for  the  whole  German  people,  their  idea  of 
military  leadership,  namely  Field-Marshal  von  Hin- 
denburg  and  his  First  Quartermaster-General,  General 
Ludendorff. 

It  is  superfluous  to  say  much  here  of  what  our 
country  owes  to  these  two  men.  Suffice  it  to  call  to 
mind  the  great  victories  at  Tannenberg  and  at  the 
Masurian  Lakes.  At  that  time,  the  names  of  these 
two  were  in  everybody's  mouth,  and  both  at  home  and 
at  the  front  arose  the  wish  that  the  leadership  of  the 
entire  German  army  might  be  placed  in  their  hands. 
We  commanders-in-chief  shared  fully  this  general 
desire  to  see  Hindenburg  and  Ludendorff  in  the  most 
responsible  positions,  and  we  received,  with  joy  and 
hope,  the  ultimate  decision  of  His  Majesty  to  place 
them  there.  Never  have  I  seen  any  other  two  men  of 
such  different  character  furnish  the  exact  complement 
of  one  another  so  as  to  form  one  single  entity  as  did 
these  two.  In  all  questions  that  arose  during  their 
period  of  co-operation,  the  weal  of  the  Fatherland 
and  the  happiness  and  honour  of  the  army  were,  for 
them,  the  common  basis  for  their  deliberations,  their 
plans  and  their  resolutions. 

If  I  were  to  describe  the  Field-Marshal  General 
as  he  appeared  to  me  in  the  years  of  his  zenith,  I 
would  say  that  the  greatest  impression  was  made  above 
all  by  the  simple  energy  and  composure  of  his  reserved 
personality.  It  was  a  composure  that  communicated 
itself  to  every  one  who  came  into  contact  with  him, 
convinced  every  one  that  the  fate  of  the  armies  was 
safe  in  that  calm  firm  hand,  watched  over  by  those 
earnest  and  yet  ever-friendly  eyes.  If  he  spoke,  the 
effect  was  heightened  :  one  was  then  impressed  not 
merely  by  the  statuesqueness  of  his  tall,  broad- 


STRESS  AND   STORM  155 

shouldered  figure,  but  by  the  depth  and  timbre  of 
his  voice  and  the  easy  flow  of  his  measured,  thought- 
ful, and  deliberate  speech  ;  the  conviction  was  con- 
firmed that  the  speaker  was  absolute  master  of  the 
situation  and  expressed  views  that  could  be  thor- 
oughly relied  on. 

This  feeling  was  not  confined  to  the  individual 
addressed,  it  extended  to  the  masses  when  the  Field- 
Marshal  General  appeared  before  them.  Furthermore, 
a  scarcely  definable  peculiarity  of  manner  seemed  to 
efface  the  dividing  line  between  his  professional  and 
his  human  interest  in  people,  problems  and  things. 

The  great  and  emancipating  victories  in  the  East 
were  soon  invested  with  almost  mythical  features  ;  with 
these  as  a  background,  Hindenburg's  personality  be- 
came, for  the  nation  and  the  army,  a  symbol  of  German 
victory  and  of  rescue  from  the  exigencies  of  war.  That 
unrevealed  something  which  has  its  roots  to  a  great 
extent  in  the  judgment  of  the  heart  and  the  feelings, 
which  creates  the  hero  for  the  multitude  and  which 
never  appeared  in  such  men  as  Falkenhayn  or  Luden- 
dorff,  soon  fashioned  a  halo  about  Hindenburg  and  made 
him  the  ideal  leader  in  the  eyes  of  the  Germans.  At 
home  and  at  the  front,  I  have  heard  this  confidence,  so 
touching  in  its  primitive  simplicity,  expressed  over 
and  over  again  in  the  words  :  "  Our  old  Hindenburg'll 
manage  it  "  ;  the  utterance  was,  as  it  were,  a  refuge 
from -the  pressure  of  the  time,  and  remained  so  later, 
when,  for  us  leaders,  who  had  long  since  been  stripped 
of  our  optimism  by  our  knowledge  of  the  true  state  of 
affairs,  the  only  reply  possible  was  dead  silence. 

Even  more  now  than  during  the  war,  there  is  a 
very  widespread  belief  that,  as  Field-Marshal  General, 
Hindenburg  played  little  more  than  a  decorative  part 
beside  General  Ludendorff,  who  has  been  regarded  as 
the  real  spiritus  rector  of  the  Higher  Command.  My 


156   THE  CROWN   PRINCE   OF  GERMANY 

insight  into  the  admirable  relations  between  these  two 
leaders  fully  justifies  me  in  characterizing  such  a  view 
as  mistaken  ;  in  no  case  could  it  be  said  of  the  era  in 
which  the  Field-Marshal  General  was  in  unimpaired 
enjoyment  of  his  physical  strength  and  energy.  That 
even  a  Hindenburg — who,  though  in  full  possession  of 
his  mental  and  bodily  vigour,  was  nearly  sixty-seven 
years  old  when  he  entered  the  campaign — could  not 
help  feeling  the  effects  of  his  increasing  age  after  three 
or  four  years  of  excessive  work,  worry  and  respon- 
sibility, may  be  safely  asserted  without  fear  of  detract- 
ing in  any  way  from  the  imperishable  services  of  this 
venerable  commander  and  estimable  man.  As,  in  the 
course  of  time,  some  relief  became  necessary,  the 
indefatigable  energy  of  the  so  much  younger  friend  and 
close  collaborator  took  over  a  portion  of  the  burden  ; 
and  their  admirable  unity  remained  a  strong  and 
resolute  will  without  any  bargaining  about  the  intel- 
lectual share  of  each.  How  much  aid  Hindenburg 
received  from  his  comrade  became  bitterly  evident 
when  the  unity  was  broken  by  the  retirement  of  Luden- 
dorff,  and  his  place  was  filled  by  one  whose  inade- 
quacy despaired  all  too  soon  at  the  thought  of  keeping 
the  leaky  ship  above  water  and  bringing  it  safely  to 
port  through  all  storms  and  with  its  old  flag  still 
flying.  The  character  of  this  new  man  was  such  that 
he  struck  the  flag  with  an  indifferent  shrug  just  as 
coolly  as  he  flung  away  as  empty  "  ideas  "  the  things 
that  till  then  had  been  sacred  to  the  German  people  ; 
the  energies  of  the  same  successor,  exerted  in  a  different 
direction,  became  the  strongest  forces  shaping  the 
peculiar  development  of  the  events  of  November  9  in 
the  Great  Head-quarters  at  Spa. 

Owing  to  the  nature  of  my  tasks  and  duties,  I  came 
much  more  into  contact  with  General  Ludendorff  than 
with  the  Field-Marshal  General.  I  can  conscientiously 


STRESS  AND   STORM  157 

say  that  I  always  felt  a  strong  sense  of  being  in  the 
presence  of  a  personality  of  steely  energy  and  keenly 
sharpened  intellect,  of  a  Prussian  leader  of  the  tra- 
ditional glorious  type  in  the  best  sense  of  the  term.     In 
his  bright  office-room,  in  which  were  focused  the  rays 
from  every  front  of  the  foe-girt  Fatherland,  I  have,  on 
countless  occasions,  discussed  with  him  the  questions 
and  problems  of  the  war  and  especially  the  situation  of 
my  own  troops.     Whereas,  on  the  one  hand,  in  talks 
with  the  Field-Marshal   General,  one  felt,  as  I  have 
already  hinted,  that  his  grave  and  easy  speech  was 
the  outcome  of  the  deepest  assurance,   on  the  other 
hand  one  seemed,  in  conversation  with  GeneralLuden- 
dorff,   to  be   in  the  glittering  workshop  where  only 
the  greatest  mental  wrestling  succeeded  in  regaining 
this   assurance   from   day   to   day  by   an   unceasing 
struggle  with  untold  antagonisms,  hostile  principles, 
obstacles,  difficulties  and  shortcomings  of  every  kind. 
It  has  already  been  stated  that  this  mass  of  affairs 
brought  before  him  for  settlement  tasks  and  problems 
which  did  not  properly  belong  within  the  traditional 
scope  of  his  post.     He   took  them  upon   himself  be- 
cause  their  solution  was  of  the  greatest  significance 
for   the   military   situation,  and  because  without  his 
intervention  they  would  have  remained  undealt  with. 
Successful  and  deserving  of  thanks  as  many  of   his 
performances  in  these  domains  that  lay  outside  his 
own  proper  sphere  certainly  appear  to  me,   still,   I 
believe   I  may  say,   without  in  any    way  giving  a 
wrong  impression    of    his    strong    personality,    that 
his   essential   importance   and   greatness   lay   in   the 
provinces  of  strategy,  tactics  and  organization.     In 
these  fields  and  so  long  as  the  troops  and  material 
lay   intact    in    his   hands,   his   brilliant   mastery   of 
the  whole  theory  of  war,   his   wealth   of  ideas   and 
marvellously  exact   intellect,   solved   with    the   most 


158    THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

astounding  certainty  military  problems  of  the  most 
difficult  character  and  won  for  him  and  for  the 
German  arms  imperishable  fame.  His  keen  and 
complete  analysis  of  a  situation,  his  unfailing  con- 
version of  theory  into  command  and  act,  his  accurate 
knowledge  of  the  value  of  the  forces  employed, 
with  which  he  could  reckon  as  though  they  were 
invariable  mathematical  quantities — all  these  things 
contributed  to  win  for  him  the  great  victories  at 
Tannenberg,  Lodz  and  the  Masurian  Lakes.  After- 
wards, when  he  had  taken  over  the  gigantic  tasks  of 
the  Higher  Command,  they  secured  him  successes  of 
imperishable  strategic  significance  during  the  struggle 
for  the  German  Line  down  to  the  spring  of  1918— 
successes  whose  lustre  is  perhaps  still  dimmed  by  the 
lack  of  ultimate  effect  and  the  shadow  of  the  mis- 
carriage in  the  final  combat,  but  which  the  just  verdict 
of  the  future  will  unquestionably  range  with  the 
greatest  military  performances  of  all  time. 

His  great  and  bold  ideas  were  only  impaired  when 
the  units  which  he  fitted  into  his  structure  were  no 
longer  capable  of  satisfying  the  demands  which,  accord- 
ing to  tradition,  he  believed  himself  justified  in  making 
upon  the  troops — when  the  normally  accepted  fighting 
value  of  the  units  had  been  too  much  exposed  to 
physical  and  psychic  trials,  and  thus  the  uncertainty 
and  brittleness  of  the  material  introduced  factors  of 
error,  which  rendered  it  impossible  to  make  exact 
calculations  as  to  the  capabilities  of  the  machine. 

The  successful  designer  of  battles  and  calculator  of 
victories,  who,  ever  since  he  led  his  first  men  as  a  little 
lieutenant,  had  been  accustomed  to  regard  the  con- 
cepts of  discipline,  punctuality  and  fighting  courage 
as  things  of  iron-like  rigidity,  the  practised  strategist, 
who,  ever  since  he  first  donned  red-striped  trousers  as 
a  young  officer  of  the  General  Staff,  had  combined  with 


STRESS  AND  STORM  159 

the  idea  of  a  battery  or  a  division  definite  striking  values 
and  calculable  effects,  now  suddenly  saw  himself  com- 
pelled to  query  all  these  notions.  Enterprises  which, 
assuming  the  reliability  of  the  individual  factors, 
held  every  promise  of  success,  broke  down  in  the 
execution  because  the  machine,  partly  overstrained 
and  partly  rusty,  failed  to  perform  its  task.  The  last 
German  attacks,  i.e.  from  March  21,  1918,  down  to  the 
decisive  turning-point  of  the  war — the  irruption  of  the 
enemy  at  the  Forest  of  Villers-Cotterets  on  July  18 
— were,  notwithstanding  some  brilliant  initial  suc- 
cesses, nothing  but  a  series  of  bitter  examples  of  this 
fact. 

Both  as  a  man  and  as  a  soldier,  General  Ludendorff 
suffered  severely  under  these  conditions  and  bore  them 
with  a  heavy  heart.  Like,  doubtless,  every  other  com- 
mander, I  sympathized  with  him  in  this  torture.  All 
of  us,  who  had  passed  through  the  iron  school  of  the 
grand  old  army  and  had  breathed  the  air  of  the  Military 
Academy  in  Konigsplatz,  had  been  equipped  in  that 
famous  building  with  the  firmest  confidence  in  the  un- 
flinchingness  of  the  great  army  which  was  the  embodi- 
ment of  the  strength  and  pride  of  the  German  people  ; 
and  this  palladium  we  now  saw  tottering. 

For  my  part,  I  had,  at  an  early  period,  been  unable 
to  shut  my  eyes  to  these  cracks,  rents  and  flaws  ;  and 
I  dutifully  laid  my  observations  and  suggestions  before 
the  Quartermaster-General.  Even  yet,  when  I  recall 
those  conversations,  I  am  filled  with  gratitude  by  the 
remembrance  of  the  friendliness  and  attention  with 
which  General  Ludendorff  listened  to  the  views  and 
wishes  of  one  so  much  younger  than  himself  and  did 
all  he  could  to  meet  the  demands  which  he  recognized 
as  justified. 

It  is  true  that,  especially  in  the  later  period  of  our 
increasing  exhaustion  of  man-power,  food-stuffs  and 


i6o   THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

war-material,  he  was  only  too  often  obliged,  with  a 
resigned  ultra  posse,  to  decline  what  he  would  certainly 
have  gladly  conceded  had  he  been  able.     As  I  learned 
to  know  him  in  years  of  mutual  labour  for  the  same  end, 
General  Ludendorff  was  never  a  dazzler  or  a  "  thrust  er." 
To  his  upright  and  stern  soldierly  character  it  would  be 
as  alien  to  seek  the  favour  of  individuals  or  to  fear  their 
disfavour  as  it  would  be  to  court  the  approval  or  dread 
the  disapproval  of  the  masses.     For  his  decisions  he 
knew  only  one  criterion  ;   that  was  their  practical  fit- 
ness for  the  attainment  of  his  great  aim  ;    and  that 
one  aim  was  to  carry  the  Central  Powers  and  especially 
Germany  out  of  the  war  into  a  firm  peace  which  would 
leave  us  room  and  light  for  our  further  natural  develop- 
ment.    With    absolutely    passionate    devotion    and 
creative  energy,  he  threw  the  whole  of  his  abundant 
personality  unreservedly  into  the  accomplishment  of 
his  military  tasks,  never  seeing  in  this  immense  self- 
sacrifice   anything   more   than  the   fulfilment  of  the 
obvious  duty  owed  to  the  Fatherland  by  every  German, 
whether    civilian    or     soldier.     This    admirable    and 
robust  conception  of  duty  and  of  unflinching  persever- 
ance, coupled  with  a  high  estimate  of  the  inherent  moral 
worth  of  the  German  at  the  front  and  the  German  at 
home,  inclined  him,  particularly  in  the  last  periods  of 
the  war,  to  assume  and  presuppose  such  vigour  and 
virtue  as  a  reliable  basis  for  military  operations  and 
for  demands  upon  the  homeland,  even  when  privations 
and  disappointments  as  well  as  disintegrating  influences 
and    anti-moral    forces    had    already    enfeebled    and 
corroded     the    original    soundness.     Filled    by    the 
strongest  sense  of  national  honour,  he  found  it  bitter 
to  have  to  believe  in  the  decay  of  this  vigorous  moral 
stamina  of  the  German  people,  when  no  eye  could  any 
longer  remain  closed  to  the  painful  fact.    For  a  long  time 
he  refused  to  recognize  the  reality  of  the  situation,  and 


STRESS  AND   STORM  161 

strove  to  preserve  within  himself  the  proud  image  of 
the  German  immutably  true  to  Kaiser  and  empire. 
This  high  estimation  of  the  masses  caused  him  for 
a  long  time  to  regard  the  disintegrating  forces  as 
merely  pernicious,  exceptional  phenomena  ;  it  was  also, 
perhaps,  the  ultimate  reason  of  his  attention  being 
turned  so  late  to  the  agitators  and  their  victims — too 
late,  indeed,  for  any  energetic  action  to  be  taken.  In 
regard  to  the  moral  fighting  value  and  physical  capacity 
of  the  troops,  which  constituted  the  most  important 
factors  in  calculating  the  chances  of  an  early  and  fortu- 
nate conclusion  of  the  war,  our  views  differed  more  and 
more  as  time  went  on,  and  the  difference  became  very 
wide  in  the  latter  half  of  the  war.  Neither  would  I  con- 
ceal my  opinion  that  in  the  choice  of  his  immediate 
co-operators,  General  Ludendorff  was  not  always 
happy,  nor  always  open  to  representations  as  to  the 
incompetence  of  such  individuals,  or  willing  to  consider 
statements  that  ran  counter  to  their  reports.  Severe 
views  of  fidelity  towards  painstaking  subordinates  who 
gave  him  the  best  assistance  of  which  they  were 
capable  induced  him  to  leave  posts  inadequately  filled 
for  a  longer  time  than  was  consistent  with  the  best 
interests  of  public  affairs. 

While  anything  but  an  uncritical  upholder  of  Gen- 
eral Ludendorff's  views  or  a  mute  admirer  of  all  his 
acts,  I  nevertheless  account  him  to  be  a  surpassingly 
great  German  commander,  characterized  by  the  strong- 
est patriotic  energy  and  faithfulness — a  man  who 
stood  at  the  head  of  the  German  army  like  a  symbol 
of  its  traditions  and  of  its  conscience.  For  his  enemies 
to  feature  him  as  a  "  gambler  "  and  "  hasardeur  "  is  to 
circulate  an  untruth.  Would  to  God  that  we  had  had, 
among  the  political  leaders  of  the  realm,  experts  of 
equal  capacity,  of  the  same  thorough  deliberation  and 
equally  conscientious  daring ;  would  to  God  it  had 


162    THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

remained  possible  for  each  and  every  individual  to  turn 
to  good  account  all  his  energies  in  the  sphere  of  his 
own  most  special  calling. 

In  the  chapter  on  Rome,  in  Count  York  von  Warten- 
burg's  Weltgeschichte  in  Umrissen,  which  I  have  recently 
been  reading,  I  came  across  a  passage  the  other  day 
concerning  the  Battle  of  Cannae  and  steadfastness  in 
defeat  which  has  imprinted  itself  upon  my  memory  as 
particularly  applicable  to  our  own  times.  Referring  to 
epochs  subsequent  to  the  days  of  Rome,  York  speaks  of 
the  disgraceful  manner  in  which  the  Prussian  people 
heaped  contempt  and  contumely  upon  the  army  for 
having  suffered  defeat  at  Jena,  when  "  it  was  neither 
the  only  culprit  nor  even  the  principal  one."  Further 
he  says :  '"  If  a  people  desires  victoriously  to  survive 
a  Cannae,  it  must  never  dare  to  lose  its  regard  com- 
pletely for  its  leaders  and  its  standard." 

From  the  bottom  of  my  heart  I  long  for  the  resur- 
rection and  the  new  greatness  of  our  German  father- 
land and  its  people.  But  only  when  the  vast  multitude, 
now  blinded  by  the  ranting  agitation  of  false  prophets, 
has  recovered  its  vision  for  past  greatness,  will  it  be 
able  to  understand  and  appreciate  the  old  that  was 
and  to  labour  indomitably  for  the  new  that  is  some 
day  to  be. 


CHAPTER  V 

PROGRESS   OF  THE   WAR 

October,  1920. 

AT  the  beginning  of  the  month  I  spent  a  few  days  on 
the  mainland.  I  had  to  visit  a  dentist  in  Overveen 
named  Schaefer.  I  could  never  have  believed  it  pos- 
sible for  anyone  to  enjoy  so  much  the  modest  little 
pleasures  a  dentist  can  provide  with  all  his  small  in- 
struments of  torture.  I  felt  thoroughly  comfortable  as 
I  leaned  back  in  his  swivel-chair — a  rather  different  kind 
of  furniture  from  our  Wieringen  appointments.  The 
trip  was  the  first  interruption  for  a  long  time  to  the 
persistent  quiet  and  solitude  of  the  island ;  and  just 
at  present,  when  the  advance  of  autumn  is  robbing 
the  drab  landscape  of  its  last  few  charms  and  the 
equinoctial  gales  are  beginning  to  rage,  it  helped  me  to 
surmount  the  prospect  of  another  long,  hard  and  sombre 
winter  in  this  seclusion  and  in  the  restricted  accommoda- 
tion of  this  little  dwelling,  so  far  from  my  home  and 
my  loved  ones.  Moreover,  in  Schaefer's  delightful 
little  villa  near  Haarlem,  we  found  high-minded, 
amiable  and  well-educated  people  whose  hospitality 
it  was  a  pleasure  to  enjoy.  On  the  way  back,  we  called 
at  Burgomaster  Peereboom's  and  spent  an  hour  or 
two  with  that  old  friend,  who  now  lives  at  Bergen, 
his  place  at  Wieringen  having  been  taken  by  the 
equally  excellent  and  ever-helpful  Mr.  Kolff.  This 
new  burgomaster  and  his  wife,  who  is  of  German 

163 


164   THE  CROWN  PRINCE   OF  GERMANY 

origin,  do  everything  in  their  power  to  render  my  life 
more  bearable. 


Among  the  letters  from  home  that  awaited  me  on 
my  return  was  one  from  a  war-comrade.  It  spoke  of  a 
hundred  matters,  and  touched  upon  the  silly  twaddle 
that  is  circulating  among  those  who  are  better 
informed  than  anybody  else  in  the  world  about  my 
conduct  as  commander  of  the  Fifth  Army.  So,  then, 
I  am  said  to  be  answerable  for  the  disastrous  retreat 
ordered  by  the  Higher  Command  after  the  Battle  of 
the  Marne  in  the  year  1914.  These  excessively  clever 
people  know  that  with  unerring  certainty.  Perhaps, 
therefore,  it  will  not  altogether  be  out  of  place  if  I 
state  what  I  know  of  this  battle  that  formed  the 
turning-point  of  our  destiny — more  particularly  since 
what  has  so  far  been  said  on  the  subject  by  serious 
and  critical  observers  tells  very  little  concerning  the 
doings  of  the  Fifth,  Sixth  and  Seventh  Armies. 

What  I  intend  to  write  here  is  not  a  description  of  the 
military  developments  and  the  operations  of  my  Fifth 
Army  in  those  bitter  days  ;  for  that  I  have  made  other 
arrangements  ;  I  propose  here  only  to  sketch  in  broad 
outline  the  circumstances  which,  at  that  time,  led  the 
German  army  to  desist  from  its  victorious  advance  and 
to  start  a  tragic  retreat.  The  blame  mine  ?  Only  mean 
malice  could  invent  such  an  idea,  only  unbounded 
stupidity  could  believe  it ! 

As  commander-in-chief  of  the  Fifth  Army,  I  led  my 
army  in  the  advance  of  August,  1914  ;  I  saw  the 
decisions  and  notices  that  were  issued,  and  was  present 
at  the  scanty  discussions  with  the  General  Higher 
Command  and  with  the  adjacent  armies  ;  finally,  I 
had  the  best  of  opportunities  to  watch  and  study  hour 
by  hour  the  development  of  affairs  during  the  Battle 


PROGRESS  OF  THE  WAR  165 

of  the  Marne.  My  impression  is  that  it  was  an  un- 
fortunate combination  of  many  circumstances  that 
led  to  this  pernicious  result.  Besides  the  unquestion- 
able incompetence  and  the  consequent  moral  and 
physical  collapse  of  General  von  Moltke,  there  was 
the  unfortunate  and  rapidly  discouraged  leadership 
of  the  Second  Army  by  General  von  Billow  and  the 
absolutely  disastrous  doings  of  an  officer  of  the  Head- 
quarters Staff,  who,  oppressed  by  a  sense  of  respon- 
sibility and  personal  pessimism,  assumed  a  verbal 
order  given  to  meet  a  particular  emergency  as  con- 
ferring full  powers  upon  him,  and  so  occasioned  a 
retreat  of  the  two  victorious  armies  on  the  wings 
before  a  decision  had  been  reached. 

Whenever  I  think  of  the  senseless  and  incompre- 
hensible flinging  away  of  the  successes  gained  at  that 
time,  whenever  all  the  horror  of  that  insensate  folly 
comes  before  me,  I  see  the  tragic  figure  of  a  man  who 
ought  to  have  led,  but  who  was  no  leader  and  who  broke 
down  when  the  rising  pressure  of  events  broke  down 
the  traditional  scheme  :  that  figure  is  the  figure  of  Lieu- 
tenant-General  von  Moltke.  I  knew  the  general  well, 
I  sincerely  revered  him  as  a  man  and  I  feel  deeply  the 
tragedy  of  a  fate  which,  in  its  purely  human  features, 
seems  to  me  to  have  a  certain  intrinsic  resemblance  to 
the  fate  of  the  unfortunate  Austrian,  Benedik.  General 
Moltke  was  a  thoroughly  high-minded  man  and  a 
devoted  friend  of  my  father's.  When,  on  the  urgent 
recommendation  of  his  most  intimate  advisers,  the 
Kaiser  in  1906  called  him  to  the  chief  position  in  the 
General  Staff,  von  Moltke  earnestly  begged  His  Majesty 
to  excuse  him,  as  he  did  not  feel  competent  to  fill  the 
post.  When,  however,  the  Kaiser  insisted  upon  his 
decision,  the  Prussian  officer  obeyed.  He  subsequently 
endeavoured,  with  inexhaustible  diligence,  to  master  the 


166    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

enormous  detail  of  the  work  of  the  General  Staff.  There 
was  something  shy  in  his  character  ;  he  seemed  occasion- 
ally to  have  but  little  confidence  in  himself,  and  so  he 
soon  became  totally  dependent  upon  his  collaborators. 
The  great  personal  amiability  and  ardent  human  cordi- 
ality which  he  possessed  made  it  difficult  for  him  to  gain 
that  authority  which  is  so  essential  to  the  Chief  of  a 
General  Staff.  During  my  service  with  that  staff,  it 
was  mentioned  to  me  as  typical  that  even  the  quarter- 
masters-general used  to  report  to  the  old  and  inexor- 
able Schlieffen  with  a  certain  feeling  of  nervousness, 
whereas  everybody  liked  appearing  before  General  von 
Moltke. 

General  von  Moltke  was  never  robust.  When  the 
war  broke  out,  he  had  just  completed  two  drastic 
cures  at  Carlsbad.  He  entered  the  war  as  a  sick  man. 
The  direction  of  the  various  armies  by  the  Chief  of  the 
General  Staff  was  a  very  loose  one.  His  head-quarters 
in  Luxembourg  were  much  too  far  distant  from  the 
scene  of  battle  ;  and,  at  such  a  distance,  he  could  not 
follow  events  with  the  necessary  accuracy — could  not 
supervise  them  with  the  necessary  clearness  ;  possibly, 
too,  the  eye  for  the  essential  and  the  requisite  rapidity  of 
resolve  failed  him  at  the  crucial  moments  of  the  battle. 
In  any  case,  the  great  imperfections  of  means  of  com- 
munication at  that  time  gave  rise  to  difficulties,  so  that 
there  was  occasionally  a  complete  lack  of  connection 
with  the  advancing  army.  This  destroyed  the  unity  of 
leadership  ;  ultimately,  the  armies,  when  they  had  once 
started  their  advance  and  knew  their  allotted  path, 
waged  war  more  or  less  independently,  each  com- 
municating with  its  neighbour  as  occasion  required. 
Immediately  after  the  Battle  of  Longwy,  I  was  called 
to  the  Great  Head-quarters  in  Luxembourg.  I  took 
the  opportunity  of  talking  quite  unequivocally  with 
Moltke's  right-hand  man,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Tappen, 


PROGRESS  OF  THE  WAR  167 

concerning  the  loose  control  of  the  armies  by  the 
Higher  Command,  and  I  demanded  the  appointment 
of  permanent  liaison  officers  between  the  General 
Higher  Command  and  the  Higher  Command  of  each 
army.  The  proposal  was  smilingly  shelved  with  the 
remark  that  no  change  was  necessary,  as  everything 
was  working  excellently  as  it  was. 

When  the  situation  of  the  First  and  Second  Armies 
became  acute,  the  Chief  of  the  General  Staff  sent  Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Hentsch  as  intelligence  officer  of  the 
General  Higher  Command  on  a  tour  of  inspection  to  the 
Higher  Command  in  each  army.  As  General  von  Kuhl 
once  told  me,  the  decision  as  to  the  course  the  battle 
was  to  take  was  laid  in  his  hands. 

At  the  beginning  of  his  round,  Hentsch  appeared  first 
at  Varennes  in  the  Higher  Command  of  the  Fifth  Army 
on  the  afternoon  of  September  8.  He  gave  us  a  sketch 
of  the  entire  situation  as  far  as  it  was  known  in  Luxem- 
bourg. For  a  cool  and  impartial  judge,  these  details 
constituted  anything  but  an  unsatisfactory  picture, 
although  indeed  it  was  clear  that  the  hitherto  rapid 
and  victorious  advance  had  come  to  a  standstill.  On 
leaving  us,  Hentsch  proceeded  along  the  whole  front  to 
obtain  a  personal  opinion  concerning  the  Fourth,  Third, 
Second  and  First  Armies.  Here  began  the  unfortunate 
influences  at  which  I  have  already  hinted.  Quite 
possibly,  Hentsch  really  did  receive  some  very  bad 
impressions,  especially  from  the  Higher  Command  of 
the  Second  Army  ;  maybe  his  nerves  gave  way  ;  at  any 
rate,  instead  of  encouraging  the  Higher  Command  of 
the  Second  Army  to  unflinching  resistance,  he  agreed  to 
their  retreating.  The  description  which  he  gave  of 
the  dissolution  of  the  Second  Army  and  the  use  made  of 
his  supposed  authority  to  order  the  retreat  of  the  armies 
ultimately  induced  the  First  Army  to  fall  back  upon 
Soissons,  though  it  did  so  with  great  reluctance  and 


168    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 


only  because  it  had  itself  lost  direct  touch  with  the 
Second  Army. 

In  these  critical  days  of  Hentsch  activity,  my  Higher 
Command  attacked  without  success  along  the  line  Va- 
vincourt — Rembercourt — Beauzee  and  St.  Andre,  and 
prepared  a  night  attack  for  September  10,  whose  object 
was  to  procure  us  more  freedom  of  action,  since  we  were 
closely  confined  between  Verdun  and  the  trackless 
Argonne  region.  The  General  Higher  Command,  which 
had  manifestly  been  more  and  more  disquieted  by 
Hentsch's  reports,  at  first  disapproved  of  this  plan 
for  a  night  attack,  in  which  the  XHIth  Army  Corps 
(with  the  I2th  Cavalry  Division)  and  the  XVIth  Army 
Corps  were  to  participate  ;  however,  after  repeated 
representations  had  been  made,  permission  was  finally 
given. 

The  attempt  was  therefore  promptly  undertaken  and 
succeeded  brilliantly.  The  army  gained  the  line 
Louppy  le  Petit  to  the  east  of  the  Rembercourt 
heights  and  the  north-east  of  Courcelles-Souilly ; 
Sarrail's  army  giving  way  to  the  extent  of  about  twenty 
kilometres. 

On  this  day,  September  10,  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Hentsch  returned  via  Varennes  from  his  tour.  Since 
he  had  first  visited  us,  his  view  of  the  general  situation 
had  become  pronouncedly  pessimistic.  He  expressed 
himself  hopeless  as  to  the  condition  of  the  right  wing, 
and  demanded  from  me  the  immediate  withdrawal  of 
the  Fifth  Army.  From  his  description,  the  First  and 
Second  Armies  were  now  only  fleeing  remnants ;  the 
Third  Army  was  maintaining  itself  with  difficulty  ;  the 
Fourth  was  in  passable  order. 

I  told  Lieutenant-Colonel  Hentsch  that  an  immediate 
retreat  of  the  Fifth  Army  was  out  of  the  question,  since 
neither  the  general  situation  nor  the  position  of  the 
army  mperatively  called  for  it ;  further,  that  before 


THE  CROWN  PRINCE  IN  PRE-WAR  DAYS. 


THE  CROWN  PRINCE  AT  HEAD-QUARTERS. 
AT  WORK  WITH  HIS  CHIEF  OF  STAFF  (Cot.  COUNT  VON  DER  SCHULENBURG). 


—     'S. 

S    S 


PROGRESS  OF  THE  WAR  169 

the  idea  could  be  even  entertained,  the  removal  of  all 
my  wounded  from  the  territory  just  gained  would  have 
to  be  assured.  As  Hentsch,  despite  these  objections, 
became  importunate,  I  asked  him  for  his  authority 
in  writing.  He  could  produce  none  ;  and  I  thereupon 
informed  him  that  we  were  not  in  a  position  to  com- 
ply with  his  wishes. 

With  the  retreat  from  the  Marne,  Schlieffen's  great 
plan  was  frustrated.  It  was  based  on  the  rapid  sub- 
jection of  France.  I  shall  never  forget  the  terrible  im- 
pression made  upon  me  on  September  n  by  the  sudden 
appearance  in  my  Varennes  and  Argonne  Head-quar- 
ters of  General  von  Moltke  accompanied  by  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  Tappen.  The  general  was  completely  broken 
down,  and  was  literally  struggling  to  repress  his  tears. 
According  to  his  impressions,  the  entire  German  army 
had  been  defeated  and  was  being  rapidly  and  unceas- 
ingly rolled  back.  He  explained  that  he  did  not 
yet  know  where  this  retreat  could  be  brought  to  a 
standstill.  How  he  had  formed  such  a  senseless 
conception  was  for  us,  at  that  time,  beyond  com- 
prehension. 

He  was  astonished  at  the  calm  and  confident  view 
of  the  situation  taken  by  the  Higher  Command  of  the 
5th  Army.  But  he  was  not  to  be  converted  to  a  more 
optimistic  opinion,  and  he  demanded — as  Hentsch 
had  done  the  day  before — the  instant  withdrawal  of 
my  army.  As  no  imperative  reasons  for  such  a  hasty 
step  were  even  now  perceptible,  a  lively  controversy 
ensued  which  ended  in  my  declaring  that  so  long  as  I 
was  Commander-in-Chief  of  my  army  I  bore  the 
responsibility  for  that  army  and  that  I  could  not  agree 
to  an  immediate  withdrawal  on  account  of  the  neces- 
sary removal  and  proper  transport  of  my  wounded. 
With  tears  in  his  eyes,  General  von  Moltke  left  us. 
From  a  human  standpoint,  I  felt  the  deepest  sympathy 


170   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

with  the  utterly  crushed  man,  but,  as  a  soldier  and 
leader,  I  was  unable  to  understand  such  a  physical 
breakdown. 

During  the  afternoon  of  September  n,  Colonel  von 
Dommes  brought  me  the  further  instructions  of  the 
General  High  Command.  My  army  was  to  fall  back 
to  the  district  east  of  St.  Menehould.  The  colonel 
suggested  retaining  the  southern  edge  of  the  Forest  of 
Argonne.  The  Higher  Command  of  the  Fifth  Army 
decided,  however,  to  go  as  far  back  northwards  as 
the  line  Apremont — Baulny — Montfaucon — Gercourt, 
since  it  did  not  appear  advisable  to  remain  in  a  more 
advanced  position  than  that  of  the  rest  of  the  army 
(already  retreating  in  compliance  with  the  orders 
of  the  General  Higher  Command),  especially  as  the 
liberated  enemy  forces  were  now  in  a  position  to 
advance  from  Verdun  in  any  desired  direction  and 
thus  threaten,  not  only  the  communications  of  the 
Fifth  Army,  but  also  those  of  the  entire  western  army. 

Only  after  the  removal  of  all  its  wounded  did  the  Fifth 
Army  withdraw.  The  retreat  was  carried  out  in  perfect 
order  from  the  I2th  to  the  I5th  of  September  and 
the  new  positions  were  taken  up  with  a  strong  sense 
of  superiority.  There  was  no  molestation  on  the  part 
of  the  enemy  ;  Sarrail  did  not  dare  to  attack  us  ;  and 
if  he  had,  it  would  have  been  a  bad  thing  for  him.  From 
the  heights  just  to  the  north  of  Varennes,  I  watched  the 
rear  of  the  XHIth  and  XVI th  corps  leave  their  trenches, 
and  I  can  assert  that,  save  for  some  cavalry  patrols, 
no  enemy  forces  followed  our  troops  anywhere. 

In  the  course  of  the  war  I  had  the  opportunity  of 
talking  over  the  fatal  incidents  of  the  first  Battle  of  the 
Marne  with  hundreds  of  officers  of  all  grades  and 
with  hundreds  of  the  rank  and  file.  What  I  heard 
was  always  the  same  :  we  had  completely  repulsed 
the  French  counter-attacks  and  had  ourselves  success- 


PROGRESS  OF  THE  WAR  171 

fully  attacked  again,  when  the  incomprehensible  orders 
to  retreat  arrived. 

My  brother  Eitel  Fritz  commanded  at  that  time 
the  First  Regiment  of  Guards.  Later  on,  he  described 
the  day  to  me  with  honest  wrath.  "  We  were  in  full 
assault  upon  the  French  position,"  he  said,  "  after 
having  repulsed  various  French  counter-attacks.  Our 
men  were,  it  is  true,  very  fatigued  ;  but  they  advanced 
courageously  and  determinedly.  Everywhere  the 
French  were  to  be  seen  in  full  flight.  We  had  victory 
in  our  hands,  when  suddenly  an  orderly  officer  appeared 
with  that  damned  order  to  stop  the  attack  at  once 
and  start  the  march  back."  He  told  me  that  it  was 
the  most  agonizing  experience  of  his  life  to  have  to 
go  back  with  his  brave  men  over  the  road  that  they  had 
won  with  such  a  severe  struggle  and  to  see  the  wounded, 
who  were  now  certain  to  fall  into  captivity.  Our 
famous  grenadiers  refused  to  believe  it  all  and  kept  on 
asking  :  '  Why  must  we  fall  back  ?  We  have  beaten 
the  French  !  " 

And  they  were  right.  The  German  army  was  not 
defeated  at  the  Marne  ;  it  was  withdrawn  by  its  leaders. 
The  battle  was  lost  because  the  Highest  Command 
gave  it  up  as  lost ;  in  spite  of  the  numerical  superiority 
of  the  enemy — in  the  ratio  of  two  to  one — that  Highest 
Command  might  have  led  its  armies  to  victory,  if  it 
had  clearly  perceived  the  situation  and  had  acted 
adequately  and  resolutely. 

It  is  not  wisdom  after  the  event,  but  the  expression  of 
a  view  borne  in  upon  me  at  the  time,  when  I  say  that, 
by  a  vigorous  concentration  of  our  right  wing  for  united 
action  and  by  strengthening  it  with  easily  available 
reinforcements  from  the  left  wing,  a  dispersal  of  the 
threatening  danger  might  have  been  achieved  without 
any  serious  difficulty. 

General  von  Moltke  I  saw  only  once  afterwards.     It 


172    THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

was  in  the  Head-quarters  at  Charleville.  He  had 
already  been  removed  from  his  command ;  I  found 
him  aged  by  years  ;  he  was  poring  over  the  maps  in 
a  little  room  of  the  prefecture — a  bent  and  broken 
man.  It  was  a  most  touching  sight ;  words  seemed 
impossible  and  out  of  place  ;  a  pressure  of  the  hand 
said  all  that  I  could  say. 

I  was  told  later,  on  credible  authority,  that  the 
unfortunate  man  sank  into  a  morbid  search  after 
the  reasons  for  his  evil  fate,  that  he  tried  to  discover 
exonerations  and  justifications  for  his  failure  and  lost 
himself  in  all  kinds  of  barren  mysticism. 

In  the  end  he  died  at  Berlin  of  a  broken  heart. 
With  him  passed  away  a  real  Prussian  officer  and  a 
high-minded  nobleman.  That  he  was  faced  with  a 
task  that  was  beyond  his  capacity,  that,  with  a  mis- 
taken sense  of  duty,  he  undertook  it  against  his  will 
and  with  a  consciousness  of  his  own  inadequacy, 
proved  fatal  to  him  and  to  us. 

End  of  October,  1920. 

In  this  second  half  of  this  month,  I  have  been  over 
to  the  mainland  again.  It  was  on  the  22nd,  the  anni- 
versary of  my  mother's  birthday.  They  were  quiet, 
sad  days  in  Doom  ;  for  it  cannot  escape  the  eye  of 
anyone  who  loves  her  that  my  mother's  strength  is 
declining,  that  sorrow  is  eating  her  up.  The  wound 
made  in  her  maternal  heart  by  the  death  of  my  brother 
Joachim  has  never  healed ;  he  was  the  weakest  of  us 
boys  and  claimed  a  greater  share  of  her  motherly  care. 

On  the  birthday  itself  she  had  to  keep  her  bed. 
I  could  only  sit  beside  her,  hold  in  mine  her  hand 
that  had  grown  so  fleshless,  and  talk  to  her.  I  told 
her  a  number  of  amusing  and  harmless  little  anecdotes 
about  my  island  household  ;  and  it  was  a  pleasure  to 
see  a  faint  smile  light  up  her  kind  features  every 


PROGRESS  OF  THE  WAR  173 

now  and  then  ;  but  it  was  only  a  short  flicker  of 
sunshine,  that  was  gone  again  almost  instantly.  And 
when  she  is  up  and  walks  through  the  rooms  and 
her  tired  eyes  wander  caressingly  over  all  the  old 
furniture  and  mementoes  of  her  Berlin  and  Potsdam 
days,  it  is  as  though  she  were  bidding  them  all  a 
silent  farewell. 

My  uncle,  Prince  Henry,  was  also  at  Doom,  and  came 
over  to  Wieringen  for  a  day  on  his  way  back. 

Miildner  is  to  make  another  trip  home  in  November 
to  hear  and  see  how  things  stand.  These  journeys 
of  his  make  me  feel  like  Father  Noah,  "  who  sent  forth 
a  dove  from  him,  to  see  if  the  waters  were  abated  from 
off  the  face  of  the  ground."  When  will  he  return  with 
the  olive  branch? 

Our  old  friend,  the  ever  faithful  and  helpful  Jena,  is 
to  take  his  place  while  he  is  gone,  and  to  keep  me 
my  two  dogs  and  my  cat  company.  .5? 


A  few  weeks  ago  I  endeavoured,  in  these  sheets,  to 
refute  the  silly  twaddle  which  connects  my  name  with 
our  failure  at  the  Battle  of  the  Marne.  I  should  like 
now  to  explode  a  second  fable. 

Among  the  many  untruths  disseminated  about  me 
by  spite  or  stupidity,  is  the  assertion  that  I  am  answer- 
able for  the  losses  at  Verdun  and  the  ultimate  failure 
there.  The  persistence  with  which  this  legend  crops 
up  again  and  again  makes  an  explanation  of  the  facts 
necessary. 

The  order  to  attack  Verdun  naturally  did  not  proceed 
from  me  :  it  originated  in  a  decision  of  the  General 
Higher  Command.  This  decision  and  the  General 
Higher  Command's  reasons  for  the  enterprise  find 
expression  in  a  report  to  the  Kaiser  by  General  von 
Falkenhayn,  as  head  of  the  commander-in-chief's 


174   THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

General  Staff,  at  Christmas,  1915.  This  report  con- 
tains the  following  passage  :  "  Behind  the  French 
section  of  the  western  front,  there  are,  within  range, 
objects  for  whose  retention  the  French  are  com- 
pelled to  risk  their  last  man.  If  they  do  so,  the 
French  forces,  since  there  is  no  option,  will  be  bled 
white,  whether  we  reach  our  objective  or  not.  If 
the  French  do  not  risk  everything,  and  the  objective 
falls  into  our  hands,  the  moral  effects  upon  France 
will  be  enormous.  For  this  local  operation,  Germany 
will  not  be  forced  seriously  to  expose  her  other  fronts. 
She  can  confidently  face  the  diversion  attacks  to  be 
expected  at  other  points,  nay,  she  may  hope  to  spare 
troops  enough  to  meet  them  with  counter-attacks." 
Soon  afterwards,  the  General  Higher  Command  issued 
orders  for  the  advance  on  Verdun.  The  General 
Higher  Command  was  unquestionably  influenced  by 
our  numerical  inferiority  and  a  desire  to  anticipate  an 
expected  attack  by  the  enemy  with  their  maximum 
strength  at  some  spot  unsuitable  to  ourselves.  British 
organization  had  by  this  time  become  effective ;  the 
French  had  been  relieved.  In  the  spring  of  1916, 
the  enemy  troops  in  the  west  outnumbered  our  own 
by  more  than  a  million  ;  according  to  General  von 
Falkenhayn's  own  figures,  the  Germans  totalled 
2,350,000  against  3,470,000  of  the  Entente,  and  we 
were  also  inferior  as  regards  munitions. 

In  judging  of  the  plan,  the  Higher  Command  of  the 
5th  Army  took  the  view  that  both  sides  of  the  Meuse 
must  be  attacked  simultaneously  and  with  powerful 
forces.  Such  a  proceeding  was  vetoed  by  the  General 
Higher  Command.  The  attack  on  the  east  bank 
only  was  carried  out  under  the  direct  instructions  of 
the  General  Higher  Command ;  and  it  would  prob- 
ably have  succeeded,  but  for  the  intervention  of 
untoward  circumstances. 


PROGRESS  OF  THE  WAR  175 

The  preparations  for  the  attack  had  quite  escaped 
the  notice  of  the  French.  The  concentration  of  the 
artillery  had  not  been  interfered  with  in  any  way ; 
the  attacking  infantry  had  suffered  scarcely  any  losses 
in  the  initial  assault.  Everything  had  been  brilliantly 
prepared.  Then,  on  the  eve  of  the  day  originally 
selected  for  the  attack,  storms  of  rain  and  snow  set 
in,  which  prevented  every  possibility  of  the  artil- 
lery seeing  their  objective.  From  day  to  day,  the 
attack  had  to  be  postponed,  so  that  it  actually  took 
place  ten  days  later  than  originally  arranged.  The 
Higher  Command  of  the  5th  Army  passed  an  agonizing 
time  ;  for,  as  things  stood,  every  hour  lost  meant  a 
diminution  of  our  prospects  of  speedy  success.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  in  that  period  of  waiting,  our  purpose 
was  betrayed  by  two  miserable  rascals  of  the  Landwehr 
who  deserted  to  the  French. 

Nevertheless,  it  was  no  longer  possible  for  our  enemies 
to  carry  out  their  counter-measures  quickly  enough. 
The  attack  began  on  February  21,  1916  ;  and  the  huge 
successes  of  the  first  three  days  are  well  known.  The 
infantry  of  the  Illrd  and  XVIIIth  corps,  and  the 
VHth  reserve  corps,  performed  marvels  of  courage. 
The  taking  of  Fort  Douaumont  crowned  everything. 
Indeed,  we  should,  after  all,  have  succeeded  in  rushing 
the  entire  east  front  of  Verdun  if  the  reserves 
promised  us  had  arrived  to  time.  Why  they  failed 
to  do  so  is  not  within  my  knowledge. 

I  was  told  by  Captain  von  Brandis,  who  stormed 
Fort  Douaumont,  that,  on  the  fourth  day,  he  had 
observed  a  complete  absence  of  Frenchmen  in  the 
whole  district  of  Douaumont — Sonville — Tavannes. 
But  our  own  troops  had  exhausted  their  strength ; 
the  weather  was  horrible,  and  rations  could  not  every- 
where be  brought  up  as  needed.  That  it  would  have 
been  quite  possible  to  take  the  entire  east  front  of 


176   THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

Verdun  by  pressing  the  attack  without  respite  is  clear 
from  the  fact  that  the  local  leaders  of  the  French  had 
already  given  orders  for  evacuation.  Only  later  was 
this  order  countermanded  by  General  Joffre.  But,  from 
the  statements  and  descriptions  which  I  have  recently 
seen  in  a  report  by  a  French  officer  who  fought  at 
Verdun,  it  is  evident  that  on  the  third  day  the  defence 
of  the  east  front  there  was  actually  broken.  Moreover, 
the  great  danger  of  the  position  for  the  French  on 
February  24  has  been  described  by  General  Mangin 
in  the  Revue  des  deux  Mondes. 

The  fatigue  of  our  troops  after  a  tremendous  mili- 
tary feat  and  the  lack  of  reserves  despoiled  us  of  the 
prize  of  victory.  I  bring  no  accusation  ;  I  merely 
record  the  fact. 

From  that  day  onwards,  surprises  were  no  longer 
possible  ;  and  the  early  impetuous  advances  by  storm 
gave  place  to  a  gigantic  wrestle  and  struggle  for  every 
foot  of  ground.  Within  a  few  weeks,  I  perceived 
clearly  that  it  would  not  be  feasible  to  break  through 
the  stubborn  defence,  and  that  our  own  losses  would 
ultimately  be  quite  out  of  proportion  to  the  gains. 
Consequently,  I  soon  did  everything  in  my  power  to 
put  an  end  to  the  attacks  ;  and  I  repeatedly  gave 
expression  to  my  views  and  the  deductions  to  be  drawn 
from  them.  In  this  matter  I  stood  somewhat  opposed 
to  my  then  chief  of  staff,  General  Schmidt  von  Knob- 
elsdorf ,  and  my  representations  were  at  first  put  aside  ; 
the  orders  ran :  "  Continue  to  attack."  That,  in  con- 
sideration of  the  high  moral  values  attaching  to  a 
continuance  of  the  enterprise,  a  contrary  opinion  had 
to  overcome  enormous  opposition,  and  that  the 
General  Higher  Command  was  bound  to  look  at  the 
struggle  for  Verdun  from  a  different  standpoint  than 
that  of  the  Higher  Command  of  the  Fifth  Army,  must 
be  unconditionally  conceded.  Still,  even  looked  at 


PROGRESS  OF  THE  WAR  177 

from  that  superior  standpoint,  I  believe  my  sugges- 
tions to  have  been  correct. 

When,  later  on,  the  situation  became  so  acute  that, 
in  view  of  the  futility  of  the  sacrifices,  I  felt  unable  to 
sanction  the  continuation  of  the  attack,  I  reported 
personally  to  the  Kaiser  and  made  written  representa- 
tions to  the  General  Higher  Command  ;  whereupon  the 
Kaiser  adopted  my  view  and  gave  the  desired  orders  to 
break  off  the  attack.  After  the  resignation,  on  August 
29,  of  General  Falkenhayn,  the  head  of  the  Commander- 
in-Chief's  General  Staff  and  of  the  Operations  Depart- 
ment, the  orders  to  cease  attacking  were  issued  by 
Field-Marshal  General  von  Hindenburg  on  September 
2,  1916,  together  with  instructions  to  convert  the  lines 
that  had  been  reached  into  a  permanent  position. 

Regrettable  as  the  final  result  may  be,  it  should  not 
be  forgotten  that,  although  the  attack  on  Verdun  cost 
us  very  heavy  losses,  the  French  suffered  even  more  than 
ourselves.  About  seventy-five  French  divisions  were 
battered  to  pieces  in  the  devil's-cauldron  of  Verdun. 
Hence,  the  force  of  the  French  onslaught  at  the  Somme 
was  very  greatly  diminished  by  Verdun  ;  and  it  is 
impossible  to  say  what  the  effects  of  the  Somme 
advance  might  have  been  had  not  the  Battle  of  Verdun 
reduced  and  weakened  the  resources  of  France  in  men 
and  in  material. 

I  feel  that  I  cannot  close  my  remarks  concerning 
my  attitude  towards  the  struggle  for  Verdun  without 
a  reference  to  the  cowardly  and  slanderous  contumely 
cast  upon  me  during  the  past  two  years  by  those 
German  newspapers  which  prefer  to  make  use  of  a  cheap 
cry  rather  than  allow  truth  to  prevail. 

Even  during  the  last  few  days,  I  have  read  it  once 
more  :  '  The  Crown  Prince,  the  laughing  murderer  of 
Verdun." 

Gall  and  wormwood  in  the  little  light  left  me  on  this 

M 


178   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

island,  which,  for  three  hundred  out  of  the  three  hun- 
dred and  sixty-five  days  of  the  year,  is  wrapt  in  fog 
and  storm. 

'  The  laughing  murderer  of  Verdun  !  "  So  that's 
what  I  am,  is  it  ?  One  might  almost  come  to  believe 
it  true,  after  hearing  the  calumny  so  often.  It  cuts 
me  to  the  quick,  because  it  concerns  what  I  had  saved 
as  my  last  imperishable  possession  out  of  the  war  and 
out  of  the  collapse.  It  touches  the  unsullied  memories 
of  my  relations  to  the  troops  entrusted  to  me ; 
it  touches  the  conviction  that  those  men  and  I  under- 
stood and  trusted  each  other,  that  we  had  a  right  to 
believe  in  one  another,  because  each  had  given  his  best 
and  done  his  best. 

What  was  to  be  told  of  Verdun  and  my  part  in  the 
contest  for  the  fortress  I  have  already  told.  It  remains 
for  me  to  say  something  about  my  relations  to  the 
troops  and  about  my  laughter. 

It  goes  rather  against  the  grain  to  say  much  con- 
cerning the  former  point.  I  will  say  only  that, 
in  the  untold  fights  which  took  place,  I  had  grown  as 
fond  of  my  brave  and  sturdy  troops  as  though  they 
were  my  own  children  ;  and  I  did  everything  in  my 
power  to  ensure  them  recreation,  quiet,  rations,  care 
and  rewards  in  so  far  as  these  were  at  all  possible  in 
the  hard  circumstances  of  the  war.  Whenever  feasible 
— that  is,  whenever  my  duties  permitted  me  to  leave 
the  Higher  Command  of  my  group  for  any  length 
of  time — I  joined  my  fighting  troops  in  the  fire-zone 
to  see  with  my  own  eyes  how  things  stood ;  and, 
wherever  it  could  be  managed,  I  personally  saw  that 
something  was  done  to  relieve  their  hardships. 

In  the  Argonne  it  was  the  same  as  at  Verdun  or 
in  the  chalk  pits  of  Champagne ;  and,  among  the 
many  hundreds  of  thousands  who  came  under  my 
command  in  the  course  of  the  terrible  war,  there  can 


PROGRESS  OF  THE   WAR  179 

be  very  few  indeed  who  did  not  see  me  in  their 
sector.  Therefore,  I  can  dispense  with  many  words, 
and  boldly  call  upon  all  my  brave  officers,  non- 
commissioned officers  and  men  of  the  old  Fifth 
Army  and  my  Army  Group  to  testify  to  my  re- 
lations with  them.  The  knowledge  that  they  repaid 
my  love  with  incomparable  soldierly  qualities,  with 
fidelity  and  with  courage,  that  they  were  personally 
attached  to  me,  is  for  me  to-day  a  source  of  happiness 
that  has  remained  to  me  out  of  the  past,  and  that 
no  unscrupulous  vilifier  shall  destroy  with  his  men- 
dacious attacks. 

"  The  Crown  Prince,  the  laughing  murderer  of 
Verdun  !  "  So  then,  now  for  my  laughter  !  Indeed 
and  indeed,  in  my  youth  I  was  wont  to  laugh.  I 
was  never  a  moper  or  a  lie-by-the-fire.  I  was  fond 
of  laughter ;  for  I  found  life  gay  and  generous,  and 
laughter  was  for  me,  as  it  were,  an  expression  of 
gratitude  to  destiny  for  letting  me  rejoice  in  my 
strength  with  freshness,  health  and  faith. 

Even  in  the  war,  despite  all  its  bitter  trials,  I  never 
completely  lost  my  capacity  for  laughter.  Every  one 
who  went  through  it  manfully  must  have  experienced, 
in  precisely  the  most  terrible  times,  the  desire  to  be  rid 
of  all  that  unheard-of  horror,  of  all  that  death  and 
destruction,  must  have  felt  an  almost  greedy  impulse 
towards  every  sensation  and  every  assuring  expression 
of  his  life  that  hangs  between  the  present  and  the 
undoubtedly  better  hereafter.  And  so,  at  that  time 
also,  I  made  no  histrionic  mask  of  my  face  for  the  benefit 
of  the  recording  public,  but  showed  myself  as  I  was. 

That,  even  at  the  time,  at  home  and  perhaps  behind 
the  lines,  my  laughter  aroused  adverse  censure  here  and 
there  I  know  perfectly  well.  "  The  Crown  Prince," 
people  said,  "  always  looks  happy ;  he  does  not  take 
things  very  seriously." 


i8o   THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

Oh,  you  dear,  kind,  captious  critics,  what  could  you 
know  about  it  ?  If  I  had  troubled  half  as  much 
about  you  then  as  you  did  about  me,  my  laughter 
would  no  doubt  have  vanished.  But  I  troubled 
myself  only  about  one  thing — about  the  men  entrusted 
to  me,  the  men  who  were  bearing  the  brunt  of  things. 
And  if  those  old  warriors  of  mine,  who  were  then  the 
care  of  my  heart  and  whom  Hook  back  to  still  in  love  and 
comrade-like  attachment,  if  they  had  objected  to  my 
laughter,  then  I  would  admit  you  people  to  be  in  the 
right !  But  they  understood  and  thanked  me.  For 
their  sakes  I  really  did  many  a  time  laugh  and  smile 
even  when  I  felt  in  anything  but  a  laughing  mood. 

Pictures  of  those  bitter  days  rise  before  me. 

I  recall  a  review  of  the  recruits.  Last  year's  batch 
of  young  fellows  have  just  completed  their  training 
and  are  to  leave  for  the  front.  Six  hundred  dear 
bright  German  lads,  scarcely  out  of  their  boyhood, 
stand  there.  They  are  really  stilj.  much  too  young 
for  their  difficult  task.  Their  bright  eyes  are  turned 
expectantly  and  feverishly  upon  me  :  what  is  the 
Crown  Prince  going  to  say  to  them  ?  I  feel  a  lump 
in  my  throat,  and  my  eyes  are  inclined  to  get  dim ; 
for  I  had  seen  only  too  many  go  and  too  few  return, 
and  these  are  scarcely  more  than  children  !  Dare  I 
let  these  lads  see  what  is  passing  within  me  ?  No  ! 
— I  pull  myself  together  and  smile  ;  then  I  say  to 
them  :  "  Comrades,  think  of  our  homeland  ;  it  must 
be  ;  it  is  hard  for  me  to  let  you  go,  but  you  will  accom- 
plish your  task.  Show  yourselves  worthy  of  the 
comrades  at  the  front.  God  bless  you!"  And  they 
cheer  and  start  confidently  on  their  way. 

A  big  battle  is  in  progress.  Serious  reports  are 
arriving  from  the  front ;  the  enemy  have  penetrated  into 
our  lines  at  a  dangerous  spot.  I  am  sitting  in  the  room 
of  my  Chief  of  Staff  with  the  map  before  me  and 


PROGRESS  OF  THE  WAR  181 

the  telephone  at  my  side.  We  have  brought  up  the 
reserves  ;  the  artillery  and  the  airmen  are  in  action  ; 
and  we  await  reports.  The  telephone  rings,  and  I 
snatch  up  the  receiver.  Report  from  Army  Higher 
Command :  "  The  breach  has  widened,  but  we  hope 
to  halt  in  lines  A  to  B."  The  weightiest  cares  press 
upon  the  Chief  of  Staff  and  the  Commander-in-Chief . 
There  are  no  more  reserves  at  our  disposal ;  the  last 
man  and  the  last  machine-gun  have  been  sent  in. 
Now  the  soldiers  must  do  it  by  themselves.  Will  it 
go  well  ? 

I  walk  out  to  step  into  my  car,  and  motor  to  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  attack.  Hundreds  of  soldiers 
fill  the  road  ;  their  inquiring  eyes  are  bent  anxiously 
upon  me.  The  difficulties  of  the  situation  up  at  the 
front  have  got  about ;  it  looks  very  much  like  a  dis- 
position to  panic  here.  I  get  up  and  call  out  to  them  : 
"  Boys,  there  is  heavy  fighting  going  on,  but  we  shall 
manage  it,  we  must  manage  it,  and  you  must  help 
me  !  "  I  smile  at  them.  They  doubtless  say  to  one 
another  :  "  It's  a  tough  job,  and  it  may  cost  us  a 
lot.  But  he  trusts  to  us,  and  he  keeps  a  good  heart 
himself;  it'll  be  all  right." 

And,  in  place  of  the  ominous  silence  that  met  me 
when  I  came  out,  loud  cheers  of  encouragement  follow 
me  as  I  drive  off. 

Another  picture.  It  is  after  the  severe  struggle  on 
the  Chemin  des  Dames.  I  drive  to  a  regiment  that  has 
just  returned  from  the  fighting  to  recuperate  for  a  few 
days  on  the  Bove  Ridge.  The  men  have  quartered 
themselves  in  shell-holes  and  in  old  French  dug- 
outs. I  talk  with  many  of  them  ;  they  are  utterly 
fatigued.  In  one  of  the  shell-holes  a  party  of  cor- 
porals are  playing  the  card-game  of  skat.  I  sit  down 
with  them  and  add  three  marks  to  the  pool.  Their 
tongues  are  loosed.  They  are  all  thorough-bred  Ber- 


182   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

liners.  Most  of  them  know  me.  At  first  they  grumble 
at  the  length  of  the  war,  but  they  add  :  "  Well,  we'll 
pull  through  somehow."  Soon,  I  have  to  leave  for 
other  troops.  An  old  fellow  stands  up — a  man  of 
quite  forty-five — and  holds  out  his  horny  hand  to 
me  saying :  "  You're  our  ole  Willem,  and  we  shan't 
forget  your  comin'  to  see  us  'ere ;  when  we  goes  back 
to  the  front,  we'll  think  o'  you,  and  you  shan't  'ave 
no  cause  to  complain  o'  us."  A  thunder  of  hurrahs 
echoed  over  the  blood-soaked  Chemin  des  Dames. 

So  much  for  my  laughter  then  ;  and  I  can  only  confess 
it — I  am  still  able  to  laugh.  In  spite  of  all  the  blows 
of  fate,  in  spite  of  all  vexations,  reverses  and  loneliness, 
I  still  often  feel  it  welling  up  in  me  ;  and  I  thank  God 
that  He  has  left  me  that !  I  felt  it  only  yesterday  while 
playing  with  the  fisher-children  over  there  in  Den 
Oever ;  and  I  felt  it  the  other  day  while  talking  with 
the  smith's  mail. 

December,  1920. 

Miildner  has  come  back. 

How  does  the  passage  about  Noah  run  in  the  Bible  ? 
"  But  the  dove  found  no  rest  for  the  sole  of  her  foot, 
and  she  returned  unto  him  into  the  ark,  for  the  waters 
were  on  the  face  of  the  whole  earth :  then  he  put 
forth  his  hand,  and  took  her,  and  pulled  her  in  unto 
him  into  the  ark. 

"  And  he  stayed  yet  another  seven  days." 

So  there  is  nothing  for  it  but  to  take  one's  heart 
in  both  hands  and  to  enter  the  third  winter  on  the 
island. 

One  great  delight  I  have  had :  a  visit !  My  little 
sister  has  been  with  me  for  a  few  days  on  her  way 
home  from  Doom.  Anyone  who  could  know  what 
we  have  been  to  one  another  from  childhood  (the 
little  sister's  "  big  brother  "  and  vice  versa)  would 


PROGRESS  OF  THE  WAR  183 

understand  and  appreciate  how  much  this  reunion 
after  such  a  long  time  meant  to  us  two. 

Scarcely  was  the  little  duchess  gone,  when  the 
storms  burst  across  the  sea — wild  and  ceaseless  by  day 
and  by  night.  They  almost  carried  away  the  roof 
of  the  parsonage  from  over  our  heads.  Winter  has 
rushed  upon  us  this  time  in  a  big  attack — with  a 
sudden  fall  of  the  temperature,  with  snow-blizzards 
and  hard  frosts  and  masses  of  ice  in  the  Zuyder  Zee. 
It  is  worse  than  even  the  first  bitter  winter  that  we 
spent  here  two  years  ago. 

A  biting  north-easter  and  driving  ice  in  the  sea 
make  communication  with  the  mainland  almost  impos- 
sible. Added  to  this  is  a  telephone  breakdown,  so 
that  we  are  quite  cut  off  from  the  world. 

And  the  latest  news  from  the  sick  bed  of  my  mother 
was  so  very  grave  that  the  worst  is  to  be  feared. 
When  I  think  of  it,  there  comes  to  me  as  it  were  a 
prayer  :  "  Not  now — not  in  days  like  these." 

By  three  o'clock,  or  at  the  latest  by  four,  it  is 
night.  Then  I  seat  myself  beside  the  little  iron  stove 
with  the  paraffin  lamp  and  my  books  and  papers 
before  me. 

When  my  eyes  wander  over  the  bookshelves,  I 
think  to  myself :  "  What  a  lot  you  have  read  and 
ploughed  through  in  the  past  two  years  !  More  than 
in  all  the  thirty-six  that  preceded  them." 

During  the  war,  the  Higher  Command  of  my  5th 
Army  and  my  Army  Group  often  received  visitors 
from  the  homeland  and  from  neutral  countries.  Of 
these  visits  I  propose  to  say  something  here. 

The  German  federal  princes  frequently  came  to  see 
their  troops,  and  I  was  able  thoroughly  to  discuss, 
with  some  of  them,  the  whole  situation  and  the  position 
of  affairs  at  home  ;  often  enough  their  warnings  were 
directed  towards  trying  to  find  some  possible  oppor- 


184   THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

tunity  for  an  arrangement  with  the  enemy,  a  view 
which  I  heartily  shared.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the 
German  federal  princes  were  not  oftener  heard  by  the 
Imperial  Government ;  many  of  them  foresaw  the 
catastrophe  clearly.  The  federal  character  of  the 
German  Realm  (so  carefully  guarded  by  Bismarck)  was 
only  too  often  relegated  to  the  background  during 
the  last  fifteen  years  of  the  Empire  by  reason  of  the 
excessive  centralization  at  Berlin.  People  overlooked 
the  fact  that  it  was  precisely  the  more  local  and  tribal 
pride  of  the  different  States  which  best  helped  to 
cement  them  together  into  a  realm. 

Of  the  prominent  personages  who  visited  me  from 
allied  and  from  friendly  States  I  would  like  to  mention 
Enver  Pasha,  Crown  Prince  Boris  of  Bulgaria,  Count 
Tisza,  Kaiser  Karl,  and  Sven  Hedin.  Count  Ottokar 
Czernin  was  with  me  twice.  We  had  some  exhaustive 
political  talks  ;  and  I  received  the  impression  that  the 
Count  was  a  high-minded,  upright  and  clever  statesman 
who  surveyed  the  actual  situation  clearly  and  wished  to 
reckon  with  facts.  In  the  summer  of  1917,  he  came 
to  see  me  at  Charleville  ;  we  discussed  thoroughly 
the  highly  critical  condition  of  things,  and  he  was  of 
opinion  that  the  Dual  Monarchy  was  on  the  point 
of  exhaustion,  that  it  only  kept  itself  going  by  means 
of  stimulants  and  that  we,  also,  had  passed  the  zenith 
of  our  military  power.  He  foresaw  the  coming 
collapse  and  wished  to  prevent  it  by  comprehensive 
and  tangible  concessions  to  the  enemy.  A  peace  by 
agreement  on  the  basis  of  surrender  and  sacrifices  on 
the  part  of  the  Central  Powers  was  his  aim  ;  and 
his  remarks  disclose  a  certain  conviction  that  this  aim 
might  be  achieved  provided  the  necessary  steps  were 
taken.  We  ought  to  relinquish  Alsace-Lorraine  and  to 
find  compensation  in  the  east,  where  the  annexation  of 
Poland  and  Galicia  to  Germany  should  be  worked  for. 


PROGRESS  OF  THE  WAR  185 

Austria,  on  her  part,  was  prepared,  not  merely  to 
relinquish  Galicia,  but  also  to  cede  the  Trentino  to 
Italy.  Knowing  only  too  well  the  difficulties  of  our 
position,  I  could  not  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  his  suggestions  ; 
but  I  pointed  out  to  him  that  any  such  proposals  as 
those  he  was  now  putting  forward  were  bound  to  meet 
with  strong  opposition  in  Germany.  People  at  home 
saw  our  victorious  armies  standing  far  advanced 
into  enemy  territory  ;  the  majority  believed  thoroughly 
in  our  chances  of  success  ;  they  would  not  be  amen- 
able to  the  idea  of  giving  up  old  Imperial  territory  just 
to  get  peace,  just  to  have  kept  the  defence  unbroken. 
Notwithstanding  my  recognition  of  these  difficulties  and 
my  utter  scepticism  concerning  the  idea  of  compensa- 
tion in  the  shape  of  Poland,  I  carefully  weighed  the 
sacrifice  required  from  us  by  Czernin's  scheme  against  the 
incalculable  disaster  into  which  I  believed  we  should  glide 
if  the  war  were  continued  ;  and  I  told  the  Count  that  I 
would  do  all  in  my  power  to  support  his  views,  especi- 
ally with  the  leaders  of  the  army.  The  steps  thereupon 
taken  by  Count  Czernin  himself  failed.  The  Imperial 
Government  seemed  to  consider  the  sacrifice  expected 
from  us  to  be  too  great.  Unless  I  am  mistaken, 
Bethmann  Hollweg  appeared  particularly  scared  by  the 
problem  :  "  How  am  I  to  acquaint  the  Reichstag  and 
the  people  with  the  truth  ?  '  Still  less  amenable  to  the 
Count's  proposals  was  the  General  Higher  Command ; 
as  General  Ludendorff  explained,  they  regarded  it  as 
incomprehensible,  with  the  armies  unbeaten,  that 
we  should  talk  of  giving  up  ancient  German  territory 
which  had  been  so  long  under  foreign  domination  and 
had  been  regained  with  German  blood.  I  give  due 
honour  to  all  the  arguments  put  forward  by  General 
Ludendorff  in  defence  of  his  standpoint :  they  are  to 
be  found  in  his  memoirs,  and  proceeded  from  the 
optimistic  heart  of  a  fine  soldier,  not  from  the  mind 


i86   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

of  a  cool  and  judicial  statesman.  On  my  side,  I 
endeavoured  to  see  the  problem  in  its  simplest  form, 
namely :  "  Prestige  in  the  French  portions  of  Alsace 
or  the  existence  of  the  realm  ?  '  Hence,  I  advocated 
an  attempt  on  the  lines  suggested  by  Czernin.  But 
my  sole  success  was  that  I  was  said  to  have  "  got 
limp  "  and  to  have  gone  over  to  the  political  "  bears." 

Dutch,  Swedish,  Spanish  and,  at  the  beginning, 
American  military  missions  were  frequently  our  guests. 
Among  them,  there  was  many  an  excellent  and  sym- 
pathetic officer. 

Several  times,  too,  German  parliamentarians  found 
their  way  to  me.  There  came,  for  instance,  von  Heyde- 
brand,  Oldenburg- Januschau,  Kampf,  Schulze-Brom- 
berg,  Trimborn,  Fischbeck,  David,  Hermann  Miiller. 
With  the  Majority  Socialist,  David,  I  had  a  long  and 
interesting  talk  in  the  summer  of  1917.  Although  our 
views,  naturally,  were  anything  but  identical,  we  found 
many  points  of  agreement.  On  my  inquiring  as  to  the 
next  demands  to  figure  on  his  party  programme,  he 
stressed  the  necessity  for  an  Act  to  aid  the  unem- 
ployed. In  reply  to  my  objection  that  it  would  be 
very  difficult  to  determine,  in  every  case,  whether  the 
unemployment  were  really  undeserved,  he  assured 
me  that  a  very  rigorous  check  would  be  exercised 
so  as  to  exclude  all  possibility  of  abuse.  When  I 
read  nowadays  of  the  enormous  sums  expended  by 
the  realm  and  by  the  municipalities  in  assisting  the 
unemployed,  my  mind  occasionally  reverts  to  that 
talk  with  "  Comrade  "  David  :  have  David  and  the 
other  fathers  of  the  Act  really  succeeded  in  carrying 
into  practice  their  theory  of  a  check  to  exclude  all 
abuse  ?  I  could  wish  it,  but  I  am  inclined  to  doubt 
it. 

After  David  had  left  me,  I  received  an  account  of  a 
little  incident  that  happened  to  him  during  his  journey 


PROGRESS  OF  THE  WAR  187 

through  the  war  zone,  an  incident  which  reveals  him 
as  a  very  admirable  man.  In  a  small  place  were 
posted  some  landwehr  men  and  some  columns  consist- 
ing mostly  of  elder  men  who  had  ceased  to  have  much 
enthusiasm  for  the  war.  They  recognized  David  and 
explained  to  him  that  they  wanted  to  go  home — wanted 
to  fight  no  more.  Thereupon  the  Social  Democrat 
David  made  them  a  vigorous  speech,  in  which  he  told 
them  that  every  one  had  to  do  his  duty,  that  striking 
in  front  of  the  enemy  was  quite  out  of  the  question. 
The  speech  did  not  miss  its  mark. 

In  July,  1918,  I  conversed  with  Herr  von  Heyde- 
brand  about  our  situation  and  our  war  aims  ;  and  I 
was  touched  by  the  optimism  with  which  he  regarded 
the  future  even  at  that  time.  He  was  quite  dismayed 
when  I  disclosed  to  him  the  naked  truth,  when  I  told 
him  that,  for  a  long  time,  we  had  been  conducting  a 
war  of  desperation  on  the  west  front,  conducting  it 
with  fatigued  and  exhausted  troops  against  vastly 
superior  forces.  On  my  giving  him  accurate  figures 
and  other  evidence  in  proof  of  my  assertions  and  explain- 
ing to  him  our  bitterly  grievous  position  in  regard  to 
reserves,  he  appeared  scarcely  able  to  grasp  the  hard 
realities  unfolded  before  his  eyes.  Afterwards  my  Chief 
of  Staff  confirmed  for  him  what  I  had  said  and  furnished 
him  with  further  particulars.  Herr  von  Heydebrand 
then  told  me  that  from  what  he  had  now  learned  he 
must  recognize  that,  hitherto,  he  had  cherished  a 
totally  false  view  of  our  situation  ;  he  and  his  party 
had  been  utterly  misinformed  in  Berlin. 

The  over-rosy  official  view  also  explains  the  other- 
wise inexplicable  and  frequently  exaggerated  aims 
of  the  Pan-Germans,  who  have  been  so  decried  on 
account  of  their  mistaken  demands.  Like  many 
others,  they  really  knew  nothing  of  the  actual  situa- 
tion. They  wanted  to  point  the  people  to  some 


188   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

tangible  war-aims.  France  was  fighting  for  Alsace- 
Lorraine,  England  for  the  domination  of  the  seas  and 
for  her  trade  monopoly,  Russia  for  Constantinople 
and  for  ice-free  access  to  the  ocean,  Italy  for  the 
"  unredeemed  provinces."  What  was  Germany  fighting 
for  ?  To  this  the  Pan-German  party  wished  to  give 
the  answer ;  and  the  simple  truth,  "  for  her  life,  for 
her  unscathed  existence,  for  her  unobstructed  develop- 
ment," did  not  sound  strong  enough.  And  yet  of  all 
war-cries  it  was  the  only  firm,  strong  and  worthy  one. 

Out  of  a  land  of  dreams  millions  of  Germans  were 
suddenly  dragged  into  pitiless  and  harsh  realities  by 
the  unfortunate  events  of  the  year  1918.  It  affords 
imperishable  testimony  to  the  fatal  effects  of  artificially 
cultivating  an  ill-founded  optimism,  effects  especially 
fatal  when,  in  war-time,  the  judgment  on  the  general 
situation  is  too  favourable.  Nay,  I  maintain  that  the 
collapse  of  Germany  would  never  have  developed 
into  such  a  terrible  catastrophe,  if  the  severe  reverses  at 
the  front,  which  they  considered  utterly  impossible,  had 
not  torn  the  people  out  of  all  the  illusions  sedulously 
fostered  by  official  personages.  They  had  universally 
believed  everything  to  be  highly  favourable  and  pros- 
perous ;  and  now,  all  of  a  sudden,  they  had  to  see 
that  they  had  been  duped  by  misleading  propaganda. 
So  effectually  had  this  thoughtless,  vague  optimism 
been  instilled  into  their  minds  that,  even  in  times  of 
the  greatest  excitement,  tired  people  took  refuge  in 
it  and  very  few  had  the  energy  or  self-reliant  courage 
to  picture  to  themselves  the  results  of  a  possible  defeat. 
And,  yet,  it  was  just  such  as  these  few  who  drew  from 
their  inner  conflicts  with  final  bitter  possibilities  a 
stiffer  power  of  resistance,  since  they  learned  thereby 
that  supremest  effort  was  essential  for  struggle  and 
victory,  that  defeat  meant  destruction. 

The   lack   of    uprightness   and   truthfulness   which 


PROGRESS  OF  THE  WAR  189 

arose  from  loose  thinking  and  which  had  become 
second  nature  to  many  gentlemen  in  responsible  posi- 
tions, has  taken  a  bitter  revenge.  With  the  opiate 
of  eternal  reassurances  that  all  is  well  you  cannot 
stimulate  either  the  individual  or  the  community  to 
the  pinnacle  of  effort.  A  much  greater  effect  is  ob- 
tained by  honestly  pointing  out  that  enormous  tasks 
are  to  be  accomplished  in  a  life-and-death  struggle, 
that  this  struggle  is  harder  than  any  people  has  ever 
passed  through,  and  that,  unless  all  is  to  be  lost,  no 
nerve  must  weaken,  no  soul  become  lax,  in  the  ups 
and  downs  of  this  vital  conflict.  Clear  knowledge  as 
to  the  results  of  a  possible  defeat  ought  not  to  have 
been  withheld  from  the  people  at  home,  and  the  horror 
of  the  strife  at  the  front  ought  never  to  have  been  dis- 
guised for  them  by  a  false  mystification  when  failures 
occurred. 

I  am  not  here  advocating  any  doleful  damping  of 
people's  spirits  ;  all  I  say  is  that,  from  the  outset, 
the  German  people  ought  to  have  been  honoured  by 
assuming  it  to  be  mature  enough  to  face  the  whole  hard 
truth  and  to  steel  its  heart  by  gazing  at  it. 

Hundreds  and  hundreds  of  times  I  said  to  my 
troops  :  "  Comrades,  things  are  going  hard  with  us. 
They  are  bitterly  difficult.  It  is  a  case  of  life  and 
death  for  you  and  for  all  that  we  Germans  have. 
Whether  we  shall  pull  through  I  do  not  know.  But  I 
have  every  faith  in  you  that  none  will  desert  the  other 
or  the  cause.  There  is  no  other  way  out  of  it ;  and 
so,  forward,  for  God  and  with  God,  for  the  Kaiser 
and  the  realm  !  for  all  that  you  love  and  refuse  to  see 
crushed."  Such  things  as  these  ought  to  have  been 
told  the  people  at  home  according  as  the  situation 
called  for  it. 

But  the  authorities  preferred  to  ration  the  truth. 


THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

The  result  was  that  the  nation,  starving  for  news, 
snatched  greedily  at  rumours  and  tittle-tattle  as 
substitutes  for  what  was  kept  from  them,  while  distrust 
and  disintegrating  doubt  grew  apace.  These  false 
tactics  began  at  the  first  Battle  of  the  Marne ;  and 
we  never  got  rid  of  them  till  the  collapse  came. 

The  German  Press  is  not  to  be  blamed  for  the  mis- 
taken views  of  its  readers  ;  the  evil  had  its  roots  in 
the  source  from  which  the  information  was  supplied  to 
the  Press.  An  honest  desire  for  the  truth  was  dis- 
played throughout  by  the  newspapers  of  all  shades 
of  opinion,  though  naturally  party  views  and  per- 
sonal interests  played  their  part.  During  the  war,  press 
representatives  of  the  most  diverse  political  opinions, 
and  especially  war  correspondents  who  were  my  guests 
and  whom  I  met  over  and  over  again  with  the  fighting 
troops,  complained  to  me  that  they  were  not  permitted 
to  write  of  the  things  as  they  saw  them,  that  they  might 
only  give  their  readers  an  inkling  of  the  truth,  but  not 
tell  them  the  full  seriousness  of  the  situation.  Very 
bad  news  it  was  thought  preferable  to  suppress  alto- 
gether. Especially  when  matters  were  critical  at  the 
front,  the  red  pencil  wallowed  in  the  dispatches  and 
reports ;  and  what  ultimately  remained  had  often 
assumed  quite  a  different  air  when  denuded  of  its 
context. 

The  censor's  office,  by  reason  of  its  effect  upon 
these  reports  of  immediate  eye-witnesses,  was  guilty 
of  heinous  sin  against  the  country. 

New  Year's  Eve,  1920. 

Half  an  hour  ago  we  rose  from  our  modest  cele- 
bration of  New  Year's  Eve — Miildner,  Zobeltitz  and 
myself. 

Thus  quite  a  little  party ! 


PROGRESS  OF  THE  WAR  191 

How  delighted  I  was  when,  as  soon  as  the  ice  per- 
mitted, Zobel  came  over. 

But,  after  all,  the  evening  has  been  a  quiet  and  op- 
pressive one.  It  was  as  though  each  of  us  hung  secretly 
in  the  web  of  his  own  thoughts,  and  as  if  each,  when  he 
spoke,  was  anxiously  choosing  his  words  lest  he  might 
touch  some  old  wound  or  sore. 

It  was  fortunate  that  we  had  good  old  Zobel  with  us 
in  his  orange-coloured  jersey.  His  melancholy  humour 
is  inexhaustible  ;  and  he  has  the  knack  of  making  the 
hardest  things  softer  and  more  bearable  by  means  of 
his  dry,  quiet,  wise  fooling. 

What  a  lot  passes  through  one's  mind  in  such  hours  ! 
Past,  present,  future — like  the  medley  of  a  cinema 
picture,  one's  self  being  only  a  helpless  spectator. 

And  my  folk,  wife,  children,  parents,  brothers  and 
sister — somewhere  each  of  them  on  this  last  night  of 
the  old  year  has  been  thinking  of  me. 

Dear  comrades  of  the  field — living  and  dead ! 
Friends,  even  though  the  end  was  so  different  from  what 
you  sought,  the  sacrifices  you  made  for  our  poor 
country,  for  our  longings  and  for  our  hopes  will  not  be 
lost.  Your  deeds  remain  a  sacred  example  and  the  best 
seed  for  a  new  period  in  which  the  Germans  shall 
again  vigorously  believe  in  themselves  and  their  mis- 
sion— for  a  period  that  will  come,  that  must  come. 

And  all  the  other  faces  out  of  pre-war  years  !  But 
ah1  that  seems  now  to  me  to  be  much  longer  ago ;  it 
is  as  if  a  thin  film  of  dust  were  settling  upon  it.  There 
is  so  much  that  one  cannot  imagine  again  as  it  used 
to  be.  I  fancy  we  have  all  learned  a  great  deal  by 
bitter  experience.  And  yet  it  is  only  seven  years 
ago. 

How  swiftly  life  rushes  on  ! 

And  in  another  seven  years  ? 

God  knows,   the  lot  of  us  Germans  is  miserable 


192   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

enough  now,  and  I,  personally,  cannot  exactly  complain 
of  any  preferential  treatment.  But  when  I  look 
forward  into  the  future,  I  seem  to  feel  that  we  must 
find  the  way  up  to  the  light  again  at  no  very  distant 
date. 

January,  1921. 

It  is  still  winter  weather  ;  but  it  is  almost  tolerable 
again  ;  the  unbearably  depressing  isolation  caused  by 
the  floating  ice  has  been  broken ;  the  post  has 
arrived,  and  we  are  once  again  a  part  of  the  world. 
Spring  tides  and  hurricanes  are  things  which — con- 
sidering the  moods  of  the  climate  here — are  best 
regarded  as  harmless  excesses  not  to  be  noticed  over- 
much. 

Almost  as  soon  as  we  were  "  ice-free,"  Zobel  left, 
disguised  like  an  Arctic  explorer. 

I  myself  was  over  in  Doom  again  for  a  few  days  to 
make  up  for  not  being  there  at  Christmas. 

Now,  those  quiet  hours  with  my  mother  and  the 
long  talks  with  my  father  belong  to  the  past,  and 
only  the  great  winter  silence  lies  before  me. 

Those  talks  with  my  father  !  There  is  hardly  a 
problem  of  our  past  which  did  not  crop  up  in  the  course 
of  them.  And,  whenever  I  am  with  him  and  see  how 
he  worries  himself  to  trace  the  road  of  our  destiny,  when 
I  recognize  that,  with  all  our  misfortunes,  he  sought 
always  to  do  the  best  for  the  realm  and  the  people 
entrusted  to  him,  Heel  the  bitter  injustice  done  him  by 
a  great  section  of  our  people  in  not  allowing  anything 
in  his  life's  work  to  be  of  any  value,  in  burying 
under  the  ruins  of  an  unsuccessful  peace  policy  all 
that  was  great  and  good  and  imperishable  in  the 
thirty  years  of  my  father's  reign. 

I  believe  myself  to  be  fairly  free  from  blindness  to 
the  mistakes  of  the  throne  in  Germany  during  recent 
decades ;  and  possibly  these  sheets  bear  testimony, 


PROGRESS  OF  THE  WAR  193 

here  and  there,  to  my  wish  to  see  clearly  and  to  speak 
frankly  of  what  I  see.  That  in  my  opinion  much  that, 
at  the  present  time,  is  generally  attributed  to  the 
Kaiser  should  rather  be  charged  to  the  unhappy  influ- 
ence of  unsuitable  advisers  has  been  stated  already. 
With  all  that,  however,  these  memoirs  would  give  a 
one-sided  idea  of  my  views  concerning  the  activities 
of  my  father,  if  they  did  not  expressly  record  my  full 
recognition  of  the  great  personal  share  taken  by  him 
in  the  prosperous  development  of  the  empire. 

His  services  to  the  empire  began  when  he  was  still  a 
prince.  In  the  years  following  the  war  of  1870-1,  the 
army  remained  at  a  standstill  for  a  long  time.  The 
officers  were,  in  part,  too  old,  but  people  did  not  care  to 
pension  off  men  who  had  done  such  excellent  work  in  the 
war,  and  a  very  cautious  attitude  was  adopted  towards 
innovations  as  a  whole.  The  well-tried  principles  on 
which  the  war  with  France  had  been  won  were  to  be 
kept,  as  far  as  possible,  intact.  It  was,  therefore,  greatly 
to  his  credit  that  the  young  Prince  William  recognized 
the  perils  inherent  in  this  stagnation.  He  used  the  whole 
force  of  his  personality  to  effect  an  up-to-date  reorganiza- 
tion of  our  army  training,  an  effort  which  cost  him 
many  a  severe  conflict.  I  remember  that  my  father, 
much  to  the  astonishment  of  the  great  generals,  caused 
the  heavy  artillery  of  the  fortress  of  Spandau  to  take 
part  in  the  manoeuvres  of  the  Potsdam  garrison,  a  thing 
till  then  quite  unknown.  In  further  extension  of  this 
idea  he  subsequently,  as  Kaiser,  took  a  large  share  in 
fostering  the  development  of  our  heavy  artillery.  The 
development  of  our  engineer  troops  is  also  largely  due 
to  his  personal  initiative.  He  also  devoted  himself 
energetically  to  the  cultivation  of  a  patriotic,  self- 
sacrificing  spirit  in  the  army,  and,  wherever  he  could, 
he  advocated  the  maintenance  of  traditions  and  the 
esprit  de  corps  of  the  various  troops. 

N 


194   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

The  creation  of  our  navy  I  regard  as  solely  attribut- 
able to  my  father  ;  in  this  he  took  the  great  step  into  the 
world  which  was  essential  for  Germany  if  she  were  to 
become  a  World  Power  and  not  remain  merely  a  Con- 
tinental one.  But  we  owe  to  him  not  only  our  navy ; 
he  likewise  took  an  active  share  in  the  development  of 
our  mercantile  fleet. 

In  the  sphere  of  labour  legislation  he  played  a  lead- 
ing part ;  and  there  is  a  touch  of  the  tragic  in  the  fact 
that  it  was  the  Labour  Party  who  finally  brouglit  about 
his  fall,  although  for  their  sake  he  had  gone  through 
the  first  great  conflicts  of  his  reign  and  caused  the 
Socialist  Act  to  be  quashed. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   GREAT  COLLAPSE 

FOR  the  great  Rheims  offensive  in  the  month  of 
July,  1918,  the  General  Higher  Command  had 
brought  together  all  our  disposable  forces,  reserving  only 
some  fresh  divisions  and  heavy  artillery  with  the  Prince 
Rupprecht  Army  Group  for  the  Hagen  attack.  When 
this  move  upon  Rheims  failed,  I  no  longer  entertained 
any  doubt  that  matters  at  the  front  as  well  as  affairs 
at  home  were  drifting  towards  the  final  catastrophe — a 
catastrophe  which  was  inevitable  unless,  at  this  eleventh 
hour,  great  decisions  were  formed  and  energetically 
carried  out.  My  Chief  of  Staff,  Count  von  der 
Schulenburg,  fully  shared  my  views,  and  accordingly 
after  the  enemy's  great  offensive  of  Villers-Cotterets, 
we  left  no  means  untried  to  persuade  the  General 
Higher  Command  to  adopt  two  measures  above  all ; 
namely,  the  placing  of  affairs  at  the  front  and  affairs  at 
home  on  a  sounder  basis. 

In  consideration  of  our  extremely  difficult  military 
situation,  we  regarded  it  as  requisite  that  the  entire 
front  should  be  immediately  withdrawn  to  the  Antwerp- 
Meuse  position.  This  would  have  brought  with  it  a 
whole  series  of  advantages.  In  the  first  place  we 
should  have  moved  far  enough  from  the  enemy  to  give 
our  severely  fatigued  and  morally  depressed  troops 
time  to  rest  and  recuperate.  Moreover,  the  entire 
front  would  have  been  considerably  shortened ;  and 

195 


196    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

the  naturally  strong  formation  of  the  Meuse  front  in 
the  Ardennes  would  have  afforded  us,  even  with  rela- 
tively weak  forces,  a  strong  line  of  resistance.  In  this 
way  a  saving  of  reserves  could  be  effected.  The  weak 
spots  of  the  front  naturally  remained  the  right  wing 
in  Belgium  and  the  left  at  Verdun. 

Our  views  of  the  situation  were  laid  before  the 
Higher  Command  in  a  report  in  which  we  stated  that 
every  thing  now  depended  upon  withstanding  the  attacks 
of  the  enemy  until  the  wet  weather  set  in,  which  would 
be  about  the  end  of  November.  If  we  had  insufficient 
forces  to  hold  the  long  front  lines,  we  ought  to  make 
a  timely  withdrawal  to  a  shorter  one.  It  was  im- 
material where  we  halted ;  the  important  point  was 
to  keep  our  army  unbeaten  and  in  fighting  condition. 
Our  left  wing  between  Sedan  and  the  Vosges  could 
not  retire,  and  must  therefore  be  strengthened  with 
reserves. 

The  Higher  Command  replied  that  they  could,  at 
most,  decide  to  withdraw  to  the  starting-point  of  the 
spring  advance  of  1918.  They  adopted  the  view — in 
itself  perfectly  correct — that,  in  the  first  place,  a  further 
retirement  would  be  an  admission  of  our  weakness, 
which  would  lead  to  the  most  undesirable  political 
deductions  on  the  part  of  the  enemy  ;  secondly,  that 
our  railways  would  not  permit  us  to  evacuate  rapidly 
the  extensive  war  zone  beyond  the  Antwerp-Meuse 
position,  so  that  immense  quantities  of  munitions 
and  stores  would  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy ; 
thirdly,  that  the  Antwerp-Meuse  line  would  form  an 
unfavourable  permanent  position,  since  the  railways, 
having  no  lateral  communications,  would  render  the 
transport  of  troops  behind  the  front  and  from  one 
wing  to  another  cumbrous  and  slow. 

We,  however,  were  of  opinion  that  a  retirement  was 
unavoidable  and  that  it  would  be  better  to  withdraw 


THE  GREAT  COLLAPSE  197 

while  the  troops  were  capable  of  fighting  than  to  wait 
till  they  were  utterly  exhausted.  Political  considera- 
tions, we  thought,  ought  to  yield  to  the  military 
necessity  of  retaining  an  army  capable  of  showing 
fight.  The  loss  of  material  and  the  unfavourable 
railway  facilities  could  not  be  helped ;  we  should  have 
to  fall  back ;  and  it  would  be  better  to  do  so  in  time. 

At  home  we  wanted  energetic,  inexorable  and 
thorough  leadership — dictatorship,  suppression  of  all 
revolutionary  attempts,  exemplary  punishment  of  de- 
serters and  shirkers,  militarization  of  the  munition 
works,  etc.,  etc.,  expulsion  of  doubtful  foreigners, 
and  so  on. 

But  our  proposals  and  warnings  had  no  effect ;  we 
knew,  therefore,  what  was  coming. 

We  soon  saw  ourselves  in  the  midst  of  the  debacle  ; 
we  had  to  watch  with  open  eyes  the  inevitable  catas- 
trophe approaching  nearer  and  nearer,  day  by  day, 
ever  faster  and  ever  more  insatiable. 

When  I  look  back  and  compare  the  past,  that  time  is 
the  saddest  of  my  whole  life — sadder  even  than  the 
critical  months  at  Verdun  or  the  deeply  painful  days, 
weeks  and  months  that  followed  the  final  catastrophe. 

With  an  anxious  heart  I  entered  every  morning  the 
office  of  the  Army  Group  ;  I  was  always  prepared  for 
bad  news  and  received  it  only  too  often.  The  drives 
to  the  front,  which  had  previously  been  a  pleasure  and 
recreation  for  me,  were  now  filled  with  bitterness.  The 
staff  officers'  brows  were  furrowed  with  care.  The 
troops,  though  still  almost  everywhere  perfect  in  disci- 
pline and  demeanour — willing,  friendly  and  cheerful  in 
their  salutes — were  worn  to  death.  My  heart  turned 
within  me  when  I  beheld  their  hollow  cheeks,  their  lean 
and  weary  figures,  their  tattered  and  dirty  uniforms ;  one 
would  fain  have  said  :  "  Go  home,  comrade,  have  a  good 
long  sleep,  have  a  good  hearty  meal — you've  done 


198    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

enough,"  when  these  brave  fellows  used  to  pull  them- 
selves together  smartly  on  my  addressing  them  or 
shaking  hands  with  them.  And  the  pity  of  it  all  was, 
I  could  not  help  them  ;  these  tired  and  worn-out  men 
were  the  last  remnants  of  our  strength,  they  would 
have  to  be  worked  remorselessly  if  we  were  to  avoid 
a  catastrophe  and  obtain  a  peace  at  all  bearable  for 
Germany. 

So,  from  day  to  day,  I  had  to  look  on  while  the  old 
fighting  value  of  my  bravest  division  dwindled  away, 
while  vigour  and  confidence  were  bled  whiter  and  whiter 
in  the  incessant  and  arduous  battles.  As  things  stood, 
no  rest  could  be  allowed  to  the  war-worn  troops,  or  at 
most  only  a  day  now  and  then.  Instead  of  a  drastic 
shortening  of  the  front,  we  had  still  the  old  extent  to 
cover  with  our  anaemic  and  decimated  divisions.  It 
soon  became  quite  impossible  to  do  so  at  all  adequately. 
Clamours  for  relief  and  rest  were  made  to  me,  which  I 
found  myself  unable  to  grant.  Reinforcements  stopped 
almost  completely  ;  and  the  few  grouplets  that  dribbled 
out  to  us  were  only  of  inferior  value.  They  consisted 
mostly  of  old  and  worn-out  soldiers  sent  back  to  the 
front  again  ;  often  they  were  gleaned  from  the  hos- 
pitals in  a  half-convalescent  condition  ;  often  they 
were  half-grown  lads  with  no  proper  training  and  no 
sort  of  discipline.  The  majority  of  them  were  of  a 
refractory  and  unruly  disposition — an  outcome  of  the 
agitators'  work  at  home  and  of  the  feebleness  of  the 
Government,  who  did  nothing  to  counteract  these 
agitators  and  their  revolutionary  intrigues. 

That  the  source  of  disintegration  lay  at  home  and 
that  thence  there  flowed  to  the  front  an  ever-renewed 
and  poisonous  stream  of  agitatory,  mutinous  and 
rebellious  elements  no  unprejudiced  observer  could 
question.  This  conviction  is  not,  by  any  means,  based 
solely  upon  the  views  of  military  circles  at  the  front ; 


THE  GREAT  COLLAPSE  199 

during  my  journeys  on  furlough  and  otherwise,  I  saw  for 
myself  behind  the  lines  and  at  home  what  was  going 
on. 

From  these  personal  observations  I  became  con- 
vinced that  this  movement  had  its  source  in  the 
inadequate  feeding  and  care  given  to  the  people  at 
home  ;  so  that,  especially  in  the  last  year  and  a  half  of 
the  war,  the  revolutionary  tendencies  grew  so  rank  that 
they  smothered  every  sounder  current  of  feeling.  And 
I  put  the  blame  less  upon  the  people,  who  hungered  and 
pinched  at  home  for  their  fatherland,  than  upon  those 
who  were  called  to  provide  for  something  better,  to 
see  that  things  were  more  equitably  distributed  and  with 
an  energy  that  showed  no  respect  of  persons.  Finally, 
I  blame  those  men  at  the  head  of  affairs  who,  when 
they  saw  the  failure  of  existing  powers,  omitted  to 
create  a  post  and  appoint  an  official  who,  with  un- 
limited powers  and  freed  from  all  the  hindrances  and 
encumbrances  of  the  old  officialdom,  should  enforce  the 
necessary  measures  with  the  authority  of  a  dictator. 

That,  during  the  menacing  years  of  crisis,  we  did 
nothing  to  make  economic  provision  for  the  war,  and 
that  we  were  therefore  quite  unprepared  in  an  economic 
sense,  I  have  stated  above  in  discussing  the  years 
preceding  the  catastrophe  of  1914.  The  error  of  that 
period  was  immensely  magnified  during  the  war  by 
lack  of  foresight  and  by  clinging  to  a  system  which 
maintained  itself  by  one  makeshift  after  another.  The 
decisions  and  schemes  adopted  were  not  precautionary  ; 
they  came  merely  in  reply  to  the  incessant  knocks  of 
necessity.  A  characteristic  example  is  the  mania  for 
commandeering  that  took  possession  of  the  State 
just  when  there  was  hardly  anything  left  to  seize, 
and  which  was  doomed  to  failure  also  owing  to  a 
widespread  corruption  not  infrequently  winked  at 
and  encouraged. 


200   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

All  this  does  not,  by  any  means,  exonerate  the  Radi- 
calism of  the  Left  or  its  filibustering  followers,  whose 
policy  was  to  draw  party  advantage  and  to  profiteer 
by  the  war,  from  an  inexpiable  share  of  responsibility 
for  our  miserable  collapse  after  four  years'  heroic  fight- 
ing. It  only  postulates  that  minds  cannot  be  enmeshed 
until  circumstances  have  crippled  their  energy  and 
rendered  them  open  to  the  specious  arguments  of  the 
agitator ;  it  only  postulates  that  those  who  ought  to  have 
nourished  the  people  with  spiritual  and  bodily  food, 
who  ought  to  have  assured  its  will  to  victory  and  its 
patriotic  spirit  in  a  sound  body — that  these  very 
men  unfortunately  helped  to  pave  the  way  for  its 
downfall. 

Even  as  early  as  the  beginning  of  the  year  1917,  I 
received,  from  conversations  with  many  simple  people 
in  Berlin,  the  impression  that  weariness  of  the  war  was 
already  very  great.  I  also  saw  a  great  and  a  menacing 
change  in  the  streets  of  Berlin.  Their  characteristic 
feature  had  gone  :  the  contented  face  of  the  middle- 
class  man  had  vanished ;  the  honest,  hard-working 
bourgeoisie,  the  clerk  and  his  wife  and  children,  slunk 
through  the  streets,  hollow-eyed,  lantern-jawed,  pale- 
faced  and  clad  in  threadbare  clothing  that  had  become 
much  too  wide  for  their  shrunken  limbs.  Side  by  side 
with  them  jostled  the  puffed-up  profiteer  and  all  the 
other  rogues  of  like  kidney. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  these  contrasts  aroused 
dissatisfaction  and  bitterness  in  the  hearts  of  those  who 
suffered,  and  whose  faith  in  the  justice  and  fairness  of 
the  authorities  was  severely  shaken.  Nevertheless, 
no  steps  were  taken  to  do  away  with  the  evil ;  in  the 
fullest  sense  of  the  saying,  whoever  wished  to  profiteer 
profiteered — profiteered  in  state  contracts,  in  essential 
victuals,  in  raw  materials,  in  party  gains  for  the  benefit 
of  the  "  International." 


THE  GREAT  COLLAPSE  201 

The  effects  of  all  this  were  severely  felt,  both  behind 
the  lines  and  at  the  front.  Every  bitter  letter  from 
home  carried  the  bacillus  ;  every  soldier  returning  from 
furlough  who  had  come  into  touch  with  these  things 
and  told  his  impressions  to  his  over-taxed  comrades, 
helped  to  spread  the  disease  ;  and  it  was  aggravated  by 
every  refractory  young  rascal  who  had  grown  up 
without  a  father's  care  and  whom  the  home  authorities 
shunted  to  the  front  because  they  could  not  manage 
him  themselves. 

The  sources  from  which  the  losses  of  the  troops  were 
made  good  were  the   deputy  general  commands  at 
home.     Their  enormous  significance  was  not  sufficiently 
recognized,  nor   their  value   properly  appreciated   in 
selecting  the  individuals  who  were  to  replace  the  com- 
manding Generals  and  Chief  of  Staff.     From  the  outset, 
old  men  were  appointed — often  worthy  and  deserving 
soldiers  who  enthusiastically  placed  their  services  at 
the  disposal  of  their  country,  but  who  had  no  proper 
estimate  of  the  energies  and  capacities  left  to  them. 
People  wished  not  to  be  ungrateful,  wished  to  provide 
a   sphere   of    activity   for   these   willing    patriots   in 
which  they  could  do  no  harm ;  it  also  gave  an  oppor- 
tunity   of    liberating    fresher   forces    for    the    front. 
All    this   may  have  been  very  well,  so  long  as  we 
could  reckon  with  a  short  war  and  with  the  stability 
of    home    affairs    as    they    stood    in    1914 ;  but    it 
ought  to  have  been  drastically  modified  to  fit  in  with 
new  ideas,  when  the  duration  of  the  war  could  no 
longer   be   estimated   even    approximately,    when   it 
became  necessary  to  consider  carefully  the  possibility 
of  new  or  recurrent  movements  that  might  exercise  a 
destructive  influence  upon  the  unanimity  that  had 
originally    been    so    reassuring.     No    such    thorough 
adaptation   to   suit   the   altered   circumstances   ever 
took  place.     Whoever  once  occupied  a  deputy's  post 


202   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

occupied  it  permanently ;   or  if  a  post  became  vacant 
through  death  or  because  the  substitute  was  really 
too   utterly  incapable,  it  was  filled  again   from   the 
ranks  of  those  who  had  failed  at  the  front  or  who, 
through  illness  or  wounds,  were  now  considered  fit 
only  for  home  service.     A  home  post  !     What  harm 
can  the  man  do  there  ?     The  man  who  was  no  longer 
a  man,  whose  energies  were  used  up,  who  knew  nothing 
of  the  war,  or  who,  if  he  had  been  to  the  front,  had, 
in  nearly  every  case,  returned  embittered  to  regard 
home  service  as  a  buenretiro  after  labours  accomplished 
— this  type  of  man  caused  us  untold  injury.     Just  in 
the  last  years  of  the  war,  all  the  human  material  that 
we  called  up  and  combed  out  ought  to  have  passed 
through  the  strongest  and  firmest  hands  before  being 
incorporated   at   the   front.     These   men,    who   were 
for  the  most  part  worm-eaten  by  revolutionary  ideas 
or  tainted  with  pacifist  notions,  ought  to  have  been 
trained  by  vigorous  educative  work  into  disciplined 
men  worthy  of  their  comrades  at  the  front.     With  a  few 
nice  phrases  such  as  were  common  at  the  meetings  of 
"  warriors'  societies  "  or  at  memorial  festivities,  no  such 
educative  work  could  be  performed.   And  what  the  home- 
land failed  to  do  could  never  be  done  afterwards  by 
instruction  in  patriotism,  were  it  never  so  well  meant. 
To  my  mind,  the  idea  of  instilling  the  patriotism  they 
lacked  into  the  men  within  hearing  of  the  thunder  of 
the  guns  was  naive  in  the  extreme.     We  received  as 
supplementary  drafts  men  who  had  set  out  with  the 
determination  to  hold  up  their  hands  at  the  very  first 
opportunity.     But   it   was   the   mistaken   method   of 
filling  the  responsible  positions  in  the  deputy  com- 
mands  that    avenged   itself   most    terribly.     In    the 
summer  and  early  autumn  of   1918,   the  spreading 
demoralization  became  more  and  more  noticeable  in 
the   occupied    territory.     The    order   that    originally 


THE   GREAT  COLLAPSE  203 

existed  behind  the  lines  was  visibly  deteriorating.  In 
the  larger  camps  on  the  lines  of  communication, 
thousands  of  straggling  shirkers  and  men  on  leave 
wandered  about ;  some  of  them  regarded  every  day 
that  they  could  keep  away  from  their  units  as  a  boon 
from  heaven  ;  some  of  them  were  totally  unable  to 
join  their  regiments  on  account  of  the  overburdening 
of  the  railways.  I  remember  at  the  time  a  journey 
to  the  front  which  took  me  through  Hirson  Junction. 
It  was  just  dinner-time  for  men  going  on  leave  and 
stragglers,  who  stood  around  by  the  hundred.  I 
mingled  with  the  crowd  and  talked  to  many  of  the 
men.  What  I  heard  was  saddening  indeed.  Most  of 
them  were  sick  and  tired  of  the  war  and  scarcely 
made  an  effort  to  hide  their  disinclination  to  rejoin 
their  units.  Nor  were  they  all  rascals ;  there  was 
many  a  face  there  which  showed  that  the  nerves  had 
given  way,  that  energy  was  gone,  that  the  primitive 
and  unchecked  impulse  of  self-preservation  had  got  the 
mastery  over  all  recognition  of  the  necessity  for  holding 
out  or  resisting.  Of  course  among  the  stragglers  in 
Hirson  there  were  also  a  number  of  fine  fellows  who 
maintained  their  courage  and  bearing.  To  meet  this 
demoralization  of  forces  which  might  have  been 
concentrated  into  a  valuable  help  for  our  daily  increas- 
ing needs,  nothing  or  next  to  nothing  was  attempted. 
New  comprehensive  and  thorough  measures  were 
imperative  here,  and  they  should  have  been  entrusted 
to  the  Higher  Command  to  enforce.  Within  the  sphere 
of  our  Army  Group,  we  naturally  did  everything  that 
lay  in  our  power  to  introduce  some  sort  of  order  into 
the  chaos,  but  we  received  very  scanty  support  in 
our  efforts.  The  discipline  behind  the  lines  slackened 
ominously.  This  I  could  perceive  in  Charleville,  the 
head-quarters  of  the  Army  Group.  Men  had  con- 
stantly to  be  taken  to  task  on  account  of  their  slack 


204  THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

bearing  and  their  failure  to  salute.  Menv  returned 
from  leave  who  had  previously  performed  their  duties 
in  an  exemplary  manner  were  inclined  to  insub- 
ordination and  mutiny.  The  younger  supplementary 
drafts  were,  at  best,  utterly  wanting  in  enthusiasm, 
and  generally  showed  an  absolutely  frivolous  con- 
ception of  patriotism,  duty  and  fidelity — things  which, 
for  a  soldier,  should  be  sacred  matters.  Unfortunately, 
the  highest  authorities  resolved  upon  no  energetic  or 
exemplary  measures  in  regard  to  these  dangerous 
phenomena.  The  behaviour  of  the  French  population 
was,  it  is  true,  correct ;  but  they  did  not  disguise 
their  delight  at  our  obvious  decline. 


By  the  end  of  September,  events  came  fast  and 
furious.  It  was  like  a  vast  conflagration  that  had  long 
smouldered  in  secret,  and  that,  suddenly  getting  air, 
now  burst  into  flame  in  innumerable  places.  Fire 
everywhere  :  here  in  the  west  and  in  the  south-east 
and  at  home.  The  collapse  of  Bulgaria  was  the  first 
visible  sign.  Bad  tidings  had  arrived  from  the  Balkan 
front  on  September  26.  They  reached  us  while  our 
own  Army  Group  was  itself  engaged  in  a  severe 
defensive  battle  against  heavy  attacks  to  the  west  of 
the  Aisne  and  on  both  sides  of  the  Argonne  from  east 
of  Rheims  up  to  the  Meuse,  a  battle  which,  despite  all 
our  heroic  resistance,  ended  in  our  having  to  yield 
ground  to  the  vastly  superior  masses  of  the  enemy  with 
their  armoured  tanks.  The  Bulgarians,  under  the 
heavy  pressure  of  the  united  forces  of  the  Entente  on 
the  Macedonian  front,  had  retired  on  a  wide  line. 
They  had  lost  a  great  number  of  prisoners  and  a  large 
quantity  of  material ;  and,  as  we  gathered  from  the 
brief  telegrams  and  telephone  messages,  Malmoff,  the 


THE  GREAT  COLLAPSE  205 

Bulgarian  Prime  Minister,  believed  that  he  could  only 
meet  these  reverses  by  entering  upon  peace  negotiations 
with  the  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Entente  armies. 
The  situation  thus  created  spelled  serious  peril  for  us ; 
the  elimination  of  Bulgaria  might  mean  the  beginning 
of  the  end  for  the  Central  Powers  ;  the  Danube  lay 
open  to  the  Entente  forces  ;  the  invasion  of  Roumania 
and  Hungary  had  been  brought  within  the  bounds 
of  more  immediate  possibility.  The  news  caused 
the  Kaiser  and  the  General  Higher  Command  at 
Avesnes  the  greatest  consternation.  For  the  time 
being,  the  gap  was  stopped ;  the  influence  of  the 
King  and  of  the  Crown  Prince  Boris  succeeded  in 
stemming  the  rout ;  and  the  General  Higher  Command 
arranged  for  the  immediate  transport  to  the  Balkans 
of  some  Austrian  divisions  and  of  several  divisions 
from  the  east  to  buttress  the  severely  shaken  front. 

Meantime  the  most  vehement  attacks  upon  the 
entire  west  front  from  Flanders  to  the  east  of  the 
Argonne  were  continued  by  the  Entente  armies  with 
a  savage  determination  such  as  had  never  been  dis- 
played before.  We  received  the  impression  of  being 
at  the  climax  of  the  concentric  hostile  offensive  and — 
though  the  gigantic  attack  might  compel  us  to  yield 
ground — we  felt  that,  by  summoning  up  all  our 
strength  for  the  effort,  we  might  after  all  maintain 
our  position  ;  only  that,  behind  this  desperate  effort, 
still  lurked  the  agonizing  question  :  "  How  long  yet  ?  '; 

On  September  28,  I  visited  my  brother  Fritz,  who, 
with  his  First  Guards  division,  was  engaged  in  a 
severe  struggle  with  the  Americans  at  the  eastern  ex- 
tremity of  the  Argonne.  I  know  my  brother  to  be  a  very 
brave,  intrepid  and  cool-headed  man,  and  one  whose 
care  for  his  troops  was  exemplary.  He  was  accustomed 
to  affliction  and  distress ;  the  First  Guards  had  all 
the  time  been  posted  where  things  had  been  about 


206   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

as  hot  as  they  could  be,  at  Ypres,  in  Champagne,  at 
the  Somme,  the  Chemin  des  Dames,  Gorlice,  the 
Argonne.  This  time  I  found  him  changed ;  he  was 
filled  with  unutterable  bitterness  ;  he  saw  the  end 
approaching,  and,  together  with  his  men,  fought  with 
the  courage  of  despair.  He  gave  me  a  description  of 
the  situation  which  filled  me  with  dismay.  His  entire 
division  consisted  of  500  rifles  in  the  fighting  zone ; 
the  staff  with  their  dispatch  carriers  were  fighting  in 
the  front  line,  rifle  in  hand.  The  artillerymen  were 
extremely  fatigued,  the  guns  were  worn  out,  fresh 
ones  were  scarcely  to  be  got  from  the  works,  the  rations 
were  insufficient  and  bad.  What  was  to  come  of  it 
all  ?  The  American  attacks  were  in  themselves  badly 
planned ;  they  showed  ignorance  of  warfare ;  the 
men  advanced  in  columns  and  were  mowed  down  by 
our  remaining  machine-guns.  No  great  danger  lay 
there.  But  their  tanks  pierced  our  thin  lines — one 
man  to  every  twenty  metres — and  fired  on  us  from 
behind.  Not  till  then  did  the  American  infantry 
advance.  Withal  the  Americans  had  at  their  disposal 
an  incredible  quantity  of  heavy  and  very  heavy 
artillery.  Their  preliminary  bombardment  greatly 
exceeded  in  intensity  and  heaviness  anything  we  had 
known  at  Verdun  or  on  the  Somme.  In  a  report 
I  made  to  His  Majesty  at  Spa,  I  described  to  him  in 
detail  the  desperate  condition  of  the  First  Guards ; 
the  Kaiser  talked  about  it  to  Ludendorff ;  but  no 
decision  to  relieve  them  was  arrived  at ;  I  may  admit 
that  perhaps  it  could  not  be  done,  for  we  now  needed 
every  available  man  for  the  last  struggle. 

At  this  time,  all  my  attention  and  energy  were 
devoted  to  the  stormy  events  at  the  front  and  to  the 
troops  entrusted  to  me.  Almost  daily,  I  was  in  the 
fighting  zone ;  and,  till  far  into  October,  I  was  so 
occupied  with  my  duties  as  leader  of  the  Army  Group 


THE  GREAT  COLLAPSE  207 

that  I  was  unable  to  follow  attentively  the  highly 
important  political  events  which  were  taking  place, 
although  I  recognized  them  to  be  of  the  most  serious 
import.  Hence,  while  in  another  place  I  can  report 
from  personal  experience  and  from  my  own  judgment 
as  to  the  gigantic  battle  in  which  we  were  engaged,  I 
can  only  briefly  refer  to  those  political  happenings 
which  may  be  regarded  more  or  less  as  matters  of 
common  knowledge.  On  September  30  I  received 
from  His  Excellency  von  Berg  an  unexpected  telephone 
call  to  Spa,  where,  in  the  General  Head-quarters, 
important  decisions  of  a  military  character  touching 
the  question  of  peace  and  the  situation  at  home  had 
been  made  or  were  about  to  be  made.  Since  I  had 
hitherto  been  carefully  confined  to  the  scope  of  my 
military  duties,  this  order  suggested  that  something 
unusual  was  in  the  air.  There  was  no  reason  to  hope 
for  anything  good  ;  and  the  information  that  met  me 
at  Spa  was  truly  startling  and  dismaying  even  to  one 
who,  like  myself,  had  come  prepared  to  hear  bad  news. 
I  will  sketch  in  a  few  lines  what  I  learned. 

Field-Marshal  General  von  Hindenburg  and  General 
Ludendorff  had  conferred  with  the  Minister  for  Foreign 
Affairs  and  had  been  informed  that,  in  pursuance  of  the 
negotiations  of  August  14,  efforts  had  been  made  to 
approach  the  enemy  States  through  the  mediation  of 
neutral  Powers,  but  that  these  had  failed  to  develop 
into  peace  negotiations,  nor  was  there  any  hope  of 
success  in  that  direction.  In  reply  to  the  Foreign 
Office's  declaration  of  bankruptcy,  the  representatives 
of  the  General  Higher  Command  had  stated  that,  in 
view  of  their  own  breakdown  in  the  field  and  at  home 
and  considering  the  enormous  superiority  of  the 
enemy  forces  and  the  gigantic  efforts  they  were  making, 
they  saw  themselves  faced  with  the  impossibility  of 
gaining  a  military  victory.  Even  though  this  effort  on 


208   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

the  part  of  the  enemy  appeared  to  be  the  last  possible 
spurt  before  the  finish,  success  for  us  could  no  longer 
give  us  "  victory,"  but  as  had  been  admitted  in  August, 
could  only  lie  in  our  managing  to  outlast  the  enemy's 
will  to  continue  the  war — in  a  struggle  as  to  whether 
one  could  hold  out  to  the  last  quarter  of  an  hour.  In 
view  of  the  utter  failure  of  the  home  departments  and 
the  question  of  reserves,  it  had  to  be  acknowledged 
that  the  only  thing  possible  was  to  hold  out  through 
the  late  autumn  and  winter  in  better  defensive  positions 
of  our  own  choosing.  During  that  period,  an  armistice 
and  peace  negotiations  should  and  must  be  begun. 
The  Meuse  position,  which  my  chief  of  staff  and  myself 
had  advocated  immediately  after  the  unsuccessful 
Rheims  offensive  in  July  and  while  we  could  with 
comparative  ease  have  disengaged  ourselves  from  the 
enemy,  was  now  to  be  occupied  for  the  winter  defensive. 

Still  more  threatening  was  what  the  Secretary  of 
State  had  to  report  about  the  situation  at  home, 
where  the  people  had  glided  faster  and  faster  under  the 
control  and  the  influence  of  the  majority  parties. 
According  to  his  statements,  revolution,  struggling  to 
obtain  control  of  the  State,  stood,  as  it  were,  knocking 
at  the  door.  Induced  by  the  conditions  arising  out 
of  the  unfavourable  military  situation,  and  quite 
regardless  of  the  strength  or  weakness  of  the  State,  the 
majority  parties — who  desired  the  offensive  for  their 
own  ends — had  made  a  violent  attack  in  the  principal 
committee  of  the  Reichstag,  upon  the  Imperial  Chan- 
cellor, Count  von  Hertling. 

The  main  accusations  brought  against  him  were  :— 
The  supremacy  of  the  deputy  commanding  generals  at 
home,  the  Suffrage  Act,  and  the  influence  without 
responsibility  exercised  upon  home  politics  by  the 
Higher  Command.  The  demands  put  forward  were 
aimed  frankly  at  parliamentary  control  of  the  Govern- 


THE  GREAT  COLLAPSE  209 

ment  and  the  shelving  of  the  military  regime.  The 
two  ways  of  overcoming  the  crisis  would  have  been,  on 
the  one  hand,  for  the  Government  to  assert  its  authority 
in  unequivocal  fashion  by  acting,  in  the  one  case,  with 
all  the  powers  of  a  dictator,  in  the  other,  to  submit 
and  grant  the  demands  of  the  majority  parties.  The 
Secretary  of  State  believed  it  possible  to  disarm  the 
revolutionary  movement  by  granting  parliamentary 
government  on  a  broad  national  basis ;  hence  he 
advocated  this  policy,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that 
circumstances  at  home  and  our  position  with  regard  to 
the  enemy  were  highly  unpropitious  for  such  a  re- 
organization of  the  constitution.  Thus,  the  revolution 
threatening  from  below  was  to  be  smothered  with  the 
mantle  of  a  revolution  from  above ;  and  a  fresh 
welding  together  of  the  disintegrating  national  forces 
was  to  be  effected  under  the  cry  of  a  "  Government 
of  National  Defence."  I  will  gladly  assume  it  to  be 
indisputable  that  these  responsible  statesmen  who 
advocated  this  policy  believed  in  the  possibility  of 
obtaining  practicable  conditions  by  these  means,  and 
that  they  hoped  for  a  certain  return  from  the  new 
government  firm,  at  any  rate  in  the  domain  of  foreign 
affairs,  i.e.,  with  a  view  to  the  peace  negotiations. 
But  I  must  confess  that  I  could  not  resist  the  impression 
that  it  was  all  a  matter  of  fine  words,  that  the  whole 
thing  was  only  a  form  (evil  in  itself  and  made  to  look 
attractive  by  auto-suggestion)  under  which  its  advo- 
cates abandoned  the  power  in  the  State  to  their 
opponents  of  the  majority  parties. 

His  Majesty  agreed  to  the  proposals  of  these 
gentlemen.  The  manifold  difiicultues  now  encroaching 
everywhere  had  already  reached  the  steps  of  the 
throne,  and  the  Kaiser,  under  the  pressure  of  these 
problems,  seemed  to  be  suffering  from  a  lack  of 
psychical  stamina;  he  appeared  unable  to  assume 


210   THE   CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

a  strong  and  self-reliant  position  of  authority.  Con- 
sequently, in  the  various  proposals  of  his  military  and 
political  counsellors,  he  saw  succour  and  support,  at 
which  he  eagerly  grasped  in  order  to  feel  that  the 
dangers  were  surmounted,  for  a  moment  at  least. 

The  position  of  the  Imperial  Chancellor,  Count  von 
Hertling,  whose  age  and  infirmities  rendered  him 
physically  unfit  for  his  office,  appeared  so  severely 
shaken  that  the  Kaiser,  since  the  Count  declined  to 
take  part  in  the  change  of  constitution,  declared 
himself  willing  to  accept  the  resignation  that  had  been 
tendered.  As  successors  were  mentioned,  first  of  all 
Prince  Max  of  Baden  and  the  Secretary  to  the  Imperial 
Exchequer,  Count  Rodern  ;  the  selection  of  the  latter 
appearing  the  more  probable. 

On  account  of  the  menacing  and  uncertain  general 
situation  at  the  front  and  at  home,  the  gentlemen  from 
Berlin,  as  well  as  those  of  His  Majesty's  suite  and  of  the 
General  Head-quarters,  were  in  a  very  serious  mood. 
In  regard  to  the  military  difficulties,  it  was  hoped, 
however,  that  the  great  battle  on  the  west  front  might 
be  fought  out  without  any  severe  defeat.  Moreover, 
a  hope  of  keeping  those  allies  who  had  become  un- 
reliable was  also  cherished.  People  likewise  believed 
themselves  able,  by  carrying  out  the  intended  con- 
stitutional change,  to  effect  such  an  alteration  of  the 
mental  trend  at  home  that,  on  the  whole,  a  firm  front 
could  be  shown  at  home  and  abroad. 

Personally,  I  could  not  share  the  optimism  displayed 
in  this  view  of  home  affairs.  Both  by  nature  and  by 
lessons  learnt  from  history  and  experience,  I  always 
possessed  a  leaning  towards  the  British  constitutional 
system,  and  I  have  thought  much  about  the  possibility 
of  its  being  adapted  to  our  form  of  State.  As  I  have 
pointed  out  before,  I  was  not  spared  a  good  many 
rebuffs  and  criticisms  whenever,  in  pre-war  years,  I 


THE  GREAT  COLLAPSE  211 

expounded  and  defended  my  opinions  on  this  subject. 
What  was  now  to  take  place  appeared  to  fall  into  line 
with  my  notions.  Appeared  to  do  so,  though  in  reality 
it  had  nothing  in  common  with  them. 

Only  what  is  given  willingly  meets  with  apprecia- 
tion ;  what  is  ultimately  extorted  and  claimed  as  a  right, 
after  it  has  been  withheld  time  and  again,  has  no  value 
as  a  gift.  To  give  up  a  thing  voluntarily  at  the  right 
moment  and  with  discernment  is  manly  and,  if  the 
word  may  be  allowed,  regal ;  but  it  is  just  as  manly 
and  regal  to  refuse  what  is  sought  to  be  levied  as  black- 
mail, as  the  question  of  a  trial  of  strength  in  the  hour 
of  a  country's  bitterest  need  when  it  is  struggling  for 
existence.  A  liberal,  voluntary  and  timely  reconstruc- 
tion of  our  constitution  would  have  revealed  the 
strength  of  the  Crown ;  it  would  have  disarmed  the 
opposition  and  brought  it  back  to  a  sense  of  duty. 
But  for  the  Crown  to  yield  to  violent  claims,  backed 
by  threats  of  revolution,  was  to  display  signs  of  help- 
lessness and  feebleness  which  could  only  increase  the 
cupidity  of  the  covetous  within  the  country  and  with- 
out. At  the  moment  when  the  flood  was  at  hand, 
a  dyke  was  razed,  because  it  was  believed  possible  to 
assuage  and  calm  the  approaching  billows  by  removing 
the  obstruction.  Madness !  One  merely  gave  up 
everything  that  lay  behind  the  dyke  ;  the  Spa  decisions 
unconditionally  abandoned  the  powers  of  the  State 
to  the  parties  of  the  extreme  left  who  were  "  going 
the  whole  hog,"  aiming  at  revolution.  Before  the 
storm,  one  should  have  been  strong  and  shown  one's 
strength.  But  the  rigid  home  programme  of  August 
14,  the  programme  of  thoroughness,  order,  strictness, 
energy,  the  programme  of  no  longer  closing  one's  eyes, 
the  programme  which,  in  the  days  of  the  first  sinister 
omens,  had  been  demanded  by  Ludendorff  as  a  con- 
ditio  sine  qua  non  and  which  had  been  promised  by 


212    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

the  Chancellor — that  programme  had  never  been 
carried  out.  Nothing  had  been  done  since  then. 
Now,  when  the  storm  was  howling,  it  was  too  late  to 
strengthen  the  rotten  bulwarks,  to  repair  the  neglected 
dykes.  No  dyke  captain  or  dictator,  were  he  ever 
so  talented,  were  he  the  immortal  dyke  captain  von 
Schonhausen  himself,  could  undo  or  retrieve  in  a 
few  hours  the  sins  and  the  negligences  of  many  years. 
That  there  was  no  longer  a  firm  hand  in  the  country, 
that  the  Government  had  for  years  not  led,  but  suffered 
things  to  go  as  they  pleased,  brought  about  conse- 
quences that  decided  the  question  of  supremacy. 
And  on  that  day,  men  whose  final  wisdom  it  was  to 
lay  upon  other  shoulders  the  responsibility  for  the 
results  of  their  own  incapacity,  abandoned  monarchy, 
bowing  to  the  democratic  demands  of  our  enemies 
and  to  threatening  internationalism  of  every  shade. 
As  I  have  already  said,  His  Excellency  von  Hintze, 
the  Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs,  took  upon 
himself  to  report  upon  the  situation  in  the  interior 
as  well,  and  to  recommend  as  the  best  solution  the 
"  revolution  from  above/'  which,  as  things  stood,  was 
nothing  but  "  surrender  at  discretion."  Strange  that 
this  man,  whose  praiseworthy  past  entitled  him  to 
be  held  worthy  and  to  be  trusted,  and  who,  as  Kiihl- 
mann's  successor,  might  have  accomplished  so  much- 
strange  that  this  man  should  have  chosen  this  course. 
In  truth  and  honour,  it  must  be  said  that  what  I 
have  just  written  is,  in  part,  the  outcome  of  subsequent 
consideration  and  discernment.  During  the  short 
hours  of  that  conference  such  a  pressure  of  exciting 
news  was  thrust  upon  me,  and  I  was  so  anxious  to  get 
back  to  the  troops  and  the  battle  from  which  I  had  been 
called,  that  I  only  grasped  the  general  outline  of  affairs. 
Nor,  indeed,  was  I  asked  for  my  opinion  on  all  those 
seething  problems,  or  on  all  that,  in  the  main,  was 


THE  GREAT  COLLAPSE  213 

already  unalterably  fixed  by  determinations  arising 
out  of  the  agony  of  the  moment.  It  was  almost  a 
wonder  that  people  had  remembered  that  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  of  the  army  was  also  the  Crown  Prince 
of  Germany  and  of  Prussia.  Without  responsibility, 
without  rights,  but  nevertheless.  .  .  .  And  so  I  was 
summoned,  and  while  a  thousand  voices  called  me 
away  to  the  post  of  my  soldier's  duties,  I  had  to  look 
on  at  events  irresistibly  marching  on  to  produce  the 
great  debacle. 

Immediately  upon  the  conclusion  of  the  conference, 
the  Kaiser  left  for  home ;  and  the  Field-Marshal  General 
followed  him  on  October  I,  as  he  himself  said,  to  be 
near  His  Majesty  in  those  days  of  gravest  decision,  to 
give  information  to  the  Government  now  forming  and 
to  strengthen  its  confidence. 

On  October  2,  indications  accumulated  that,  in 
spite  of  the  original  doubts,  Prince  Max  of  Baden  would 
be  selected  as  Imperial  Chancellor,  his  origin  and  per- 
sonality affording  a  guarantee,  as  it  was  then  thought, 
that  the  interests  of  the  Crown  would  be  safeguarded 
in  the  reorganization  of  home  politics  which  appeared 
to  have  become  necessary.  In  the  preliminary  nego- 
tiations, the  Prince  seemed  to  have  adopted  unreser- 
vedly the  official  programme  of  the  majority  parties. 

February,  1921. 

My  Army  Group  was  still  struggling  in  the  severest 
of  defensive  actions,  when  I  learned  of  the  actual 
appointment  of  Prince  Max  of  Baden  on  October  i. 
A  new  Government  had  been  formed,  containing  several 
social-democratic  members.  This  innovation  signified, 
in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  a  reversal  of  the  home  policy 
of  the  empire,  a  change  of  system  tending  towards 
democracy  and  parliamentary  government.  Whether 
that  which,  to  some  extent,  had  been  produced  under 


214  THE  CROWN  PRINCE   OF  GERMANY 

the  pressure  of  a  very  serious  foreign  situation  would 
really  prove  capable  of  welding  the  nation  together 
remained  to  be  seen. 

On  October  4,  my  Army  Group  was  again  engaged 
in  a  very  severe  defensive  action,  the  enemy  having 
commenced  a  general  attack  along  the  entire  western 
front.  The  battle  raged  bitterly  on  the  ridge  and  the 
slopes  of  the  Chemin  des  Dames  between  the  Ailette 
and  the  Aisne,  in  Champagne,  on  both  sides  of  the  road 
leading  northwards  from  Somme-Py,  between  the 
Argonne  and  the  Meuse,  to  the  east  of  the  Aisne  and  on 
both  sides  of  the  Montfaucon-Bautheville  road.  Since 
September  26,  we  had  located  no  fewer  than  thirty- 
seven  attacking  divisions.  And  they  had  artillery, 
tanks  and  airmen  in  apparently  inexhaustible  numbers. 
On  the  whole,  our  older  troops  behaved  magnificently 
and  fought  with  undiminished  tenacity.  And  yet  we 
now  suffered  losses  in  men  and  material  such  as  we 
had  formerly  never  known.  Oftener  and  oftener  did 
individual  divisions  now  fail  us — partly  from  exhaus- 
tion, but  also  (and  that  was  the  most  serious  point) 
on  account  of  the  troops  being  contaminated  by  inter- 
national and  pacifist  ideas.  Troops  that  advanced 
courageously  were  howled  at  as  "  war-prolongers  "  and 
"  blacklegs."  Distrust  of  their  comrades'  reliability 
caused  demoralization  in  the  resisting  powers  of 
the  whole  body ;  failure  on  the  part  of  certain  con- 
taminated troops  led  to  our  flank  being  turned  and 
to  the  capture  of  groups  that  were  fighting  honestly ; 
frequently,  therefore,  such  unreliable  troops  had  to  be 
eliminated  and  the  gaps  filled  with  trustworthy  but  over- 
fatigued  divisions.  And  so  I  had  to  use  up  my  best 
capital,  although  I  fully  realized  what  it  meant.  And 
yet,  even  now,  I  could  weep  when  I  think  of  the  un- 
broken spirit  of  self-sacrifice  shown  by  the  trusty,  brave 
and  well-tried  troops  who  faithfully  performed  to  the 


THE  GREAT  COLLAPSE  215 

last  their  severe  duty.    They  upheld,  through  all  that 
misery,  our  best  traditions. 

On  that  4th  of  October,  I  drove  over  to  Avesnes 
for  a  conference  with  Lieutenant-General  von  Boehn 
and  his  General  Staff;  from  there  I  went  on  to  Mons 
and  discussed  the  military  situation  at  length  with  the 
Crown  Prince  of  Bavaria  and  his  Chief  of  General 
Staff,  His  Excellency  von  Kuhl.  We  were  unani- 
mously of  opinion  that,  in  the  present  conditions,  we 
could  not  continue  to  maintain  the  contested  positions 
on  our  war-worn  front  in  the  face  of  continuous  attacks 
by  an  enemy  with  superior  forces  at  his  command. 
We  lacked  the  troops  requisite  for  counter-attacking 
and  for  providing  our  soldiers  with  the  necessary 
repose.  Consequently,  it  appeared  to  us  essential 
to  relinquish  further  territory  and,  while  covering  our 
withdrawal,  to  take  up  positions  farther  back,  and  thus, 
by  shortening  our  front,  to  obtain  the  reserves  essential 
for  a  continuation  of  the  battle,  whose  duration  it  was 
not  possible  to  determine. 

In  the  following  night — while  my  brave  divisions, 
ragged  and  tattered  as  they  were,  were  retiring  step  by 
step  and  defending  themselves  as  they  went — Berlin 
dispatched  to  the  President  of  the  North  American 
Republic,  via  Switzerland,  the  offer  which  suggested  a 
"  just  peace,"  based  in  essence  upon  the  basic  prin- 
ciples put  forward  by  Wilson — an  offer  which  was 
coupled  with  a  disastrous  request  for  the  granting  of 
an  armistice. 

The  struggle  continued,  and  there  was  no  end  to  the 
battle  visible.  Our  troops  were  now  opposed  to  enor- 
mously superior  odds,  both  in  men  and  material. 
They  withstood  them ;  they  foiled  attacks,  and 
evacuated  ground ;  they  closed  up  to  form  a  new 
front  and  offered  fresh  resistance.  Almost  daily  I  was 
at  the  front  and  saw  and  spoke  to  the  men.  They 


216   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

behaved  heroically  in  the  unequal  combat,  and 
faithfully  fulfilled  their  duty  to  the  death.  He  lies 
who  asserts  that  the  fighting  spirit  of  the  front  was 
broken.  It  was  stronger  than  the  shattered  and 
exhausted  bodies  of  the  men.  The  men  grumbled 
whenever  they  had  a  moment's  time  to  grumble, 
just  as  every  genuine  German  grumbles ;  but,  when 
it  came  to  the  point,  they  were  ever  ready  again. 

And  these  incessant  battles  had  a  curious  result. 
They  effected  a  kind  of  self-purification  of  the  troops. 
Whatever  was  foul  and  corrupt  filtered  through  into 
captivity  with  the  enemy ;  what  remained  to  us  was 
the  healthy  kernel.  All  that  these  German  warriors, 
emaciated  and  miserably  cared  for,  over-fatigued  and 
pursued  by  death  in  a  thousand  forms,  could  possibly 
give,  that  they  gave.  Gratefully  my  thoughts  fly 
back  to  them — to  those  whose  bodies  lie  where  we 
left  them,  and  to  those  living  ones  now  scattered  in 
German  cities  and  German  villages,  who  follow  the 
plough,  who  stand  at  the  anvil,  who  sit  at  their  desks, 
to  all  who  are  peacefully  labouring  again  in  the  home- 
land. 

Still  the  enemy  drove  forward ;  every  day  brought 
a  big  attack;  the  air  trembled  with  bombardments, 
and  with  unceasing  concussions,  roarings,  long  bursts  of 
rolling  thunder,  the  rattling  peals  never  paused  again. 

On  the  night  of  the  5th,  the  left  wing  of  the  First 
Army  had  retired  behind  Suippes  ;  in  order  to  get  into 
touch  again  with  the  retreating  Seventh  Army,  it 
had  to  leave  the  salient  of  the  Rheims  front  and  to 
withdraw  its  right  wing  as  far  as  Conde.  On  October 
10,  the  Eighteenth  Army,  which  at  that  time  had 
also  been  ranged  under  the  Army  Group,  retired, 
fighting  hard,  to  the  Hermann  line,  as  yet  little  more 
than  marked  out. 

And  while  all  my  thoughts  were  concentrated  upon 


THE  GREAT  COLLAPSE  217 

the  battle  and  upon  the  German  soldiers  entrusted 
to  me,  there  reached  me  from  home  news  that  sounded 
distant  and  strange  :  the  wording  of  our  Peace  Note  to 
President  Wilson  ;  the  brusque  refusal  voiced  by  the 
Paris  press ;  the  reply  that  evaded  replying  and  de- 
manded our  consent  to  evacuate  all  occupied  territory 
as  a  condition  of  an  armistice.  There  was  talk  of  con- 
sultations among  the  leading  statesmen,  of  the  forma- 
tion by  the  Higher  Command  of  an  armistice  com- 
mission under  the  expert,  General  von  Guendell.  The 
War  Minister,  von  Stein,  resigned  his  office  and  was 
replaced  by  General  Scheiich. 

We  fought.  The  battle  began  to  die  down  slowly 
at  the  end  of  the  second  week  during  which  it  had 
raged.  Both  sides  were  completely  exhausted.  We 
had  yielded  ground  under  the  enormous  pressure,  but 
we  were  still  standing ;  and  nowhere  had  the  enemy 
broken  through.  On  the  loth,  the  Third  Army  stood 
in  the  new  Brunhilde  position  from  St.  Germainmont 
on  the  north  bank  of  the  Aisne,  passing  through  Bethel 
to  the  east  of  Vouziers  and  west  of  Grandpre.  Gall- 
witz  was  fighting  the  Americans  in  the  area  between 
Sivry  and  the  Forest  of  Haumont.  By  the  I2th,  the 
First  Army  had  occupied,  according  to  plan,  the 
Gudrun-Brunhilde  position,  and  the  Seventh  Army  had 
retired  to  the  Hunding  position  behind  the  Oise-Serre 
sector.  A  review  of  the  military  situation  showed  that 
the  threatened  collapse  of  the  west  front  had  been  pre- 
vented by  the  transfer  of  the  lines  of  resistance  to 
stronger  and  narrower  sectors.  Despite  the  seriousness 
of  the  situation,  we  stood  for  the  moment  fairly  secure  ; 
and,  while  the  enemy  was  preparing  for  fresh  concen- 
tration and  new  offensives,  we  could  ourselves  be 
recuperating  and  getting  ready  for  defence — and  such 
a  breathing-space  was  more  than  necessary  to  the  over- 
fatigued  and  over-taxed  troops.  There  remained, 


2i8   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

therefore,  in  my  opinion,  the  faint  hope  that  the  peace 
efforts  now  being  undertaken  might  lead,  before  the 
winter  began,  to  a  conclusion  of  the  war  that  would  be 
honourable  for  Germany  by  reason  of  its  being  a  right- 
eous peace  of  reconciliation.  Failing  this,  we  could — 
again,  according  to  my  personal  views — reckon  with 
a  possibility  of  holding  out  till  the  spring  of  1919  at 
the  furthest. 


On  October  12,  in  reply  to  the  inquiry  of  President 
Wilson,  Berlin  gave  a  binding  acceptance  of  the  con- 
ditions drawn  up  by  him  and  also  signified  that  we  were 
prepared  to  evacuate  the  occupied  areas  on  certain 
conditions. 

In  all  the  news  from  the  other  side  I  seemed  dimly 
to  discover,  as  through  a  veil,  two  minds  struggling  for 
mastery.  There  was  Wilson,  who  wanted  to  establish 
his  Fourteen  Points ;  there  was  Foch,  who  knew  only 
one  aim — our  annihilation.  Which  would  win  ?  The 
pair  were  unequally  matched — the  sprinter  Wilson 
and  Foch  the  stayer.  If  things  were  quickly  settled, 
Wilson's  chances  were  good  ;  if  the  negotiations  were 
protracted,  time  was  in  Foch's  favour.  Every  day's 
delay  in  arriving  at  an  understanding  was  a  gain  to 
him ;  it  allowed  the  dry-rot  in  the  homeland  to 
spread ;  it  enfeebled  and  wasted  the  front,  which 
was  mainly  buttressed  upon  auxiliary  and  defensive 
positions. 

The  I3th  brought  me  news  that  caused  me  great 
uneasiness  on  my  father's  account.  Developments  in 
home  politics  had  led  to  the  resignation  of  His  Excel- 
lency von  Berg,  the  excellent  and  well-tried  Chef  du 
Cabinet  Militaire,  His  departure  removed  from  the 
permanent  inner  circle  of  the  Kaiser  a  man  who,  by 
virtue  of  his  old  youthful  friendship  and  his  disregard 


THE  GREAT  COLLAPSE  219 

of  mere  courtly  conventions,  was  able,  in  loyal  candour 
and  simplicity,  to  show  the  Kaiser  things  as  they 
really  were. 

On  the  I5th,  formidable  attacks  were  launched 
afresh  against  the  Army  Group  of  Crown  Prince 
Rupprecht,  against  me  and  against  Gallwitz.  The 
enemy  had  pushed  up  to  our  new  front  and  made  a 
terrific  onslaught.  Loss  of  ground  here  and  there. 
The  troops  were  nearly  played  out.  Next  day,  Lille 
fell.  Things  were  worst  with  the  Crown  Prince  of 
Bavaria.  Losses  were  sustained  wherever  the  enemy 
attacked.  Now  that  they  had  heard  something  of  a 
possible  armistice  and  approaching  negotiations,  it 
was  as  though  our  people  could  no  longer  find  their  full 
inner  strength  to  fight.  Also  as  though,  here  and 
there,  they  no  longer  wanted  to.  But  where  was  the 
dividing  line  between  could  and  would  with  these  men, 
who  had  a  thousand  times  bravely  risked  their  lives 
for  their  country,  and  whose  heads  were  befogged  by 
hunger,  pain  and  privation  ?  Does  that  one  last 
failure  make  a  coward  of  the  man  who  has  a  hundred 
times  shown  himself  a  hero  ?  No  !  Only  it  deprives 
him  of  one  thing — the  prize  for  which  he  has  risked  his 
life  a  hundred  times. 

Once  more — while  the  new  Government  is  making  a 
quick  change  towards  democracy  and  turning  the 
Imperial  constitution  topsy-turvy — a  note  from  Presi- 
dent Wilson.  It  is  in  a  new  tone — implacable  and 
arrogant,  it  imposes  conditions  which  constitute  an 
interference  in  Germany's  internal  affairs.  It  voices 
clearly  the  spirit  of  Foch,  which  threatens  to  over- 
power Wilson — the  spirit  of  Foch,  who  brags  of  the 
military  results  of  the  last  few  days,  who  desires  post- 
ponement and  delay  in  order  that  the  disaster  that  has 
swooped  upon  the  German  people  and  the  German  army 
may  rage  more  madly  than  ever.  I  cannot  refrain 


220   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

from  quoting  at  this  point  a  page  from  my  diary  that 
describes  the  position  as  I  saw  it  at  the  time  :— 

'  There  is  at  the  moment  a  marked  contrast  between 
Wilson  and  Foch.  Wilson  desires  a  peace  by  justice, 
reconciliation  and  understanding.  Foch  wants  the 
complete  humiliation  of  Germany  and  the  gratification 
of  French  vanity. 

"  Every  manifestation  of  firmness  on  the  German 
front  and  in  the  German  diplomatic  attitude  strengthens 
Wilson's  position  ;  every  sign  of  military  or  political 
weakness  strengthens  Foch. 

'  Wilson  demands  surrender  on  two  points  only  : — 

1.  Submarine  warfare :    no  more  passenger  ships 

to  be  sunk. 

2.  The  democratization  of  Germany.     (No  deposi- 

tion of  the  Kaiser ;  only  constitutional 
monarchy ;  position  of  the  Crown  as  in 
England.) 

"  A  military  humiliation  of  Germany  is  not  aimed 
at  by  Wilson.  Foch,  on  the  other  hand,  wants,  with 
every  means  in  his  power,  to  bring  about  a  complete 
military  capitulation  and  humiliation  (gratification  of 
French  revenge).  Which  of  the  two  will  get  the 
upper  hand  depends  solely  and  simply  upon  Germany. 
If  the  front  holds  out  and  we  preserve  a  dignified 
diplomatic  attitude,  Wilson  will  win.  Yielding  to 
Foch  means  the  destruction  of  Germany  and  the  mis- 
carriage of  every  prospect  of  an  endurable  peace. 

"  England's  position  is  an  intermediate  one.  The 
main  difficulty  in  the  peace  movement  is  France. 

"  Attainment  of  a  peace  by  understanding  is  ren- 
dered much  more  difficult  for  Wilson  by  the  fact  that 
our  democratization  and  the  peace  steps  have  come 
at  the  same  moment.  This  is  regarded  as  a  sign  of 
weakness,  and  it  strengthens  Foch's  position.  If  we 
want  a  peace  of  justice,  we  must  put  the  brake  on 


THE  GREAT  COLLAPSE  221 

everywhere — especially  in  our  hankering  for  peace 
and  an  armistice.  Moreover,  we  must  do  everything 
possible  to  hold  the  front  and  to  direct  the  further 
democratization  along  calmer,  or  shall  we  say  more 
reasonably  convincing,  lines." 

What  was  written  above  about  Wilson  was,  at  the 
moment  for  which  it  was  intended,  perhaps  quite 
correct ;  but  it  was  speedily  no  longer  so.  Still,  I 
could  believe  even  now  that  this  self-complaisant 
theorist  wanted,  at  first,  to  settle  matters  justly  and 
conscientiously — till  a  stronger  and  more  cunning 
man  caught  him  and,  with  ironic  superiority,  harnessed 
him  to  his  own  chariot. 

On  October  17,  Ostend,  Bruges  and  Tournay  were 
given  up  by  the  Army  Group  of  my  brave  cousin, 
Rupprecht ;  on  the  nineteenth,  the  enemy  settled  down 
on  both  sides  of  Vouziers  on  the  east  bank  of  the 
Aisne  and  began  preparations  for  further  attacks. 

From  home  there  arrives  news  of  feverish  excitement 
among  the  people.  Some  are  depressed  and  despair- 
ing ;  others  are  filled  with  the  hope  of  a  reasonable 
settlement.  And  then  rumours  of  an  approaching 
abdication  of  the  Kaiser,  of  an  election  of  the  House 
of  Wittelsbach  in  place  of  the  Hohenzollerns,  of  a 
regency  of  Prince  Max  of  Baden. 

Fighting  continues  ;  we  hold  out  fairly  well.  Any 
one  who  can  keep  on  his  legs  is  put  in  the  ranks  ;  for 
it  is  a  question  of  the  possibility  of  an  armistice,  of 
peace.  The  General  Higher  Command  emphatically 
warns  the  leaders  that,  considering  the  diplomatic 
negotiations  in  progress,  a  further  retreat  might  have 
the  most  serious  influence  upon  events. 

We  must,  therefore,  hold  tight  to  the  Hermann  and 
the  Gudrun  positions  !  Good  God  !  What  have  these 
positions  to  offer  ?  They  are  incomplete  and,  in  many 
places,  only  marked  out ! 


222   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

And  yet  the  men  who  for  four  years  have  given 
their  best,  prove  themselves  now,  in  these  days  of 
blackest  distress,  to  be  the  finest,  the  trustiest  soldiers 
in  the  world  !  They  hold  this  front ! 

On  the  2ist,  we  learn  the  terms  of  the  Govern- 
ment's reply  to  Wilson.  Everything  has  been  done 
to  meet  his  wishes.  Surely,  on  this  basis,  he  can 
find  ways  and  means  to  conclude  an  armistice  and 
to  set  peace  negotiations  on  foot.  Will  he  indeed 
do  so  ?  Will  he  still  do  so  ?  More  days  pass  during 
which  thousands  of  Germans  and  men  of  all  nations 
are  mowed  down,  during  which  the  gentlemen  at  the 
green-baize  table  take  their  time,  during  which  our 
position  at  the  front  does  not  improve.  The  voice 
of  Wilson's  note  of  the  24th,  that  arrogant  and 
haughty  voice,  was  the  voice  of  Marshal  Foch — or 
the  voice  of  a  Wilson  who  had  sunk  to  be  the  puppet 
of  the  French  wirepuller  and  now  equalled  his  master 
in  hawking  and  spitting. 

Once  more,  in  those  gruesome,  gloomy  days,  in 
which  I  saw  my  poor  battered  divisions  sacrificing 
all  that  was  left  of  them,  my  heart  was  to  be  cheered 
by  my  brave  fellows.  It  was  on  October  25  I 
motored  to  the  front  to  convince  myself  of  the  condi- 
tion of  some  of  my  divisions  in  the  severe  fighting. 
After  visiting  the  Divisional  Staffs  of  the  5oth  Infantry 
and  the  4th  Guards,  I  proceeded  to  a  height  from 
which  I  hoped  to  get  a  sight  of  the  fighting  lines. 

In  a  green  valley  in  front  of  the  village  of  Serain- 
court,  I  met  the  sectional  reserves  that  were  about 
to  march  into  the  fight.  They  consisted  of  the  regi- 
ments of  the  First  Infantry  Division,  and  included 
my  Crown  Prince  Regiment.  When  the  troops  caught 
sight  of  my  car,  I  was  at  once  surrounded  by  a  throng 
of  waving  and  cheering  men.  All  of  them  betrayed 
only  too  clearly  the  effects  of  the  heavy  fighting  of 


THE  GREAT  COLLAPSE  223 

the  last  few  months.  Their  uniforms  were  tattered, 
and  their  stripes  and  badges  scarcely  visible ;  their 
faces  were  often  shockingly  haggard ;  and  yet  their 
eyes  flashed  and  their  bearing  was  proud  and  confi- 
dent. They  knew  that  I  trusted  them  and  that  they 
had  never  disappointed  me.  Pride  in  the  deeds  of 
their  division  inspired  them.  I  spoke  with  a  good 
many,  pressed  their  hands  ;  men  who  had  distinguished 
themselves  in  the  recent  battles  I  decorated  with  the 
cross.  Then  I  distributed  among  them  my  small 
store  of  chocolate  and  cigarettes.  And  so,  in  all  the 
bitterness  of  those  days,  a  delightful  and  never-to-be- 
forgotten  hour  was  spent  in  the  circle  of  my  veteran 
front  troops. 

Meantime,  the  French  had  got  the  village  that  lay 
before  us  under  heavy  fire,  and  their  artillery  now 
began  to  sweep  the  meadows.     I  ordered  the  battalions 
to  take  open  order ;    and,   as   I   drove  away,  loud 
hurrahs  were  hurled  after  me  from  the  throats  of  my 
beloved  "  field-greys  "  ;   on  all  sides  there  was  waving     --X\Vt 
of  caps  and  rifles.     Without   shame,   I  confess  that 
the  cheers,  the  shouts,  the  waving  brought  tears  into  o 
my  eyes  ;    for  I  knew  how  hard  and  how  desperate  *> 
was  the  entire  situation. 

My  Grenadiers  at  Seraincourt !  They  were  the  last 
troops  I  saw  march  to  battle  with  flashing  eyes  and 
volleying  hurrahs.  Dear,  dear,  trusty  lads,  each  one 
of  whom  my  memory  gratefully  salutes  from  this 
island  of  mine.  A  few  hours  later  on  arriving  at  the 
Army  Group  quarters,  I  stood  again  in  that  other 
world  of  anguish  and  anxiety  ;  fresh  tidings  of  a  grave 
and  doubtful  character  awaited  me  from  home. 

Next  day,  October  26,  I  received  by  telephone  news 
of  Ludendorff's  resignation.  In  connection  with  the 
well-known  incident  of  the  Higher  Command's  tele- 
gram to  the  troops  on  October  24,  he  had  fallen  a 


224   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

victim  to  Prince  Max  of  Baden's  Cabinet  question. 
I  knew  at  once  that  this  meant  the  end  of  things.  I 
was  informed  that  it  was  intended  to  appoint  General 
Groner  as  his  successor.  I  rang  up  the  Field-Marshal 
General.  With  a  clear  understanding  of  all  it  meant, 
I  urgently  implored  him  to  reconsider  his  purpose  and 
begged  him  not  to  choose  this  man  in  whom  there 
was  no  trace  of  the  spirit  that  was  now  our  only  hope 
of  salvation.  The  Field-Marshal  General,  who  doubt- 
less felt  constrained  to  comply  with  the  views  of  the 
Imperial  Government,  was  of  a  different  opinion,  and 
next  day  General  Groner  was  appointed  First  Quarter- 
master-General. 


On  October  28,  my  adjutant,  Muller,  returned  from 
an  official  journey  to  the  homeland.  He  brought  the 
first  evil  news  of  mutiny  in  the  navy.  From  his  report, 
it  appeared  evident  that  the  revolution  was  already 
menacingly  at  hand  in  Germany ;  but  that  appar- 
ently nothing  was  being  done  at  the  moment  to 
suppress  the  rising  movement.  With  a  clear  apprecia- 
tion of  the  position,  Muller  proposed  the  posting  of 
some  reliable  divisions  behind  the  Army  Group  as 
soon  as  possible  so  that  these  troops  might  be  ready 
at  hand  if  necessity  arose  for  their  employment.  This 
suggestion  was  unfortunately  not  considered  further ; 
our  attention  was  all  too  deeply  engaged  at  the  front 
and  riveted,  as  in  duty  bound,  on  the  troops  under 
our  care. 

From  November  4  onwards,  my  four  armies  along 
their  entire  front,  retreated  towards  the  Antwerp- 
Meuse  position,  fighting  hard  as  they  retired  and 
carrying  out  everything  in  perfect  order  and  absolutely 
according  to  plan. 

At  this  time,  General  Groner,  the  new  First  Quarter- 


IN  THE  TRENCHES  AT  LA  FERE  :    A  REPORT  FROM  GEX.  vox  GONTAR,  25/3/18. 


THE  CROWN  PRINCE  IN  THE  MIDST  OF  A  CONVOY  OF  WOUNDED, 
ST.  QUENTIN,  1918. 


THE  GREAT  COLLAPSE  225 

master  General,  paid  us  a  visit.  The  chiefs  of  my  four 
armies  reported  upon  the  situation  of  their  various 
fronts.  All  of  them  laid  stress  on  the  overstrained 
condition  of  their  troops  and  the  entire  lack  of  fresh 
reserves.  But  they  were  quite  confident  that  the  retreat 
to  the  Antwerp-Meuse  position  would  be  accomplished 
successfully  and  that  the  position  would  be  held. 

Afterwards  my  own  chief  of  staff  made  a  final  report, 
two  points  of  which  I  recall.  They  were  definite 
demands  couched  in  the  plainest  terms.  The  one  was 
that  the  discussion  of  the  Kaiser's  position  at  home 
and  in  the  press  must  cease,  since  the  troops  were 
quite  incapable  of  bearing  this  burden  as  well  as  every- 
thing else.  The  other  demand  was  that  the  General 
Higher  Command  must  not  issue  orders  which  they 
themselves  did  not  believe  could  be  carried  out ; 
if,  for  instance,  the  retention  of  a  position  was  ordered, 
the  troops  must  be  put  in  condition  to  hold  it ;  con- 
fidence in  the  leadership  was  shaken  by  commands 
which  the  front  was  unable  to  obey  because,  in  the 
existing  circumstances,  it  was  impossible  to  carry 
them  into  effect. 

On  November  5,  the  Higher  Command  of  the  Army 
Group  shifted  its  quarters  from  Charleville  to  Waulsort, 
about  50  kilometres  further  north.  This  little  place 
lies  half-way  between  Givet  and  Dinant  in  a  ragged 
rock-girt  valley,  which,  at  the  time  of  our  arrival,  was 
filled  with  a  thick  clammy  fog — sombre  and  depressing. 
I  lodged  with  a  Belgian,  Count  de  Jonghe,  a  nobleman 
of  the  most  agreeable  tactfulness.  In  a  long  talk 
during  the  course  of  the  evening,  he  summed  up  his 
views  on  the  causes  of  our  breakdown,  which  was  now 
patent  to  the  inhabitants.  Germany,  he  said,  had 
committed  two  grievious  mistakes :  she  ought  to 
have  made  peace  in  the  autumn  of  1914 ;  if  she  then 
failed  to  obtain  it,  she  ought  to  have  appointed  a  civil 


226   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

dictator  with  unrestricted  powers,  which  would  have 
ensured  the  preservation  of  order  at  home. 

On  the  same  evening,  Major  von  Bock,  the  first 
general  staff  officer  of  the  Army  Group,  told  me  that 
he  had  been  insulted  in  the  open  streets  by  a  Landsturm 
soldier  from  the  lines  of  communication.  Two  days 
later  I  made  my  first  personal  acquaintance  with 
the  revolution.  I  was  driving  with  my  orderly  officer, 
Zobeltitz,  along  the  Meuse  road  from  Waulsort  to 
Givet  to  visit  once  again  the  troops  who  were  to  hold 
the  Meuse  line.  A  few  kilometres  from  Waulsort, 
just  as  we  reached  a  spot  where  the  railway  runs  close 
beside  the  high-road,  we  saw  a  leave-train  which  had 
halted  and  was  flying  the  red  flag.  Immediately 
afterwards,  from  the  open  or  broken  windows  my  ears 
were  greeted  with  the  stupid  cries  of  "  Lights  out ! 
Knives  out  !  "  which  formed  a  sort  of  catchword  and 
cry  for  all  the  hooligans  and  malcontents  of  that 
period. 

I  stopped  my  car  and,  accompanied  by  Zobeltitz, 
walked  up  to  the  train.  I  ordered  the  men  to  alight, 
which  they  did  at  once.  There  may  have  been  five 
or  six  hundred  of  them — a  rather  villainous-looking 
crowd,  mostly  Bavarians  from  Flanders.  In  front  of 
me  stood  a  very  lamp-post  of  a  Bavarian  sergeant. 
With  his  hands  thrust  deep  into  his  trousers  pockets 
and  displaying  altogether  a  most  provocative  air, 
he  was  the  very  picture  of  insubordination.  I  rated 
him  and  told  him  to  assume  at  once  a  more  becoming 
deportment,  such  as  was  proper  to  a  German  soldier. 
The  effect  was  instantaneous.  The  men  began  to 
press  towards  us,  and  I  addressed  them  in  urgent 
tones,  endeavouring  to  touch  their  sense  of  honour. 

Even  while  I  was  speaking,  I  could  see  that  I  had 
won  the  contest.  In  the  end,  a  mere  lad  of  perhaps 
seventeen,  a  Saxon,  with  a  frank  boyish  face  and 


THE  GREAT  COLLAPSE  227 

decorated  with  the  iron  cross,  stepped  forward  and 
said  :  "  Herr  Kronprinz,  don't  take  it  ill ;  they  are 
only  silly  phrases  ;  we  mean  nothing  by  them ;  we 
all  like  you  and  we  know  that  you  always  look  after 
your  soldiers  well.  You  see,  we  have  been  travelling 
now  for  three  days  and  have  had  no  food  nor  attention 
the  whole  time.  No  one  troubles  about  us,  and  there 
are  no  officers  at  all  with  us.  Don't  be  angry  with 
us."  A  general  murmur  of  applause  followed.  I  gave 
the  lad  my  hand,  and  then  followed  a  comic  close  to 
the  affair.  The  lad  said  :  '  We  know  you  always 
carry  cigarettes  with  you  for  good  soldiers ;  we've 
nothing  left  to  smoke."  I  gave  the  men  what  cigar- 
ettes I  had,  although  these  "  good  soldiers  "  really 
did  not  deserve  them  ;  I  did  it  simply  because  I 
appreciated  their  condition,  which  certainly  was  in 
part  responsible  for  their  nonsense  ;  I  felt  clearly  that, 
if  everything  behind  the  lines  and  at  home  were  not 
out  of  joint,  these  men  would  have  followed  the  right 
path. 

I  narrate  this  episode  of  November  7  merely  to  show 
on  what  a  weak  footing  the  movement  stood  to  a  great 
extent ;  it  was  fanned  into  flame  by  violent  agitation  ; 
and,  as  the  above  incident  proves,  a  calm  and  resolute 
attitude  did  not  fail  of  its  end  with  the  men  who 
were,  on  the  whole,  not  fundamentally  bad.  Unfor- 
tunately, there  was  a  complete  lack  of  determined 
action  on  the  part  of  the  home  authorities,  both 
civil  and  military.  By  the  orders  against  shooting 
the  road  was  paved  for  the  revolution. 

Concerning  the  behaviour  of  the  troops  in  those 
days,  it  should  be  said  that,  despite  the  months  of 
struggle  that  they  had  gone  through,  they  carried 
out  their  retreat  in  perfect  order  and,  in  the  main, 
without  any  important  interference  from  the  enemy, 
who  followed  hesitatingly.  The  prospect  of  the  new 


228   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

Meuse  position,  with  its  natural  strength  artificially 
increased,  seemed  to  give  the  troops  great  encour- 
agement as  to  the  future. 

One  episode  remains  to  be  recorded.  On  the  6th, 
the  negotiators  despatched  by  the  German  Govern- 
ment crossed  the  road  between  La  Capelle  and  Guise 
within  the  area  of  the  Eighteenth  Army. 


CHAPTER  VII 

SCENES  AT  SPA 

End  of  April,  1921. 

IT  is  almost  two  months  since  I  wrote  the  last  of  the 
above  lines.  As  often  as  I  have  prepared  myself 
to  record  those  last  and  bitterest  experiences,  which 
have  occupied  my  thoughts  a  thousand  times,  there 
has  come  over  me  a  revulsion  from  the  torture  of 
recalling  these  still  poignant  sorrows.  Moreover,  other 
cares  and  other  griefs  have  kept  me  away  from  these 
pages. 

At  the  end  of  February  I  was  at  Doom  ;  on  the  2yth 
my  parents  celebrated  the  fortieth  anniversary  of 
their  wedding-day.  Celebrated  ?  No,  it  was  not  a 
celebration.  Everything  in  the  beautiful  and  well- 
kept  house  was  sad  and  depressed.  My  mother  was 
confined  to  her  couch ;  and  her  weakness  permitted 
her  only  occasional  hours  of  waking.  She  was  so 
feeble  that  she  could  scarcely  speak ;  and  yet  the 
slightest  attention  was  received  with  "Thank  you, 
my  dear  boy  "  ;  and  then  she  gently  stroked  my 
hand.  It  made  one  lock  one's  lips  hard  together. 
The  foreboding  that  on  that  day  I  held  her  in  my 
arms  for  the  last  time  never  after  left  me. 

All  subsequent  reports  damped  every  hope  of 
recovery.  One  could  only  pray  :  "  Lord,  let  it  not 
last  long  !  "  In  six  weeks'  time  the  last  sad  news 
reached  me  in  the  island. 

229 


230   THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

We  went  to  Doom  ;  and  during  all  the  long  hours 
of  the  journey,  I  was  unable  to  grasp  the  idea  that  she 
would  never  speak  to  me  again,  that  her  kind  eyes 
would  never  more  be  turned  upon  me.  She  was  the 
magnet  that  drew  us  children,  wherever  we  might  be, 
towards  the  parental  home.  She  knew  all  our  wishes, 
our  hopes,  our  cares.  Now  she  had  been  taken  from 
us  for  ever. 

Changed,  empty,  strange  appeared  to  me  park  and 
house  and  everything. 

My  poor  father  !  Whatever  his  outward  demeanour, 
I  knew  that  his  inmost  heart  was  shaken.  His  old 
pride,  his  determination  not  to  allow  others  to  see  his 
emotion,  his  resolve  to  bear  himself  like  a  king,  sup- 
ported him  so  long  as  we  and  other  people  were  present. 
But  the  loneliness ! 

That  night  I  was  alone  with  my  beloved  mother 
for  the  last  time.  Through  the  hours  of  darkness,  I 
kept  a  long  quiet  vigil  beside  her  coffin.  In  that 
solemn,  still  chamber,  with  its  heavy  odours  of  wreaths 
and  flowers  and  soft  shine  of  the  burning  tapers,  there 
floated  before  my  memory  an  endless  procession  of 
pictures  out  of  the  past. 

Her  delight  when  I  reported  to  her  as  a  ten-year-old 
lieutenant,  and  that  the  parade  went  off  all  right  in  spite 
of  the  shortness  of  my  legs  and  the  difficulty  they 
had  in  keeping  step  with  the  long-limbed  grenadiers  ! 

Her  beaming  face  when  she  held  my  bride  in  her 
arms  for  the  first  time  and  said  :  "  My  dear  boy,  you 
have  made  a  good  choice  "  ;  from  that  day  onwards 
till  the  end,  a  great  love  knit  the  two  women  together. 

I  saw  her  sitting  at  the  bedside  of  my  brothers  Fritz 
and  Joachim  during  a  severe  illness,  night  after  night, 
untiringly — a  devoted  nurse,  a  mother  who  would 
have  immolated  her  own  self. 

I  saw  her  at  court  festivities,  in  all  the  splendour  of 


SCENES  AT  SPA  231 

the  crown — a  tall  and  noble  figure  with  a  wealth  of 
prematurely  grey  hair  above  the  fresh,  kind  face  ; 
while  every  word  showed  a  simple,  cordial,  generous 
nature,  with  the  power  of  attaching  and  understanding 
others. 

Then,  ever  and  again,  in  her  writing-room  at  the 
New  Palace.  It  is  in  the  interval  between  my  morning 
and  afternoon  duties.  I  have  ridden  over  to  the  palace, 
and  now,  while  she  listens  and  replies,  I  walk  up  and 
down  before  her.  She  is  my  confessor  who  always 
finds  the  right  advice  and  the  best  solution  in  all  my 
little  difficulties  ;  and  in  the  heart  of  that  woman, 
seemingly  so  unversed  in  politics,  there  was  ample 
room  for  serious  thought  for  the  Fatherland  in  all 
its  extent  and  all  its  greatness.  Her  clear  recognition 
of  many  an  error  caused  her  to  suffer — in  a  quiet 
hidden  way — far  more  anxiety  than  the  outside  world 
ever  imagined. 

Then  the  war-time — care  upon  care,  care  upon  care. 

And  then  all  that  followed. 

I  see  her  there  in  the  garden  of  Doom  House.  She 
is  seated  in  a  little  pony-carriage  ;  and  I  hold  her 
hand  and  walk  beside  her.  "  My  boy,"  she  says, 
'  yes,  it  is  beautiful  here,  but  oh  !  it  is  not  my  Pots- 
dam, the  New  Palace,  my  little  rose-garden,  our  home. 
If  you  only  knew  how  homesickness  often  gnaws  at 
me  within.  Oh,  I  shall  never  see  my  home  again." 

Now  she  lies  at  rest  in  the  homeland  earth  to  which 
her  last  longings  went  forth. 

For  a  part  of  the  way  (as  far  as  Maarn  Station)  I 
accompanied  her  on  her  homeward  journey;  then  I 
turned  back  to  my  island  here. 

Days  of  sadness  followed ;  not  an  hour  went  by 
in  which  my  thoughts  were  not  with  her ;  but  what 
was  told  me  in  a  thousand  letters  of  how  unforgotten 
she  was  in  the  homeland,  of  the  love  that  had  sprung 


232    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

up  from  the  seed  she  had  sown,  that,  at  least  was  a 
great  comfort  to  me.  Then,  too,  my  brother-in-law, 
the  Duke  of  Brunswick,  was  with  me  for  a  few  days. 
Sissy  is  to  remain  for  the  present  at  Doom,  so  as  to 
lighten  my  father's  sorrow  in  the  first  great  loneliness 
and  to  bring  a  woman's  voice  into  that  beautiful  and 
yet  so  friendless  house. 

But  I  must  now  proceed  to  set  down  what  I  have  to 
say  concerning  that  last  and  bitterest  experience  of 
our  breakdown.  God  knows  it  is  more  difficult  for  me 
than  all  that  I  have  recorded  hitherto. 

On  the  evening  of  November  8,  1918,  I  received  at 
Waulsort  an  unexpected  command  from  His  Majesty 
to  report  myself  to  him  next  morning  at  Spa.  Not 
a  word  as  to  what  it  concerned  or  what  he  wanted 
of  me.  I  had  only  the  knowledge  that  this  summons 
could  not  portend  anything  good,  and  a  foreboding  of 
fresh  agonizing  conflicts. 

In  cold,  gloomy  weather,  I  motored  through  a  heavy 
fog  that  seemed  to  smother  the  whole  countryside. 
Everything  apathetic,  comfortless,  dreary  and  devas- 
tated ;  the  half-demolished  houses,  their  plaster 
crumbling  from  their  damaged  walls  ;  the  interminable 
roads,  ground  by  the  violent  jerkings  of  a  hundred 
thousand  wheels  and  pounded  by  the  iron-shod  hoofs 
of  a  hundred  thousand  horses.  And  those  wan, 
haggard  faces,  so  full  of  bitterness  and  sorrow  and 
misery,  as  though  their  owners  would  never  again  be 
able  to  win  through  to  fresh  faith  in  life. 

The  car  jolted  through  fields  of  mud,  splashing  the 
brown  mire  about  it  in  huge  fountains  ;  it  rushed 
heedlessly  past  columns  of  weary  soldiers  and  troops  and 
groups  of  men  who  had  once  been  soldiers  and  who, 
now  disbanded,  trudged  their  way  laden  with  a  medley 
of  odds  and  ends ;  it  left  behind  it  curses  and  cries 
and  fists  raised  in  the  grey  mist. 


SCENES  AT  SPA  233 

On  and  on. 

Soon  after  midday  we  arrived  at  Spa,  stiff  and  frozen 
to  the  marrow. 

The  Kaiser  was  lodged  in}  Villa  Fraineuse,  just 
outside  the  town. 

General  von  Gontard,  the  Court  Marshal,  received 
me  in  the  hall.  His  face  wore  a  serious  and  very 
anxious  look.  In  reply  to  my  questions,  all  he  did 
was  to  raise  his  hands  helplessly ;  but  the  gesture 
said  more  than  any  words  could  have  done. 

My  Chief  of  Staff,  Count  Schulenburg,  was  also 
there.  He  had  been  in  Spa  since  the  early  morning, 
and,  until  my  arrival,  had  been  advocating  our  views 
with  the  Kaiser.  Pale  and  manifestly  profoundly 
moved,  this  strong  man,  full  of  a  keen  sense  of 
responsibility  and  fine  fidelity  to  his  sovereign, 
proceeded,  rapidly  and  in  brief  soldierly  words,  to 
give  me  an  outline  of  the  incidents  into  whose  develop- 
ment we  were  now  being  dragged,  and  urgently 
begged  me  to  do  everything  possible  to  persuade 
His  Majesty  against  over-hasty  and  irretrievable 
decisions. 

According  to  Schulenburg's  report,  the  course  of 
events  so  far  had  been  as  follows : — 

In  the  early  morning,  my  father  had  thoroughly 
discussed  the  situation  with  Major  Niemann,  of  his 
General  Staff,  and  had  resolved  boldly  to  face  the 
threatening  revolution.  With  this  firm  resolve,  the 
Kaiser  had  taken  part  in  a  discussion  at  which  the 
Field-Marshal  General,  with  General  Groner,  Plessen, 
Marschall,  von  Hintze,  Herr  von  Griinau,  and  Major 
Niemann  were  present.  The  Field-Marshal  General 
had  opened  the  deliberations  with  a  few  words  that 
revealed  clearly  that  he  was  on  the  point  of  giving  up 
everything :  he  must  first  ask  His  Majesty  to  permit 
him  to  resign,  since  what  he  had  to  say  could  not,  he 


234    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

felt,  be  said  by  a  Prussian  officer  to  his  King  and  lord. 

Only  the  Kaiser's  head  twitched.  First  let  us  hear 
what  it  is. 

Then  General  GrSner  had  spoken.  As  Schulenburg 
sketched  things,  I  could  see  and  hear  Groner — Groner 
the  new  man  who  had  been  only  a  fortnight  in  the 
place  vacated  by  Ludendorff,  and  was  hampered  by 
no  such  considerations  as  those  which  choked  the 
words  in  the  throat  of  the  old  Field-Marshal  General. 
A  new  tone,  which  brusquely  and  aggressively  broke 
away  from  all  tradition,  which  endeavoured,  by  des- 
pising the  past,  to  gain  inward  strength  for  the  coming 
death-blow. 

General  Groner's  words,  as  reported  to  me  by 
Schulenburg,  had  they  been  the  final  truth,  would 
indeed  have  signified  the  end :  the  military  position 
of  the.  armies  desperate ;  the  troops  wavering  and 
unreliable,  with  rations  for  a  few  days  only,  with 
hunger,  dissolution  and  pillage  threatening  to  follow 
after ;  the  homeland  blazing  up  in  unquenchable 
revolution  ;  the  available  reserves  to  be  called  up 
refractory,  demoralized  and  rushing  to  join  the  red 
flag ;  the  whole  hinterland,  railways,  telegraphs, 
Rhine  bridges,  depots  and  junctions  in  the  hands  of 
the  revolutionaries ;  Berlin  at  the  highest  pitch  of 
tension  which,  at  any  moment,  might  snap  and  bathe 
the  city  in  blood  ;  to  throw  the  army  against  the  civil 
war  at  home  with  the  enemy  in  the  rear  would  be 
quite  impossible.  These  views  of  his  and  the  Field- 
Marshal  General's  had  been  endorsed  by  the  divisional 
chiefs  and  by  most  of  the  representatives  of  the 
General  Higher  Command.  Although  not  expressly, 
this  report  contained  implicitly  a  demand  for  my 
father's  abdication. 

Speechless    and    deeply    moved,    my    father    had 
listened  to  these  deplorably  gloomy  statements.    A 


SCENES  AT  SPA  235 

benumbing  silence  followed.  Then,  seeing  from  a 
movement  on  the  part  of  my  Chief  of  Staff,  that  he 
wished  to  be  heard,  the  Kaiser  sprang  up  and  said : — > 
"  Speak,  Count ! — Your  opinion  ?  " 
Count  Schulenburg  then  replied  as  follows  : — 
That  he  could  not  regard  the  remarks  of  the  Quarter- 
master-General as  a  true  description  of  the  state  of 
affairs.  For  example,  the  Army  Group  of  the  Crown 
Prince,  despite  great  difficulties  and  hardships,  had 
fought  brilliantly  through  the  long  autumn  campaign 
and  was  still  firm  and  unbroken  in  the  hands  of  its 
leaders.  After  its  tremendous  efforts,  it  was  now 
exhausted,  overtaxed,  and  filled  with  imperative 
longing  for  rest.  If  a  definite  armistice  should  come 
about,  if  the  troops  were  granted  a  few  days'  repose, 
the  refreshment  of  sleep  and  tolerably  good  rations, 
if  the  leaders  were  given  a  chance  to  come  once  more 
into  closer  touch  with  the  men,  and  of  exercising  an 
influence  over  them,  then  the  general  frame  of  mind 
would  improve.  It  would,  indeed,  be  quite  impossible 
to  wheel  round  the  troops  of  the  whole  west  front  to 
face  civil  war  in  Germany ;  but  this  was  not  within 
the  bounds  of  necessity.  What  was  needed  was 
resolute  and  manly  resistance  to  activities  which  had 
unfortunately  been  allowed  free  play  much  too  long, 
the  immediate  and  energetic  suppression  of  the 
insurgents  at  the  centres  of  the  movement,  the  rigorous 
re-establishment  of  order  and  authority  ! — The  question 
of  rationing  had  been  depicted  by  General  Groner  in 
much  too  sombre  tints ;  the  effects  of  energetic 
proceedings  against  the  Bolshevists  in  the  rear  of  the 
army  would  be  a  fresh  rally  of  the  loyal  elements  in 
the  country  and  the  smothering  of  the  revolutionary 
movement.  Hence  there  should  be  no  yielding  to 
the  threats  of  criminal  violence,  no  abdication,  but  no 
civil  war  either — only  the  armed  restoration  of  order 


236    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

at  the  spots  indicated.  For  this  purpose  the  mass  of 
the  troops  would,  without  question,  stand  loyally  by 
their  Kaiser. 

The  Kaiser  had  accepted  this  view.  Consequently, 
opposition  had  arisen  between  my  Chief  of  Staff 
and  General  Groner,  who,  in  the  course  of  this  dis- 
cussion, had  persisted  in  his  assertions  that  matters 
had  gone  too  far  for  the  measures  proposed  by  Schulen- 
burg  to  stand  any  chance  of  success.  According  to 
his  version,  the  ramifications  of  the  insurgent  move- 
ment covered  the  entire  homeland,  the  revolutionaries 
would  cut  off  all  supplies  intended  for  any  army 
operating  against  them,  and,  moreover,  the  army 
was  no  longer  reliable,  nor  did  it  any  longer  support 
the  Kaiser. 

The  views  put  forward  by  General  Groner  found  a 
certain  confirmation  in  the  many  telephone  messages 
which  arrived  from  the  Imperial  Chancellory  during 
the  discussion ;  these  reported  sanguinary  street 
fighting  and  the  defection  of  the  home  troops  to  the 
ranks  of  the  revolutionaries,  and  repeatedly  demanded 
abdication.  They  evidently  proceeded  from  a  state 
of  panic  ;  and,  on  account  of  their  urgent  character, 
made  a  deep  impression ;  but  to  what  extent  they 
were  founded  upon  fact  could  not  be  tested. 

In  spite  of  all  this,  the  Kaiser  had  stood  resolutely  by 
his  original  decision.  But,  in  face  of  the  irreconcilable 
opposition  between  the  two  views  of  the  situation 
and  the  logical  conclusions  involved,  he  had  ultimately 
turned  to  General  Groner  and  declared  with  great 
firmness  that,  in  this  exceedingly  grave  matter,  he 
could  not  acquiesce  in  the  opinion  expressed  by  the 
General  but  must  insist  upon  a  written  statement 
signed  by  Field-Marshal  General  von  Hindenburg 
and  by  General  Groner — a  statement  based  upon 
opinions  to  be  obtained  from  all  the  army  leaders  of 


SCENES  AT  SPA  237 

the  west  front.  He  would  never  for  a  moment  enter- 
tain the  thought  of  waging  a  civil  war ;  but  he  held 
firmly  to  his  desire  to  lead  the  army  back  home  in  good 
order  after  the  conclusion  of  the  armistice. 

General  Groner  had  then  adopted  an  attitude  which 
seemed  to  indicate  that  he  regarded  all  further  discus- 
sion as  a  useless  loss  of  time  in  face  of  a  definitely 
fixed  programme ;  he  had  brusquely  and  slightingly 
confined  himself  to  remarking :  "  The  army  will 
march  back  home  in  good  order  under  its  leaders  and 
commanding  generals,  but  not  under  the  leadership 
of  Your  Majesty." 

In  reply  to  the  agitated  question  of  my  father : 
"  How  do  you  come  to  make  such  a  report  ?  Count 
Schulenburg  reports  the  reverse !  "  Groner  said : 
"I  have  different  information."* 

In  response  to  a  further  protest  by  my  Chief  of 
Staff,  the  Field-Marshal  General  had  finally  relinquished 
his  attitude  of  reserve.  With  every  respect  for  the 
spirit  of  loyalty  displayed  in  Schulenburg's  views,  he 
had  come  to  the  practical  conclusion  of  General  Groner, 
namely,  that,  on  the  basis  of  information  received  by 
the  Higher  Command  from  home  and  from  the  armies, 
it  must  be  assumed  that  the  revolution  could  no 

*  It  must  be  recorded  here  that  General  GrOner  made  this  report 
to  my  father  long  before  the  vote  had  been  placed  before  the 
commanders  at  the  front.  What  "  other  information,"  then,  did 
the  First  Quartermaster-General  possess,  and  from  which  leader 
of  the  west  front  did  it  proceed  ?  These  questions  still  remain 
unanswered.  From  none  of  the  four  armies  placed  in  my  charge 
did  I  ever  receive  any  report  which  could  justify  General  Grower's 
conclusion  in  regard  to  the  front  or  even  concerning  the  rear  of  my 
armies.  The  information  referred  to  by  General  GrOner  he  must 
have  received  on  the  yth  or  8th  of  November,  for  at  Charleville  he 
was  still  in  good  spirits,  on  the  5th  he  had  ardently  taken  the  part 
of  the  Kaiser,  and  on  the  6th  the  General  Higher  Command  wrote 
to  the  armies  on  the  west  front  that,  for  the  armies,  there  was  no 
Kaiser  question  and  that.true  to  their  oath,  they  stood  immutably 
loyal  to  their  Chief  War  Lord. 


238    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

longer  be  suppressed.  Like  Groner,  he,  too,  was  unable 
to  take  upon  himself  responsibility  for  the  trust- 
worthiness of  the  troops. 

Finally,  the  Kaiser  had  closed  the  discussion  with  a 
repetition  of  his  desire  that  the  commanders-in-chief 
should  be  asked  for  their  views.  "  If  you  report  to 
me,"  he  said,  "  that  the  army  is  no  longer  loyal  to  me, 
I  shall  be  prepared  to  go — but  not  till  then  !  " 

From  these  discussions  and  decisions  it  was  clear 
that  the  Kaiser  was  willing  to  sacrifice  his  person  to 
the  interests  of  the  German  people  and  to  the  main- 
tenance of  internal  and  external  possibilities  of  peace. 
At  the  conclusion  of  the  parley,  Count  Schulenburg 
had  called  particular  attention  to  the  fact  that,  in  any 
decisions  of  the  Kaiser's,  questions  concerning  the 
Imperial  Crown  must  be  carefully  distinguished  from 
those  of  the  Prussian  royal  throne.  At  the  very  most, 
only  an  abdication  of  the  Kaiser  could  be  involved ; 
there  was  no  need,  even  if  the  worst  came  to  the 
worst,  of  any  talk  of  a  renunciation  of  the  throne  of 
Prussia.  For  this  standpoint  he  had  propounded 
weighty  reasons ;  and  he  had  also  expressed  the 
opinion  that  the  alarming  telephone  messages  from 
Berlin  needed  careful  investigation  before  they  could 
be  made  the  basis  of  any  resolve. 

My  father  had  assured  him  that,  in  any  circum- 
stances, he  would  remain  King  of  Prussia  and  that,  as 
such,  he  would  not  desert  the  army.  Furthermore, 
he  had  at  once  ordered  an  immediate  inquiry  to  be 
made  by  telephone  of  the  Governor  of  Berlin  concerning 
the  situation  there ;  he  had  then  walked  into  the 
garden  accompanied  by  some  of  the  gentlemen  of  his 
suite ;  while  the  Field-Marshal  General,  General 
Groner  and  Count  von  Schulenburg  had  remained 
behind  in  the  Council  Chamber.  In  the  ensuing  dis- 
cussion on  the  last  statements  of  Schulenburg,  the 


SCENES  AT  SPA  239 

Field-Marshal  General  also  expressed  the  opinion  that 
the  Kaiser  must,  in  all  circumstances,  maintain  himself 
as  King  of  Prussia,  whereas  General  Groner  remained 
sceptical  of  this,  and  was  indeed  completely  opposed 
to  such  a  claim.  He  stated  that  a  free  decision 
to  this  effect,  if  taken  by  the  Kaiser  some  weeks 
earlier,  might  perhaps  have  effected  a  change  in  the 
situation ;  but  that,  in  his  opinion,  it  now  came 
too  late  to  be  of  any  value  in  combating  the  revolt 
now  blazing  in  Germany  and  spreading  rapidly  every 
moment. 

What  had  followed  next,  blow  after  blow,  had 
seemingly  been  calculated  to  justify  this  view  of  General 
Groner's — if  it  could  be  accepted  as  the  actual  truth 
with  regard  to  conditions  and  feelings  at  home.  The 
answer  of  the  Chief  of  the  General  Staff  with  the 
Berlin  Government,  Colonel  von  Berge,  had  arrived 
and  had  brought  a  confirmation  (though  a  qualified 
one)  of  the  reports  furnished  by  the  Imperial  Chan- 
cellory— bloody  street-fighting,  desertion  of  the  troops 
to  the  revolutionaries,  no  means  whatever  in  the  hands 
of  the  Government  for  combating  the  movement ; 
furthermore,  an  appeal  by  Prince  Max  of  Baden 
stating  that  civil  war  was  inevitable  unless  His 
Majesty  announced  his  abdication  within  the  next  few 
minutes. 

With  these  messages,  the  Field- Marshal  General, 
General  Groner  and  His  Excellency  von  Hintze  had 
hurried  into  the  garden  and  were  now  reporting  the 
matter  to  the  Kaiser,  while  Count  von  Schulenburg 
was  explaining  the  situation  to  me. 

I  now  went  with  my  Chief  of  Staff  to  join  the 
Kaiser. 

He  stood  in  the  garden  surrounded  by  a  group  of 
gentlemen. 

Never  shall  I  forget  the  picture  of  that  half-score  of 


240    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

men  in  their  grey  uniforms,  thrown  into  relief  by  the 
withered  and  faded  flower-beds  of  ending  autumn, 
and  framed  by  the  surrounding  mist-mantled  hills 
with  their  glorious  foliages  of  vanishing  green  and 
every  shade  of  brown,  of  yellow,  and  of  red. 

The  Kaiser  stood  there  as  though  he  had  suddenly 
halted  with  them  in  the  midst  of  a  nervous  pacing 
up  and  down.  He  was  passionately  excited,  and 
addressing  himself  to  those  near  him  with  violently 
expressive  gestures.  His  eyes  were  upon  General 
Groner  and  His  Excellency  von  Hintze  ;  but  a  glance 
was  cast  now  and  then  at  the  Field-Marshal  General, 
who,  with  his  gaze  fixed  in  the  distance,  nodded 
silently ;  and  an  occasional  look  was  also  turned 
towards  the  white-haired  General  von  Plessen.  Some- 
what aloof  from  the  group  stood  General  von  Marschall, 
the  Legation  Councillor  von  Griinau,  and  Major  von 
Hirschfeld. 

With  their  bowed  attitudes,  most  of  the  men  seemed 
oppressed  by  the  thought  that  there  was  no  egress 
from  their  entanglement — seemed,  while  the  Kaiser 
alone  spoke,  to  have  been  paralysed  into  muteness. 

Catching  sight  of  me,  my  father  beckoned  me  to 
approach  and,  himself,  came  forward  a  few  paces. 

And  now,  as  I  stood  opposite  him,  I  saw  clearly 
how  distraught  were  his  features — how  his  emaciated 
and  sallow  face  twitched  and  trembled. 

He  left  me  scarcely  time  to  greet  the  Field-Marshal 
General  and  the  rest ;  hastily  he  addressed  himself 
to  me,  and,  while  the  others  retired  a  little  and  General 
Groner  returned  to  the  house,  he  burst  upon  me  with 
all  he  had  to  say.  He  poured  out  to  me  the  facts 
without  the  slightest  reserve,  reiterated  much  of  what 
Schulenburg  had  reported  just  before,  supplemented 
the  particulars,  and  gave  me  a  deeper  insight  into  the 
character  of  the  catastrophe  which  was  threatening  to 


SCENES  AT  SPA  241 

spring  from  instability  and  demoralization  of  will  and 
energy.  As  I  had  only  just  arrived  from  my  Army 
Group  and  the  seclusion  of  the  front,  I  was  still 
endeavouring  to  grasp  and  master  all  that  Schulenburg 
had  told  me,  but  I  now  learned  that  yesterday  evening, 
before  he  summoned  me  to  Spa,  a  thorough  discussion 
had  taken  place  concerning  the  situation,  in  which 
General  Groner  had  urgently  dissuaded  the  Kaiser 
from  returning  home — from  attempting  "  to  penetrate 
into  the  interior."  Insurrectionary  masses  were  on 
their  way  to  Venders  and  Spa,  and  there  were  no 
longer  any  trustworthy  troops  whatever  !  Nor,  said 
he,  durst  my  father  proceed  to  the  front  with  any  such 
intention  as  to  die  fighting  ;  in  view  of  the  approaching 
armistice,  such  a  step  might  give  rise  to  false  deduc- 
tions on  the  part  of  the  Entente,  and  thus  cause 
even  greater  mischief  and  still  further  bloodshed.  My 
father  also  informed  me  that,  according  to  the  state- 
ments of  these  gentlemen,  the  cities  of  Cologne,  Hanover, 
Brunswick  and  Munich  were  in  the  hands  of  the  Work- 
men's and  Soldiers'  Councils,  while  in  Kiel  and 
Wilhelmshafen  the  revolution  had  broken  out,  and 
that,  in  view  of  the  apparent  necessity  for  his  abdi- 
cation as  Kaiser,  he  was  going  to  transfer  to  the  Field- 
Marshal  General  the  chief  command  of  the  German 
Army. 

Notwithstanding  my  great  perturbation,  I  at  once 
tried  to  intervene  and  to  check  wherever,  in  my  opinion, 
it  appeared  possible;  despite  the  hitherto  precipitate 
course  of  events,  to  call  a  halt,  and  wherever  a  halt 
was  essential,  unless  everything  were  to  be  lost.  Even 
if  the  abdication  of  the  Kaiser  as  such  could  really  no 
longer  be  avoided,  he  must,  at  any  rate,  unflinchingly 
remain  King  of  Prussia. 

"  Of  course  !  "  The  words  were  uttered  in  such  a 
matter-of-fact  way  and  his  eyes  were  so  firmly  fixed 

g 


242    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

on  mine  that  much  appeared  to  me  to  have  been  gained 
already. 

I  also  emphasized  the  necessity  for  his  remaining 
with  the  army  in  all  circumstances,  and  I  suggested 
his  coming  with  me  and  marching  back  at  the  head 
of  my  troops. 

General  Groner  now  joined  the  other  group  again, 
accompanied  by  Colonel  Heye,  who,  as  I  learned,  had 
come  from  a  conference  of  front  officers  convoked  as  a 
sort  of  council  by  the  Higher  Command  without 
consulting  the  chief  commanders  of  the  army  or  the 
army  groups,  the  vote  of  this  council  being  taken  by 
Groner  to  be  decisive. 

In  reply  to  the  Kaiser's  command,  Colonel  Heye 
reported  to  the  following  effect : — The  question  had 
been  put  to  the  commanders  whether,  in  the  event 
of  a  civil  war  at  home,  the  troops  could  be  relied  upon  : 
the  answer  was  in  the  negative ;  the  trustworthiness 
of  the  troops  had  not  been  unconditionally  guaranteed 
by  certain  of  these  commanders. 

Count  von  der  Schulenburg  intervened.  He  adduced 
what  we,  who  were  familiar  with  our  men,  knew  from 
personal  experience ;  above  all  this  one  thing,  that 
the  great  majority  of  the  army,  if  faced  with  the 
question  whether  they  would  break  their  oaths  and 
desert  their  sovereign  and  chief  war  lord  in  the  time 
of  need,  would  certainly  prove  true  to  their  Kaiser. 

At  this,  General  Groner  merely  shrugged  his  shoulders 
and  sneered  superciliously :  "  Military  oaths  !  War 
lords  !  Those  are,  after  all,  only  words — those  are, 
when  all  is  said,  mere  ideas." 

Here  were  two  systems  which  no  bridge  could  join, 
two  conceptions  which  no  mutual  comprehension  could 
reconcile.  The  one  was  the  Prussian  officer,  loyal  in 
his  duty  and  devotion  to  Kaiser  and  to  King,  ready 


SCENES  AT  SPA  243 

to  live  and  die  in  the  fulfilment  of  the  oath  which  he 
had  taken  as  a  young  man ;  the  other,  the  man  who 
doubtless  never  had  taken  things  so  earnestly  or  with 
such  a  sense  of  sacred  obligation,  who  had  regarded 
them  rather  as  symbol  and  "  idea,"  who  was  always 
desirous  of  being  "  modern  "  and  whose  more  supple 
mentality  now  freed  itself  without  any  difficulty  from 
engagements  that  threatened  to  become  awkward. 

Once  more  Schulenburg  replied,  telling  the  general 
that  such  statements  as  his  only  showed  that  he  did 
not  know  the  heart  and  mind  of  the  men  at  the  front, 
that  the  army  was  true  to  its  oath  and  that,  at  the 
end  of  those  four  years  of  war,  it  would  not  abandon 
its  Kaiser. 

He  was  still  speaking,  when  he  was  interrupted  by 
His  Excellency  von  Hintze,  who  had  meantime 
received  further  reports  from  Berlin  and  wished  to 
lay  the  evil  tidings  before  the  Kaiser.  The  Imperial 
Chancellor,  Prince  Max,  he  said,  tendered  his  resigna- 
tion and  reported  that  the  situation  had  become  so 
extremely  menacing  in  Berlin  that  the  monarchy 
could  no  longer  be  saved  unless  the  Kaiser  resolved 
upon  immediate  abdication. 

The  Kaiser  received  the  news  with  grave  silence. 
His  firmly  compressed  lips  were  colourless ;  his  face 
was  livid  and  had  aged  by  years.  Only  those  who 
knew  him  as  I  did  could  tell  what  he  was  suffering 
at  this  impatiently  urged  demand  of  the  Chancellor, 
despite  the  well  maintained  mask  of  calmness  and 
self-control. 

When  Hintze  had  finished,  he  gave  a  brief  nod ; 
and  his  eyes  sought  those  of  the  Field-Marshal  General 
as  though  searching  them  for  strength  and  succour 
in  his  anguish.  But  he  found  nothing.  Motionless, 
shaken  to  the  depths  of  his  being,  silenced  by  despair, 
the  great  old  man  stood  mute,  while  his  King  and 


244    THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

lord,  whom  he  had  served  so  long  and  so  faithfully  as 
a  soldier,  moved  on  to  the  fulfilment  of  his  destiny. 

The  Kaiser  was  alone.  Not  one  of  all  the  men  of 
the  General  Higher  Command,  not  one  of  the  men 
whom  Ludendorff  had  once  welded  into  a  strong 
entity,  hastened  to  his  assistance.  Here,  as  at  home, 
disruption  and  demoralization.  Here,  where  an  iron 
will  should  have  been  busily  at  work  enforcing  itself 
in  every  position  of  authority  and  gathering  all  the 
reliable  troops  at  the  front  for  heroic  deeds,  there  was 
only  one  vast  void.  The  spirit  of  General  Groner  was 
now  dominant,  and  that  spirit  left  the  Kaiser  to  his 
fate. 

Hoarse,  strange  and  unreal  was  my  father's  voice 
as  he  instructed  Hintze,  who  was  still  waiting,  to 
telephone  the  Imperial  Chancellor  that  he  was  prepared 
to  renounce  the  Imperial  Crown,  if  only  in  this  way 
general  civil  war  in  Germany  could  be  avoided,  but 
that  he  remained  King  of  Prussia  and  would  not  leave 
his  army. 

The  gentlemen  were  silent.  The  State  Secretary 
was  about  to  depart,  when  Schulenburg  pointed  out 
that  it  was,  in  any  case,  essential  first  to  make  a 
written  record  of  this  highly  momentous  decision  of 
His  Majesty.  Not  until  such  a  document  had  been 
ratified  and  signed  could  it  be  communicated  to  the 
Imperial  Chancellor. 

The  Kaiser  expressed  his  thanks.  Yes,  he  said, 
that  was  true  ;  and  he  instructed  Lieutenant-General 
von  Plessen,  General  von  Marschall,  His  Excellency 
von  Hintze  and  Count  von  der  Schulenburg  to  draw 
up  the  declaration  and  submit  it  to  him  for  signature. 

Accordingly,  we  went  indoors  again. 

While  the  gentlemen  were  still  at  work  on  the 
document,  there  came  another  telephone  call  from 
Berlin.  The  chef  of  the  Imperial  Chancellory,  His 


SCENES  AT  SPA  245 

Excellency  von  Wahnschaffe,  asked  urgently  for  the 
declaration  of  abdication  ;  he  was  informed  by  Count 
von  der  Schulenburg  that  the  decision  already  come 
to  by  His  Majesty  was  being  formulated  and  would  be 
forthwith  despatched  to  the  Imperial  Government. 

The  document  did  not  contain  the  abdication  of  the 
Kaiser,  but  expressed  his  willingness  to  abdicate  if 
thereby  alone  further  bloodshed  and,  above  all,  civil 
war,  would  be  avoided.  It  also  stressed  the  fact  that 
he  remained  King  of  Prussia  and  would  lead  the  troops 
back  home  in  perfect  order. 

According  to  this  resolve  there  lay  upon  the  Chan- 
cellor the  duty  of  reporting  afresh  concerning  the 
development  of  the  situation  at  home.  Then,  and  not 
before,  the  final  Imperial  decision  would  have  followed. 

His  Excellency  von  Hintze  undertook  to  telephone 
the  wording  of  the  document  to  the  Imperial  Chan- 
cellory. 

It  was  now  one  o'clock,  and  we  proceeded  to  lunch. 
That  silent  meal,  in  a  bright,  white  room  whose  table 
was  decked  with  flowers  but  surrounded  only  by  bitter 
anguish  and  despairing  grief,  is  among  the  most 
horrible  of  my  recollections.  Not  one  of  us  but  masked 
his  face,  not  one  who  did  not  make  fitful  attempts, 
for  that  half-hour,  to  hide  his  uneasiness  and  not  to  talk 
of  the  phantom  which  lurked  behind  him  and  could 
not  for  a  single  moment  be  forgotten.  Every  mouthful 
seemed  to  swell  and  threaten  to  choke  the  eater. 
The  whole  meal  resembled  some  dismal  funeral  repast. 

After  this  unbearably  painful  lunch,  His  Majesty 
remained  in  conversation  with  me  and  Schulenburg. 
A  few  minutes  after  two  o'clock,  he  was  called  away 
by  General  von  Plessen,  as  State  Secretary  von  Hintze, 
while  telephoning  to  Berlin,  had  been  surprised  by  a 
fresh  communication. 

We  others  remained  behind  in  anxious  suspense, 


246    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

fearing  that  some  unforeseen  incident  had  occurred 
which  would  still  further  complicate  the  already 
bewildered  and  confused  situation.  Those  few  minutes 
seemed  like  an  age  to'me. 

Presently  Schulenburg  and  I  were  ordered  to  the 
Kaiser. 

Notwithstanding  the  apparent  self-control  and 
dignity  he  had  forced  himself  to  assume,  he  was 
excessively  agitated  in  mind.  As  though  still  in  doubt 
whether  what  he  had  just  passed  through  could  be 
reality  and  truth,  he  told  us  that  he  had  just  received 
information  from  the  Imperial  Chancellory  to  the  effect 
that  a  message  announcing  his  abdication  as  Kaiser 
and  as  King  of  Prussia  and,  at  the  same  time,  declaring 
my  renunciation  in  a  similar  sense,  had  been  issued 
by  Prince  Max  of  Baden  and  disseminated  by  Wolff's 
Bureau  without  the  Kaiser's  declaration  having  been 
awaited  and  without  my  being  consulted  in  the  matter  ; 
further,  that  the  Prince  had  resigned  his  post  of 
Imperial  Chancellor  and  had  been  appointed  Imperial 
Regent,  while  the  social-democratic  Reichstag  deputy, 
Ebert,  was  now  Imperial  Chancellor. 

We  were  all  so  dazed  and  paralysed  by  this  startling 
news  that  for  the  moment,  we  could  hardly  speak. 
Then  we  immediately  endeavoured  to  ascertain  and 
establish  the  sequence  of  these  unexampled  pro- 
ceedings. 

His  Excellency  von  Hintze  had  just  begun  to 
telephone  the  declaration  drawn  up  by  His  Majesty, 
when  he  was  interrupted.  This  declaration,  he  was 
told,  was  quite  futile  ;  it  would  have  to  be  the  complete 
abdication,  as  Kaiser  and  as  King  of  Prussia  also, 
and  Herr  von  Hintze  must  listen  to  what  was  about 
to  be  'phoned  him  !  The  State  Secretary  had  pro- 
tested against  this  interruption  and  had  declared  that 
the  decision  of  His  Majesty  must  now  be  heard  before 


SCENES  AT  SPA  247 

anything  else.  This  he  proceeded  to  read ;  but  he 
had  no  sooner  finished  than  Berlin  informed  him  that 
a  declaration  had  already  been  published  by  Wolff's 
Bureau  and  immediately  afterwards  communicated  to 
the  various  troops  by  wireless  telegrams  ;  this  declara- 
tion stated  : — "  The  Kaiser  and  King  has  resolved  to 
abdicate  the  throne.  The  Imperial  Chancellor  remains 
in  office  till  the  questions  connected  with  the  abdication 
of  the  Kaiser,  the  renunciation  of  the  throne  by  the 
Crown  Prince  of  the  German  Empire  and  of  Prussia, 
and  the  appointment  to  the  regency  are  settled.  ..." 
The  State  Secretary,  von  Hintze,  had  forthwith  entered 
a  categorical  protest  against  this  proclamation,  which 
had  been  issued  without  the  Kaiser's  authorization 
and  did  not  represent  in  the  least  His  Majesty's 
decisions.  Von  Hintze  had  repeatedly  demanded  the 
presence  of  the  Imperial  Chancellor  himself  at  the 
telephone ;  and  Prince  Max  of  Baden  had  then,  in 
reply  to  Hintze's  inquiry,  personally  acknowledged 
his  authorship  of  the  published  proclamation  and 
declared  himself  prepared  to  accept  the  responsibility 
for  doing  so. 

Thus,  he  did  not  for  one  moment  deny  that  he 
was  the  originator  of  this  incomprehensible  step, 
namely,  publishing,  without  His  Majesty's  authoriza- 
tion, decisions  ostensibly  his  which  he  had  never 
agreed  to  in  such  a  form  and  forestalling  in  a  way 
that  to  say  the  least  of  it  was  casual,  my  own  decisions 
in  a  matter  that  had  not  yet  been  even  broached  by  a 
single  word. 

In  the  excited  and  credulous  mood  of  the  people 
at  home  and  of  the  troops,  it  was  clear  to  us  that  by 
the  Prince's  extraordinary  behaviour  the  appearance 
of  an  accomplished  fact  had  been  created  which  was 
to  cut  the  ground  we  stood  upon  from  under  our  feet. 

With  a  clearer  judgment  as  to  what  had  happened 


248     THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

to  His  Majesty  and  to  me,  and  clearer  views  concerning 
what  now  needed  to  be  done,  we  crossed  over  into  the 
room  where  the  other  gentlemen  were  assembled. 

Great  consternation  at  the  monstrous  proceedings 
seized  them  also.  Cries  of  indignation  mingled  with 
suggestions  as  to  how  this  crafty  coup  was  to  be 
met. 

Schulenburg  and  I  importuned  His  Majesty  never, 
under  any  circumstances,  to  submit  to  this  coup  d'etat, 
but  to  oppose  the  machinations  of  the  Prince  by 
every  possible  means  and  to  abide  unalterably  by  his 
previously  formed  resolution.  The  Count  also  em- 
phasized the  fact  that  this  incident  rendered  it  all  the 
more  essential  for  the  Kaiser,  as  chief  war  lord,  to 
remain  with  the  army. 

For  this  advice  we  found  some  support  from  General 
von  Marschall  and  specially  also  from  the  old  Colonel- 
General  von  Plessen,  whose  faithful  and  chivalrous 
nature  and  strong  soldierly  instinct  burst  through  the 
courtier-like  formalities  usually  carefully  observed  by 
him  and  flared  up  indignantly  at  the  disgraceful  blow 
aimed  at  his  Kaiser  and  the  entire  dynasty.  It  was 
of  great  importance  that,  by  personal  inquiry,  he 
was  able  to  prove  the  untenability  of  Groner's  assertion 
that  the  troops  at  head-quarters  had  become  unreliable 
and  no  longer  afforded  the  Kaiser  sufficient  protection. 

Count  von  der  Schulenburg  and  I  offered  to  undertake 
the  suppression  of  the  revolutionary  elements  at  home, 
proposing  first  to  restore  order  in  Cologne.  But  this 
suggestion  the  Kaiser  declined  to  entertain,  as  he 
would  have  no  war  of  Germans  against  Germans. 

Finally,  he  declared  repeatedly  and  with  great 
emphasis  that  he  abode  by  his  decision  to  abdicate  if 
necessary  as  Kaiser,  but  that  he  remained  King  of 
Prussia,  and  as  such  would  not  leave  the  troops.  He 
instructed  General  von  Plessen,  General  von  Marschall 


SCENES  AT  SPA  249 

and  His  Excellency  von  Hintze  to  report  at  once  to 
the  Field -Marshal  General  concerning  what  had  hap- 
pened in  Berlin  and  his  own  attitude. 

Somewhat  encouraged  by  this  firm  mood  of  my 
father's,  who  now  seemed  to  see  his  way  clearly  through 
all  the  entanglements  and  difficulties,  I  took  leave  of 
him,  my  duties  as  Commander-in-Chief  requiring  my 
presence  in  the  head-quarters  of  the  Army  Group  at 
Vielsalm. 

As  I  held  his  hand  in  mine,  I  never  imagined  that  I 
should  not  see  him  again  for  a  year,  and  that  it  would 
then  be  in  Holland. 

Count  von  der  Schulenburg  remained  in  Spa. 

It  was  from  him,  and  not  from  personal  experience, 
that  I  gathered  my  information  concerning  the  further 
events  of  that  fatal  gth  of  November  in  Spa. 

Schulenburg,  who,  together  with  me,  had  taken  leave 
of  the  Kaiser,  had  been  called  back  by  him  once  more. 
My  father  had  repeated :  "I  remain  King  of  Prussia 
and,  as  such,  I  do  not  abdicate  ;  and  I  also  remain 
with  the  troops !  '  Then,  as  it  was  impossible  to 
recognize  the  revolutionary  Government  in  Berlin, 
the  question  of  the  armistice  was  discussed.  Who  was 
to  conclude  it  ?  His  Majesty  decided  that  Field- 
Marshal  von  Hindenburg  should  take  over  the  supreme 
command  and  be  responsible  for  conducting  the 
negotiations.  At  the  close  of  the  conversation,  the 
Kaiser  held  out  his  hand  to  Count  Schulenburg  and 
repeated  :  "I  remain  with  the  army.  Tell  the  troops 
so!" 

On  leaving  His  Majesty,  Schulenburg  proceeded  to 
the  quarters  of  the  Field-Marshal  General,  where, 
together  with  General  Groner,  General  von  Marschall, 
State  Secretary  von  Hintze  and  the  Legation  Councillor 
von  Griinau,  a  conference  was  commenced  at  half- 
past  three  concerning  the  situation  created  by  Berlin. 


250    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

General  Groner  declared  that  there  were  no  military 
means  of  counteracting  the  abdication  proclaimed  in 
Berlin.  At  the  suggestion  of  His  Excellency  von 
Hintze,  it  was  decided  to  draw  up  a  written  protest 
against  the  declaration  of  abdication,  which  had  been 
proclaimed  without  the  consent  or  approval  of  the 
Kaiser,  and  to  have  this  document  signed  by  the 
Kaiser  and  deposited  in  a  secure  place.  In  discussing 
the  personal  safety  of  the  Kaiser,  for  which  General 
Groner  declined  all  responsibility,  the  question  was 
raised  as  to  what  domicile  the  Kaiser  could  select  if 
any  development  of  affairs  should  force  him  to  go 
abroad,  and  Holland  was  mentioned.  Count  Schulen- 
burg  stood  alone  in  his  opinion  that  it  would  be  a 
grave  mistake  if  His  Majesty  left  the  army.  He  urged 
that  His  Majesty  should  join  the  Army  Group,  the 
way  being  open. 

Fully  confident  in  the  Kaiser's  firm  resolve,  Count 
von  Schulenburg,  accompanied  by  the  other  members 
of  the  Army  Group  Staff,  had  then  driven  back  to 
Vielsalm,  where  his  presence  was  urgently  required 
on  account  of  the  tense  situation  at  the  front. 

As  I  stated  in  describing  the  events  at  Spa  on 
November  9,  the  views  obtained  from  a  conference  of 
officers  from  the  front  by  Colonel  Heye  submitting 
to  them  certain  questions  were  adduced  as  evidence 
in  support  of  the  Chief  Quartermaster-General's 
opinion  on  the  prevailing  mood  of  the  troops  at  the 
front.  At  my  instance,  an  officer  of  the  Army  Group 
General  Staff,  who  had  accompanied  Count  Schulenburg 
to  Spa,  made  a  record  of  the  character  and  the  pro- 
cedure of  this  council  convoked  direct  by  the  General 
Higher  Command.  I  append  this  document  here  as 
a  key  to  the  temper  and  the  mental  condition  prevalent 
at  Spa,  and  because  it  is  necessary  to  a  right  under- 
standing of  what  took  place.  On  account  of  the 


SCENES  AT  SPA  251 

relations  of  the  officer  to  the   service,   his  name  is 
suppressed. 

,  November  14,  '19. 

My  Experiences  at  General  Head-quarters  on  November 

9,  1918. 

(Written  from  memory.*) 

In  the  night  of  the  Sth-gth  November,  General 
Count  von  der  Schulenburg  received  a  telephone  call 
from  Major  von  Stiilpnagel  ordering  him  to  come  to 
Spa  on  November  9.  Major  von  Bock  took  the 
message.  No  information  was  given  as  to  why  Count 
Schulenburg  should  come  or  who  wished  to  see  him. — 
Count  Schulenburg  was  rather  astonished  when  Bock 
brought  him  the  message,  but  he  at  once  gave  orders 
for  his  departure  on  the  9th.  He  appointed  Captain 
X  of  the  General  Staff,  Orderly  Officer  Lieutenant  Y, 
and  myself  to  accompany  him.  The  same  morning, 
instructions  had  been  given  to  transfer  the  quarters 
of  the  Upper  Command  of  the  Army  Group  from 
Waulsort  to  Vielsalm. 

At  8.30  a.m.  on  November  9,  we  reached  the  Hotel 
Britannique  in  Spa.  On  our  arrival,  we  were  struck 
by  the  fact  that  in  the  hall  of  the  hotel  there  was 
assembled  a  large  body  of  officers  not  belonging  to  the 
Higher  Command  and  that  others  were  continually 
arriving.  They  were  exclusively  officers  from  the 
front ;  no  commander-in-chief ,  commanding  generals, 
chefs  or  other  general  staff  officers  were  present. 

Count  Schulenburg  at  once  proceeded  to  the  Opera- 
tions Department  on  the  first  floor  in  order  to  inquire 
the  reasons  for  his  being  summoned.  On  the  way 
upstairs  he  met  Colonel  Heye.  This  officer  was 

*  Use  has  also  been  made  of  certain  notes  written  by  Captain  X 
and  myself  on  December  2,  1918,  and  now  in  the  possession  of 
Count  Schulenburg. 


252    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

manifestly  surprised  to  see  Count  Schulenburg.  After 
a  short  conversation,  which  I  could  not  hear,  Schulen- 
burg returned  to  me  saying  :  '  We  are  evidently  not 
wanted  here  at  all.  We  have  rushed  into  an  affair 
which  does  not  concern  us,  but  we  will  see  what  is 
really  going  on  !  " 

From  the  numerous  officers  standing  around,  we 
learned  that  they  had  all  been  ordered  to  attend  a 
meeting  at  9  a.m.  Apparently,  from  each  of  the 
divisions  of  the  army  groups  Rupprecht,  Kronprinz 
and  Gallwitz,  a  selected  officer,  divisional  commander 
and  infantry  brigade  or  infantry  regiment  commander 
had  been  summoned  and  had  been  rapidly  brought 
along  by  motor-car.  No  information  concerning  these 
orders  had  reached  the  Upper  Command  of  the  Army 
Group.  The  reason  for  the  conference  could  only  be 
guessed.  The  first  idea  was  that  it  concerned  the 
expected  armistice.  But  rumours  were  circulating 
about  measures  to  oppose  the  spread  of  the  revolu- 
tionary movement  in  Germany  ;  there  was  unverifiable 
news  of  civil  war  at  home,  of  the  westward  advance 
of  mutinous  sailors  through  Aix-la-Chapelle,  Bonn 
and  Coblenz,  of  the  blocking  of  the  railways  along 
the  Rhine  and  the  consequent  entire  stoppage  of  the 
commissariat.  From  the  few  members  of  the  General 
Higher  Command  whom  I  managed  to  see,  no  further 
information  was  to  be  obtained  in  the  hurry  of  the 
moment.  Those  whom  I  saw  appeared  dejected  and 
rather  desponding.  It  must  be  added  here  that,  for 
nearly  a  fortnight,  the  Upper  Command  of  the  Army 
Group  had  received  through  the  post  neither  news- 
papers nor  letters,  and  that  we  were,  therefore,  in- 
adequately informed  as  to  the  situation  at  home, 
while  the  front  had  been  living  for  weeks  on  nothing 
but  rumours.  Hence  I  observed  that  the  officers 
arriving  from  the  front  accepted  without  any  criticism 


SCENES  AT  SPA  253 

even  very  unfavourable  reports  circulating  in  the 
conference.  A  suitable  soil  for  pessimism  was,  more- 
over, prepared  in  them  by  the  fact  that  almost  all  had 
been  fetched,  just  as  they  were,  from  the  retreating 
battles  in  which  they  had  been  righting  for  weeks  and 
which  were  excessively  exhausting  and  in  every  way 
depressing.  Most  of  them,  too,  had  travelled  in  many 
cases  hundreds  of  kilometres,  in  open  cars  and  clad 
in  thin  coats  ;  and  they  were  cold,  unwashed  and 
unfed. 

Soon  after  the  conversation  with  Colonel  Heye, 
Count  Schulenburg,  together  with  Captain  X  and 
myself,  went  to  the  hotel  dining-room,  where  the 
officers  from  the  front  were  assembling.  In  talking 
to  various  acquaintances,  my  impression  was  strength- 
ened that,  for  the  reasons  already  adduced,  these 
officers  were  in  a  very  depressed  mood.  Meantime, 
Colonel- General  von  Plessen  and  General  von  Marschall 
had  entered  the  room.  Their  dejected  spirits  were 
noticeable.  When  they  caught  sight  of  Count  Schulen- 
burg, who  stood  near  me,  they  at  once  came  up  and 
began  talking  to  him.  I  could  only  hear  fragments 
of  the  conversation  and  guess  its  general  tenor.  But 
almost  at  the  outset,  Count  Schulenburg  said  to  the 
two  of  them  very  sharply  :  "  Have  you  all  gone  mad 
here  ?  '  Later  he  said,  among  other  things :  ' '  The 
army  stands  firmly  by  the  Kaiser."  I  noticed  that 
Colonel-General  von  Plessen  and  General  Marschall 
drew  fresh  confidence  from  the  conversation  with 
Count  Schulenburg  ;  and  I  heard  the  words  "  Schulen- 
burg must  go  with  us  at  once  to  the  Kaiser."  The 
meeting  had  not  yet  been  opened,  and  Colonel-General 
von  Plessen  and  General  von  Marschall  very  soon  took 
Count  Schulenburg  out  of  the  room  and  drove  with 
him  to  His  Majesty.  Captain  X,  Lieutenant  Y  and  I 
stayed  behind.  Captain  X  and  I  decided  to  remain 


254    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

at  the  meeting,  although  we  both  felt  that  we  were 
anything  but  welcome  there. 

About  nine  o'clock,  Field-Marshal  General  von 
Hindenburg,  accompanied  by  Colonel  Heye  and  a  few 
other  members  of  the  Higher  Command,  entered  the 
room.  The  Field-Marshal,  having  welcomed  the  officers 
assembled  by  his  orders,  thanked  them  warmly  for 
all  that  they  had  hitherto  done  ;  he  then  characterized 
the  situation  as  serious  but  not  desperate,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  explain  the  object  of  the  meeting.  In 
Germany,  he  said,  revolution  had  broken  out,  and, 
in  some  places,  blood  had  already  flowed.  The 
resignation  of  the  Kaiser  was  being  demanded.  The 
Higher  Command  hoped  to  be  able  to  oppose  this 
demand,  if  the  requisite  assurances  were  given  them 
by  the  army  at  the  front.  On  these  questions  which 
Colonel  Heye  would  presently  lay  before  them,  the 
gentlemen  were  to  express  their  views.  In  further 
delineation  of  the  position  of  affairs,  the  Field-Marshal 
stated  roughly  that  it  was  a  question  for  His  Majesty 
whether  he  could  march  to  Berlin  at  the  head  of  the 
entire  army  in  order  to  recover  there  the  Imperial  and 
Royal  crown.  For  this  purpose,  however — no 
armistice  having  as  yet  been  concluded  and  the  railways 
not  being  available — the  whole  army,  with  the  enemy 
of  course  following  rapidly  in  its  rear,  would  have  to 
wheel  round  and  march  for  two  or  three  weeks,  fighting 
all  the  way,  in  the  endeavour  to  reach  Berlin.  Special 
emphasis  was  laid  by  the  Field-Marshal  upon  the 
difficulties  of  getting  supplies  of  all  kinds,  since  every- 
thing was  in  the  hands  of  the  insurgents,  and  he  laid 
stress  on  the  fatigues  and  privations  to  which  the 
troops  would  be  unceasingly  subjected. 

After  this  description  of  the  situation — all  of  whose 
points  were  given  by  the  Field-Marshal,  not  by  Colonel 
Heye — the  former  left  the  meeting.  I  remember  that 


SCENES  AT  SPA  255 

my  first  impression,  as  I  uttered  it  to  Captain  X,  was 
something  like  this :  It  is  regrettable  that  the 
generally  revered  Field-Marshal,  whom  many  of  those 
present  had  certainly  just  seen  for  the  first  time,  should 
have  been  obliged  to  address  them  on  such  a  sad  matter 
and  that  he  had  given  them  a  sketch  of  the  military 
situation  which  many  critical  minds  could  only  regard 
with  considerable  scepticism.  For  me  there  could  be 
no  doubt  that,  after  such  a  representation  of  affairs, 
only  negative  answers  could  be  expected. 

Meanwhile,  the  attendance  at  the  meeting  was 
continually  being  increased  by  new  arrivals,  though 
many  did  not  get  in  till  after  midday,  when  the  answer 
to  the  questions  had  been  long  since  reported  to  His 
Majesty.  These  questions — two  or  three  in  number 
— were  put  to  the  meeting  by  Colonel  Heye.  Their 
wording  has  escaped  my  memory  ;  but  roughly  it  was 
asked  whether,  under  the  watchword  "  For  the 
Kaiser,"  the  Higher  Command  could,  with  any 
prospect  of  success,  call  upon  the  troops  at  the  front 
to  march  to  Berlin  and  thus  unloose  a  civil  war,  or 
whether  the  army  could  no  longer  be  had  for  this 
purpose.  Colonel  Heye  requested  the  gentlemen  to 
consider  this  important  matter  each  for  himself  and 
uninfluenced  by  one  another.  After  the  lapse  of  a 
certain  time,  he  would  invite  the  gentlemen  to  come 
to  him  and  state  their  views,  as  far  as  possible,  general 
command  by  general  command,  beginning  with  the 
right  wing. 

What  replies  Colonel  Heye  received  is  unknown  to 
me ;  but,  as  already  indicated,  I  do  not  doubt,  from 
what  had  passed,  that  the  vast  majority  of  them  were 
in  the  negative.  As  I  learned  afterwards,  all  the  front 
officers  who  took  part  in  the  conference  were  pledged 
to  secrecy  by  Colonel  Heye  and  gave  their  hand  on  it. 
No  such  request  was  put  to  Captain  X  or  myself. 


256    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

My  judgment  upon  the  conference  and  the  interroga- 
tion of  the  front  commanders  may  be  formulated 
as  follows  : — 

Considering  the  importance  of  the  verdict  to  be 
given  by  each  individual  officer  ordered  to  Spa,  it  was 
bad  management  to  interrogate  these  men,  who  in  many 
cases  were  physically  and  psychically  reduced,  without 
giving  them  an  opportunity  of  recuperation  or  giving 
them  time  mentally  to  digest  the  news  placed  before 
them  in  reference  to  the  state  of  affairs  at  home.  It 
was  noticeable  in  the  afternoon  how  changed  these 
same  officers  were  in  appearance  after  they  had  rested 
a  bit,  had  washed  and  dressed,  had  lunched  and  lighted 
a  cigar. 

It  was  an  incomprehensible  omission  to  leave  un- 
summoned  the  commanders-in-chief,  the  commanding 
generals  and  the  chiefs  of  staffs,  to  hear  as  it  were 
the  officers  from  the  front  behind  their  backs.  Did 
the  General  Higher  Command  fear  their  judgment  ? 
For  that  there  was  no  occasion.  From  the  Higher 
Command  of  the  Crown  Prince  Army  Group,  at  any 
rate,  they  had  all  along,  and  especially  during  the  last 
few  weeks  and  months,  heard  nothing  but  the  most 
candid  pronouncements  as  to  the  fighting  capacity 
of  the  troops.  Unfortunately,  their  statements  had 
not  always  met  with  the  proper  consideration. 

The  picture  of  the  situation  from  which  the  com- 
manders were  to  form  their  judgment  was  so  sombre 
that  an  answer  in  favour  of  His  Majesty  was  scarcely 
to  be  expected.  On  such  a  hypothesis,  the  army 
was  not  to  be  won  over  for  the  Kaiser.  Moreover,  a 
large  proportion  of  the  front  officers  doubtless  lacked 
the  analytic  capacity  and  tactical  judgment  requisite 
for  getting  to  the  very  heart  of  this  momentous 
situation. 

If,  as  it  would  now  appear,  the  significance  of  the 


SCENES  AT  SPA  257 

interrogation  was  whether  the  Kaiser  could  remain 
with  his  army  or  not,  it  was  a  culpable  omission  not  to 
have  pointed  out  more  explicitly  the  consequences 
which  might  ensue  from  their  replies  and  that  no 
detailed  representation  was  given  of  what  the  position 
would  be  if  His  Majesty  failed  to  remain  Chief  War 
Lord.  So  far  as  I  am  aware,  the  question  whether  His 
Majesty  would  be  safe  with  the  troops  was  never  put. 
Not  until  4.30  p.m.  did  Count  Schulenburg  return 
to  the  hotel.  Captain  X,  Lieutenant  Y  and  I  had 
spent  most  of  the  time  waiting  in  the  hotel,  without 
being  able  to  ascertain  anything  of  any  significance 
from  anyone.  Count  Schulenburg  was  greatly  agitated. 
Briefly  and  with  intense  indignation  he  described 
what  had  happened.  As  the  most  essential  points 
of  what  he  told  us,  I  recall  especially  the  following : 
"  We  have  no  longer  any  Kaiser.  A  consultation  has 
just  been  held  at  the  Field-Marshal's  villa  as  to  whether 
His  Majesty  shall  be  sent  off  to-night  to  Holland. 
Groner  says  he  can  no  longer  guarantee  his  safety  for 
another  night.  Bolshevists  are,  he  asserts,  marching 
on  Spa  from  Venders.  The  verdict  of  the  front 
officers  brought  by  Heye  has  turned  out  to  be  in  the 
negative.  My  objections  that  the  army  is  loyal  and 
abides  by  its  oath  were  shelved  by  Groner  with  the 
words :  '  Loyalty  to  king  and  military  oaths  are, 
after  all,  mere  ideas  !  '  I  could  not  carry  my  demand 
that  the  commanders-in-chief  and  the  commanding 
generals  should  have  a  hearing.  On  my  departure, 
His  Majesty  promised  me  he  would  remain  King  of 
Prussia  and  stay  with  the  army."  Concerning  every- 
thing else  that  occurred  in  His  Majesty's  villa  and  the 
Field-Marshal's  and  what  Count  Schulenburg  told  us 
further,  exact  information  is  to  be  found  in  the  record 
of  the  events  at  Spa  on  November  9,  as  since  published 
in  the  Press.  I  would  emphasize  the  fact  that  the 

R 


258    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

particulars  contained  therein  coincide  perfectly  with 
what  Count  Schulenburg  told  us  at  the  Hotel  Britan- 
nique  and  during  the  return  journey  to  Vielsalm,  i.e. 
while  still  under  the  first  impressions  of  what  he  had 
just  experienced. 

Signed 

pro  tern.,  in  the  General  Staff  of 

the  Higher  Command  of  the  Crown  Prince  Army  Group. 

On  the  top  of  all  the  exciting  events  of  that  day  the 
night  brought  me  a  letter  from  my  father  which  was 
irreconcilable  with  the  last  impressions  I  and  the  Chief 
of  my  General  Staff  had  carried  away  with  us  from 
Spa,  and  destroyed  all  the  hope  and  confidence  we  had 
cherished  concerning  a  restoration  of  the  old  order  of 
things.  The  letter  confronted  me  with  unalterable 
facts  that  could  not  but  change  the  course  of  my 
destiny  and  turn  me  aside  from  the  path  which  I  had 
hitherto  regarded  as  the  only  proper  one  and  which, 
relying  upon  my  rights  and  obligations,  I  had  intended 
unswervingly  to  follow. 

My  father's  letter  ran  : — 

"  MY  DEAR  BOY, — 

"  As  the  Field-Marshal  cannot  guarantee  my 
safety  here  and  will  not  pledge  himself  for  the  relia- 
bility of  the  troops,  I  have  decided,  after  a  severe 
inward  struggle,  to  leave  the  disorganized  army. 
Berlin  is  totally  lost ;  it  is  in  the  hands  of  the  Socialists, 
and  two  governments  have  been  formed  there — one 
with  Ebert  as  Chancellor  and  one  by  the  Independents. 
Till  the  troops  start  their  march  home,  I  recommend 
your  continuing  at  your  post  and  keeping  the  troops 
together  !  God  willing,  I  trust  we  shall  meet  again. 
General  von  Marschall  will  give  you  further  information. 
'  Your  sorely-stricken  father, 

(Signed)  "  WILHELM." 


SCENES  AT  SPA  259 

I  had  no  particulars  concerning  the  circumstances 
which  had  been  urgent  enough  to  force  the  Kaiser,  in 
a  few  hours,  to  give  up  everything  and  to  desist  from 
his  determination  to  maintain  his  throne.  For  the 
present,  we  could  only  assume  that  the  Kaiser  had  been 
rendered  pliable  by  the  influence  of  those  men  whose 
views  Count  Schulenburg  and  I  had  combated  with 
all  our  might  and  who  had  thus  been  rendered  power- 
less so  long  as  we  were  in  Spa. 

Details  of  what  took  place  on  that  fatal  afternoon 
only  came  to  my  knowledge  very  much  later.  I 
gathered  them  from  conversations  with  His  Majesty 
and  the  gentlemen  of  his  suite  and  from  the  written 
records  of  various  persons  who  were  present. 

From  these  it  appeared  that,  after  the  departure  of 
Count  Schulenburg,  a  report  was  made  to  His  Majesty, 
the  Field-Marshal,  Generals  Groner  and  von  Marschall, 
His  Excellency  von  Hintze  and  Herr  von  Griinau. 
Later  on  Admiral  Scheer  also  joined  the  party.  The 
Kaiser  was  most  urgently  pressed  to  issue  his  abdica- 
tion and  to  start  for  Holland.  Emphasis  was  laid 
on  the  fact  that  fifty  officers  from  all  parts  of  the  army 
had  expressed  the  opinion  that  the  troops  at  the  front 
were  no  longer  to  be  trusted.  It  was  declared  that, 
in  these  circumstances,  the  Kaiser  must  leave  the 
collapsing  army  and  go  to  Holland.  Groner  declared 
that  the  General  Staff  was  of  the  same  conviction. 
For  His  Majesty,  the  attitude  adopted  by  the  Field- 
Marshal  General  was  decisive.  No  final  decision  seems 
to  have  been  formed.  His  Majesty  only  agreed  to 
preparatory  steps  being  taken  for  his  journey  to 
Holland. 

After  the  conference  had  been  closed,  the  Kaiser  said 
to  Count  Dohna,  who  reported  himself  back  from 
leave  :  "I  have  answered  Groner  categorically  that  I 
have  now  done  with  him;  despite  all  suggestions,  I 


260    THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

remain  in  Spa."  To  his  two  aides-de-camp  he 
remarked  :  "I  am  staying  the  night  in  the  villa  ; 
provide  yourselves  with  arms  and  ammunition.  The 
Field-Marshal  tells  me  that  we  may  have  to  reckon 
with  Bolshevist  attacks." 

It  was  not  until  after  a  further  discussion  with 
Colonel-General  von  Plessen  and  Herr  von  Griinau, 
that  the  Kaiser  decided  not  to  pass  the  night  in  Villa 
Fraineuse  but  in  the  train  at  Spa,  for  which  he  gave 
the  necessary  orders.  Further  representations — made 
at  the  instance  of  the  Field-Marshal  General  after 
supper  and  based  upon  the  great  danger  of  Bolshevist 
attacks  from  Aix-la-Chapelle  and  Venders — were 
needed  to  induce  the  Kaiser  to  set  off  upon  his  journey. 
Major  Niemann,  the  General  Staff  officer  of  the  Higher 
Command  attached  to  the  Kaiser,  has  furnished  a 
description  of  what  occurred.  According  to  this 
account,  the  resolve  of  His  Majesty  developed  in  the 
course  of  the  afternoon  and  evening  of  November  9  as 
follows : — 

"  Between  4  and  5  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  Field- 
Marshal  von  Hindenburg  and  State  Secretary  von 
Hintze  reported  to  His  Majesty  that  the  situation  was 
continually  growing  worse,  and  requested  him  to 
consider  crossing  the  frontier  into  neutral  territory  as 
the  last  resort.  The  Field-Marshal  made  use  of  the 
words  :  '  I  cannot  assume  the  responsibility  for  the 
Kaiser's  being  dragged  to  Berlin  by  mutinous  troops 
and  there  handed  over  as  a  prisoner  to  the  Revolution- 
ary Government.'  His  Majesty  declared  his  assent 
to  preparatory  steps  being  taken  by  His  Excellency 
von  Hintze  for  the  possible  reception  of  His  Majesty 
in  Holland.  After  this  conversation,  His  Majesty 
again  gave  personal  instructions  for  measures  of 
security  to  be  adopted  during  his  stay  in  Spa. 

"  Towards  7  p.m.,  His  Excellency  von  Hintze  and 


SCENES  AT  SPA  261 

Colonel-General  von  Plessen  again  came  to  request  His 
Majesty,  in  their  own  names  and  in  the  name  of  the 
Field-Marshal,  to  leave  for  Holland  that  night.  The 
situation  at  home  and  in  the  army,  said  the  State 
Secretary,  made  a  speedy  decision  by  His  Majesty 
essential.  The  possibility  of  His  Majesty's  being 
seized  by  his  own  troops,  as  already  stated  by  the 
Field-Marshal,  was  getting  nearer  and  nearer.  At 
first,  His  Majesty  yielded  to  this  pressure.  Subse- 
quently, however,  on  calm  reflection,  His  Majesty 
came  to  the  decision  not  to  leave,  but  to  remain  with 
the  army  and  to  fight  to  the  last.  On  the  way  to  the 
royal  train,  in  which  the  greater  part  of  the  suite  lived 
and  in  which  all  meals  were  taken,  His  Majesty,  about 
7.45  p.m.,  communicated  this  decision  to  his  aides-de- 
camp, von  Hirschfeld  and  von  Ilsemann.  On  reaching 
the  royal  train,  he  went  to  General  von  Gontard  and 
told  him  explicitly  that  he  would  not  follow  the  advice 
given  him  by  the  Higher  Command  to  leave  the  army 
and  the  country ;  on  the  contrary,  he  would  stay  with 
his  army  to  the  end  and  risk  his  life.  The  demand  that 
he  should  leave  the  army  was,  he  said,  preposterous. 

"  His  Majesty  expressed  himself  in  the  same  sense 
to  Colonel-General  von  Plessen  and  to  General  Baron 
Marschall. 

"  By  supper-time  (8.30  p.m.)  the  idea  of  departure 
appeared  to  be  finally  given  up. 

"  After  supper,  i.e.,  about  10  o'clock,  Heir  von 
Griinau  appeared  under  instructions  from  His 
Excellency  von  Hintze,  and  reported  to  His  Majesty 
that  both  Field-Marshal  von  Hindenburg,  and  State 
Secretary  von  Hintze  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
His  Majesty  must  start  for  Holland  without  delay. 
The  situation  had  become  untenable,  as  the  insur- 
rectionary movement  threatened  to  travel  from 
Aix-la-Chapelle  and  Eupen  to  Spa,  and  insurgent 


262    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

troops  were  already  marching  on  the  town  ;  while  the 
route  to  the  front  was  blocked  by  mutinous  troops  on 
the  lines  of  communication. 

"  His  Majesty,  yielding  to  these  renewed  urgent  de- 
mands of  the  leading  responsible  military  leaders  and 
competent  political  advisers,  gave  orders  for  the  journey 
to  the  Dutch  frontier  to  start  at  5  a.m.  on  November 
10." 

All  these  facts  seem  to  me  to  prove  that  His  Majesty 
did  not  resolve,  of  his  own  accord,  to  go  to  Holland. 
On  the  contrary,  he  protested  against  the  idea  to  the 
very  last.  But  all  his  advisers,  with  the  Higher  Com- 
mand at  their  head,  employed  the  most  forcible  means 
to  wrest  this  decision  from  him.  The  leading  persons 
of  his  suite  seem  also  to  have  gone  over  to  the  other 
side  in  the  course  of  the  afternoon  and  to  have  exerted 
themselves  to  obtain  the  early  departure  of  His  Majesty. 

Only  in  this  way  can  it  be  explained  that,  in  Vielsalm, 
a  bare  hour  by  motor-car  from  Spa,  we  did  not  get 
news  of  this  decision  in  time  for  us  to  intervene  and  to 
induce  the  Kaiser  to  join  our  Army  Group.  True,  the 
situation  at  the  front  was  very  critical,  and  our  pres- 
ence in  the  Vielsalm  Head-quarters  extremely  neces- 
sary. Nevertheless,  it  was  a  mistake  for  Schulenburg 
and  me  not  to  have  remained  in  Spa  or  to  have  taken 
the  Kaiser  along  with  us  when  we  left.  We  relied 
upon  the  promise  of  the  Kaiser  and  upon  those  around 
him,  who  knew  our  views  and  attitude,  to  give  us  a 
call  immediately  any  change  occurred  in  the  Kaiser's 
resolve. 

Looking  back  upon  the  abdication  of  the  Kaiser,  it 
seems  to  me  that  there  was  only  one  suitable  moment 
for  such  an  act.  That  moment  was  at  the  end  of 
September,  when  Kaiser  and  people  were  startled  by 
the  military  collapse  and  by  the  demand  of  the  Higher 
Command  for  an  immediate  armistice  proposal.  The 


SCENES  AT  SPA  263 

revelation  of  the  bald  truth  was  so  crushing  that  the 
people  would  have  understood  the  Kaiser's  taking  upon 
himself  the  responsibility  and  sacrificing  himself. 
Such  an  abdication  would  have  been  voluntary  and 
would  not  have  weakened  the  monarchy.  In  October, 
one  privilege  after  another  was  wrested  from  the  crown. 
Even  the  Higher  Command,  in  the  middle  of  October, 
agreed  to  the  supreme  command  in  war  time  being  torn 
from  the  Kaiser — from  the  Chief  War  Lord.  Ulti- 
mately came  the  demand  for  abdication,  and  it  grew 
louder  and  louder  as  the  hostile  propagandists  acted 
more  and  more  in  concert.  If  it  had  been  accorded 
in  response  to  this  pressure,  the  Crown  would  have  been 
surrendered  to  the  absolute  control  of  parliament  and 
of  the  mob — the  end  would  have  been  just  the  same. 

Or  does  anyone  still  believe  that  the  dynasties  would 
not  have  been  overturned,  if  the  Kaiser  had  abdicated 
in  the  days  of  November  or  in  the  forenoon  of  November 
9.  The  revolution  was  not  directed  against  the  person 
of  the  Kaiser  but  against  monarchy. 

For  months,  the  ground  had  been  undermined,  and 
the  favourable  moment  was  being  awaited.  This 
moment  had  arrived  when  the  people's  confidence  in 
Hindenburg  and  Ludendorff  received  such  a  severe 
blow  by  the  recognition  that  the  war  was  lost.  The 
people  were  worn  out ;  the  masses  were  worn  out  and 
ready  for  the  revolution  ;  the  middle  classes  were  worn 
out  and  apathetically  let  things  slide.  The  will  to 
fight  and  to  resist  was  paralysed ;  and  people  yielded 
to  the  delusion  that  they  would  obtain  a  better  peace 
by  removing  the  Kaiser. 

The  revolution  had  an  astoundingly  easy  game  to 
play.  A  few  hours  sufficed  to  sweep  away  the 
hereditary  princes  and  their  governments.  Without 
fighting  and  without  bloodshed,  the  revolution  was 
accomplished — a  proof  of  how  thoroughly  it  was  pre- 


264    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

pared,  partly  by  the  moving  and  swaying  forces  of  our 
unfortunate  destiny  and  partly  by  the  systematic  work 
and  influence  of  the  revolutionaries. 

The  Kaiser  recognized  that  the  abdication  demanded 
from  him  would  be  the  commencement  of  chaos.  He 
recognized  that,  in  the  difficult  times  ahead  of  us,  one 
thing  above  all  was  essential :  and  the  one  thing 
needful  was  the  maintenance  of  authority  and  of  the 
fighting  powers  of  the  army  so  that  it  might  resist  any 
attempt  to  dictate  peace.  Was  he  not  right  ?  The 
German  people  had  received  the  most  extensive  demo- 
cratic rights.  The  old  authority  could  not  be  dispensed 
with  in  the  hour  of  greatest  peril.  The  Higher  Com- 
mand were  forced  to  sign  the  ignominious  armistice, 
not  because  we  were  defenceless,  but  because  the 
field  army  could  not  continue  the  campaign  with  the 
revolution  in  its  rear. 

The  entire  blame  for  their  misfortune  our  people 
have  heaped  upon  their  old  Kaiser.  As  his  son,  but 
also  as  one  who  never  was  his  blind  admirer,  I  must 
demand  justice  in  any  verdict  pronounced  upon  my 
father.  For  three  years  he  has  been  overwhelmed 
with  abuse  by  the  parties  of  the  present  Government, 
who  still  impute  every  failure  to  the  old  regime  and 
specially  to  the  Kaiser,  by  the  heroes  of  the  extreme 
left  as  well  as  those  of  the  right.  Like  everybody  else, 
my  father  was,  after  all,  only  human,  and  he  too  was 
worn  out.  Did  not  stronger  men  also  experience  their 
hours  of  weakness  in  the  war  ? 

To  what  trials  was  not  this  sensitive  and  most  pacific 
of  princes  exposed  in  the  war  ?  The  last  year  of  the 
war  brought  disappointment  after  disappointment. 
In  its  last  wretched  months,  adverse  intelligence  was 
followed  by  evil  tidings  and  evil  tidings  by  bad  news ; 
and  in  the  closing  days  and  hours  everything  collapsed. 
He  had  resolved  to  tread  the  path  of  duty,  and  in  that 


SCENES  AT  SPA  265 

path  to  fall  fighting.  He  relied  upon  the  Higher 
Command,  who  till  the  6th  of  November  took  his  part 
with  the  whole  weight  of  their  authority.  In  the 
decisive  hour,  when  the  nation,  the  home  army  and  the 
navy  deserted  him,  that  man  also  failed  him  who  for 
him  and  for  the  nation  was  the  greatest  authority, 
and  to  whom  he,  the  Emperor,  had  made  himself  a 
subordinate. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  my  father  trusted  this  man, 
this  responsible  adviser,  more  than  he  did  me  or  my 
Chief  of  Staff  ?  Is  it  any  wonder  that,  in  the  enormous 
excitement  and  tension  which  had  seized  him,  he,  after 
prolonged  opposition,  eventually  yielded  because  his 
great  Field-Marshal  strove  for  it  with  all  the  means  at 
his  disposal  ?  Is  it  not  natural  that  he  should  have 
shunned  a  bloody  struggle  against  two  fronts,  a  struggle 
withal  which,  in  the  judgment  of  the  Field-Marshal 
General,  the  German  army  was  no  longer  morally 
capable  of  conducting.  What  enormous  difficulties 
lay  in  the  fact  that  the  enemy  alliance  was  prepared 
to  negotiate  only  with  a  so-called  popular  government ! 
Without  a  doubt,  our  enemies,  in  the  event  of  a  con- 
flict, would  have  made  the  surrender  of  the  Kaiser  a 
preliminary  condition  for  the  continuance  of  the 
armistice  and  peace  negotiations.  Was  my  father  to 
place  army  and  country  in  such  a  terrible  dilemma  ? 
And  so  he  acquiesced  in  his  fate,  rather  than  involve 
his  people  and  army,  who  were  enduring  many  ills,  in 
civil  war  on  his  account.  It  was  but  logical  that  he 
should  go  abroad  after  he  had  given  up  the  struggle 
with  the  revolution. 

I  ask,  on  the  Kaiser's  account,  that  people  should 
exercise  humanity  in  deliberation  and  righteousness  in 
judgment;  and  yet  I  fear  I  shall  not  convince  his 
adversaries — those  adversaries  who  cast  stones  at  him 
because  he  went  to  Holland  and  who  would  have  stoned 


266    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

him  just  the  same  if,  after  abdicating,  he  had  marched 
back  home.  But  I  hope  to  meet  with  understanding 
for  my  father  among  those  nationally  disposed  Germans 
who  have  the  honest  courage  to  look  back  and  to  beat 
their  own  breasts  :  "He  that  is  without  sin  .  .  .  !  " 


CHAPTER  VIII 

EXILED  TO   HOLLAND 

May,  1921. 

IN  the  early  morning  of  November  10,  I  deliberated 
with  my  Chief  of  Staff,  Count  Schulenburg,  about 
the  situation  created  by  the  departure  of  the  Kaiser 
and  the  possibilities  left  open  tome.  My  own  inclina- 
tion was  still  towards  resistance. 

Combat  the  revolution  then  ?  But  only  Hinden- 
burg,  the  man  into  whose  hands  the  Kaiser  committed 
the  supreme  command  over  the  troops  at  the  front  and 
the  troops  at  home,  and  to  whom  I,  myself,  am  sub- 
ordinate as  soldier  and  as  leader  of  my  Army  Group, 
only  this  one  man  has  the  right  to  summon  us  to  such 
a  combat. 

And  while  we  are  still  talking  of  him  and  of  the 
decisions  which  he  may  perhaps  be  making,  there  comes 
the  report  from  Spa  that  he  has  placed  himself  at  the 
disposal  of  the  new  Government ! 

Therewith,  every  thought  of  fighting  is  blasted  in  its 
roots — any  enterprise  against  the  new  rulers  is  doomed 
to  futility.  With  Hindenburg  and  the  watchword  of 
order  and  peace,  much  might  have  been  saved ;  in 
opposing  him  there  was  only  more  to  be  lost,  namely, 
German  blood,  and  the  prospect  of  an  armistice  and  of 
peace. 

Hence,  every  temptation  to  regain  my  hereditary 
power  by  force  of  arms  must  be  repudiated ;  and  all 

267 


268    THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

that  can  persist  is  my  desire  in  any  case  to  do  my  duty 
as  a  soldier  who  has  sworn  fealty  to  his  Kaiser  and  owes 
obedience  to  the  representative  appointed  by  that 
Kaiser.  Accordingly,  I  will  retain  the  command  in 
my  hands  and  will  safely  lead  back  home,  in  order  and 
discipline,  the  troops  entrusted  to  me.  Count  von  der 
Schulenburg  endorses  this  resolve  with  his  advice ; 
and  like  views  are  expressed  by  my  army  leaders  von 
Einem,  von  Hutier,  von  Eberhardt  and  von  Boehn, 
some  of  whom  present  themselves  among  the  Staff  of 
the  Army  Group  in  the  course  of  the  morning  while  the 
others  are  communicated  with  by  telephone.  Not  one 
of  them  but  is  deeply  affected  by  these  unhappy 
decrees ;  not  one  of  them  who  does  not  regard  the 
events  of  Berlin  and  Spa  with  bewilderment.  The 
same  question  again  and  again  :  "  And  Hindenburg  ?  ' 
And  again  and  again  the  one  answer :  "  General 
Groner ' 

After  a  long  discussion  of  the  pros  and  cons,  I  left 
Vielsalm  in  the  afternoon.  Schulenburg  advises  me 
urgently  to  proceed  nearer  to  the  troops  at  the  front 
during  the  negotiations  with  Berlin,  and  to  await  the 
decisions  of  the  Government  in  a  spot  more  remote 
from  the  demoralization  that  was  likely  to  find  more 
ready  expression  behind  the  lines.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  is  necessary  to  select  a  place  accessible  by  telephone. 
Therefore,  in  the  end,  it  is  agreed  that  I  shall,  for  the 
present,  proceed  to  the  head-quarters  of  the  Third 
Army. 

That  drive  I  shall  never  forget.  My  orderly  officer, 
Zobeltitz,  and  the  courier  officer  of  the  Army  Group, 
Captain  Anker,  accompany  me  ;  while  my  two  adju- 
tants, Miildner  and  Miiller,  remain  behind  to  conduct 
the  further  negotiations  with  the  Government. 

In  one  place  we  passed  through,  my  car  was  sur- 
rounded by  hundreds  of  young  soldiers,  who  greeted 


EXILED  TO  HOLLAND  269 

me  with  shouts  and  questions.  It  is  a  depot  of  recruits 
of  the  Guards  ;  none  of  the  lads  will  believe  in  the 
reports  of  the  revolution,  and  they  beg  me  to  march 
home  with  them.  They  are  prepared  to  batter  every- 
thing to  pieces  !  When  they  hear  that  Hindenburg 
also  has  placed  himself  at  the  disposal  of  the  new 
Government,  they  become  quite  silent.  That  seemed 
beyond  their  comprehension.  I  press  many  hands ; 
I  hear  behind  me  the  shouts  of  the  young  voices : 
"  Auf  Wiedersehen  !  '  —Dear,  trusty  German  lads — 
now  doubtless  German  men  ! 

We  toil  along  incredible  country  roads  and  forest 
tracks  ;  and,  about  nine  o'clock,  we  reach  our  goal. 
But  no  Staff  is  to  be  seen  anywhere  !  Accidentally,  a 
veterinary  surgeon  turns  up  in  the  dark  and  informs 
us  that  no  Staff  has  ever  been  located  here.  The  name 
of  the  head-quarters  of  the  Third  Army  occurring  twice, 
it  has  been  incorrectly  indicated  on  my  map.  But 
he  will  show  us  the  way  to  the  next  place,  where  von 
Schmettow's  Staff  was  located  yesterday. 

Our  route  traverses  a  vast  and  pitch-dark  forest.  In 
an  hour's  time  we  arrive  at  a  house  where  every  one 
has  already  retired  to  rest.  After  much  shouting  and 
sounding  of  our  motor  horn,  an  officer  appears  at 
length  and  explains  that  this  is  a  school  for  ensigns ; 
von  Schmettow's  Group  has  already  left.  The  young 
man  is  exceedingly  kind,  as  though  he  must  apologize 
for  Schmettow's  having  gone.  He  begs  me  to  stay 
the  night ;  he  does  not  know  where  the  Third  Army 
Staff  is  located,  but  presumes  Einem  to  have  taken 
up  his  quarters  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  little  town 
of  Laroche. 

We  proceed  therefore  on  our  night  journey.  Eventu- 
ally we  find  Laroche.  It  is  a  railway  junction.  It  is 
a  terrible  chaos  through  which  we  drive  :  bawling, 
undisciplined  men  going  on  leave,  shouts  and  screams  ; 


270    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

and  storming  of  the  trains.  At  the  commandant's, 
we  learn  that  the  Third  Army  Staff  is  lodged  in  a  house 
quite  close  by. 

We  start  off  again  ! — On  a  deeply  rutted  road  we 
have  to  pass  under  a  narrow  railway  arch.  Here  an 
Austrian  motor  howitzer  battery  has  jammed  itself 
into  some  German  munition  vans  in  a  hopeless  entangle- 
ment. It  is  pitch  dark  to  boot.  The  small  lights 
flicker :  the  men  shout  and  curse.  Our  car  sinks 
deeper  and  deeper  into  the  mud ;  and  a  fine,  cold 
drizzle  pours  down.  And  thus  we  sit  there  and  wait  in 
that  chaos  for  two  whole  hours.  The  yelling  and 
bawling  at  the  railway  station  reverberates  over  our 
heads  ;  groups  of  muddy  shirkers  and  soldiers  from  the 
lines  of  communication  drift  mistrustfully  past,  casting 
greedy  sidelong  looks  at  us  as  they  go  by.  Two  such 
hours,  after  that  flood  of  terrible  events  and  with  one's 
heart  full  of  pain  and  bitterness.  It  is  like  a  picture 
of  the  ghastly  end  of  our  four  and  a  half  years  of  heroic 
struggle  :  confusion,  insanity,  crime. 

I  would  not  wish  my  worst  enemy  the  burning 
torture  of  those  hours. 

It  was  past  midnight  when  we  eventually  reached 
the  Army  head-quarters,  where  we  were  welcomed  with 
cordial  friendship  by  His  Excellency  von  Einem  and 
his  Chief  of  Staff  Lieutenant-Colonel  von  Klewitz. 
They  had  been  expecting  us  since  late  in  the  afternoon, 
and  had  begun  to  fear  some  misfortune  might  have 
overtaken  us  and  they  would  not  see  us  again. 

We  soon  retire  to  bed ;  but  again  I  find  it  scarcely 
possible  to  sleep. 

The  eleventh  is  a  cold,  sombre  day.  At  the  Third 
Army  head-quarters,  not  a  trace  of  the  revolution  is 
observable.  From  the  chief  down  to  the  lowest 
orderly,  everything  is  irreproachable ;  and  it  is  a 
pleasure  to  see  the  smartness  and  alacrity  of  the  men. 


EXILED  TO  HOLLAND  271 

Were  it  not  that  all  the  unspeakably  bitter  experiences 
of  the  last  few  days  are  burnt  indelibly  into  my  brain, 
I  could,  at  the  sight  of  this  perfect  order,  imagine 
myself  awaking  from  a  horrible  dream.  Klewitz  told 
me,  by  the  way,  that  a  soldiers'  council  had  been  formed 
among  his  telephone  staff ;  but  he  had  soon  put  an 
end  to  it,  and  the  men  came  to  him  afterwards  to 
apologize. 

In  the  course  of  the  forenoon,  the  leader  of  the  First 
Guards,  General  Eduard  von  Jena,  and  his  general  staff 
officer,  Captain  von  Steuben,  reported  to  me.  They  are 
both  fine  well-tried  men.  We  were  much  affected, 
and  when  they  took  leave  of  me,  tears  were  in  their 
eyes. 

In  the  afternoon  I  telephone  to  my  adjutants  at 
Vielsalm.  They  report  that,  in  regard  to  the 
negotiations  with  the  Government,  they  are  again 
communicating  with  Berlin,  but  no  decisions  have 
been  come  to  yet.  One  thing  I  request,  namely,  that 
no  sort  of  conclusive  settlement  shall  be  made,  that 
the  final  decision  be  left  to  me. 

Hence,  wait  on  !  Wait  ?  Wait  for  what  miracle  ? 
Is  not,  in  all  that  I  already  know,  all  that  is  barely 
concealed  under  the  form  of  discussions  and  negoti- 
ations, the  "  No  "  of  the  gentlemen  in  Berlin  clearly 
audible  ?  And  indeed,  if  they  are  to  retain  the  power 
they  have  usurped,  can  they  act  otherwise  ?  And  if  I 
wish  our  poor  and  oft-tried  country  to  have  peace,  can 
I  repudiate  their  "  No  "  ? 

One  unforgettable  impression  of  that  day  I  must 
set  down  here.  It  is  evening.  Sunk  in  agonizing 
thought,  I  am  walking  alone  in  the  park  of  the  chateau. 
I  have  taken  refuge  in  this  solitude  and  seclusion  in 
order  to  look  in  the  face  the  finalities  which  are  about 
to  be  consummated. 

And  I  reason  thus.     When  that  "  No,"  which  is 


272    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

surely  coming,  has  robbed  you  of  your  place  beside 
your  comrades,  and  has  reft  from  you  your  responsi- 
bilities and  duties  as  an  active  soldier — what  then  ? 
Are  you  then  to  take  one  of  the  trains  at  Liege  or 
Herbesthal  and  travel  to  Berlin  in  order  not  to  become 
the  nucleus  of  disturbances  by  remaining  with  the 
troops  ?  Will  you  live  there  as  an  idle  gentleman 
passively  watching  them — in  the  wild  frenzy  and 
raving  delirium  of  their  jaded,  goaded  and  misguided 
brains — violate  all  that  tradition  had  made  so  sacred 
to  you  and  to  them  ?  Or  would  you  like  to  be  there 
as  the  person  on  whom  all  their  quarrels  turned  ? 

"  No  !  "  But  a  way  opens  out  at  the  moment  when 
you  are  forced  by  their  "  No  "  to  give  up  your  desire 
to  return  home  with  the  troops,  at  the  moment  when 
you  are  deposed  by  the  new  rulers  and  discharged  from 
the  service.  That  way  is  the  way  across  the  frontier. 

Over  there,  away  from  all  fermenting  conflicts,  you 
might  wait  a  few  weeks  till  the  worst  tempest  is  over 
and  reason  and  discernment  have  helped  to  restore 
order.  Then,  at  the  latest  on  the  conclusion  of  peace, 
you  could  return  to  your  wife  and  children  and  to 
the  fresh  labours  which  await  you  and  every  other 
German. 

I  think  of  my  father,  whom,  in  this  way,  I  should  see 
again — 

And  the  whole  bitterness  of  this  separation  and  this 
exile  comes  over  me. 

Early  dusk  veils  the  autumn  trees ;  sleet  is  falling, 
and  a  penetrating  chill  arises  from  the  wet,  mouldering 
leaves  and  the  soddened  earth. 

Suddenly,  along  the  road  outside,  a  company  marches 
by.  The  men  are  singing  our  fine  old  soldiers'  song : 
"  Nach  der  Heimat  mocht'  ich  wieder — " 

Singing  !  Marching  !— "  Good  God,"  I  think  to 
myself.  I  struggle  with  my  feelings  as  best  I  can ; 


THE   CROWN   PRINCESS   VISITS   THE   CROWN   PRINCE   AT   WIERINGEN. 


EXILED  TO  HOLLAND  273 

but  they  are  too  strong  for  me,  I  cannot  resist  them. 

Still  they  sing — softer  now  and  more  distant — 

I  kept  up  until  then.     But  that — in  the  darkness  and 

solitude  in  which  no  one  could  see — that  overcame  me. 

Late  in  the  evening  arrived  the  declaration  of  the 

Government  that,  having  heard  the  advice  of  the  War 

Minister,  General  Scheiich,  they  must  refuse  to  allow 

me  to  remain  any  longer  in  the  Higher  Command  of 

the  Army  Group.     The  new  Commander-in-Chief  had 

no  further  use  for  me.     And  so  nothing  was  left  but 

to  write  my  farewell  letter.     It  ran  as  follows: — 

Head- quarters  of  the  Crown  Prince  Army  Group, 

November  II,   1918. 

DEAR  FIELD-MARSHAL  GENERAL,— 

In  these  days — the  most  grievous  of  my  father's 
life  and  of  mine — I  must  beg  to  take  leave  of  your 
Excellency  in  this  way.  With  deep  emotion,  I  have 
been  forced  to  the  decision  to  avail  myself  of  the 
sanction  accorded  by  your  Excellency  to  my  relin- 
quishing my  post  of  commander-in-chief ,  and  shall, 
for  the  present,  take  up  residence  abroad.  It  is  only 
after  a  severe  inward  struggle  that  I  have  been  able 
to  reconcile  myself  to  this  step ;  for  it  tears  every 
fibre  of  my  heart  not  to  be  able  to  lead  back  home  my 
Army  Group  and  my  brave  troops  to  whom  the  Father- 
land owes  such  an  infinite  debt. 

I  consider  it  important,  however,  once  again  to  give 
your  Excellency,  at  this  hour,  a  brief  sketch  of  my 
attitude ;  and  I  beg  your  Excellency  to  make  what- 
ever use  of  my  words  may  seem  at  all  fitting  to  you. 

Contrary  to  many  unjust  opinions  which  have 
endeavoured  to  represent  me  as  having  always  been  a 
war-inciter  and  reactionary,  I  have,  from  the  outset, 
advocated  the  view  that  this  war  was,  for  us,  a  war  of 

s 


274    THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

defence  ;  and,  in  the  years  1916,  1917,  and  1918,  I 
often  emphasized,  both  by  word  of  mouth  and  in  writ- 
ing, the  opinion  that  Germany  ought  to  seek  to  end 
the  war  and  that  she  should  be  glad  if  she  could  main- 
tain her  status  quo  against  the  entire  world.  So  far 
as  home  politics  are  concerned,  I  have  been  the  last 
to  oppose  a  liberal  development  of  our  constitution. 
This  conception  I  communicated  in  writing  to  the 
Imperial  Chancellor,  Prince  Max  of  Baden,  only  a  few 
days  ago.  Nevertheless,  when  the  violence  of  events 
swept  my  father  from  the  throne,  I  was  not  merely 
not  heard,  but,  as  Crown  Prince  and  heir-apparent, 
simply  ignored. 

I  therefore  request  your  Excellency  to  take  notice 
that  I  enter  a  formal  protest  against  this  violation  of 
my  person,  my  rights,  and  my  claims. 

In  spite  of  these  facts,  I  held  to  my  view  that,  con- 
sidering the  severe  shocks  which  the  army  was  bound 
to  sustain  through  the  loss  of  its  Kaiser  and  Chief  War 
Lord  as  well  as  through  the  ignominious  terms  of  the 
armistice,  I  ought  to  remain  at  my  post  in  order  to  spare 
it  the  fresh  disappointment  of  seeing  the  Crown  Prince 
also  discharged  from  his  position  as  military  commander- 
in-chief.  In  this,  too,  I  was  led  by  the  idea  that, 
even  though  my  own  person  might  be  exposed  to  the 
most  painful  consequences  and  conflicts,  the  holding 
together  of  my  Army  Group  would  avert  further 
disaster  from  our  Fatherland,  whom  we  all  serve. 
These  consequences  to  myself  I  should  have  endured 
in  the  conviction  that  I  was  doing  my  country  a 
service.  But  the  attitude  of  the  present  Government 
had  also  necessarily  to  be  taken  into  account  in  decid- 
ing whether  I  was  to  continue  in  my  military  command. 
From  that  Government  I  have  received  notice  that 
no  further  military  activity  on  my  part  is  looked  for, 
although  I  should  have  been  prepared  to  accept  any 


EXILED  TO  HOLLAND  275 

employment.  I  believe,  therefore,  that  I  have  re- 
mained at  my  post  as  long  as  my  honour  as  an  officer 
and  a  soldier  required  of  me. 

Your  Excellency  will,  at  the  same  time,  take  notice 
that  copies  of  this  letter  have  been  despatched  to  the 
Minister  of  the  Royal  Household,  the  Prussian  State 
Ministry,  the  Vice-President  of  the  House  of  Deputies, 
the  President  of  the  Upper  House,  the  Chef  du  Cabinet 
militaire,  the  Chef  du  Cabinet  civil,  and  a  few  of  the 
military  leaders  with  whom  I  am  more  intimately 
acquainted. 

I  bid  your  Excellency  farewell  with  the  ardent  wish 
that  our  beloved  Fatherland  may  find  the  way  out  of 
these  severe  storms  to  internal  recovery  and  to  a  new 
and  better  future.  In  conclusion,  I  am,  yours, 

(Signed)  WILHELM, 
Crown  Prince  of  the  German  Empire 

and  of  Prussia. 
To  His  Excellency  Field-Marshal  General  von 

Hindenburg,  Chief  of  the  General  Staff  of 

the  Field  Army.     General  Head-quarters. 

Soon  after  these  incidents,  I  felt  the  desire  to  have 
a  short  account  prepared  of  all  that  had  taken  place, 
including  more  especially  the  progress  of  the  negotia- 
tions between  my  Army  Group  in  Vielsalm  and  the 
Government  in  Berlin  during  my  stay  at  Third  Army 
head-quarters.  As  a  supplement  to  the  description 
given  by  me,  I  insert  here  the  account  drawn  up  and 
signed  by  my  chief -of-staff,  Major-General  Count  von 
der  Schulenburg  and  my  two  acting  adjutants  Muller 
and  Miildner  : — 

Account  of  the  Events  of  the  loth  and  nth  of 

November,  1918. 

On  November  10,  1918,  the  Chief  of  the  General 
Staff  of  the  Army  Group,  under  the  German  Crown 


276    THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

Prince,  Major-General  Count  Schulenburg,  urgently 
advised  His  Imperial  Highness  the  Crown  Prince  to 
remain  at  the  head  of  the  Army  Group.  The  Com- 
manders-in-Chief  von  Einem,  von  Boehn,  von  Eber- 
hardt  and  von  Hutier,  some  of  whom  appeared  person- 
ally at  the  head-quarters  of  the  Army  Group,  endorsed 
this  view,  each  expressing  his  opinions  independently 
to  the  Crown  Prince.  On  November  10,  the  Crown 
Prince  betook  himself  to  the  front,  viz.,  to  Third  Army 
head-quarters,  in  order  not  to  come  prematurely  into 
contact  with  various  signs  of  demoralization. 

In  Vielsalm,  the  head-quarters  of  the  Army  Group, 
a  conference  was  held  on  November  n  with  His  Excel- 
lency von  Hintze,  in  which  Count  Schulenburg  and 
the  two  personal  adjutants,  Major  von  Miiller  and 
Major  von  Miildner,  took  part.  Count  Schulenburg 
advocated  the  Crown  Prince's  remaining  at  the  head 
of  his  Army  Group.  He  pointed  out  that  the  Field- 
Marshal  and  Groner  were  also  of  this  opinion.  In 
general,  the  two  personal  adjutants  agreed  with  this 
view,  but  they  called  attention  to  the  fact  that,  before 
his  departure  for  Holland,  the  Kaiser  had  declared 
that  under  no  circumstances  must  civil  war  be  in- 
flamed in  Germany.  Willingly  or  unwillingly,  how- 
ever, now  that  the  Kaiser  had  crossed  into  Dutch 
territory,  the  Crown  Prince,  as  things  stood,  would, 
in  all  probability,  become  the  cause  of  such  civil 
war. 

Even  if  this  factor  were  excluded,  it  might  be  assumed 
with  certainty  that  the  new  Government  would  bring 
about,  with  all  convenient  speed,  the  termination  of 
so  commanding  a  military  post  as  that  held  by  the 
Crown  Prince.  At  the  latest,  this  would  have  to  take 
place  at  the  Rhine  ;  and  then  there  would  no  longer 
be  left  to  the  Crown  Prince  any  decision  as  to  his  further 
actions.  He  would  presumably  be  forced  to  accept 


THE  CROWN  PRINCE  WITH  A  WIERINGEN  NATIVE. 


EXILED  TO  HOLLAND  277 

any  conditions  imposed  upon  him,  and  would  not  even 
have  any  choice  as  to  his  future  domicile.     If  he  chose 
it  in  Germany  he  would  always  remain  the  nucleus  of 
movements  that   might   lead  to   incalculable   conse- 
quences.    His  Excellency  von  Hintze  declared  that 
the  question  whether  the  Prince  was  to  remain  or  to 
depart  was  one  to  be  decided  by  the  responsible  military 
authorities.     It  was  agreed  to  inquire  of  the  Govern- 
ment, and  His  Excellency  von  Hintze  offered  to  trans- 
mit the  question.     He  requested  the  Imperial  Chan- 
cellor to  come  to  the  telephone.     The  Chancellor  was 
at  a  sitting  and  could  not  be  spoken  to.     His  place  was 
taken  by  Herr  von  Prittwitz  and  Herr  Baacke.     While 
His  Excellency  von  Hintze  was  talking  with  these 
gentlemen,  Count  Schulenburg  dictated  to  Major  von 
Miildner  the  inquiry  put  to  the  Government  by  the 
Crown  Prince  :—  '  The  Crown  Prince  has  a  fervent 
desire  to  remain  at  the  head  of  his  Army  Group  and,  in 
these  serious  times,  to  do  his  duty  like  every  other 
soldier.     He  will  lead  his  troops  back  home  in  strict 
order  and  discipline,  and  he  engages  to  undertake  no- 
thing against  the  Government  in  these  times.     What 
is  the  attitude  of  the  Government  in  this  matter  ?  " 
His  Excellency  von  Hintze  telephoned  this  inquiry 
to  Herr  Baacke,  who  wrote  it  down  and  verified  it. 
During  these  negotiations,  the   Crown   Prince   called 
for  Count  Schulenburg  and  His  Excellency  von  Hintze, 
and  demanded  that  no  final  arrangements  should  be 
made  and  that,  in  any  case,  he  reserved  to  himself  the 
decision. 

Late  in  the  evening,  Major  von  Miildner  received  a 
telephone  message  to  the  effect  that,  after  having 
consulted  the  War  Minister,  Scheiich,  the  Government 
must  answer  the  inquiry  of  the  Crown  Prince  in  the 
negative,  and  that  they  had  no  intention  of  leaving  the 
Crown  Prince  in  command. 


278    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

Thereupon,  and  with  the  consent  of  Field-Marshal 
von  Hindenburg,  the  Crown  Prince  laid  down  the 
command  and,  after  a  severe  internal  struggle,  resolved 
in  favour  of  the  journey  to  Holland,  saying  to  himself 
that,  after  the  decisions  already  formed,  his  remaining 
would  not  bring  about  any  change  in  the  situation, 
but  would  only  aggravate  and  confuse  it,  so  that  he 
was  convinced  he  ought  to  make  this  sacrifice  for  the 
Fatherland. 

The  departure  took  place  in  the  forenoon  of  Novem- 
ber 12. 

Berlin,  April  4,  1919. 

(Signed)  VON  MULLER, 
Major. 

MULDNER  VON  MtJLNHEIM, 

Major. 

COUNT  VON  DER  SCHULENBURG, 
Major-General. 

The  next  night  is  sleepless,  restless.  It  is  one  long 
horror  to  a  tortured  heart  which  must  now  tear  itself 
away  by  the  roots  from  its  affections,  horror  against 
the  brain  which  vainly  racks  itself  for  a  better  solution 
of  the  problems. 

In  the  end,  only  one  thing  stands  clear,  namely, 
that  not  through  me  or  on  my  account  must  further 
bloodshed  come  about  at  home,  that  I  dare  not  be  a 
hindrance  to  any  possible  restoration  of  tranquillity  at 
home,  or  to  the  finding  of  a  peace  which  the  Fatherland 
can  bear. 

We  intend  to  travel  in  the  early  morning — to  travel 
across  the  frontier  into  Holland.  Two  cars  with  only 
the  most  absolutely  indispensable  luggage.  We  have 
talked  about  it  for  days  ;  and  I  have  thought  of  scarcely 


EXILED  TO  HOLLAND  279 

anything  else  at  night ;  yet  now  that  it  faces  me  in 
all  its  reality,  I  can  hardly  realize  it. 

I  should  like  to  leave  the  Third  Army  head-quarters 
quite  quietly  and  with  but  few  words.  What  can  be 
said,  has  been  said.  And  every  military  duty  has  been 
fulfilled  up  to  the  last  moment.  The  command  of  the 
Army  Group  hitherto  entrusted  to  me  passed  to  Lieu- 
tenant-General  von  Einem  with  the  advent  of  the 
armistice.  Departure — stern  compulsion  ordains  it. 
Why  make  the  heart  still  heavier  ? 

But,  when  I  enter  the  hall,  the  whole  head-quarters 
staff  is  there  in  full  regimentals  and  with  their  helmets 
on — all  of  them,  even  the  clerks  and  orderlies.  In 
front  of  them,  leaning  upon  his  sword,  stands  the  fine 
old  Colonel-General,  von  Einem ;  next  to  him  is  his 
Chief-of-Staff,  my  good  Klewitz — that  admirable  sol- 
dier, never  daunted  though  things  were  often  so  black  ! 
Only  that,  in  his  sturdy  features,  there  is  something 
I  have  never  seen  there  before. 

Einem  speaks — encouraging,  deeply-felt  words, 
belief  in  a  new  future  ! — Three  cheers  for  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  of  the  Army  Group  fill  the  hall  and 
re-echo  over  my  head. 

Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army  Group  ?  Am 
I  that  still  ?  Perhaps  at  this  moment  the  Field- 
Marshal  General  holds  my  letter  of  resignation  in  his 
hands. 

I  cannot  speak,  cannot  answer.  I  press  the  hands  of 
the  old  and  well-tried  officers  ;  and  I  see  tears  on  the 
cheeks  of  the  men. 

We  must  be  off. 

On  the  way,  we  have  to  halt  with  the  Staff  of  the 
First  Army,  which  has  its  quarters  in  the  picturesque 
Rochefort  Chateau  in  the  Ardennes,  not  far  from 
Namur.  There,  at  General  von  Eberhardt's — the 
general  was  for  a  long  time  a  trusty  leader  in  my  Army 


280    THE  CROWN   PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

Group — I  have  to  meet  my  chief-of-staff.  Thus, 
I  have  another  bitter  farewell  to  take  from  him  also, 
from  the  man  who,  during  the  hardest  period  of  the 
war,  stood  nearest  to  me  as  my  military  assistant  and 
adviser,  and  to  whom,  for  all  that  he  gave  me  as  a 
soldier  and  a  man,  I  am  so  deeply  indebted. 

We  are  all  deeply  moved  as  I  now  sign  the  last  army 
order  to  my  troops. 

"To  MY  ARMIES  ! 

"  His  Majesty  the  Kaiser  having  laid  down  the 
supreme  command  and  the  armistice  being  concluded, 
I  am  compelled  by  circumstances  to  retire  from  the 
leadership  of  my  army  group.  As  ever  heretofore,  so 
also  to-day  I  can  only  thank  my  brave  armies  and 
each  man  in  them  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart  for  the 
heroic  courage,  self-sacrifice  and  resignation  with  which, 
in  prosperity  and  in  adversity,  they  have  faced  every 
danger  and  endured  every  privation  for  the  Father- 
land. 

"  The  army  group  has  not  been  defeated  by  force  of 
arms  !  Hunger  and  bitter  distress  have  conquered 
us  !  Proudly  and  with  heads  erect,  my  army  group 
can  leave  the  soil  of  France  which  the  best  German 
blood  had  won.  Their  shield  is  unblemished,  their 
honour  untainted.  Let  every  one  see  to  it  that  they 
remain  so,  both  now  and  later  in  the  homeland. 

"  Four  long  years  I  was  permitted  to  be  with  my 
armies  in  victory  and  in  distress  ;  four  long  years  my 
whole  heart  was  given  up  to  my  troops.  Deeply 
moved,  I  part  from  them  to-day,  and  I  bow  my  head 
before  the  splendour  of  their  mighty  deeds  which 
history  will  some  day  write  in  words  of  flame  for  later 
generations. 

"  Be  true  to  your  leaders  as  you  have  been  heretofore, 
till  the  command  comes  which  shall  set  you  free  for 


EXILED  TO  HOLLAND  281 

wife  and  child,  for  hearth  and  for  home.     God  be  with 
you  and  with  our  German  Fatherland  ! 

"  WlLHELM, 

"  Commander-in-Chief, 
"  Crown  Prince  of  the  German  Empire 
and  of  Prussia." 

And  now  the  moment  of  separation  has  come  here 
too.  I  can  scarcely  tear  myself  away. 

But  it  must  be — my  people  urge  me.  Miildner  has 
been  holding  a  cap  ready  for  me  for  some  time — a  grey 
infantry  cap ;  he  thinks,  I  suppose,  that  I  shall  not 
notice  what  it  is  in  this  torment  and  distraction  ;  he 
wishes  to  disguise  me  with  it,  in  his  affectionate  care 
imagining  that  I  shall  be  safer  and  less  easily  recognized 
in  that  unaccustomed  colour. 

"No,  I  want  my  Hussar  cap  for  this  last  journey, 
too  !  No  one  will  do  me  any  harm !  " 

And  now  they  pretend  to  be  unable  to  find  it.  But  I 
wait ;  and,  at  last,  the  black  one  with  the  death's  head 
turns  up,  and  I  don  it  once  again. 

I  look  into  their  faithful  eyes  ;    we  can  only  nod ; 
words  stick  in  the  throat.     Schulenburg  jerks  out : 
"  If  you  see  my  lord  and  Kaiser  over  there  in  Holland 
"  ;  then  he  falters,  too. 

The  motor  whirrs  ;   and  we  start. 

We  drive  through  the  back  areas  of  two  disinte- 
grating armies,  districts  which  are  disengaging  them- 
selves in  mad  haste  from  the  firmly  established  order 
of  a  four  years'  campaign. 

Our  cars  are  grey ;  they  carry  my  three  trusty 
companions  and  myself  to  the  bitter  end.  In  the 
front  car  are  Miiller  and  Muldner,  myself  following 
them  in  the  other  car  with  the  sick  Zobeltitz. 

There  are  soldiers  everywhere,  saluting  and  shouting. 
No,  I  was  right ;  no  one  will  interfere  with  me. 


282    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

I  return  their  salutes ;  and  I  can't  help  thinking, 
again  and  again  :  "If  you  lads  only  knew  how  I  feel 
just  now." 

Our  route  goes  via  Andenne  to  Tongern.  Belgian 
soil ;  everywhere  the  Belgian  flags  are  flying  in  the 
towns  and  the  population  makes  jubilee. 

Moreover,  the  look  of  our  own  people  changes  as  we 
get  further  and  further  from  the  front.  Crowds  of 
men  who  once  were  soldiers  now  drift  along  without 
discipline.  Shouts  that  are  no  longer  friendly  greet 
our  ears.  There  is  the  incessant  repetition  of  the  silly 
catchwords  of  those  days ;  swaggering  and  bragging, 
each  boaster  tries  to  outdo  the  other  in  his  display  of 
rebelliousness  and  insubordination,  shouting  :  "  Knives 
out !  "  "  Go  for  *im  !  "  "  Blood  up  !  " 

But  we  are  stopped  nowhere. 

At  one  spot  we  pass  a  cattle  transport  driven  by 
Landsturm  men.  One  old  chap,  passing  close  to  the 
car  and  waving  a  red  flag  above  his  oxen,  curses  me 
roundly  ;  the  officers,  he  says,  are  to  blame  for  it  all ; 
they've  kept  heyday — he  is  half  famished  ! — That  is 
really  too  much  for  me,  and  I  give  the  miserable  man 
such  a  dressing  down  that,  trembling  and  white  as  a 
sheet,  he  makes  salute  after  salute.  Wretched  rabble 
that  have  never  faced  the  enemy  and  are  now  playing 
at  revolution  ! 

Just  before  Vroenhoven,  we  see  the  last  German 
troops ;  Landsturm  they  are,  making  off  towards 
home. 

Near  Vroenhoven  we  halt  in  the  Dutch  barbed  wire. 

My  heart  thumps  loudly  as  I  jump  out  of  the  car.  I 
am  thoroughly  conscious  that  the  few  paces  before  me 
are  decisive.  As  though  all  crowded  together  in  one 
moment,  the  pitiless  and  tormenting  scenes  of  the  last 
few  days  pass  through  my  mind  once  more  :  Spa ; 
the  Kaiser ;  the  Field-Marshal ;  Groner's  face  ;  my 


EXILED  TO  HOLLAND  283 

Schulenburg,  adjuring  and  undauntedly  opposing  the 
others ;  my  father's  letter ;  and  the  decision  from 
Berlin  which  gives  me  my  discharge  and  cuts  the 
ground  from  under  my  feet. 

No,  it  must  be  ;  it  must  be  ;  there  is  no  other  way. 

Suddenly  there  came  into  my  mind  the  words  that 
General  von  Falkenhayn  used  to  call  out  to  me  when, 
as  a  boy,  I  had  to  take  some  difficult  obstacle  with 
my  horse  : — "  Fling  your  heart  across  first ;  the  rest 
will  follow." 

Then  I  take  the  few  steps  in  front  of  me. 

Veiled,  blurred  and  uncertain  is  my  impression  of 
what  followed  next.  People  surround  me,  comrades 
(Miiller,  deadly  earnest ;  and  Miildner,  self-possessed, 
soldierly,  practical  and  clear  as  ever)  and  strangers. 

There  is  a  young  perfectly  correct  Dutch  officer, 
who  at  first  is  so  surprised  that  he  cannot  grasp  the 
situation  and  does  not  know  what  to  do  with  us. 
But  he  sees  that  we  cannot  remain  here  ;  consequently 
we  are  taken  past  a  presenting  guard  into  a  small  inn, 
where  amiable  and  silent  attendants  serve  us  with 
hot  coffee. 

Meantime  Maastricht  is  rung  up.  The  young  officer 
returns.  He  is,  himself,  oppressed  by  the  duty 
incumbent  upon  him  :  he  must  request  the  surrender 

of  our  weapons .  Then  follows  a  moment  of 

intense  bitterness,  which  is  rendered  endurable  only 
by  the  tact  of  the  petitioner. 

Baron  von  Hiinefeld  and  Baron  Grote  come  over 
from  Maastricht.  Soon  Colonel  Schroder  of  the 
military  police  arrives  with  his  adjutant.  Our  further 
destiny  lies  in  his  hands.  He  acts  energetically. 
Telephones  ring  and  telegrams  are  despatched. 
Reports,  inquiries,  regulations  to  be  observed.  Thus 
our  destiny  begins  to  shape  itself. 

In  any  case,  we  are  first  to  proceed  to  the  prefecture 


284    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

in  Maastricht  and  to  await  the  Government's  decision 
at  the  residence  of  the  Governor  of  the  Province  of 
Limburg. 

Again  we  drive  off.  Everything  is  warlike  here 
also.  The  streets  of  the  town  are  blocked  with  guards, 
wires  and  chevaux-de-frise.  The  news  of  our  arrival, 
too,  has  spread  with  incredible  celerity ;  and  the 
people  regard  us  with  sinister  looks.  '  The  Boches 
are  here  !  The  Crown  Prince  !  " 

It  is  nearly  one  o'clock  when  we  enter  the  prefecture. 

On  the  square  below  is  a  raging,  yelling  crowd, 
consisting  mostly  of  Belgians. 

Baron  van  Hoevel  tot  Westerflier  receives  us  with  a 
thoroughly  humane  and  magnanimous  comprehension 
of  our  position,  and  endeavours  in  every  way  to 
alleviate  our  melancholy  situation.  He,  too,  declares 
that  our  arrival  has  come  as  a  complete  surprise  to 
the  Dutch  Government,  and  that  further  decisions 
must  be  awaited.  He  then  leaves  us  alone  in  the  cold 
splendour  of  the  large  hall  of  the  prefecture. 

However  tactfully  it  may  be  done,  however  skilfully 
the  veil  may  be  drawn  over  the  reality,  one  feels  oneself 
to  be,  after  all,  a  prisoner,  to  be  no  longer  a  free  man, 
master  of  one's  own  decisions,  to  be  a  person  who  may  be 
compelled  to  stay  or  forced  to  go.  To  all  the  other 
torments  is  now  added  the  feeling  that  one  wears 
invisible  shackles. 

We  sit  doing  nothing  round  the  table  on  highly 
ceremonious  chairs  ;  or  we  range  restless  round  the 
room,  or  stare  dumbly  out  of  the  tall  window. 

What  is  going  to  happen  now  ? 

The  hands  of  the  timepiece  seem  scarcely  to  move  ; 
sometimes  I  think  they  have  stopped  altogether. 

And,  to  make  things  worse,  good  Zobeltitz,  poor 
fellow,  lies  doubled  up  with  pain  on  the  plush-covered 
bench. 


EXILED  TO  HOLLAND  285 

Occasionally  one  of  us  talks — rather  to  himself  than 
to  the  rest.  It  is  always  the  same  thing,  one  of  those 
thoughts  that  go  buzzing  through  our  heads  and 
which  we  cannot  properly  grasp  ;  and  no  one  makes 
any  answer. 

Now  and  then  there  is  a  knock  at  the  door.  Every- 
one is  filled  with  expectation.  But  it  is  nothing ; 
only  the  Governor  sending  to  inquire  after  our  wishes, 
or  the  Commandant  of  Police  informing  us  that  he  is 
still  waiting  for  instructions. 

And  again  we  are  alone,  our  thoughts  busy  with  the 
past  from  which  we  are  physically  separated,  or 
turned  towards  the  future  into  which  we  cannot  see. 
Broodingly  we  ask  ourselves  :  '  What  is  happening 
behind  us  while  we  wait  here  like  caged  animals  ? 
What  in  the  field,  among  the  men  who  have  been 
our  comrades  for  four  and  a  half  years  ?  What  in  the 
homeland  ?  What  at  home  among  our  wives  and 
children?" 

Zobel  has  got  up  with  difficulty  and  is  creeping  about 
the  room.  Now  and  again  his  honest  dark  eyes  catch 
mine.  In  spite  of  all  the  tortures  of  his  stomach, 
which  ought  to  have  been  under  the  surgeon's  knife 
long  ago,  he  looks  at  me  as  though  he  would  fain  do 
something  for  me.  Then  he  stops  in  a  corner  before 
the  white  bust  of  William  of  Orange,  who  gazes  down 
comfortably  and  in  dignity  from  his  pedestal. 
Zobeltitz  nods  to  him  and  says  philosophically : 
"  Aye,  aye,  my  dear  Van  Houten,  you  never  dreamed 
it  would  come  to  this,  did  you  ?  ' 

How  much  bitterness  may  not  be  mitigated  by  such 
a  sudden  sally  of  humour  in  the  midst  of  despair  ! 
The  martyrdom  of  waiting  is  almost  rendered  easier. 

The  Baron  has  dinner  served  for  us.  Notwith- 
standing all  our  protestations,  a  real  dinner.  It  is 
all  so  well  meant ;  but,  in  the  mood  which  now  holds 


286    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

us  in  its  clutches,  we  can  scarcely  swallow  a  mouthful. 

At  last,  by  midnight,  things  are  settled.  We  are, 
for  the  present,  to  find  shelter  in  Hillenraadt  Castle, 
belonging  to  Count  Metternich. 

Again  we  are  in  open  cars,  with  the  police  officer 
beside  us.  The  streets  through  which  we  pass  are 
cordoned  off  by  patrols  of  marees  chaussees,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  wise  and  proper  orders  of  Colonel 
Schroder. 

A  bitterly  cold  fog  lies  over  the  landscape  and  makes 
the  night  still  more  impenetrable.  Only  the  search 
lights  bore  white  funnels  in  the  dark  into  which  we 
hasten.  It  is  as  though,  at  one  moment,  they  threaten 
to  swallow  us  up  and  the  next  have  hurried  phantom- 
like  away. 

Two  hours  pass  thus. 

Then  we  stop  before  the  Count's  castle  near  Roer- 
mond. 

We  remove  our  coats  in  the  great  hall  which  is 
faintly  lighted  by  candles.  Stiff  with  cold  we  are, 
wretched  at  heart  and  rootless  on  foreign  soil. 

Suddenly,  the  lady  of  the  house  descends  the  stairs 
— young,  blonde,  dressed  all  in  black,  a  chain  of  pearls 
round  her  slender  neck.  All  feeling  of  strangerhood 
vanishes  before  those  warm  and  sympathetic  eyes. 

From  that  moment  onwards  throughout  the  unspeak- 
ably difficult  ten  days  which  we  spend  in  Hillenraadt 
Castle,  this  kind  woman  looks  after  us  with  the  most 
delicate  tact,  and  becomes  to  me  a  good  friend  with 
whom  I  can  talk  over  many  a  torturing  question. 
The  Countess  is  a  believing  Catholic  and  suffers  severely 
under  the  misfortune  which  has  come  upon  our  country  ; 
moreover,  she  is  deeply  anxious  about  her  husband, 
who,  during  these  days  of  revolution,  is  in  Berlin. 

Thus  ten  days  pass,  during  which,  while  bad  news 
follows  bad  news  from  the  field  and  from  home,  nego- 


EXILED  TO  HOLLAND  287 

tiations  are  carried  on  with  the  Dutch  Government 
concerning  our  future.  In  the  course  of  these  pro- 
ceedings, it  appears  that  outward  circumstances  compel 
Holland  to  couple  the  question  of  my  internment 
with  my  arrival  and  my  wish  to  sojourn  temporarily 
on  neutral  soil.  Only  under  guarantees  to  the  outside 
world  is  it  possible  for  the  neutral  State  to  afford  me 
hospitality  or  to  endeavour  to  oppose  the  demands 
already  being  made  for  my  "  extradition."  Thus  I 
have  suddenly  found  myself  in  a  position  of  constraint. 
In  view  of  the  conclusion  of  the  armistice  on  November 
n,  the  possibility  of  such  a  situation  arising  never 
occurred  to  anyone  in  considering  the  pros  and  cons 
of  my  journey — neither  to  me,  nor  my  Chief  of  Staff, 
nor  the  gentlemen  about  me,  nor  the  State  Secretary 
of  the  Foreign  Office,  nor  His  Excellency  von  Hintze, 
nor  the  General  Higher  Command.  We  all  cherished 
the  assured  conviction  that  I  could  claim  exactly  the 
same  rights  as  all  the  gentlemen  of  the  Imperial  suite, 
none  of  whom  had  been  interned  or  were  to  be  interned, 
and  whose  movements  were  left  to  their  own  discretion. 
Despite  the  difficulties  and  torments  involved,  these 
discussions  and  negotiations  are  conducted  by  the 
representatives  of  the  Dutch  Government  in  a  spirit 
of  genuine  humaneness.  In  full  accord  with  the 
character  of  the  Dutch  people,  every  one  of  the  men 
with  whom  we  came  into  contact  over  the  matter  proved 
to  be  just,  impartial  and  ready  to  stand  up  for  his 
own  personal  convictions. 

At  length,  we  receive  some  sort  of  indication  as  to 
my  future.  Colonel  Schroder  brings  me  news  that 
the  Dutch  Government  have  appointed  the  Isle  of 
Wieringen  for  my  residence. 

Wieringen  ?     The  Isle  of  Wieringen  ? 

No  one  in  the  house  knows  where  the  island  may 
He! 


288    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

Wieringen  ? 

I  hear  the  name  for  the  first  time  in  my  life  ;  I  can 
form  no  notion  of  it,  attach  no  idea  to  it. 

And  now,  as  I  write  these  reminiscences,  I  have  been 
living  for  nearly  three  years  on  this  small  spot  of 
sea-girt  earth. 

Even  this  last  phase  of  the  journey  into  exile  is 
full  of  little  hindrances,  vexations  and  annoyances. 

Early  in  the  morning  we  bid  farewell  to  our  kind 
Countess,  for  the  train  leaves  Roermond  station  at 
seven  o'clock.  A  Dutch  captain  is  appointed  as  our 
companion. 

Towards  one  o'clock  we  are  in  Amsterdam — many 
inquisitive  people  throng  the  station,  and  there  is  a 
cordon  of  soldiers — and  by  three  o'clock  we  reach 
Enkhuizen,  an  out-of-the-way  place  on  the  shores  of 
the  Zuyder  Zee.  As  we  had  learned  on  the  way, 
a  steam-yacht  of  the  Waterstaats  Department  is  to 
meet  us  here  and  take  us  across  to  the  Isle  of  Wier- 
ingen. 

But,  in  the  fog,  the  yacht  has  run  herself  fast  on  to 
a  sandbank  off  Enkhuizen  and  begs  to  be  excused. 
During  my  consequent  enforced  stay  at  Enkhuizen, 
the  population  gives  utterance  to  its  feelings  in  cries, 
yells,  hoots  and  curses.  By  an  unmistakable  gesture 
towards  the  neck  followed  by  an  upward  movement 
of  the  hand,  the  crowd,  with  a  remarkable  expendi- 
ture of  mimicry,  makes  it  clear  to  me  how  thoroughly 
the  caricature  of  my  person  produced  and  disseminated 
by  Entente  propaganda  has  fixed  itself  in  their  minds. 
In  any  case,  all  this  does  not  exactly  tend  to  enliven 
one's  feelings. 

After  a  long  palaver,  it  is  eventually  decided  to 
go  on  board  a  little  steam-tug  and  to  search  for  our 
yacht . 

So  off  we  go.     The  fog  on  the  Zuyder  Zee  is  so  thick 


EXILED  TO  HOLLAND  289 

that  we  can  scarcely  see  twenty  yards  ahead,  and  an 
icy  wind  is  blowing  from  the  open  sea.  We  stand 
on  the  deck  of  the  little  pitching  and  rolling  steamer 
and  stare  into  the  fog  for  hours  together.  It  is  a 
cheerless  business. 

At  last  we  find  the  yacht.  But  there  is  not  much 
comfort  to  be  gained  from  her.  Her  screw  is  broken. 
First,  we  have  to  tug  her  off.  Then  she  is  lashed  along- 
side the  tug ;  and  we  are  then,  it  would  seem,  in  a 
position  to  steer  for  Wieringen. 

Aye,  if  we  only  knew  where  Wieringen  lay.  In  the 
fog  and  the  deepening  darkness  and  the  heavy  storm 
and  the  turbulent  sea,  our  magnificent  navigators 
spend  hours  in  searching  for  the  island.  But  the 
island  cannot  be  found ;  it  has  vanished,  as  though 
devoured  by  the  sea  and  the  fog.  In  the  end,  some- 
where about  ten  o'clock  at  night,  they  give  up  the 
search  and  decide  to  drop  anchor  till  the  morning. 
But  this  again  proves  to  be  fool's  wisdom,  for  the  sea 
is  so  rough  that  the  two  ships  are  bumped  against  one 
another  all  the  time.  A  number  of  rivets  have  already 
been  loosened,  and,  if  things  go  on  like  this,  there  is 
every  prospect  of  our  being  drowned — man  and  mouse. 
And  so  up  comes  the  anchor  again  ! 

Next  we  try  to  reach  the  harbour  of  Medemblik  on 
the  mainland,  and — bold  seafarers  being  often  blessed 
with  good  luck  rather  than  with  brains — we  at  last 
manage  to  get  there  towards  midnight. 

Wieringen  ?  Just  a  foretaste  which  prevented  our 
expectations  from  running  too  high  ;  that  was  all  that 
this  day  brought  us. 

But  next  day  the  effort  succeeded.  The  sea  having 
quieted  down,  we  go  aboard  in  the  morning  and 
make  the  island  about  noon  in  calm,  clear  winter 
weather. 

Uneffaceable  is  the  impression  of  that  moment  in 


2QO    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

which  I  first  set  foot  upon  the  firm  ground  of  this  little 
corner  of  earth. 

The  harbour  is  again  crowded  with  people.  There 
are  the  quiet  and  distrustful  natives  of  the  place 
staring  at  this  curious  billeting  ;  and  there  are  reporters 
from  all  parts  of  the  world  and  deft-handed  photo- 
graphers. 

It  makes  you  feel  like  some  rare  animal  that  has 
at  last  been  successfully  caught.  I  should  like  to  say 
to  each  of  these  busybodies :  "  Ask  nothing,  and 
get  out  of  the  way  with  your  quizzing  camera.  I  want 
quiet ;  I  want  to  collect  my  thoughts  and  to  arrange 
my  ideas  after  all  this  disaster — and  nothing  more  !  " 

In  a  primeval  vehicle — assuredly  the  best  the  island 
boasts — we  proceed  to  the  village  of  Oosterland.  The 
venerable  jolting-car  smells  of  oil  and  mustiness  and  old 
leather.  Even  still,  if  I  close  my  eyes  and  recall  that 
hour,  I  can  smell  that  ineradicable  odour. 

We  are  set  down  at  the  little  parsonage,  which  is 
very  much  out  of  repair.  Everything  is  bare  and 
desolate. 

A  few  rickety  old  pieces  of  furniture — absolute 
cripples  !  dullness  and  solitude  ensconced  like  phan- 
toms between  them. 

The  decrepit  chariot  outside  turns  groaning  and 
moaning  on  its  axles  and  jogs  off  homewards  through 
the  fog. 

Home  !    The  thought  of  it  almost  chokes  me. 

Days  and  weeks  ensue  that  are  so  cheerless  and 
leaden  as  to  be  almost  unbearable. 

Like  a  prisoner,  like  an  outlaw,  I  move  among  this 
small  group  of  people,  who  turn  away  then:  lowering, 
shy  visages  as  they  pass  or,  at  most,  look  askance  at 
me  with  inquisitive  half-closed  eyes.  I  am  the  blood- 
thirsty baby-killer ;  people  are  embittered  against 
the  Government  for  having  imposed  such  a  burden 


EXILED  TO  HOLLAND  291 

upon  this  honest  island  and  for  letting  me  roam  about 
it  untrammelled. 

The  burgomaster,  Peereboom,  has  his  work  cut  out 
for  him ;  it  is  a  difficult  task  to  calm  these  agitated 
souls. 

And  absolutely  heartrending  news  dribbles  in  from 
home  concerning  the  course  of  events  !  We  have  no 
German  newspapers.  Only  from  Dutch  journals — 
which  are  out-of-date  by  the  time  they  reach  us — can 
we  spell  out  the  tenor  of  the  London,  Paris  and  Am- 
sterdam telegrams ;  and  their  tenor  is  "  blood  and 
tumult,"  the  palace  shelled  and  pillaged,  domination 
by  the  sailors,  Spartacist  battles,  a  threat  of  invasion 
by  the  Entente. 

One  would  like  to  cry  out  for  a  little  hope,  for  a 
little  light  to  be  granted  to  the  land  to  which  every  fibre 
of  one's  heart  is  attached  and  for  whose  peace  and 
security  one  would  willingly  make  every  sacrifice  ! 

Sacrifice  ?  Yes,  they  ask  one  from  me,  of  which  I 
will  speak  here. 

On  December  i,  von  Pannwitz,  Secretary  to  the 
German  Legation  at  The  Hague,  arrives  with  a  fresh 
demand  sent  by  the  new  German  Government.  The 
secretary  is  an  old  member  of  my  corps  in  my  student 
days  at  Bonn.  God  knows,  the  task  can  scarcely 
have  been  an  easy  one  for  him,  and  he  doubtless  under- 
took it  only  because  what  he  had  to  tell  me  was  less 
painful  to  listen  to  from  the  lips  of  a  friend  than  from 
those  of  a  stranger. 

He  is  to  obtain  from  me  a  formal  renunciation  of  my 
personal  claims. 

A  renunciation  !  Why  ?  What  for  ?  The  gentle- 
men in  Berlin  who  hold  the  power  in  their  hands  and 
who,  according  to  their  own  assertions,  represent  the 
will  of  the  majority  of  the  German  people,  have  not 
hitherto  been  so  pedantic  and  punctilious  in  their 

T* 


292    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

dealings  with  the  rights  of  the  Hohenzollerns.  Did 
they  not,  on  November  9,  announce  the  abdication  of 
His  Majesty  and  my  own  renunciation,  without  waiting 
for  the  Kaiser's  decision  or  even  advising  me  ?  And 
did  not  the  same  lips  which,  a  few  weeks  before,  had 
sworn  fealty  to  His  Majesty,  proclaim  the  German 
republic  without  a  scruple  ?  What  can  my  renuncia- 
tion signify  to  those  gentlemen  ?  It  has  not  been 
their  custom  heretofore  to  trouble  about  such  small 
matters  ! 

But  other  considerations  press  for  attention.  What 
is  the  true  foundation  of  the  rights  exercised  by  a  ruler 
who  regards  himself  as  the  chief  servant  of  the  State, 
or  by  the  prospective  heir  to  a  throne  who,  according 
to  traditional  law,  is  some  day  to  take  over  that 
service  ?  Is  it  merely  his  ancestry  and  his  inherited 
and  guaranteed  claims  ?  Or  is  it  not  rather  only 
by  gaining  the  confidence  of  the  nation,  which  entrusts 
itself  voluntarily  to  the  leadership  of  one  who  is  carry- 
ing on  the  tradition,  that  he  earns  afresh  the  real 
substance  of  those  actual  rights  ?  Is  not  the  one 
without  the  other  void  and  empty  ?  And  can  I, 
without  further  consideration,  believe  that  I  have 
the  confidence  and  attachment  of  the  majority  of 
Germans,  after  our  collapse,  in  this  hour  of  deepest 
distress  and  humiliation,  when  so  many  hundreds  of 
thousands  see  before  them  a  portrait  of  me  which 
is  nothing  but  a  disfigurement,  a  vilification,  a  distor- 
tion of  my  true  self  ?  No,  that  is  impossible  ! 

Shall  I  present  to  my  German  fatherland  the 
spectacle  of  one  who  persists  in  demanding  his  rights 
when  they  deny  him  the  best  element  in  those  rights— 
their  love  and  confidence  ?  Shall  I,  by  a  rigid  insistence 
"  upon  my  bond,"  provide  a  war-cry  for  all  those  who 
stand  for  monarchy  in  the  State,  and  that  at  a  time 
when,  according  to  my  deepest  convictions,  the 


POTSDAM,  1914.     THE  NEW  PALACE,  "  SANSSOUCI.'' 


WIERINGEN,  1922.     "  THE  PARSONAGE." 


EXILED  TO  HOLLAND  293 

fatherland — whether  as  republic  or  as  monarchy — 
demands  from  all  of  us  internal  solidarity  against  the 
rapacious  desires  of  the  "  victors  "  around  us  and 
work,  work,  work  ?  Once  more,  No  ! 

And  if,  under  the  stress  of  circumstances  and  for 
the  benefit  of  the  whole,  the  individual  renounces  a 
prescriptive  right,  does  he  thereby  relinquish  any 
particle  of  that  sublimer  free  right  of  obeying  a  possible 
summons  issued  to  him  by  the  will  of  the  majority  ? 
My  renunciation,  proceeding  from  my  love  of  the 
fatherland,  cannot  be  regarded  as  blameworthy ;  it 
is  evidence  of  one  thing  only,  that  in  the  fateful  hours, 
with  the  enemy  at  our  gates  and  divided  counsels 
at  home,  when  the  great  need  of  the  moment  was  to 
save  the  country  from  further  dissensions,  I  obeyed 
the  demands  which  were  calculated  to  serve  her 
interests. 

And  so,  I  yielded  to  the  somewhat  belated  wishes 
of  the  new  Government ;  but  I  repeat  that  it  was 
not  for  their  sakes  and  not  because  I  recognized  any 
of  the  traditional  rights  of  my  position  as  in  any  way 
affected  by  the  violent  doings  of  the  revolution  ;  no, 
it  was  because,  so  far  as  in  me  lies,  I  desire,  as  much  as 
any  one  of  my  compatriots,  honestly  to  help  in  pre- 
venting conflagration  and  in  healing  and  strengthening 
by  devotion  and  self-abnegation  our  so  severely-tried 
fatherland,  till  the  hour  shall  come  in  which  I,  too,  may 
take  active  part  with  my  fellows  in  productive  labour 
in  my  home  country. 

September,  1921. 

I  have  perused  again  the  pages  describing  my  jour- 
ney to  Holland  and  the  almost  unbearable  first  weeks 
of  my  sojourn  on  the  island  here.  Vividly  present  is 
the  recollection  of  that  painful  past.  And  yet  it  is 
so  distant — almost  three  years  !  Those  who  then 


294    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

regarded  me  with  deep-rooted  distrust,  with  reserve 
and  even  with  repulsion,  have  long  since  become 
friends  who  admit  me  to  their  joys  and  sorrows,  small 
as  well  as  great — friends  whose  simple  and  straight- 
forward fairness  lightens  my  solitude  by  many  a  token 
of  genuine  good-will. 

It  is  true,  too,  that  the  tranquillity  and  seclusion 
of  the  island  have  doubtless  tended  to  deepen  and 
enrich  my  powers  of  discernment ;  and  yet,  all  this 
and  all  that  the  Dutch  people  have  given  me  in  their 
hospitality  could  not  make  me  forget  my  German 
homeland.  My  old  love  for  her  and  my  longing  for 
the  people  who  are  my  kindred  are  as  strong  in  me 
as  ever. 

The  hour  of  fulfilment  has,  alas,  not  yet  struck,  and 
I  cannot  yet  actively  co-operate  in  the  work  of  restora- 
tion ;  all  I  can  do  is  to  await  that  hour  in  self-control 
and  patience,  enduring  meanwhile  the  hardships  of 
exile  and  solitude  without  complaint. 

I  have  sketched  in  these  pages  the  most  important 
matters  of  my  life  up  till  now,  and  I  have  not  wittingly 
suppressed  any  essentials. 

I  have  finished. 

But  I  would  not  say  good-bye  to  those  Germans 
who  have  followed  my  course  in  this  narrative  without 
expressing  to  them  the  wishes  that  fill  my  heart  for 
them,  for  us  all,  for  our  sacred  fatherland  which  gave 
us  birth  and  which,  whether  it  flourish  or  whether  it 
fade,  is  the  source  from  which  our  life's  blood  issues. 

What  in  our  great  depression  and  misery  we  need 
most  of  all,  in  order  to  regain  our  old  position,  is 
internal  solidarity  founded  upon  self-sacrificing  love 
of  the  fatherland,  coupled  with  national  consciousness 
and  national  dignity. 

Away   with   the   acrimonious   cries   that   tend   to 


EXILED  TO  HOLLAND  295 

perpetuate  internal  strife  and  prevent  the  return  of 
peace  !  It  cannot  be  our  aim  continually  to  reproach 
one  another  with  having  broken  the  dish.  In  some 
way  we  were  all  of  us  sinners ;  and  what  we  need  is 
a  new  vessel  instead  of  the  shards  of  the  old  one. 

Let  every  one  who  may  be  called  to  share  in  deter- 
mining the  destiny  of  the  German  people  to-day  feel 
the  full  weight  of  the  responsibilities  entrusted  to 
him  !  May  that  much-abused  and  often  misconstrued 
saying  "  Room  for  the  competent !  "  at  length  be 
turned  to  deeds  !  Let  us  have  only  the  best  men  at 
the  helm  !  Let  the  most  tested  experts,  the  most 
capable,  the  stoutest  come  to  the  front !  It  is  not  a 
question  of  whether  they  come  from  the  right  or  from 
the  left,  whether  they  have  or  have  not  a  past,  whether 
they  are  republicans  or  monarchists,  employers  or 
workmen,  Christians  or  Jews  ;  all  that  should  be  asked 
is  whether  they  are  honest  men  inspired  with  German 
feelings  and  prepared  to  work  for  the  reconstruction 
of  their  country  with  all  their  might  and  all  their 
combined  vigour — united  at  home  and  strong  towards 
the  world  without. 

Fettered  by  the  chains  which  the  impossible  and 
criminal  Treaty  of  Versailles  has  forced  upon  our 
powerlessness,  Germany  has  lain  prostrate  and  helpless 
for  three  years.  She  is  helpless  because  she  squanders 
her  strength  in  internal  feuds,  because  a  large  pro- 
portion of  her  people  continue  to  listen  to  the  "  Pied 
Piper  "  melodies  of  those  rogues  or  madmen  who  sing 
them  the  alluring  lay  of  universal  brotherhood  in  the 
paradise  of  internationalism.  How  long  is  it  to  last, 
how  long  ?  Open  your  eyes  and  look  around  you  ; 
and  you  will  see  that  this  world  by  which  you  are 
encompassed  is  one  homogeneous  proof  that  nowhere 
is  a  hand  held  out  to  help  you,  and  that  only  he  who 
helps  himself  finds  recognition.  Above  all,  be  Germans, 


296    THE  CROWN  PRINCE  OF  GERMANY 

and  take  your  stand  firmly  on  the  ground  of  practical 
politics  in  this  world  that  is  so  eminently  practical, 
reserving  your  romanticism  for  better  days  in  which 
it  will  be  less  fatal  to  the  whole  fabric. 

Believe  me,  a  German  people  which  buries  its  party 
quarrels,  which  emancipates  itself  from  the  miserable 
materialism  of  these  recent  years  and  which,  united 
in  its  love  for  our  impoverished  and  yet  so  gloriously 
beautiful  fatherland,  struggles  for  freedom  with  an 
indomitable  will — such  a  German  people  can  shake 
off  its  shackles  and  burst  its  manacles. 

But  you  must  display  sternness,  and  you  must 
wrestle  with  that  fervour  which  knows  only  the  one 
ardent  longing  and  cries :  "I  will  not  let  thee  go, 
except  thou  bless  me." 

I  do  not  summon  to  revenge  or  to  arms  or  to 
violence.  I  call  upon  the  spirit  of  Germany  ;  let  that 
be  strengthened ;  for  the  spirit  makes  the  deed  and  the 
destiny— and  senseless  is  the  tool  without  it.  Possibly 
this  saying  is  the  key  to  that  destiny  through  which 
we  have  been  passing  for  a  generation,  and  also  to 
that  which  lies  ahead  and  into  which  we  may  enter 
as  victors  over  all  our  opponents  if  we  do  but  bind 
together  all  the  best  of  our  energies  into  a  potent 
whole. 


INDEX 


Abdul  Hamid  47-50 
Alexandra,  Empress,  62 
Alexis,  Tsarevitch,  65 
Alsace-Lorraine,  96,  112-14,  J&4 
American  anti-German  war  pro- 
paganda, 127 
American  Army,  206 
Anker,  Capt.,  268 
Anschiitz,  47 
Armistice,  215 
Austrian  ultimatum,  119 

Baacke,  Herr,  277 

Ballin,  Herr,  135 

Bassenheim,  Count,  31 

Beck,  Major,  93 

Behr,  52 

Benedik,  165 

Bentinck,  Count,  128 

Berg,  von,  18,  127,  207,  218 

Berge,  Col.  von,  239 

Bethmann  Hollweg,  71,    84,    95- 

101,  112,  120-4,  I35~6,  138-41, 

150.  185 
Betzold,  47 

Bismarck,  Prince,  1 6,  33-5,  75, 106 
Bock,  Major  von,  226,  251 
Boehn,  General  von,  215,  268,  276 
Boer  War,  76 
Boris,  Crown  Prince,  184 
Brandis,  Capt.  von,  175 
Brunswick,  Duchess  of,  182,  232 
Buchholz,  Gustav,  120 
Bulgaria,  204 
Billow,  General  von,  165 
Billow,  Prince,  28,  75,  76,  78-80, 

85-6,  95 

Carol,  King,  100 
Chamberlain,  Joseph,  76 
Clemen,  47 


Clemenceau,  151 
Court  festivities,  53-6 
Czernin,  Count,  184-5 

David,  Hermann,  186-7 
Deimling,  General  von,  113 
Deutschland  in  Waff  en,  112 
Dohna,  Count,  in,  259 
Dommes,  Col.  von,  170 
Douaumont,  Fort,  175 

Eberhardt,  von,  268,  276,  279 
Ebert,  246,  258 
Edward,  King,  67-8,  74,  80-4 
Einem,  von,  268-70,  276,  279 
Eitel  Friedrich,  16,  35,  153 
Eitel  Fritz,  47,  171 
Enver  Pasha,  184 
Erzberger,  140 
Eulenburg,  Prince,  22 

Falkenhayn,  General  von,  33,  173, 

177 

Fashoda,  77 
Federal  princes,  183 
Finckenstein,  Count,  40 
Fisher,  Lord,  70,  132-3 
Foch,  218-22 

Forstner,  Lieutenant  von,  114 
Francis  Ferdinand,  Archduke,  84, 

106-7,  JI9 

Frederick  Charles,  Prince,  115 
Fredericks,  Baron,  63 
Fritz,  Prince,  16,  205 
Frobenius,  D.  H.,  120 

Gallwitz,  217 

George,  David  Lloyd,  98,  151 
German  censorship,  187-90 
German  Revolution,  208-13,  234- 
50 


297 


298 


INDEX 


Giesl,  107 

Gontard,  General  von,  233,  261 

Goschen,  Sir  Edward,  101,  123 

Gothein,  47 

Grey,  Earl,  101,  105-6 

Groner,  General,  87,  224,  233-44, 

248-50,  257,  259,  268,  276 
Grote,  Baron,  283 
Griinau,  Herr  von,  233,  240,  249- 

50,  260-1 
Guendell,  General  von,  217 

Haldane,  Lord,  101-2 
Hardinge,  Lord,  103 
Hedin,  Sven,  184 
Heine,  Heinrich,  89 
Henry,  Prince,  121-2,  173 
Hentsch,  Col.,  167-9 
Hertling,  Count  von,  208,  210 
Hewett,  Sir  John,  103 
Heydebrand,  Herr  von,  187 
Heye,  Col.,  242,  250-7 
Hindenburg,    Field-Marshal    von, 
154-8,   177,   207,  233-43,   249, 

254-78 
Hintze,    von,    212,    233,    239-40, 

243-50,  259-61,  276-7,  287 
Hirschfeld,  Major  von,  240,  261 
Hopfgarten,  Count,  61 
Huenefeld,  Baron,  31 
Hiilsen,  von,  60 
Hiinefeld,  Baron  von,  283 
Hutier,  von,  268,  276 

Ilsemann,  93,  261 
India,  103 

Jagow,  99,  101 
Jellicoe,  Lord,  72 
Jena,  General  von,  271 
Jena,  Herr,  173 
Joachim,  Prince,  153 
Joffre,  General,  176 
Jonghe,  Count  de,  225 
Jutland,  Battle  of,  69 

Kan,  Mr.,  127 
Kapp  Putsch,  129,  131-2 
Karl,  Kaiser,  184 
Keppel,  Sir  Roos,  103 
Kiderlen-Wachter,  98-100 
Klewitz,  Col.  von,  270-1,  279 
Knobelsdorf,  General  von,  116, 176 
Koenigsmarck,  Graf,  21 


Kolff,  Mr.,  163-4 

Konig,  Capt.,  127 

Kruger  telegram,  76 

Kuhl,  General  von,  167,  215 

Kummer,  57 

Kurt,  Major,  128 

Labour  Party,  194 

Leo  XIII.  47 

Lichnowsky,  Prince,  102 

Litzmann,  47 

Lloyd  George.     See  George 

Louis  of  Battenberg,  Prince,  45 

Ludendorff,  General,  133-4,  I5I» 

154-62,   185-6,  207,  2ii,  223, 

263 

Luijt,  57 
Lyncker,  General  von,  35,  109-10 

Malimoff,  204 

Maltzahn,  153 

Mangin,  General,  176 

Maria,  Dowager  Empress,  62,  64 

Marne,  Battle,  169-72 

Marschall,  General  von,  233,  240, 

244,  248-9,  253,  258-9,  261 
Max  of  Baden,  Prince,  210,  213, 

221,  224,  239,  243,  246-8,  274 
Menzel,  Adolf,  53-5 
Michaelis,  Herr,  139-40 
Mitzlaff,  von,  40-1 
Moltke,  General  von,  118,  165-6, 

169,  171-2 
Morocco  affair,  98 
Miildner,  94,  127-8,  173,  182,  190, 

268,  276-8,  281,  283 
Miiller,  71,  128,  224,  268,  276,  278, 

283 

Naumann,  Dr.  Victor,  141 
Navy,  British  and  German,  68-73, 

101 
Nicholai,  Grand  Duke,  62,  65, 107, 

136 

Nicholas,  Tsar,  61-5,  107,  136 
Niemann,  Major,  233,  260 

Oldenburg,  von,  86 
Oscar,  Prince,  153 

Pannwitz,  von,  291 
Panther,  98 
Peace  Note,  217 
Peace  Treaty,  90 


INDEX 


299 


Peereboom,  Burgomaster,  31,  109, 

163,  291 

Planitz,  Captain  von  der,  61 
Plessen,  General  von,  19,  233,  240, 

244-5,  248,  253,  260-1 
Plettenberg,  Col.  von,  39 
Pliiskow,  Major  von,  39 
Pohl,  Admiral,  71 
Poland,  139 
Prell,  Herr,  127 
Prittwitz,  Herr  von,  277 

Rantzau,  Count,  39 
Reuter,  Colonel  von,  113 
Rodern,  Count,  210 
Rostock,  Mr.,  127 
Rupprecht,  Prince,  221 

Salisbury,  Lord,  75 
Scheer,  Admiral,  259 
Scheuch,  General,  217,  273,  277 
Schiller  quoted,  114 
Schlieffen,  134,  166,  169 
Schmettow,  von,  269 
Schonhausen,  Count,  212 
Schroder,  Col.,  283,  286-7 
Schulenburg,  General  Count  von 

der,   153,   195,  233-53,   257-9, 

267-8, 275-81 
Schumacher,  47 
Serbia,  Ultimatum  to,  107 
Spender,  Harold,  85 
Stein,  von,  217 
Steuben,  Capt.  von,  271 
Steurmer,  136-9 
Stuart,  Sir  Harold,  103 
Stiilpnagel,  Major  von,  52,  251 
Suffrage  question,  152 

Talleyrand,  25 
Tappen,  Col.,  166,  169 
Third  Party  System,  17-18 
Tirpitz,  Admiral  von,  68-73,  79, 

96,  1 01 
Tisza,  Count,  184 

U-boat  warfare,  142,  144 

Valentini,  139,  153 
Verdun,  Battle  of,  173-9 


Victoria,  Queen,  37,  44-5 
Von  der  Tann,  104-5 

Wahnschaffe,  von,  245 

Wartenburg,  Count  York  von,  162 

Wedel,  von,  40,  54 

Wergin,  51 

Westerflier,  Baron  van,  284 

Widemann,  50 

William,  Crown  Prince,  passim. 
At  coronation  of  George  V, 
105  ;  childhood,  14-37  '•  exiled 
to  Holland,  267-96 ;  extract 
from  Diary  on  Germany's  mili- 
tary collapse,  220  ;  "  Laughing 
Murderer  of  Verdun,"  178—9  ; 
learns  a  trade,  36  ;  letters  on 
leaving  army,  273-5,  280-1  ; 
lover  of  sport,  20, 42  ;  marriage, 
58  ;  matriculates  at  Bonn,  45- 
7  ;  Memorial  after  Battle  of 
Aisne,  141-6  ;  opinion  of  British 
administration,  103,  117  ;  rela- 
tions with  Kaiser,  15-29,  etc.  ; 
relations  with  Kaiserin,  14-15, 
44,  56,  87,  93,  109,  172,  183, 
229-32  ;  representative  of 
Kaiser,  87-8  ;  tour  in  the  East, 
102  ;  Wieringen,  130,  287 

William, German  Emperor ,passim. 
Abdication,  221,  238,  243-66  ; 
at  Spa,  233  ;  character,  91  ; 
letter  to  Crown  Prince  on  abdi- 
cation, 258  ;  services  to  Ger- 
many, 192-4  ;  the  Daily  Tele- 
graph interview,  85-8,  98 ; 
various  references  on  pages  107, 
109,  114,  125,  128,  206,  209, 
230,  233,  etc. 

Wilson,  President,  217-22 

Witte,  Count,  63 

Wolff's  Bureau,  246 

Wortley,  General  Stuart-,  85 

Wrangel,  Baron,  43 

Zabern  incident,  112 

Zitelmann,  47 

Zobeltitz,    190-1,   226,   268,  281, 

284,  285 
Zorn,  47 


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