And now, dear reader, to return to William II. You will grant, I
think, that since we have followed the interminable zig-zags of his
wanderings throughout Europe, we are entitled to coin and utter a new
proverb: "A rolling monarch gathers no prestige."
November 1, 1890. [14]
For mastodons like Bismarck, William II prepares a refrigerating
atmosphere which freezes them alive. Splendid mummies like Von Moltke
he smothers with flowers. The men whom William dismisses and discards
are great men in the eyes of Germany, even though in history they may
not be so, because the ex-Chancellor is of inferior character, and
because certain successes of Von Moltke were due rather to luck than
design. Nevertheless, they are in William's way and he gets rid of
them, by different means. He needs about him men of a different stamp
to those of the iron age; for the present, he is satisfied with
courtiers, later he will demand valets. All those who are of any
worth, all those who stand erect before his shadow, will be sacrificed
sooner or later. His autocratic methods will end by producing the same
results as those of the most jealous of democracies.
Let us bear in mind how often, under Bismarck and William I, the German
Press made mock of our fatal French mania for change, pointing out to
Europe how the everlasting see-saw of Ministers of War was bound to
reduce our national defences to a position of inferiority. In two
years William is at his fourth!
Soon, no doubt, William II will be able to score a personal success in
the matter of his intrigues against Count Taaffe.
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