William II wears blinkers; he can sometimes see in front of him, but
never around him nor behind. He believed that the Tzar and the Russian
Press were going to be affected by the same sort of enthusiasm which he
had inspired in the Tzarewitch, but the Tzar, Russia, and the Russian
Press considered matters dispassionately and saw them in their right
light; they were even of opinion that William II had displayed far too
much vanity in his reception of the Tzarewitch and too little dignity.
Consequently, after the departure of the Tzarewitch, the Emperor-King
of Prussia, had a fit of rage, furious with disappointment at not
having been able to follow up the success which he had obtained with
the Tzarewitch himself. In one of those fits of ungovernable temper
which lead him to commit so many irreparable mistakes, and which are
the despair of his Government and his Court, he caused Von Caprivi's
Press to publish the news of an attempt upon the life of the Tzar. But
the methods of reptile journalism are now thoroughly understood and the
Emperor Alexander, guessing the source of this lie, demanded an
immediate apology, which Admiral Prince Henry hastened to convey, in
the name of his brother, to the Russian Embassy. At the same time that
he invented this story of the attempt on the life of the Tzar, the King
of Prussia, German Emperor, proposed a toast in honour of the Duke of
Edinburgh, Commander-in-Chief of the British Fleet, in which he looked
forward to "the glorious day when the British fleet should fight the
common enemy.
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