CHAPTER VIIKAISER WILHELM IN VIENNA
Vienna,startled for an instant by the events connected with the meeting of the Austro-Hungarian Delegations, soon sank back again into complete apathy as regards foreign politics. The Sanjak railway was forgotten and everyone was thinking of how the short time between Easter and the “Derby,” the final event of the Vienna summer season, was to be spent, when news came that Kaiser Wilhelm was about to visit Vienna. He proposed to come to celebrate the aged Emperor’s jubilee and to bring his whole family with him. The Viennese considered this most tactless. Emperor Francis Joseph had lost his only son in a drunken brawl, and now his professed friend wished to remind him of the fact by bringing a family of handsome young men to accentuate the contrast between the lonely old man and the Kaiser inthe prime of life, surrounded by his six sons. The Kaiser secretly planned another “honour” for the Emperor. All the Federal Princes were to arrive in Vienna before the Kaiser and to await him on the platform. The Kaiser arranged for them and their retinue to reach Vienna separately and almost in secrecy. No receptions were to be given them on arrival. He only broke the news to the Emperor privately when all the arrangements were complete and some of the Princes already on their way to Vienna. The Emperor thereupon lost his temper, which had already been sorely tried by the proposal to bring so many Imperial Princes. He sent a message to say that his health would not allow of him receiving anyone excepting the Kaiser. The Kaiser had to abandon his plan, which was to have the Emperor of Austria and the German Federal Princes grouped together on the little platform at Penzing, awaiting his arrival “like the rising sun,” as the Vienna papers put it, and allow the Emperor to do homage to him among his vassals, thus recognising him as overlord of all the German-speaking peoples.
The Press said what it thought of the Kaiser’s overweening ambition, and he was very surprised. The Austrians were not so stupid ashe had thought. They had grasped his plan to make himself the man of the hour instead of leaving the first place to the monarch whose jubilee was being celebrated.
Wilhelm’s fertile, restless brain had hardly abandoned one project before it conceived another. He left his bevy of handsome sons at home, but took his only daughter with him to Vienna. The heir to the Austrian throne, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, had made a morganatic marriage; his children could not succeed. Archduke Carl Francis Joseph, the son of Archduke Otto, who had lately died a horrible death, would be the next heir. Why should Princess Louise not become Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary? There was the little difficulty about religion, but that could be managed. Louise and her mother, the Empress, were informed that they would be allowed to accompany the Kaiser. It is likely that the ladies had but small notice, for Princess Louise wore skirts that were perfectly appropriate to the palace at Potsdam, where she ranked as the greatest tomboy of the family, but they were decidedly too short and too tight for the Austrian Court, where ample petticoats arede rigueur. A tall, thin girl, looking absolutely irrepressive, stalked up the platformby her mother’s side. Distracted ladies-in-waiting had attempted to teach her the Austrian Court curtsey—a most complicated manœuvre that takes years to learn. They also tried to instil some ideas of the strictness of the Austrian Court etiquette into her mind. She was the terror of the palace at home; the ladies-in-waiting stood in great awe of the spoilt child. They trembled when their turn to attend upon Her Royal Highness came round. They feared what would happen when she got to Vienna. The change from the free and easy manners of the Berlin Court to the unchangeable rules and regulations of Vienna was enough to upset a more placid girl. All the bowing and smiling upset Princess Louise, whose education had been very “Protestant.” She put out her tongue at one of the stately Archduchesses—behind her back, it is true, but the incident did not go unnoticed. She dropped a bouquet that had been presented to her because the weight annoyed her. The Empress of Germany looked dismayed at the dismal failure. She had some idea of the Kaiser’s plans, and was aware five minutes after the special train had pulled up on the platform that the project had fallen through. Wilhelm, who is not by any means sensitive, had not marked the by-play. The look on thehorrified face of the Empress should have warned him from committing a further error; but he was always quite oblivious to atmospheres. He turned round and, with a rough shoulder movement that was visible to everyone on the platform, he actually “shoved”—no other word can describe the movement—the Princess towards the young Archduke. The Princess, well used to her father’s abrupt manners, smiled at the young Archduke, who rose to the occasion in a manner worthy of the traditions of his family, which is celebrated for its fine manners. But Kaiser Wilhelm’s matrimonial plans had failed before they were really made. All the women were against it. The Habsburgs objected to the presence of a Protestant in their midst even though she might forsake her religion. They knew that anything so foreign to themselves could never preside at the Court of Vienna. Their opinion was shared by their guest, who hated the gloomy Hofburg, and cared but little for Schönbrunn, where the strict etiquette rendered the mother of the future heir to the throne a mere puppet in the hands of attendants, who would not even allow her to educate or control the destinies of her children. Princess Louise put a final seal upon any possibility of negotiations being renewed by hervery decided conduct during the subsequent proceedings. Vienna was full of stories of the strong-mindedness of the Kaiser’s only daughter. It had had experience of strong-minded Princesses in the past. It wished for nothing more of the same kind. Kaiser Wilhelm had lost.
Baulked in his matrimonial schemes, he now turned to the political situation. Emperor Francis Joseph was irritable. The visit, although on a much smaller scale than had been originally planned, cost him much money, and, though he had been extremely generous in his youth, the Emperor had become strangely parsimonious in his old age. He grudged the great expense that was invariably entailed by the Kaiser’s State visits. The programme usually included some expensive outing. Sometimes five miles of road had to be improved up to the royal automobile standard. At another time Wilhelm would take a fancy to go shooting after his stay in Vienna, and could not be induced to accept the simple life that was the joy of the Emperor of Austria when among the peasants. The hunting-box, the whole forest, had to be brought up to the standard of an American millionaire. The Habsburgs, whose claim to rank was too ancientand too secure to need any artificial pomp to keep it up, rode through the deep forests on small, hardy ponies. The Emperor of Germany required a road, and insisted upon its being cut right through the forest. He was never secure of his position. Beyond all these minor inconveniences he expected to be treated with the utmost ceremony, and considered that it was incumbent upon the frail old monarch in Schönbrunn to fetch him at the railway station, to take him to his rooms along the chilly corridors of Schönbrunn Palace, and to expose himself, in season and out of season, in order to magnify the importance of his guest. It was further reported in Vienna that Kaiser Wilhelm, ever penurious, had come to borrow money from the aged Emperor—one of the richest sovereigns in Europe, if, indeed, not the richest of all. All these things did not endear Emperor Wilhelm to the Viennese. They showed their feelings by refusing to get out the best bunting and by cheering their Emperor frantically when alone, and pointedly refraining from any exhibition of enthusiasm when the visitors passed. The people, too, perhaps, had a true perception of what Kaiser Wilhelm sought, and recognised that he was really patronising the old Emperor, suggestingthat it was time he took a back seat in a dozen insidious ways. Kaiser Wilhelm hoped Archduke Francis Ferdinand would be easy to manage, but was not convinced of this. Emperor Francis Joseph watched the growing intimacy between his heir and the Kaiser with great misgivings. He knew that toils were being wound round the Archduke, who believed that he could accept obligations and not be called upon to pay for them. The aged diplomatist at his side knew better. The experience of three-quarters of a century had taught him the true inwardness of things. It was vain, however, to utter warnings. He was not even discreet. When in a fit of rage—such as attacks all the Habsburgs who are epileptic—nothing was sacred. A man who was not able to control himself could not be trusted with secrets that might imperil Austria’s relations with Germany. Thus things drifted. Germany obtained increasing power in Austrian councils; the only man who could lay a restraining hand upon his heir was old and weary and unwilling for anything that spelt change or unrest.