Court Intrigues in Germany.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 275, 19 March 1889, Page 4

Court Intrigues in Germany.

PBINOE BISMARCK AND THE EMPEBOB FREDERICK. A REMARKABLE MAGAZINE ARTICLE. In connection with the article referring to the above, which we published on Saturday, the following information by way of Albany has an additional interest:— London, Feb. 1. London was startled on the morning of the 30th of last month by the advanced publication in the Standard of a remarkable article from the February number of the Contemporary lieview. Authorship is variously attributed to the inspiration of the Empress Victoria, Sir Morell Mackenzie, and Sir .Robert Morier. The Standard, in summarising and commenting on the article, points out that unless the disclosures it makes are dismissed as the product of a malignant invention, it must either have been written under the inspiration of august personages or owe its most piquant details to a betrayal of the confidence they reposed in their friends. The Standard proceeds:—“Whatever the origin of the manifesto may be, there can be no second opinion about its object. It is a vigorous and uncompromising attack on Prince Bismarck, his system and his plans. It represents the Chancellor now in a hateful, now in a contemptible light. It supplements by fresh revelations incidents belonging to the family life of the German Court, and shows the ample store of material for reproach which Prince Bismarck's public action baa placed at the disposal of his enemies. There is no affectation or delicacy about the anonymous critic of the house of Bismarck. He lays down at the outset, with artistic frankness, the character of the provocation which spurred him to the encounter. The root and origin of all that is baneful in the conduct of the Chancellor is his contempt for women. *We shall have no more petticoats meddling in politics now,* was, according to rumor, the exclamation that buret from the exultant lipa of Count Herbert Bismarck on the death bed of the Emperor. Thia supplies the Contemporary article with its keynote. Bide by side with it is artfully developed the kindred dogma of the arrogant egotism of Prince Bismarck and his determination by every means to establish the unquestioned predominance of his authority in the State and to arrange its transmission to his son. It would be absurd to expect any tenderness in treatment so irritating. Then as far as the style goes, the critique satisfies the Chancellor's own canons. He is reminded that he is ageing, and ageing fast, and a self-sufficient statesman when he reaches his 74 year must recognise his need of a partner. Prince Bismarck, we are told, found one, after some searching of his heart, in his son. Count Herbert’s character is not staid. The world is told of his youthful brawls and his later intrigues, and though his courage in the field is mentioned, it does not call forth a syllable of cordial praise. Of all subjects the old Kaiser William and the Crown Prince and Crown Princess, the unsparing record runs, probably regarded the coarse brutality of Count Herbert with the most aversion. It is easy to imagine the temptation suggested by the cancer which was eating into the throat of the invalid at Ban Memo. It is quite true that here, by exertion of self-restraint, the reviewer refrains from positively endorsing the very worst reputation that malice could devise. He asserts, on his own authority, that when the Imperial Chancellor brought Frederick 111 from San Bemo to Berlin, he calculated that the wintry rigor of the i journey might accelerate the progress of the disease. He is content to mention that. Opponents maddened by hatred, accuse the Prince, on some such basis of fact, of meditating the I death of the Emperor in order to gain his ends ; but the writer states positively, first, that the journey was due . to the express insistence of Prince < Bismarck, and that after it had been 1 performed without any grave harm to the patient, Prince Bismarck deo* , there had never been any »*- it. The theory involve . -eeseUy for sation is put asid' -** ,n this accuit affords th* “ monstrous, but illustra*-’ •» writer an opportunity of xjo -ang a quality which up to now ; one has ever dreamt of counting among Bismarck’s defects. If we may believe him, the statesmanjproverbially reputed to be farseeing is often firm of purpose but timid of action. “In his antipathy to the Empress Victoria, however, the Chancellor is depicted in his old light The notion that his ascendancy should be ever menaced by the counsel of a clever, affectionate, liberal-minded woman was a nightmare; yet he was destined to feel that the authority of the Mayor of the Palace was not to be paramount over that of the new sovereign. He repeatedly sent bis son and heir pre■umptive to transact business with the Emperor, only to find that Frederick 111. refused to deal with anyone but the Chancellor himself. The right of hereditary succession obviously was disputed. Count Herbert never could be the Chancellor of Frederick HI. There was the Idealogue of a Kaiser with one foot in the grave, and his will practically controlled by his English wife, presuming to overthrow the Bismarck Dynasty, and launching upon all kinds of risky experiments. Who could be surprised if the Prince wished the cancer would make haste P “ The Chancellor, it is stated, could not make up bis mind as to whether it were wisest to resist or to gratify the Emperor's intention of dismissing Herr Puttkamer, The pros and cons were, of course, of the most sordidly selfish and disloyal kind. Was it good play for him, so to speak, to stake on the chances of the early death of his Imperial master ? Herr Puttkamer was his electioneering manager, the man in the moon, through whom he managed to keep up an adequate body of partisans. To sacrifice him would be obviously a personal loss. The Chancellor advised the Emperor to sign the decree of dismissal, and the day after it appeared he went back on his advice, ana declared that the Emperor bad gone too far. The reviewer anticipates rightly enough that a statement so disparaging will scarcely be believed without eotifinaatiou. There is something amazing iu the wafideuoe with

which he appeals to a single test. The Emperor Frederick kept his diary records down to within a few days of his death. If the entries are examined they will furnish ample confirmation of what is here stated, and of Prince Bismarck’s vacillation.

“To add further flavour to the scandal, the public are admitted to yet another glimpse of the family politics of the Court. In those sad days when the Emperor Frederick lay dying, everyone remembers the crisis caused by the project of the Princess Victoria’s betrothal to Prince Alexander of Battenburg. The ground of the opposition assigned by the Chancellor atjthe time was his conviction that the political effect of the marriage would be fatal to the good relations with Eussia. According to the ‘ Contemporary Review,’ this was a mere invention. Prince Bismarck had not, either on political or even personal grounds, the smallest motive for standing in the way of the Princess Victoria’s happiness; but he was bound by a compact which he had entered into with the Crown Prince, the now reigning Emperor, to prevent his sister from marrying Prince Alexander. The eldest son of the Emperor Frederick was treated with but little ceremony by the Chancellor. He had, however, his own ambitions to gratify, we are told, and his own party to maintain, and he felt it to his interest to come to terms with the Bismarcks. The Prince of Wales, it is recorded, found Count Herbert’s brutality intolerable, but this is a small matter, considering that the Prince of Wales is represented as being on such bad terms with his imperial nephew as to avoid meeting him at the Court of Vienna. About the. Morier and Geffcken incidents the reviewer has little to say that is not a thrice-told tale.*’