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FREDERICK 
 
 CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR 
 
From a Photograph by Messrs. Reichard 6 s Lindner, of Berlin. 
 
FREDERICK 
 
 CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR 
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 KT RENNELL RODD 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 Her Majesty the Empress Frederick 
 
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 Princely in fcCtEv" 5 ' ', '>', '<,'■' ] ', ;,, >/, , 3 , 
 
 NEW YORK 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1888 
 
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 CONTENTS 
 
 Introduction— page 
 
 Letter from Her Majesty the Empress Frederick vii 
 
 Preface xiii 
 
 Chapter I. 1831—1848 17 
 
 II. 1848—1858 35 
 
 III. 1858-1S63 59 
 
 IV. 1864—1869 75 
 
 V. 1870—1871 99 
 
 VI. 1S71— 1887 143 
 
 VII. 1888 175 
 
 Appendix 189 
 
Schloss Friedrichskron, 
 
 August 18th, 1888. 
 
 Dear Me. Rodd, 
 
 I think you are aware 
 that my beloved husband, the late Emperor 
 Frederick, when in England last year, visited 
 the Throat Hospital, and was full of com- 
 passion for the patients. His ailment caused 
 at that time but little inconvenience, and 
 his kind heart felt deeply sorry for those 
 who had more to bear from the state of 
 their throats. I had then a great wish to 
 help the Hospital in some way, and had 
 intended to make some little drawings, and 
 collect some pretty and amusing stories to 
 
Vlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 form a small book which could be sold for 
 the benefit of the Hospital funds. Alas ! I 
 never found leisure or peace of mind to 
 carry out this plan. 
 
 As I have witnessed how much can be 
 done by medical skill and careful nursing 
 to alleviate the condition of those who suffer, 
 I feel doubly anxious that as many as 
 possible of those who have to struggle with 
 sickness should be able to gain admission 
 to a Hospital where they can find care and 
 comforts which they could not have at home, 
 and the best chance of being cured. Now 
 that I have seen the kind and sincere 
 sympathy with which my own countrymen 
 followed the course of my beloved husband's 
 illness, and the true feeling they showed in 
 mourning his loss, I feel emboldened to take 
 up under another form my idea of helping 
 the Hospital. Not my own drawings or 
 writings would I offer, but I ask you to 
 pen a short account of the life of my beloved 
 
INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 husband, who was so soon taken away from 
 us. As you knew him in sunny days when 
 he was the picture of life and health, as 
 well as in the last sad year when that life 
 was overshadowed by sickness, I thought 
 none would be better able than you to under- 
 take the task of writing a short biography 
 suitable for popular reading, which may make 
 his name better known to the English Public, 
 and give him a place in their affections beside 
 that of my father, for whom he had so great 
 a love, admiration and veneration, and with 
 whose views and aims he so truly sym- 
 pathized. I feel sure that the life of a good 
 and noble man must be interesting to all, 
 and that an example so bright and pure can 
 only do good. 
 
 Those in humbler walks of life who are 
 denied many of the blessings enjoyed by the 
 rich, to whose lot fall the so-called good things 
 of this world, are often apt to imagine that 
 their burden is the hardest to bear, that 
 
X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 struggles, and pain, and tears are only for 
 them. These perhaps will think differently 
 when they read of sufferings borne with such 
 patience, and of duty so cheerfully performed 
 while sickness was undermining the strength 
 of the strong man ; they will be able to enter 
 in some degree into the depths of regret and 
 disappointment felt by a ruler who loved his 
 people, at being unable to carry out the long 
 cherished plans for the welfare that he had so 
 much at heart ; they will gaze with admiration 
 at the courage with which, when the shades of 
 death were hanging over his path, he strode 
 stedfastly along to the end. 
 
 Grief and pain come alike to all ; broken 
 hearts are to be found in palaces as well as in 
 cottages, and the bond of brotherhood seems 
 strongest when love and pity unite all hearts, 
 and reverence for what is good lifts up our 
 souls. May this little history of the good and 
 useful life of the Emperor Frederick appeal to 
 the hearts of those who read it, and be as it 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XI 
 
 were a greeting from him to his fellow sufferers 
 in the Hospital, to whom 1 so earnestly desire 
 to do a small service ; and to which you have 
 so kindly promised to devote your pen. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following brief sketch contains nothing 
 controversial, nothing which could lead to dis- 
 pute or discussion, and it has been especially 
 attempted to eliminate, as far as possible, all 
 matter of a political nature, and confine it to 
 the record of such facts as illustrate the 
 character of a simple and noble life, in a 
 manner which may be acceptable to that 
 wider circle of readers for whom, in accordance 
 with the desire expressed in the introduction, 
 it is designed. It is incomplete, inasmuch as it 
 contains the story of one life, which is so 
 intimately bound up with another, that the 
 picture could only be completed by a full 
 account of the lives of both. But it is believed 
 that the intention of one, in obedience to whose 
 wishes it was undertaken, has been thus best 
 fulfilled. 
 
 R. E. 
 October, 1888. 
 
I, 
 
 1831—1848. 
 
I. 
 
 1831—1848. 
 
 Tee Emperor Frederick was born on the 18th 
 of October, 1831, the anniversary of the battle 
 of Leipzig, and on the 18th of June, 1888, the 
 anniversary of the battle of Waterloo, he was 
 carried to his last resting-place in the church 
 dedicated to Peace, among the gardens of Sans 
 Souci. It is a curious coincidence that a life 
 which will be for ever associated in history 
 with the union of the German race into the 
 great Empire of to-day should have opened 
 and closed upon the anniversaries of these two 
 great victories. In the fierce light of modern 
 days, when nothing remains secret or sacred, 
 where every action is watched by a thousand 
 jealous eyes, interpreted or misinterpreted by a 
 thousand busy voices, we do not -always 
 recognize our heroes when they come : but 
 
 B 
 
1 8 FREDERICK : 
 
 the immediate verdict of contemporaries found 
 him worthy of the time he was born in, and of 
 the great events he was called upon to assist 
 in moulding-. Placed in that lofty station 
 which at least escapes the eye of scrutiny, he 
 was found true to his own princely ideal as 
 son, as husband, as father ; true to the ideal 
 of his countrymen as a fearless leader in the 
 battlefield, true to the highest ideal of all 
 times as man and prince ; and surely, wherever 
 the story is told of the great decade which 
 closed with the proclamation of the German 
 Empire at Versailles, beside the three figures 
 which dominate it, the darling hero of future 
 generations of Germans will be the Prince who 
 taught the North and South their common 
 brotherhood, whom Saxons, Bavarians, Wiirt- 
 tembergers, and Badenese, no less than 
 Prussians, alike saluted by the name of ' ' Unser 
 Fritz." 
 
 Those who have witnessed the events of the 
 last months, have all been touched according to 
 the depth of their own natures by the brave 
 endurance and resignation, by the deeply 
 pathetic close of a life, which, with its great 
 opportunities for good and evil, was spent in 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 19 
 
 unceasing devotion to duty, in patient prepara- 
 tion for yet greater responsibilities, in unweary- 
 ing efforts for the good of others. And yet 
 probably what will remain to after generations, 
 when the passions and emotions of life around 
 them enofaofe all their attention, and the keen 
 interest with which we have followed the events 
 of the past year is absorbed in other lives, will 
 be that radiant and heroic figure, which 
 children's eyes will follow on the canvases 
 depicting the triumph of Germany, of the 
 soldier-prince, who, in the hour of danger and 
 uncertainty, succeeded in uniting the sym- 
 pathies of North and South, and guided that 
 irresistible wave of national feeling through 
 the bloody fields of Weissenburg and Worth, 
 by the great strategic march to the crowning 
 victory of Sedan. It may not be the immor- 
 tality he would himself have chosen, but no 
 man is master of his fate, and where so much 
 must needs be left undone, where so many 
 hopes and aspirations were disappointed, this 
 at least will remain for ever associated with 
 the most imperishable traditions of a great 
 nation, of a Prince who did all things well. 
 History has but few such figures to show us, 
 
 B 2 
 
20 FREDERICK : 
 
 and the record of their lives is soon told. 
 The evil genius of many of the great characters 
 of story has filled innumerable volumes, but a 
 few lines will keep green the memory of our 
 Sydneys and our Bayards. As with nations, 
 we say they are happiest who afford least 
 material to the historian ; so perhaps with 
 great men, in proportion to the nobility and 
 simplicity of their lives the work of the bio- 
 grapher becomes easier, and truly of the 
 Emperor Frederick, we may say as of few 
 others who have lived so much before the 
 
 world : 
 
 "He kept 
 
 " The whitness of his soul, and thus men o'er 
 him wept." 
 
 In the year that ushered in the birth of the 
 young Prince, the most sanguine of patriots 
 would scarcely have ventured to prophecy the 
 imminent ascendency of the Prussian star. 
 King Frederick William III., who had already 
 occupied the throne for thirty-four years, had 
 seen the disastrous days of Jena and Auerstadt, 
 and had devoted himself to the great task of 
 the restoration of his country. He had shared 
 in the victories which ended in the overthrow 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 21 
 
 of Napoleon, and after the long and troublous 
 reign, which he epitomized himself in one 
 proverbial sentence, " My days in unrest, but 
 my hope in God," desired only to end his life in 
 peace. 
 
 The dream of German unity had made but 
 little progress. It was the interest of Austria 
 and Russia to see that their Prussian neighbour 
 should find no means of expansion, and the 
 conservatism of the smaller German states 
 looked with no friendly eye on a capital where 
 the spirit of opposition to the old order was 
 most rife, and the speeches and writings of the 
 new school of politicians assumed a more violent 
 character. 
 
 The Crown Prince had married some eight 
 years previously Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria, 
 and the marriage had remained childless. His 
 younger brother Prince William was therefore 
 the heir presumptive, and it was the occasion 
 for no ordinary rejoicing when his marriage 
 with Princess Augusta of Saxe Weimar was 
 blessed two years later with the birth of a son, 
 and a direct hereditary succession was thus 
 guaranteed in the house of Hohenzollern. 
 
 The Prince was born in the palace to which 
 
22 FREDERICK : 
 
 as Emperor he gave the name of Friedrichskron, 
 known till then only as the New Palace of Sans 
 Souci, the largest and the finest of the many 
 palaces of Potsdam, to which his parents had 
 then retired on account of the cholera, which 
 was raging at that time in Berlin. It was built 
 by Frederick the Great immediately after the 
 close of the Seven Years' War, to the confusion 
 of those who thought that his treasury was 
 exhausted, but which had hitherto been little 
 used. It was this palace that in later years, as 
 Crown Prince, the Emperor Frederick made his 
 summer residence ; here most of his children 
 were born, here all the interests and pursuits of 
 country life were fostered and enjoyed, here 
 were the brightest associations of a happy 
 home, and it was hither that he came to die. 
 The Mark of Brandenburg is for the most part 
 a flat unlovely district of sandy plains alternat- 
 ing with wide tracts of fir forest, but, in the 
 neighbourhood of Potsdam, the river Havel, 
 widening- in a series of considerable lakes sur- 
 rounded with undulating wooded shores, has 
 formed' a pleasant oasis, and there are few 
 prettier spots in the early summer months than 
 the gardens and Park of Sans Souci, at the 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 23 
 
 further end of which, about a mile and a half 
 from Potsdam, stands the great Rococo Palace 
 of Friedrichskron. 
 
 The christening took place on the 13th of 
 November, in the presence of the King, the 
 Crown Prince, and all the members of the 
 Royal Family. The absent god-parents, the 
 Empresses of Austria and Russia, were repre- 
 sented by their respective Ambassadors, and 
 the baby Prince received from Bishop Eylert 
 the names of Frederick William Nicholas 
 Charles. 
 
 The Princes of the House of Hohenzollern 
 become soldiers almost from the cradle. Prince 
 William, who had, while still a mere boy, 
 entered Paris with the Allies, took a keen de- 
 light in the military education of his son, and 
 the little Prince was only eight years old when, 
 together with two young playfellows,* he was 
 put through his drill in a miniature private's 
 uniform, and acquitted himself as a most cap- 
 able recruit, under the orders of his instructor, 
 Sergeant Bludau. Of the qualities which he 
 inherited from his parents it is not necessary to 
 speak. The courage, simplicity, integrity, and 
 * Kudolf v. Zastrovp and Count Adolf Konisrsmark. 
 
,24 FREDERICK : 
 
 kindliness of the aged Emperor, who was in a 
 truer sense than any who have borne the title 
 the " father of his people," are known to all the 
 present generation. But of the friends and 
 playfellows of his youth many have now passed 
 away, and it may be interesting here to record 
 that there was no one to whom, in these early 
 days, he was more fondly attached than Princess 
 Charlotte of Prussia, who afterwards became 
 Hereditary Princess of Meiningen, and mother 
 of his future son-in-law. He was also much 
 with his cousins Prince Frederick Charles and 
 the two sisters of the latter-. Princess, after- 
 wards Queen Elizabeth, the wife of King 
 Frederick William IV., had no children of her 
 own, but it was her especial pleasure to gather 
 her young nephews and nieces round her, and 
 be a second mother to them. 
 
 Prince Frederick William never forgot her 
 kindness to him as a child ; and when she died 
 at Dresden, in 1873, after twelve years of 
 widowhood, he took upon himself the duties of 
 a son, and performed the last offices of kindness, 
 bringing home her body to lay it beside her 
 husband in the Church of Peace, at Sans Souci. 
 The friendship formed in childhood for his 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 25 
 
 cousin, Prince Frederick Charles, continued into 
 later life, when their mimic games of war, with 
 their respective corps of cadets, became the 
 grim earnest of the battlefield. They were 
 appointed Field-Marshals upon the same day, 
 when the news of the fall of Metz reached 
 the headquarters of the German Army at Ver- 
 sailles ; and by a singular coincidence their 
 deaths took place on the same day of the month, 
 and at the same hour of the day, at the same 
 interval of three years that had separated their 
 births. 
 
 The education of Prince Frederick William 
 began under the auspices of Frau von Clause- 
 witz, widow of the well-known General, and 
 Madame Godet, his governess, a Swiss lady 
 from Neufchatel, whose son became, a few years 
 later, the Prince's first tutor. In 1844, when 
 he had reached his thirteenth year, the noted 
 German Hellenist, Dr. Ernest Curtius, was 
 chosen to superintend his studies. No branch 
 of general culture was neglected ; music and 
 dancing, gymnastics and fencing, were all 
 taught betimes, and the handicraft of book- 
 binding was selected for the young Prince 
 to master, in accordance with the family 
 
26 FREDERICK : 
 
 tradition that all the Princes of the Royal 
 House shall acquire practical knowledge of 
 some trade. 
 
 In the meantime several events occurred to 
 break the quiet routine of study. In 1838 a 
 sister was born, and christened Louise, after 
 her grandmother, the Queen, whose beauty, 
 courage and misfortunes, have made her the 
 heroine of Prussian patriotism. In 1840 King 
 Frederick William III. died, and the little 
 Prince was, for the first time, brought face to 
 face with death. In accordance with precedent, 
 Prince William now assumed the title of Prince 
 of Prussia, and he was appointed by his brother, 
 who had ascended the throne under the name 
 of Frederick William IV., Stadtholder of Pome- 
 rania. On reaching his tenth year, Prince 
 Frederick William received a commission as 
 Second Lieutenant in the First Regiment of the 
 Infantry of the Guard. He was presented to 
 the officers of the regiment by his uncle, the 
 King, who said to him : " You are but a little 
 fellow as yet, Fritz, but do your best to get to 
 know these gentlemen, and some day you will 
 be their overseer, however much they may now 
 see over you. - ' 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 27 
 
 A military instructor was now attached to 
 the Prince in the person of Colonel, afterwards 
 General von Unruh, in company with whom, or 
 with his tutor, Dr. Curtius, he began to make 
 short journeys in the neighbouring provinces and 
 states. Thus he visited the towns and islands 
 of the Baltic, and made walking tours through 
 the Harz, Thuringia, Saxon Switzerland, and 
 the Giant Mountains, acquiring that taste for 
 travel which he preserved in later years, and 
 studying by personal observation " the cities 
 and customs of many men." Otherwise, his 
 summers were spent at Babelsberg, in the 
 neighbourhood of Potsdam, the country seat 
 which the Prince of Prussia had himself 
 planned and executed, and which became his 
 favourite country residence as King and 
 Emperor. 
 
 It was here that the young Prince remained 
 in seclusion with his mother through the 
 troubled days of 1848, when the February 
 Revolution at Paris gave the signal for out- 
 breaks in other continental cities. The con- 
 cessions which the Liberal party had anticipated 
 from the reiofiiincv- Sovereign had not been 
 granted, and the insurrectionists were for a 
 
28 FREDERICK : 
 
 time masters of the situation in Berlin. A 
 spirit of self-sacrifice induced the Prince of 
 Prussia to take upon himself a large portion 
 of the popular resentment, and the future hero 
 of German unity lightened his brother's task 
 in re-establishing order, by withdrawing for 
 a while from Berlin, and appearing to re- 
 move in his person the menace of the military 
 element, against which a great part of the 
 general discontent was directed. His intrepid 
 character, however, resented giving colour 
 to the appearance of flight, and he only 
 left on receiving written orders from the 
 King to proceed immediately upon a special 
 mission to London, and report to the Court 
 of St. James on recent developments at 
 Berlin. 
 
 Prince Frederick William was then just at 
 that age when, on the threshold of manhood, 
 the mind is most impressionable, and, unbiased 
 by the teachings of past experience, is apt to 
 review with an immediate judgment the merits 
 of current events. The scenes which he had 
 lately witnessed could not fail to have a deep 
 and lasting effect upon his generous and 
 reflective character. The Throne recovered its 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 29 
 
 ascendancy, but only after large concessions 
 and a reform of the Constitution ; the national 
 voice had found expression, and a new phase 
 of national development opened for the new 
 generation. Early in June the Prince of 
 Prussia returned, and signified his adhesion to 
 the remodelled Constitution ; the Princess, with 
 her children, travelled as far as Magdeburg to 
 greet him on his return, and the rest of the 
 summer was spent at Babelsberg, where the 
 young Prince was prepared for his Confirmation, 
 which took place in the chapel at Charlotten- 
 burg on September 29th. In the Spring of 
 the following year, he was present at the 
 solemn audience at which King Frederick 
 William IV. refused the Imperial Crown of 
 Germany, which the Frankfort Parliament 
 proposed to confer upon him, little antici- 
 pating how fully, some twenty years later, 
 the words which fell from his uncle's lips 
 were destined to be realized : " An Imperial 
 Crown must be ivon upon the field of 
 battle" 
 
 The Prince was now in his eighteenth year, 
 the age at which the Poyal Princes enter upon, 
 active service in the army. His military. 
 
30 FREDERICK ; 
 
 education had been completed under General 
 von Unruh, and, afterwards, under Major von 
 Natzmer and Colonel Fischer — and so the 
 chapter of boyhood closes. It cannot close 
 better than with a quotation from a letter 
 which the Princess of Prussia wrote to the 
 playfellow and comrade of her son, Rudolf von 
 Zastrow, who was also entering the world, 
 and about to pass his examinations for the 
 army, for it illustrates the nature of the 
 home-influences under which their youth had 
 passed. 
 
 " Life is full of difficulties and seductions of every 
 kind, we must therefore daily pray for strength to 
 combat them, that we may remain true to our 
 principles. The superficialities of life often neutralize 
 our taste for serious occupation ; we must remember 
 that we have something to learn every day, and that we 
 shall not retain what we have learnt, if we fail to make 
 our knowledge complete. What is most of all to be 
 desired is the harmonious union of character and heart. 
 Happy are they to whom God grants these qualities. 
 I believe that you possess them, My prayer is that 
 you may always be a son to me, and that separation 
 may not weaken this tie. In me you will always find 
 a friend, a mother. And next I pray you always to 
 remain a friend, a brother, to my son. Princes seldom 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 31 
 
 have real friends. His heart requires a friendship of 
 this kind, and you may serve him in a number of ways. 
 You have promised me this, and I rely upon your 
 gratitude as well as your word of honour." * 
 
 * This letter is given in full in " L'Empereur Fre'deric," by 
 Edouard Simon, from which this extract is translated. 
 
II. 
 
 1848—1858. 
 
II. 
 
 1848—1858. 
 
 Ox the 3rd of May, 1849, Prince Frederick 
 William entered upon active service with the 
 regiment to which he was attached. The 
 Prince of Prussia introduced him to the 
 assembled officers with a few spirited words, 
 in which he spoke feelingly of the admirable 
 discipline shown by the army in the recent 
 troubles, and of the sympathy and fidelity 
 which his old comrades had testified towards 
 himself. " I entrust my son to you," he said, 
 " in the hope that he will learn obedience, and 
 so some day know how to command ; " and to 
 his son he simply said, " Now go and do your 
 duty ! " A month later the Prince was 
 advanced to the rank of First Lieutenant. The 
 Prince of Prussia was at this period appointed 
 to command the army sent to put down the 
 
 c 2 
 
3G FREDERICK : 
 
 military insurrection in Baden. He was 
 accompanied on this expedition by the young 
 Prince Frederick Charles, who was three years 
 senior to his cousin. Twenty years later the 
 two Princes received the Field-Marshal's baton 
 upon the same day ; and now the elder Prince 
 was to see soldiering in earnest for the first 
 time. But it was judged prudent not to send 
 the future heir to the Prussian throne upon the 
 ungrateful mission of repressing an internal 
 revolt. 
 
 In October, upon completing his eighteenth 
 year, Prince Frederick William came of age, 
 according to precedent in the royal family of 
 Prussia, and was solemnly invested with the 
 Order of the Black Eagle, the highest Prussian 
 order, which corresponds most nearly to the 
 Garter in England. The young Prince's first 
 quoted public utterance is the message in 
 which he thanked the Municipality of Potsdam 
 for their congratulations on this occasion : "I 
 am still very young," he said, " but I will pre- 
 pare myself with love and devotion for my high 
 calling, and endeavour some day to fulfil these 
 anticipations which will then become a duty 
 entrusted to me by God." 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 37 
 
 After a few months of service with his 
 regiment, he left for the University of Bonn, 
 attended by Colonel Fischer and an Aide-de- 
 camp. It was a new departure, and typical of 
 the changed order of ideas, that a Prince of the 
 royal blood should enter as a student at a public 
 university. The course of studies arranged for 
 him formed no exception to the ordinary routine; 
 and though he resided in the old Electoral 
 Palace, his intercourse with the other students 
 remained unrestricted ; he attended the lectures 
 of Dahlmann, Arndt, and Perthes, and com- 
 pleted .his education in history, law, and 
 literature. But his studies were not confined 
 to the curriculum of the University. Mr. 
 Copland Perry, who was at that time 
 residing in Bonn, was invited to assist him 
 in mastering the English language and litera- 
 ture. Mr. Perry writes : "At the Prince's 
 request I attended on him three times a 
 week, and had the honour of directing" his 
 studies of English history and literature, in 
 which he took a very special interest. His 
 love for England, and his profound admiration 
 for our Queen, Avere most remarkable, and 
 tended, of course, to render our intercourse 
 
38 FREDERICK .' 
 
 the more interesting 1 and confidential. What- 
 ever information I was able to afford him 
 about English political and social life was 
 received by him with the greatest eagerness, 
 and, when more solid study was concluded, we 
 amused ourselves by writing imaginary letters 
 to ministers and leaders of society." 
 
 Shortly afterwards the Prince of Prussia, 
 who was in 1849 appointed Military Governor 
 of the Khine Provinces and Westphalia, took 
 up his residence at Coblenz. The reactionary 
 policy of the Manteuffel Cabinet did not meet 
 with his approval ; he considered that the 
 pledges of 1848 must be respected, and was 
 glad to absent himself for a while from the 
 Capital, where the gatherings of the Liberal 
 chiefs and sympathizers at his palace were 
 sure to attract attention. The visits of Prince 
 Frederick William to Coblenz were frequent, 
 and led to many acquaintances and conversa- 
 tions on social and political topics with the 
 remarkable men the Princess of Prussia 
 gathered round her Court, During his 
 university career the area of his travels, which 
 had hitherto been confined to German territory, 
 was considerably extended. In 1850 he visited 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 3d-- 
 
 Switzerland, Northern Italy, and the South of 
 France, The following year he accompanied 
 his parents to England to witness the opening 
 of the Great Exhibition. May-day, 1851, was 
 a proud day for England. The continent had 
 hardly recovered from the recent shocks of 
 revolution ; France, Austria, Germany, and the 
 Italian States, had alike been torn by domestic 
 strife, but in London all the nations of the earth 
 had met together in friendly competition. The 
 scheme had not passed without considerable 
 opposition in England itself, but the energy and 
 genius of the Prince Consort, the initiator of 
 this international festival, had prevailed, and 
 set an example which other nations would not 
 be slow to follow. The young Prince, who also 
 paid a hasty visit to Liverpool and to the Isle 
 of Wight, carried back to Germany a deep 
 impression of the wealth and stability of 
 England, of the free spirit and reasonableness 
 which governed her institutions, and above all 
 a charming domestic picture of her happy Court, 
 and of a little Princess, who was then just ten 
 years old. He was, however, patriotic enough 
 to say that he preferred Babelsberg to Windsor. 
 Later in the year he accompanied his father on 
 
40 FREDERICK : 
 
 a visit to Russia, where he was appointed 
 Honorary Colonel of the Eleventh Regiment of 
 Hussars. He rejoined his regiment at Potsdam 
 in time to take part in the Autumn Manoeuvres, 
 and was advanced to the rank of Captain, 
 returning soon afterwards to Bonn to conclude 
 his university course. 
 
 At the university he first laid the foundation 
 of that universal popularity which characterized 
 the whole of his subsequent career. He 
 succeeded in so merging the Prince in the 
 student, that he was able to enter heart and 
 soul into the spirit of university life. He had 
 a word for everyone, and by those numerous 
 excursions in the surrounding Rhineland, 
 which he so particularly appreciated, he had 
 become a familiar figure in all the country side. 
 It was a source of universal regret in Bonn, 
 when, at Easter, 1852, the short space of time 
 which could be spared from the Prince's busy 
 life drew to its close, and town and university 
 vied with one another in the ovations which 
 marked his departure. 
 
 Returning to his regiment, the Prince devoted 
 himself to military duties. He was now a 
 Captain, and the personal interest which he took 
 
CROWN miNCE AND EMrEROR. 41 
 
 in each individual member of his company 
 acquired him a proverbial popularity. During 
 the Autumn Manoeuvres of 1853, when he was 
 promoted to the rank of Major, he learned the 
 duties of an Aide-de-camp, being attached to 
 the Staff of Count V. J. Groeben, who at that 
 time commanded the Corps of Guards.. The 
 Prince's life was one of constant activity : under 
 General von Key her he was instructed in the 
 special branches of the Staff; while he found 
 time to acquire a thorough knowledge of the 
 working of the various civil departments, and 
 devoted himself to the study of the internal 
 administration, under the guidance of the Chief 
 President of the Province of Brandenburg. 
 During the Summer of this year he had accom- 
 panied his father to the Manoeuvres of the 
 Austrian Army, and was assigned by the 
 Emperor Franz Joseph the honorary command 
 of the Twentieth Kegiment of Infantry. About 
 this period he was also initiated into the 
 mysteries of Freemasonry, and the Prince of 
 Prussia, who had taken this influential Order 
 under his protection, availed himself of the 
 occasion to protest, in his speech, against the 
 attempt made by a certain section in the 
 
42 FREDERICK : 
 
 country, to cast discredit on this ancient 
 institution. In December he had an attack of 
 inflammation of the lungs, and after his recovery 
 it was considered advisable for him to spend a 
 Winter in the South, and thus, a long cherished 
 plan of a tour in Italy was carried into effect. 
 
 The royal party were conveyed, from Trieste 
 to Ancona in an Austrian man of war, and 
 proceeded thence direct to Home. The old 
 Papal Court was then in all its brilliancy, and 
 Rome was ' still the city of Corinne and Trans- 
 formation. No lines of railway pierced the 
 circuit of her walls, there was no gas in the 
 narrow alleys, but the quaint old gilded coaches 
 of the Cardinals, the gay uniforms of the 
 Papal troops, the numberless religious orders, 
 the costume of the people, which was then not 
 confined to professional models and beggars, 
 filled her streets with colour, and the Carnival 
 was still a national fete. Italian Unity had 
 assuredly no warmer sympathizer than Prince 
 Frederick William, but the Rome of his 
 impressions never ceased, to be an interesting 
 and charming recollection. He was repeatedly 
 received with every mark of appreciation by 
 Pope Pius IX., who preserved a warm regard 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 43 
 
 for his royal guest, which the grave issues of 
 later years between Prussia and the Vatican in 
 no way diminished, and he assisted at the 
 Consistory in which the present Pontiff received 
 the Cardinal's Hat. The story is told that 
 at their first interview the Pope held out his 
 hand to the young Prince for the customary 
 kiss of homage, but the latter, as representative 
 of one of the two great Protestant States, did 
 not feel called upon to render this salute, and 
 warmly grasped the extended hand. The 
 Pope, whose sense of humour was well known, 
 always at subsequent interviews greeted the 
 young Prince on entering with his hand behind 
 his back. The journey was extended to Naples 
 and Sicily, and the royal party returned to 
 Pome on their way northward to witness the 
 Easter ceremonies. 
 
 After six months' service with the Artillery, 
 Prince Frederick William was transferred to 
 the Dragoons of the Guard. It may be well 
 here to explain that the Guards form an entire 
 army corps, including, therefore, infantry, 
 artillery, and cavalry of every arm ; they 
 are distributed between Berlin, Potsdam, and 
 the neighbouring fortress of Spandau. The 
 
44 FREDERICK : 
 
 infantry regiment to which the Prince was 
 first attached is quartered in Potsdam; the 
 Dragoons of the Guard, consisting then of one 
 regiment only, but now of two, are stationed 
 in Berlin. 
 
 Colonel von Griesheim, an old friend of the 
 Prince of Prussia, who commanded the regiment, 
 has left a record of an interview which he had 
 with the Princess, at the time they entrusted 
 their son to his care. The Princess, he says, 
 begged him in no way to spare his new officer, 
 but to let him enter into every detail of duty, 
 in order that he might really learn to appreciate 
 the hard work which military service entailed. 
 She bade him never lose sight of the fact that 
 he was to teach his future Sovereign, and that it 
 was essential to his forming a just appreciation of 
 things, that he should see their working side. 
 The Prince of Prussia, who came in at the close 
 of the interview, said, with a smile, " I taught 
 him his business, and now he is to teach our 
 son ! " 
 
 The Colonel most conscientiously carried out 
 his trust, and the Prince entered upon the 
 routine of his duties as Captain. The riding 
 lessons, the horse-breaking, the stable drill, the 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 45 
 
 gymnastic courses, the stores of his squadron, 
 were all handed over to his personal control and 
 management, and so quickly and practically did 
 he master the duties of a cavalry officer, that 
 on the 31st August, 1855, he was appointed to 
 command the regiment. About this time an 
 officer, who has since been somewhat talked of, 
 was appointed Aide-de-camp to the Prince ; a 
 man of few Avords, but striking lucidity of 
 expression and determination of character, and 
 an enthusiastic lover of music, whose age was 
 just that of the century. His name was 
 Colonel von Moltke, and he was at the time 
 Chief of the Staff of the Fourth Army Corps. 
 
 During the Summer of 1855, the Prince went 
 for a second time to England. Perhaps on the 
 occasion of his former visit, four years pre- 
 viously, a plan had already suggested itself to 
 him which he now determined to realize, of 
 asking the hand of the Princess Royal in 
 marriage. At any rate he now expressed a 
 wish to visit the Queen and the Prince Consort, 
 who invited him to stay at Balmoral ; and on 
 the 20th of September the Prince Consort 
 wrote to his old friend and confidant, Baron 
 Stockmar, to tell him that the proposal, made 
 
46 FREDERICK : 
 
 with the concurrence of the King, as well as of 
 the Prince of Prussia, had been accepted, sub- 
 ject, of course, to the consent of the Princess 
 Royal herself, from whom, he added, he did not 
 anticipate any hesitation. It was, however, 
 not to be broken to her till after her Confirma- 
 tion in the following Spring, and the marriage 
 was on no account to take place until the 
 Princess had passed her seventeenth birthday. 
 But with all these excellent dispositions the 
 natural impatience of the Prince prevailed, and 
 on the 29th of September, when the royal party 
 were riding unattended over the moors, a spray 
 of the rare white heather, which the Prince 
 dismounted to pluck and offer to his future 
 bride, drew the secret from . his lips, and the 
 happy alliance was arranged, not by the 
 manoeuvring of diplomacy or the scheming of 
 politicians, but naturally, and as in the every- 
 day world, by the spontaneous impulse of two 
 young hearts towards each other. 
 
 On his return to Bonn the Prince unburdened 
 his heart to Mr. Perry, whom he had from the 
 outset treated with the greatest confidence, and 
 to whom he had spoken of his hope of winning 
 the hand of the Princess Royal. "It was not 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 47 
 
 politics," he said, " it was not ambition ; it was 
 my heart." 
 
 On the 2nd of October the Prince Consort 
 wrote to Baron Stockmar : " Prince Frederick 
 William left us yesterday .... The young 
 people are genuinely in love with one another : 
 the guilelessness, simplicity, and unselfishness 
 of the young man are quite touching .... We 
 are quite unprepared for any public announce- 
 ment of the marriage at present. The secret 
 must be kept tout lien que Trial" But the 
 secret leaked out, as such secrets always do ; 
 the visits of the future Sovereign of Prussia 
 were too significant to be disregarded. 
 
 The engagement of Princess Louise to 
 the Prince Begent, now the reigning Grand 
 Duke of Baden, took place on the same clay, 
 September 29, at Coblenz. The following year 
 the Prince returned to England, in May, where 
 he was joined shortly afterwards by his future 
 brother-in-law, and the two Princes received 
 honorary degrees from the University of Ox- 
 ford, and were present at the festivities of 
 Commemoration. In August he was for the 
 first time entrusted with a public mission, and 
 sent to represent the King of Moscow, at the 
 
48 FREDERICK : 
 
 coronation of the Emperor Alexander II. , who 
 had succeeded his father in the previous year. 
 On all these journeys he was accompanied by 
 his new Aide-de-camp, who was about this time 
 promoted to the rank of Major-General. The 
 latter has testified in his correspondence to the 
 remarkable natural tact and the happy faculty 
 of the apropos displayed by the Prince in 
 meeting and conversing with the number of 
 notabilities who were here for the first time 
 presented to him. 
 
 On the 20th of September the marriage of 
 Princess Louise with the Grand Duke of Baden 
 took place, and shortly afterwards Prince 
 Frederick William received the command of the 
 Eleventh Regiment of Infantry, which forms 
 part of the garrison of Breslau, in Silesia. He 
 had some time previously returned from his 
 short term of service with the Cavalry, to the 
 First Infantry of the Guards, and qualified 
 himself to take command of the regiment. No 
 sooner, however, had the Prince taken up his 
 quarters at Breslau, than another journey to 
 England was determined on, and the visit, 
 whose ostensible object was to congratulate the 
 Princess upon her birthday, extended over a 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 49 
 
 month. He returned by Paris, where he was 
 most warmly received by the Emperor 
 Napoleon III. and the Empress Eugenie. A 
 letter from the latter describing the visit is not 
 without its curious interest, read in the lioht 
 of subsequent events. " The Prince is a tall, 
 finely proportioned man, nearly a head taller 
 than the Emperor, smart, fair, with light 
 yellow moustache, a German, as Tacitus 
 describes them, chivalrous in manner, a ad with 
 a touch of Hamlet about him. His companion, 
 a General Moltke, is a gentleman of few words, 
 but nothing less than a dreamer ; always 
 attentive and commanding attention, he sur- 
 prises you by the most striking observations. 
 An imposing race, these Germans. Louis says, 
 the race of the future. But we have not got 
 to that yet." 
 
 Prince Frederick William remained with his 
 regiment in Silesia until September, 1857, 
 finding time, however, in the Summer for 
 another visit to England. It was originally 
 contemplated that the marriage should take 
 place this year, but the health of King Frederick 
 William IV., who had for some time been ailing, 
 gave rise to considerable anxiety, and it was 
 
 D 
 
50 FREDERICK I 
 
 decided to postpone it for a while. At length 
 the malady, which had affected the brain, was 
 declared to be incurable, and on the 23rd of 
 October the Prince of Prussia was named Regent 
 for three months. This term was subsequently 
 prolonged from time to time, and in the follow- 
 ing year, when the King left Berlin for Italy, 
 the Prince Regent assumed the full responsi- 
 bility of government, which he retained until 
 that Monarch's death. The marriage was now 
 definitively fixed for January 25, 1858. 
 
 It was with sincere rep-ret that Prince 
 Frederick William took leave of the officers 
 and men of his Silesian regiment. Silesia is 
 the favourite province of the kingdom ; the 
 wealthiest and most influential of the Prussian 
 nobility have their country seats there ; the 
 forests offer great attractions to the sportsman ; 
 and Breslau itself is within easy distance of 
 the pleasant country sloping upwards to the 
 giant mountains which mark the boundary of 
 Bohemia. Besides, he had greatly appreciated 
 the freedom of life which his sojourn here had 
 permitted, and was much attached to and be- 
 loved by the regiment he had commanded. 
 The close of his farewell speech was remem- 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 51 
 
 bered a few years later, when, in the campaign 
 of '66, he was entrusted with the command of 
 the Second Army, and with orders to protect 
 the province of Silesia : " I shall never forget 
 these days, nor you," he said ; " and my ardent 
 desire, which it would give me the greatest joy 
 to see accomplished, is that I may some day 
 receive with you — who are, for the most part, 
 my pupils — the baptism of blood before the 
 enemy." 
 
 Meanwhile, the day fixed for the wedding 
 ceremony drew near. On the 23rd of January, 
 Prince Frederick William arrived in England 
 to claim his bride. London had been already 
 several days en fete. On the evening of the 
 23rd there was a State performance at Her 
 Majesty's Theatre, where the Prince was, for 
 the first time, present during the festival pro- 
 ceedings, sitting beside the Princess Royal ; 
 and rarely has London witnessed such an en- 
 thusiastic scene. The singing of the Nation d 
 Anthem was the signal for a burst of cheering, to 
 which the Queen graciously responded. A cry 
 of "Princess" then rang through the house. The 
 Queen beckoned the Princess Royal to the front 
 of the box, and there she curtseyed her acknow- 
 
 d 2 
 
52 FREDERICK I 
 
 ledgments amidst a display of feeling which 
 made the pretty episode for ever memorable. 
 The wedding took place at the Chapel Royal, 
 St. James's, on the following Monday. The 
 accounts of the ceremony, read in the light 
 and shadow of all that has passed since, are 
 eminently touching from the genuine and 
 natural feeling evinced, and an eye-witness, 
 describing the scene as the procession left the 
 Chapel Royal, wrote : " The light of happiness 
 in the eyes of the bride appealed to the most 
 reserved among the spectators, and an audible 
 ' God bless you ! ' passed from mouth to mouth 
 along the line." The details of the ceremony, 
 recorded by a loving hand in the Queen's diary, 
 and published in Sir Theodore Martin's life of 
 the Prince Consort, are too well-known to call 
 for reproduction here. It shall only be men- 
 tioned that the wedding rings were made of 
 pure Silesian gold, and that the eight brides- 
 maids — chosen from the fairest daughters of 
 England — wore the emblematic white heather, 
 in memory of the stranger-Prince's wooing. 
 Throughout the country in England the day 
 was celebrated as a national holiday by public 
 rejoicings and free dinners to the poor ; and in 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 53 
 
 the evening London was a blaze of illuminations, 
 for the match had become thoroughly popular. 
 Parliament had met the proposed vote with 
 scarcely a dissentient voice ; and the young 
 Prince had won a place in the heart of the 
 nation, which learned to appreciate him ever 
 more and more as time went on. 
 
 The short honeymoon was spent at Windsor, 
 and the departure was fixed for the second of 
 February. The farewell procession left Buck- 
 ingham Palace, and proceeded by the Strand, 
 St. Paul's, and London Bridge, to the station 
 in the Kent Road, where the royal party were 
 to take train for Gravesend. The Prince 
 Consort, with his two eldest sons, accompanied 
 Prince Frederick William and his bride, while 
 the Queen watched from the balcony of Buck- 
 ingham Palace till the procession wound out of 
 sight. The snow was falling fast, but they 
 drove in open carriages to see the last of home. 
 Every point of vantage along the route was 
 filled to overflowing, and it seemed as if the 
 whole nation felt keenly the sense of parting, 
 and had come out in its thousands to speed on 
 her way, with their love and kindly solicitude, 
 one who, though still almost a child, was leav- 
 
54 FREDERICK ; 
 
 ing her country for ever, to make her home in 
 an alien land. It is a solemn moment, hard to 
 realize for those who stay at home, that in 
 which we turn our backs for ever on the only 
 life we have known, and go to meet the untried 
 and the new, to dwell with .strange faces, 
 different ideas and ideals, unfamiliar asso- 
 ciations. 
 
 At Gravesend, the royal yacht, Victoria and 
 Albert, was waiting to receive them ; and the 
 closing: scene in England was thus described in 
 the Times of the 23rd of February : — 
 
 " In compliance with injunctions issued just before 
 the arrival of the royal party, there was little cheering 
 on the pier itself. Still, however, it could not altogether 
 prevent the cheers which greeted the bride, as she stood 
 leaning on her husband's arm. ... Her royal husband 
 was, of course, received with a most marked welcome, 
 Avhich he seemed to feel ; though, as usual, he always 
 left his bride to receive the ovations offered, and 
 watched her every movement with the most affection- 
 ate solicitude. 
 
 " On the affecting farewell we need not dwell. 
 Every heart can sympathize with them, not as rulers 
 or princes, but as a father who parts from his eldest 
 child — with young brothers, who see their sister leave 
 them for the first time, to cast her lot for ever in a 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 55 
 
 land of strangers. The Prince Consort was grave, 
 but composed, though the effort it cost him to maintain 
 an appearance of serenity was visible to all. With less 
 self-command, the Prince of Wales and Prince Alfred 
 
 made little attempt to conceal their grief As 
 
 the paddles went round, the quick flashes of broad red 
 flame through the snowstorm, followed by the sullen 
 boom of cannon, showed that old Tilbury was at last 
 saluting for the departure. The Prince Consort waved 
 his hand to the Royal Bridegroom again and again, 
 but kept his composure ; but not so did the young 
 Princes, whose grief seemed only redoubled by the 
 tokens of farewell round them. Neither could conceal 
 his sorrow, and neither tried to do so, but stood 
 
 brushing away the tears from their eyes On 
 
 such an occasion there was not many who could resist 
 the contagious influence of a sorrow so innocent and so 
 sincere, and there were few who looked with dry eyes 
 on this departure of the daughter of England." 
 
III. 
 
 1858—1863. 
 
III. 
 
 1858—1863. 
 
 The bride and bridegroom's journey home was 
 one long triumphal progress. At Herbesthal, 
 where the German frontier was first reached, 
 Count Redern awaited them with a message of 
 welcome from the King. At Aix-la-Chapelle ; 
 at Cologne, where they halted for the night ; 
 at Hanover, where they alighted to pay a brief 
 visit to the King; at Magdeburg, where a 
 second night was passed, deputations were 
 awaiting to receive them — triumphal arches 
 and illuminations testified the enthusiasm and 
 loyalty of the populations. A brilliant recep- 
 tion was prepared for them at Potsdam, where 
 they arrived on the 6 th February ; and the 
 following day, a Sunday, was devoted to rest 
 after their eventful journey. On Monday, the 
 8th, the solemn entry into the capital took 
 
60 FREDERICK : 
 
 place. The sixteen miles from Potsdam to the 
 capital were traversed by road. At the Belle- 
 vue Palace, situated in the Thiergarten, or park, 
 about a mile from the Brandenburg Gate, the 
 King was waiting to greet his nephew and 
 niece. After a short interval the procession 
 reformed, the bells rang, the canons fired 
 salutes, and the state coach, drawn by eight 
 horses, arrived at the Brandenburg Gate. 
 Here the royal pair were welcomed in the name 
 of the garrison by the venerable Field-Marshal, 
 Count Wrangel. A detachment of the Life 
 Guards rode before and after the carriage ; 
 while the Prince's old regiment, the Dragoons 
 of the Guard, formed the rest of the escort. 
 Forty out -riders and deputations from the 
 various Guilds headed the procession ; and so, 
 between a surging mass of spectators, they 
 passed down the Linden Avenue, the whole 
 length of which was hung with British and 
 Prussian flags to the old palace and its eastern 
 extremity, where the Prince of Prussia was 
 waiting to receive them at the foot of the great 
 staircase. After the ceremonial introductions 
 had been made, the Prince and Princess 
 appeared on the balcony, to receive the homage 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 61 
 
 of the people, and watch the Guilds march past. 
 In the evening they drove through the city, 
 where there was not a window unilluminated, 
 and no house so poor that it had not some 
 decoration in honour of the festal day. It was 
 still hard Winter in the northern city, but its 
 welcome was warm and generous.. 
 
 After a short residence in the old Schloss, 
 a palace in the Linden Avenue, close to the 
 opera-house, and facing the arsenal, which had 
 been enlarged and restored for King Frederick 
 William III. , was assigned to the young couple, 
 where they took up their abode in the early 
 Winter, and ever after, as Crown Prince and 
 Princess, continued to live when in Berlin. 
 The first Summer was spent at the Prince of 
 Prussia's country seat of Babelsberg, the home 
 of Prince Frederick William's boyhood ; and 
 here, at Whitsuntide, they received a hasty 
 visit from the Prince Consort, who returned in 
 August with the Queen. This visit, the bright 
 impression left by which is fully recorded in 
 the Queen's diary, was the only one which Her 
 Majesty was able to pay her daughter in her 
 new home, until the sad and memorable journey 
 of this year, when the shadow of death was 
 
62 FREDERICK ! 
 
 already darkening its threshold, and the streets 
 of the capital were still draped with black in 
 mourning for the first German Emperor. 
 
 An heir to the Hohenzollern dynasty was 
 born on the 27th of January, 1859 — the reign- 
 ing Emperor, William II. The apartments at 
 Babelsberg now became too small for the 
 extended requirements of the young household, 
 and from henceforth the New Palace, near 
 Potsdam, became their Summer home. And 
 here it was that the Crown Princess, as she 
 soon afterwards came to be called, was able to 
 set the example of that helpful and happy 
 country life which she had learned in England to 
 value, so that it was not long before its simple 
 domestic character became proverbial, and 
 exercised a far-reaching influence. Under her 
 fostering hand, the old formal pleasure-grounds 
 and the neglected gardens became a pattern of 
 taste and arrangement. In their neighbouring- 
 farm of Bornstedt the Prince himself superin- 
 tended every detail, and taught himself the 
 management of land and labour, while the 
 dairy and the poultry-yard were the particular 
 care of the Princess. All the inhabitants of 
 the neighbouring villages quickly learned to 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR, 63 
 
 appreciate their kindly solicitude ; the sanita- 
 tion of dwellings, the care for the sick and 
 aged among their tenants, the schools, the 
 children's holidays, all engaged their sympa- 
 thetic interest. One of the Prince's most 
 striking characteristics was his love for the 
 people, his genuine sympathy with the humbler 
 walks of life. It was his especial pleasure to 
 visit the village school and listen to the 
 children's lessons, and sometimes he would take 
 the teacher's place and put the questions him- 
 self. It must have been on such an occasion 
 that the pretty reply was given which is 
 recorded in the following story : — " To what 
 kingdom does this belong ? " the Prince had 
 enquired of a little girl, touching a medal sus- 
 pended to his chain. " To the mineral king- 
 dom," was the answer. " And this ? " pointing 
 to a flower. " To the vegetable kingdom." 
 " And I myself," he asked ; to what kingdom 
 do I belong ? " "To the kingdom of heaven," 
 was the child's reply. 
 
 Meanwhile, there were duties, and important 
 ones, to perform. On the day of his marriage 
 the Prince had been promoted to the rank of 
 Major-General, and when, during the Austrian 
 
64 FREDERICK [ 
 
 and Italian War of 1859, it was determined to 
 mobilize a portion of the Prussian troops, he 
 was appointed to command the First Infantry 
 Division, an appointment confirmed and made 
 definite on the 25th of July. The Peace of 
 Villafranca brought the war to an abrupt con- 
 clusion before the Prussian mobilization was 
 complete, but the experience had revealed 
 serious defects in the existing state of the 
 Army, and a Commission was immediately 
 organized to consider the remodelling of the 
 entire military system. The Prince assisted at 
 all the deliberations of this Commission, and 
 after its sittings were closed he started with 
 the Princess for a tour in Silesia, and, later, 
 paid a hasty visit to London. 
 
 The following year a daughter was born, 
 Princess Charlotte, now Hereditary Princess of 
 Saxe-Meiningen. It was in the late Summer 
 of this year that the Queen and the Prince 
 Consort paid their last visit together to 
 Germany. During their stay at Coburg their 
 first grandchild, the little Prince William, was 
 brought by his parents to be shown to his 
 grandparents. A charming picture is given in 
 the Queen's diary of the first appearance of the 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 65 
 
 present German Emperor " in a little white 
 dress with black bows." 
 
 The measures of reform in the military 
 system, which the Prince Regent held to be 
 urgent and indispensable, led to protracted 
 discussion, and eventually to the resignation of 
 the Liberal Ministry. The question was still 
 undecided when, on the 2nd of January, 1861, 
 King Frederick William IV. died, and the 
 Prince Regent ascended the throne under the 
 name of Kine 1 William I. Prince Frederick 
 William, who had in the previous year been 
 promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-General, 
 now assumed the title of Crown Prince. The 
 Coronation took place with much pomp at 
 Konigsberg, on his birthday, the 18th of 
 October. He was on this occasion named 
 Protector of the ancient University of Konigs- 
 berg, as successor to the late King ; and shortly 
 afterwards, in accordance with precedent, was 
 appointed Stadtholder of Pomerania, though 
 the formal announcement did not appear in the 
 Gazette till the following year, on the birthday 
 of Prince William, the reigning Emperor, when 
 it was couched in these terms : — " I have 
 appointed your Royal Highness to be Stadt- 
 
 E 
 
66 FREDERICK. 
 
 holder of Pomerania, and desire thus to mark 
 the day, on which so happy an event in the 
 history of our family is commemorated, by an 
 especial token of my fatherly affection. — 
 William." 
 
 Early in the married life of the Crown Prince 
 and Princess fell the shadow of those domestic 
 sorrows which darkened so many of their years. 
 On March 16th, 1801, the Duchess of Kent 
 died ; and the loss of " this much-loved grand- 
 mother " was soon to be followed by a still 
 nearer and more untimely bereavement. It 
 was not long after the festivities of the Corona- 
 tion that the health of the Prince Consort 
 began to give cause for anxiety. It had been 
 his special desire that the Crown Princess, who 
 had herself been suffering in health, should not 
 expose herself to the risk of a Winter journey, 
 and she was therefore not present at that sad 
 event which 1ms cast a permanent gloom over 
 the British Court. Needless to say, the Crown 
 Prince crossed to England immediately, to be 
 of such service as he might, and to attend the 
 funeral of one to whom he had looked up with 
 fond affection ; a guide and a counsellor, whose 
 moderation and political foresight he never. 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 67 
 
 ceased to regard with respect and veneration. 
 Some months later, in the Spring of the follow- 
 ing year, he was once more in England, to 
 attend, at the special desire of the Queen, the 
 opening of the second great International 
 Exhibition, for which he was Prussian Com- 
 missioner. A few days afterwards he was the 
 guest of the Boyal Academy at their annual 
 banquet, and in his speech on that occasion he 
 naturally referred to the loss which had cast a 
 gloom over the festivities, and recalled the debt 
 that was owed to the initiator of those inter- 
 national gathering's which have done so much 
 to promote the interests of commerce, and, by 
 teaching the nations to know one another 
 better, have so largely contributed to' then- 
 peace and welfare. This speech, which later on 
 in the evening was characterized by Lord 
 Granville as " a speech remarkable for its simple 
 and truthful eloquence, and which, by a touch 
 of feeling concerning one of whom this country 
 is proud, went directly to our hearts/' was a,3 
 follows : — 
 
 " Sir Charles Eastlake, your Eoyal Highness, 
 my Lords and Gentlemen, — I hope that the grati- 
 tude which I feel for the cordiality with which you 
 
 E 2 
 
68 FREDERICK : 
 
 liave been pleased to propose and receive my health 
 will not be measured by the manner in which I return 
 thanks for it, as I am sorry to say I fear I shall not be 
 able to express my feelings as I should perhaps be able 
 to do were I longer accustomed to the language of this 
 clear country. I thank you first for the way in which 
 you have been kind enough to speak of my near rela- 
 tionship to the Eoyal Family of England ; nor can I 
 on such an occasion omit referring to the loss which 
 this country has recently sustained — a loss felt so 
 intimately by your Eoyal Family and also by my own. 
 We have all heard from the President how that loss 
 has been felt here, and I am happy to say that in my 
 own country the same monumental feeling will always 
 remain associated with the memory of that dear Prince 
 who was taken so suddenly from us. 
 
 " It is not necessary for me to say how happy I am 
 to be able to be present at this great festival of peace, 
 and at the same time to honour the great undertaking 
 which we owe to the master-mind of him I was so 
 proud to regard as my father-in-law. I have also, Sir 
 Charles, to thank you for the manner in which you 
 spoke just now of the state of Art and Science in my 
 own country, and especially of the articles sent to the 
 Great International Exhibition. I am happy to think, 
 from the way in which that reference of the President 
 was received, that you all appear to agree with him on 
 that point, and I hope I can say that the same feeling 
 for English art is reciprocated by my country. Perhaps 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 69 
 
 I may be allowed to say, as I am proud to say, that the 
 Princess Royal of your country is one of the first 
 representatives of English art in my country. Return- 
 ing thanks again for the kind way in which I have 
 been received, I can only add that I hope it will be a 
 new tie, strengthening those warm sympathies I have 
 always felt for this great country ; and, more than this, 
 that the strong sympathy which always existed in my 
 own heart will in Prussia and the great Fatherland of 
 Grermany be more and more, and for ever, retained."* 
 
 No mean achievement in a foreign tongue. 
 Among the guests at this Academy banquet, 
 of which the Crown Prince ever preserved a 
 pleasant recollection, were Thackeray and 
 Dickens, the latter of whom responded on 
 behalf of Literature. 
 
 A few months later, the Crown Prince was 
 again at Konigsberg, where he was solemnly 
 invested with the office of High Protector of 
 the University, which he had consented to fill 
 at the time of the Coronation. His speech on 
 this occasion must also be quoted, for in it the 
 aims and aspirations which were ever nearest 
 to his heart found expression : 
 
 "I looked upon the inheritance to which I have 
 * Times, May 5, 1862. 
 
70 FREDERICK : 
 
 succeeded as a renewed invitation to contribute my aid 
 to the development of Art and Science. That which my 
 ancestors have established and honourably maintained 
 will be sacred no less to me their successor ; and I 
 promise, on my part, to support and extend the 
 establishment by all the means in my power. I have 
 in my mind those great names which have made this 
 University illustrious — above all, the name of one 
 man, whose teachings have gone forth far over the 
 bounds of our Grerman Fatherland, and have enlightened 
 the whole round world.* I have myself been a member 
 of an University, and I Lnow the spirit by which it is 
 animated. The work of the Universities — the develop- 
 ment of the mind and the strengthening of character — 
 is a noble work, in that they fulfil this mission, not 
 only for the advancement of learning, but in the service 
 of the State. Thanks to the spirit which fires the 
 youth of Germany, I count upon her students under- 
 standing and appreciating the greatness of this work." 
 
 During- this Summer, there was consolation 
 in the house of mourning ; a second son was 
 born, Prince Henry, who has become the sailor- 
 Prince of Germany. In the meanwhile, the 
 conflict between the Government and the 
 Chambers had continued, and was now 
 assuming a more acute phase, when in Sep- 
 
 * Kant. 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 71 
 
 tember, 1862, the King called upon Herr von 
 Bismarck to take the reins of Government in 
 hand. 
 
 From this period began for Prussia that 
 wonderful career of success, the extraordinary 
 decade which culminated with the declaration 
 of the German Empire at Versailles. Of the 
 relation of the Crown Prince to political life it 
 does not enter into the design of the present 
 sketch to speak ; but it may here be placed on 
 record that through the quarter of a century 
 which followed, he never broke the rule he had 
 laid down for himself to refrain from any 
 open expression of opinion, and from taking any 
 active part in political life. Differences of 
 opinion there must always be, and the younger 
 generation is not always patient of the views 
 and methods of the older. But whatever may 
 have been the feelings and sentiments of the 
 Crown Prince himself, he cheerfully and 
 loyally carried out the arduous duties which it 
 fell to him to perform ; and, at a subsequent 
 date, when called upon for a time to assume 
 the Regency, he faithfully followed in the lines 
 that were laid down for him. It armies no 
 slight strength of character, and a paramount 
 
72 FEEDEMCK : 
 
 sense of duty, to have so faithfully appreciated 
 and conquered the difficulties of the position 
 which it was his lot to fill. 
 
 The Crown Prince and the Princess spent 
 the Winter months of this year in a long tour 
 through Italy, during which an improvised 
 expedition was made to Tunis and Malta. 
 They had joined the Prince of Wales on the 
 Royal yacht " Osborne," and at Naples cele- 
 brated his coming of age on board, returning 
 subsequently to Rome, where they took up 
 their abode in the Palazzo Cafiarelli. 
 
rv. 
 
 1864—1869. 
 
IV. 
 
 1864— 18G9. 
 
 When the Danish War broke out in 1864 the 
 Crown Prince had no military command, but 
 was attached to the Staff of Field-Marshal 
 Count von Wrangel, who had the chief command 
 of the united Austrian and Prussian armies. 
 His task was to be one of conciliation. The 
 allied armies were the allies of circumstance 
 rather than of sympathy, and the rivalry of the 
 commanding officers, the jealousy of the troops, 
 could hardly fail to produce a feeling of friction 
 which might, if not counteracted with tact and 
 authority, have prejudiced the prospects of the 
 campaign. In all such differences and disputes 
 the Crown Prince formed the court of reference, 
 and the fact that the cessation of hostilities was 
 so soon afterwards followed by the outbreak 
 of the Austrian and Prussian War proves how 
 
76 FREDERICK : 
 
 difficult must have been the task imposed upon 
 him, and how effectual was the influence of his 
 tact and judgment in preventing these dis- 
 agreements from assuming an acute phase 
 before the war was brought to a successful 
 conclusion. At a skirmish before Dlippel he 
 was for the first time under fire, and he assisted 
 at the storming of the lines of Diippel on the 
 18th of April, 1864. Throughout the severe 
 Winter campaign he shared every hardship with 
 the troops ; he was continually in their midst, 
 and the sight of his familiar figure, in the long 
 military paletot, with his short pipe in his 
 mouth, was a signal for general enthusiasm. 
 It was now that the Crown Prince, in co-opera- 
 tion with the Crown Princess, who had gone 
 to meet him at Hamburg as soon as the 
 fighting was over, founded the first of those 
 institutions for the relief of the victims of war, 
 of which many were called into existence later, 
 in the stormy days which were yet in store for 
 Prussia. After the conclusion of Peace the 
 Crown Prince was entrusted with the command 
 of the Second Army Corps, which he retained 
 until the war of 1870. On the 1 1th of Septem- 
 ber of the same year Prince Sigismund was 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 77 
 
 born, " a great source of rejoicing to his 
 parents." The history of the family of Hohen- 
 zollern is full of strange coincidences, but 
 perhaps there are few stranger than that con- 
 nected with the brief life of this little Prince, 
 ushered into the world after the declaration 
 of peace, with the Emperor of Austria for his 
 godfather, to be taken away once more, almost 
 on the very day his native land had drawn the 
 sword against Austria. 
 
 The interval of peace was short. Since the 
 Italian war of 1859 the relations between 
 Austria and Prussia had continued strained, 
 and the Danish campaign had only served to 
 widen the breach. The struggle for the 
 hegemony of the German Confederation was 
 at hand. Austria realized at length that 
 Prussia was in deadly earnest, and meant not 
 only to oust her from the headship she still 
 claimed, but from the confederation altogether ; 
 and long before appeal was made to the decision 
 of the sword, rumours of war were rife, and 
 hostile preparations continued. In May, 18CG, 
 the Prussian army was mobilized. The fighting 
 strength of the kingdom was divided into three 
 armies, of which the second was placed under 
 
78 FREDERICK : 
 
 the command of the Crown Prince, with orders 
 to protect the province of Silesia, of which he 
 was appointed Military Governor during the 
 mobilization. 
 
 So long as war still hung in the balance, the 
 Crown Prince used his influence on the side of 
 conciliation, and did all that was in his power 
 to avert a conflict. Now that it appeared 
 inevitable, he was as ever ready to do his duty. 
 A few days after the christening of his second 
 daughter, who, having been baptized on the 
 24th of May, received the name of Victoria, he 
 rejoined his Staff at Breslau; and, as the veteran 
 generals gathered round him, he said, with his 
 genial smile : "It really is too bad that so 
 young a man as I am should command you, 
 with all your experience, and I with none 
 myself." On the 14th of June the Prussian 
 proposals were rejected in the Diefc at Frank- 
 fort ; Hanover and Hesse fell almost without a 
 struggle, before the iron will of the great 
 minister, and the dogs of war were loosed. 
 The day after the issue of the Royal pro- 
 clamation to the Army, the Crown Prince 
 addressed his troops from his headquarters at 
 Naisse : — 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 79 
 
 " Soldiers of the Second Army, 
 
 " You have heard the words of our King 
 and Commander-in-Chief. The efforts of His Majesty 
 to preserve peace for our country have been vain. With 
 a heavy heart, but relying on the devotion and bravery 
 of his army, the King has resolved to fight for the 
 honour and independence of Prussia, and for the effec- 
 tual reorganization of Grermany. 
 
 "Placed at your head by the grace of my royal 
 father, and thanks to the confidence he reposes in me, I 
 am proud, as our King's first subject, to stake my life 
 with you for all that our fatherland holds most sacred. 
 
 " Soldiers ! For the first time in the last fifty years 
 our army has to face a foe that is its equal match. 
 Have confidence in your strength, in the efficiency of 
 your arms, and remember we have now got to beat the 
 same enemy whom our greatest King once vanquished 
 with a little army. 
 
 " And now forward, under the old Prussian device, 
 ' With Cod for king and country ! ' " 
 
 The Crown Prince had left for the campaign 
 under very painful circumstances, for a few 
 days before his departure, Prince Sigismund, 
 ' a beautiful boy, the joy and pride of his 
 parents,' was taken very ill. Even the doctor 
 who had attended him was summoned to the 
 front by the fate of war, and the Crown 
 
80 FREDERICK : 
 
 Princess was left alone with her sick child. 
 The illness, which was at first difficult to 
 recognize, assumed a fatal form,* and on the 
 18th of June the little Prince succumbed, 
 leaving his mother well-nigh distracted and 
 alone, without anyone to share her sorrow. 
 The news reached the Crown Prince just as the 
 army was on the point of advancing. He had 
 with him one tried and trusted friend, Captain 
 Mischke, a companion of his early days, and it 
 was his warm sympathy on which the Crown 
 Princess relied to help her husband at this 
 critical moment to bear so hard and crushing a 
 blow. 
 
 There were perhaps many others in the 
 camp who had their silent troubles ; such things 
 must always be. It is not the least of the 
 terrors of war, that, when the summons comes, 
 the claims of home and the affections of the 
 individual must yield to the general welfare ; 
 but it may have encouraged some of those who 
 stood in like case to see how bravely and 
 unswervingly their leader went about his 
 duty, never allowing his private griefs for a 
 moment to divert his energies from the grave 
 * Meningitis cerebralis. 
 
CROWN PE1NCE AND EMPEROR. 81 
 
 task he had in hand. Those who knew him 
 well were aware how acutely he suffered, but it 
 was only after the war was over, in a speech 
 made to the Municipality of Berlin, when ten- 
 dering their congratulations on his safe return, 
 that he spoke of his personal loss : " It was a 
 heavy trial," he said, " to be separated from my 
 wife and my dying boy ; that I could not be 
 there to close his eyes. Hard as it was at the 
 time to have to be far from my home and family, 
 I can now look back upon it with satisfaction, 
 for it was a sacrifice which I offered to my 
 country." 
 
 The force commanded by the Crown Prince 
 consisted of four army corps ; the first under 
 General von Bonin, the fifth under General 
 von Steinmetz, who was commander of the First 
 Army in the war of 1870, the sixth under 
 General von Mutius, and the Corps of the 
 Guards, under Prince August of Wlirtemberg. 
 He was supported by an able adviser in the 
 person of General von BlumenthaL who acted 
 as Chief of the Staff. General von Blumenthal 
 accompanied the Prince in the same capacity 
 durinof the Franco-German war, and one of the 
 few public acts of his brief reign was to bestow 
 
 F 
 
82 FREDERICK : 
 
 a field-marshal's baton on this old friend and 
 faithful servant, for whose military capacity and 
 private character he had unbounded esteem, 
 which it was his especial pleasure to express 
 whenever he had an opportunity. 
 
 The instructions issued by General von 
 Moltke, who as chief of the head-quarter Staff 
 directed the operations of the three armies, 
 were : to enter Bohemia through the passes of 
 the Giant Mountains, and effect a junction with 
 the armies of Prince Frederick Charles and 
 General Herwarth. A wide latitude was how- 
 ever left to the judgment and initiative of the 
 commander, and it was pointed out that, if 
 their concentration was not yet effected, cir- 
 cumstances might admit of a series of attacks 
 in overwhelming force on isolated bodies of the 
 enemy, which might modify the scheme of 
 campaign. The junction of the armies in the 
 direction of Gitschin was however still to be 
 the ultimate object, and the relative positions 
 of the three armies was ever to be kept in 
 sight, with a view to mutual support. This 
 forecast was carried out in its double event. 
 Four Austrian corps operating independently 
 opposed the invading Prussians ; with the 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 8 b 
 
 exception of a slight check experienced by 
 General von Bonin on the 27th, a series of 
 rapid successes between the 26th and 28th 
 cleared the way into Bohemia, and on the 30th 
 the three advancing - Prussian corps re-united 
 with the sixth, which had formed the rear- 
 guard. On the 1st of July the Crown Prince 
 issued the following proclamation : — 
 
 " Only a few days have elapsed since we crossed the 
 Bohemian frontier, and a series of brilliant victories lias 
 marked our advance, and ensured the attainment of 
 our first object, to hold the passages of the Elbe, and 
 unite with the First Army. 
 
 " The gallant Fifth Army Corps, under its heroic 
 leader (General v. Steinmetz), has gloriously repulsed 
 on three successive days as many fresh bodies of the 
 enemy advancing against them. The Gruarcls have 
 been twice engaged, and have brilliantly succeeded in 
 beating the enemy back. The First Army Corps has 
 displayed the greatest bravery under the most trying 
 circumstances. 
 
 " Five flags, two standards, 8,000 prisoners have 
 fallen into our hands, and many thousands of killed and 
 wounded, are evidence of how severe the losses of the 
 enemy have been. 
 
 " We have to mourn the loss of many gallant com- 
 rades, killed or wounded, who have made a gap in our 
 
 F 2 
 
84 FREDERICK : 
 
 ranks. But the thought of having fallen for their 
 King and their country, together with the conscious- 
 ness of victory, will have afforded consolation to the 
 dying and comfort to the suffering. 
 
 " God grant that we may continue in our career of 
 victory ! 
 
 " I thank the generals, officers, and men of the 
 Second Army for their gallantry in battle, and for 
 their patience in surmounting the great difficulties we 
 have had to encounter, and I feel proud to command 
 such troops." 
 
 But the hardest struggle was yet to come. 
 The First Army and the Army of the Elbe had 
 also in the meantime entered Bohemia, and 
 after a series of successes had converged upon 
 Gitschin, the point at which the three armies 
 were to effect their union. The Kino- arrived 
 at Gitschin on the 2nd of July to take over the 
 supreme command. It was decided that the 
 troops should enjoy a short rest before the 
 decisive engagement with the forces of General 
 Benedek. now concentrated in the neighbour- 
 hood of Koniggratz ; but a message from Prince 
 Frederick Charles, who was not aware of the 
 full strength of General Benedek's army, that 
 he should attack the Austrian position on the 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 85 
 
 following morning, relying on the support of 
 the Second Army and the Army of the Elbe, 
 changed these dispositions, and the general 
 attack was ordered for the 3rd. . The Crown 
 Prince's army was still some fourteen miles 
 from Gitschin, and on the night of the 2nd 
 orders were despatched for his immediate 
 advance. On the safe delivery of these orders 
 hung the issue of the day. An hour after 
 midnight, Count Finkenstein started on his 
 eventful ride through the enemy's country, 
 while a second instruction was forwarded by a 
 safe and more circuitous route. At a quarter 
 past three on the morning of the third he 
 reached the bivouack of the advance-guard of 
 the Second Army, and warned General von 
 Bonin to be prepared. By four in the morning 
 the message was safely delivered at head- 
 quarters, and by daybreak the columns were 
 advancing without train or baggage, straining 
 every nerve to reach the field in time. The 
 Crown Prince rode at their head, urging and 
 encouraging his men, as they heard in the 
 distance the thunder of the cannon of Sadowa 
 growing nearer and nearer. The Prussians 
 were heavily outnumbered in the morning, and 
 
86 FREDERICK : 
 
 victory hnngf in the scales. The Austrians 
 fought, as ever, with the utmost bravery and 
 determination, and had the Crown Prince 
 reached the battlefield a little later the whole 
 issue of the war might have been changed. 
 But it was only one o'clock when the artillery 
 of the Second Army opened fire upon the 
 Austrian light, by two o'clock the whole army 
 was engaged, and General von Moltke, turning 
 to the King, said, " Now, no power on earth 
 can take the victory from your Majesty." It 
 was the forced march of the Second Army that 
 won the decisive battle of Sadowa. The 
 Austrians lost in killed, wounded, and prisoners, 
 upwards of 40,000 men, while the rest of their 
 army was in full retreat over the Elbe or into 
 the fortress of Koniggratz. 
 
 It was late in the evening before the Crown 
 Prince found his father. Their meeting is thus 
 recorded in his diary : "At last, after much 
 questioning and searching, we met the King ; 
 I reported to him the presence of my army on 
 the field of battle, and kissed his hand, and he 
 embraced me. For a time neither of us could 
 find words. At last lie said that he was 
 rejoiced at my successes, and that I had shown 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 87 
 
 aptitude for command. He had confered on me, 
 as I would know by telegraph, the Order ' le 
 Merite.' I had not received this telegram ; and 
 so my father and Sovereign bestowed upon 
 me, on the field of a battle which I had assisted 
 in winning, our highest Order of military dis- 
 tinction. I was deeply moved, and those who 
 assisted at the interview seemed to share my 
 emotion." 
 
 The interview was thus also briefly described 
 by the King in a letter written on the following 
 morning to the Queen. " At last I met Fritz 
 with his Staff, quite late, at eight o'clock. 
 What a moment after all we had gone through, 
 and on the evening of such a day ! I gave him 
 myself the Order ' Pour le Merite.' Tears 
 started from his eyes, for he had not received 
 my telegram announcing it. It was a complete 
 surprise." 
 
 The Order " Pour le Merite " is so highly 
 esteemed, because it can only be won for 
 personal gallantry upon the field of battle, and 
 it had an especial value for the Prince to whom 
 so many decorations had fallen ex officio, in 
 being 1 the one Order which had to be earned. By 
 the express desire of the Emperor William, this 
 
8 8 FREDERICK : 
 
 Order, which he had won himself in 1815, was 
 hiinsr round his neck after death, and buried 
 with him. 
 
 The war was not over, but there was little 
 more fighting for the Second Army to do. The 
 Prussian troops pressed on to within sight of 
 Vienna, and on the 26th of July preliminaries 
 of peace were signed at Nikolsburg. The 
 Treaty of Prague, signed in the following 
 month, prepared the way for the unity of 
 Germany. The immediate results were that 
 the Sovereign of Prussia, whose territories had 
 now been extended by the annexation of 
 Hanover, Hesse, Schleswig-Holstein, Nassau, 
 and Frankfort, became President of a new 
 North German Confederation, including all the 
 States of Northern and Central Germany, with 
 absolute control of their military organization, 
 while offensive and defensive alliances with the 
 States and Southern Germany placed at his 
 disposal the whole available fighting strength 
 of the Gsrman nation. 
 
 Such were the momentous changes effected 
 by the brief but brilliant campaign of 1866, to 
 whose success the Crown Prince had so largely 
 contributed. As he drove into Berlin beside 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 89 
 
 the King, on the 4th of August, and the people 
 closed in round the carriage with cheer on 
 cheer, he may well have felt a thrill of conscious 
 pride at having so fully justified the high com- 
 mand with which he had been entrusted. The 
 glory of the successful soldier is still man's 
 fondest ambition ; we had nearly all of us rather 
 have been Caesar than Socrates. But the 
 scenes of the last weeks had left a dark im- 
 pression on the quick sensibilities and the 
 gentle nature of the soldier-Prince, which the 
 flush of triumph could not altogether efface, 
 and he had seen upon what narrow issues the 
 fate of battles hung. There was still much 
 more of this rough work for him to do, inevit- 
 able for the Prince as for the Private. But 
 his inmost feelings are revealed in a few words 
 which he made use of sometime afterwards in 
 the course of conversation, when the Luxem- 
 burg question was agitating the public mind, 
 and the danger of hostilities was again with- 
 in measurable distance. " You have never seen 
 war," he said to one who had lightly spoken of 
 its probability, " or you would never pronounce 
 that word so calmly. I, who have been 
 brought face to face with war, must tell you 
 
90 FREDERICK : 
 
 that it is a paramount duty to avoid it, if it 
 be possible. To make war is to incur a terrible 
 responsibility. A statesman, even when he 
 foresees the necessity of war, ought not to pro- 
 voke it by artificial means, unless he be a 
 genius and is confident of success. Otherwise 
 he is tempting God. On the other hand, to 
 await the contingency of war with firmness, 
 and not to shrink from it if it is forced upon 
 one, is the duty of a man. In acting so, we 
 shall have public opinion and Heaven on our 
 side." 
 
 After the war of 1866 the Crown Prince 
 rejoined the Crown Princess in Haringsdorf, a 
 little village on the shores of the Baltic, to 
 which the Princess and her children had retired 
 on account of the cholera, which was then very 
 bad in Potsdam. Thence they proceeded to 
 Admannsdorf, in Silesia, not far from the 
 Bohemian frontier, where the Princess occupied 
 herself in tending the wounded soldiers, both 
 Prussian and Austrian. 
 
 And now once more it fell to his lot to under- 
 take the task of conciliation, and to gain the 
 attachment of the new provinces ; and as he 
 travelled from one to the other, inspecting their 
 
CROWN PRTNCE AND EMPEROR. 91 
 
 troops or visiting their cities, his influence was 
 ever at work, to temper the mortifications of 
 surrender, by raising' the ideal of an united 
 Fatherland, and by his personal charm and 
 genial manner to reveal to them in the repre- 
 sentative of Prussia a friend, and not a 
 conqueror. As his heart naturally went out to 
 all men, and as he had a real and strong 
 affection for all Germans, to whatever state 
 they belonged, the part he had to play was a 
 very welcome one. Moreover, as he had 
 entered the campaign with a heavy heart, 
 though fully convinced of its necessity, he 
 never ceased subsequently to do all that was 
 in his power to restore the natural bond 
 between Austrians and Prussians, and remove 
 the traces of their temporary estrangement. 
 
 Notwithstanding the ominous development 
 of the Luxemburg question, and the tension 
 with France, which never wholly subsided after 
 the Treaty of Prague, the next few years were 
 spent in peace, and the Crown Prince resumed 
 his command of the Second Army Corps. At 
 the end of 1866 he was once more in Russia, for 
 the marriage of the Cesarevitch, and in the 
 following year he visited the Paris Exhibition 
 
92 FREDERICK : 
 
 with the Crown Princess. While they were 
 there King William also arrived, and for a while 
 it seemed as if these visits had succeeded in 
 dispelling somewhat the feeling of mistrust 
 between the neighbour nations. In 1868 the 
 Crown Prince went to Turin, to be present at 
 the marriage of Prince Humbert. The latter 
 had been in Berlin the previous year, and with 
 this visit renewed the acquaintance the two 
 Princes had formed in Milan some years 
 previously, and strengthened that cordial 
 friendship between the future rulers of Ger- 
 many and Italy which continued unbroken to 
 the last. Their positions were not altogether 
 dissimilar. The making, of Italy was as yet 
 only partially accomplished, but the campaign 
 of 1866 had greatly lightened the task of King 
 Victor Emmanuel and Cavour. In every Italian 
 city which was visited by the Crown Prince 
 enthusiastic demonstrations testified how sen- 
 sible the populations were to the debt they owed 
 to Germany. The martial bearing and the 
 winning manner of the hero of Sadowa appealed 
 directly to the warm temperament of the Italian 
 people, who gave him a Southern welcome, and 
 it was a source of unmixed pleasure to the Royal 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 93 
 
 traveller to find that he had won the love of a 
 people whose land he loved, so well. Among 
 the many personal friends of the Crown Prince 
 in Italy may be mentioned the celebrated 
 Statesmen, Marco Minghetti, Giovanni Morelli, 
 and Count Pobilant. 
 
 In the same year, the Wedding day of Queen 
 Victoria and Prince Albert, and the anniversary 
 of the Princess Royal's christening, was marked 
 by another conspicuous event in the family of 
 the Crown Prince. A fourth son was born, 
 who seemed sent to fill the sad gap which the 
 death of his little brother had made two years 
 before. The present Emperor of Pussia was 
 sponsor to Prince Waldemar, and the christen- 
 ing took place on the Emperor William's 
 seventy-first birthday, at Berlin. He was a 
 child of unusual promise, who inherited all the 
 brightness of his father's nature, with that 
 physical beauty which is so often the privilege 
 of those whom the gods love. His little life 
 was long enough to win the hearts of all who 
 were brought near him, and his early death, in 
 his eleventh year, left a gap which could never 
 be filled. It was by the side of this much-loved 
 child that the father chose his last resting-place, 
 
94 FREDERICK : 
 
 when the great tragedy which the passing year 
 has witnessed drew to its close. 
 
 In November, 1869, the Sovereigns of all the 
 Maritime Powers were invited to take part in 
 the ceremonious opening of the Suez Canal ; 
 and this invitation afforded the Crown Prince, 
 who was deputed to represent the King, an 
 opportunity of realizing the long-cherished 
 plan of a journey through the East. Pausing 
 on his way to make a pilgrimage to Dante's 
 grave at Ravenna, he crossed from Brindisi by 
 Corfu to Corinth. From Athens he sailed to 
 Constantinople, where the Sultan made over to 
 his guest the concession of an ancient monastery 
 of the Knights of St. John in Jerusalem, which 
 was to furnish the site for a German Protestant 
 Church and hospital. Embarking thence, he 
 arrived on the 3rd of November at Jaffa, and, 
 escorted by a detachment of Marines from the 
 Hertha, started at once for the Holy City, 
 which was reached on the following day, after 
 a night in camp at Bab-el- Wady. Jerusalem is 
 now no longer the goal of pilgrims from the 
 Catholic countries of Europe ; but Greeks and 
 Armenians still make their way in numbers to 
 the Holy Sepulchre, and they were a motley 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 95 
 
 throng of all the peoples of the East that lined 
 the narrow streets to witness the Prince's entry. 
 As ever, full of consideration for all about him, 
 he turned to the Marines in his escort, and 
 bade them keep close to him, that they might 
 not miss any of the sights. The deep impres- 
 sion made by the haunting spirit of a spot so 
 familiar through long and tender association, 
 found record in the following entry in the diary 
 in which he never failed to chronicle his obser- 
 vations and experiences : — 
 
 " 1 shall never, as long as I live, forget that first 
 evening in Jerusalem, when I saw the sunset from the 
 Mount of Olives, and that wondrous peace of Nature 
 supervened which even in any other place has a solemn 
 character of its own. Here the spirit could lift itself 
 over earthly things, and dwell uninterruptedly in those 
 thoughts which move the heart of every Christian when 
 he looks hack on that great work of redemption, which 
 found upon this hallowed spot its loftiest expression. 
 To read over again one's favourite passages in the 
 Gospels at such a place is in itself an act of worship." 
 
 From Jerusalem, Bethlehem and the graves 
 of the Patriarchs were visited, and after a brief 
 excursion to Lebanon and Damascus the Crown 
 Prince re-embarked for Port Said. The 
 
96 FREDERICK : 
 
 ceremonies connected with the opening of the 
 Suez Canal were over in time to enable him to 
 reach the first cataract of the Nile, and even to 
 penetrate some distance into Nubia, before 
 rejoining the Crown Princess and his family for 
 the Christmas rejoicing at Cannes, where they 
 had been staying with Princess Alice, whose 
 husband had accompanied the Crown Prince on 
 his travels. The last days of the year were 
 spent at Paris, where the Emperor Napoleon 
 paid them a visit at their hotel. They were 
 "■ struck by finding him changed and ailing and 
 much dejected." In the course of conversation 
 the Emperor mentioned that he had appointed 
 a new Minister, M. Ollivier. Thence, on the 
 morning of the New Year, little anticipating 
 what eventful days it was to bring him, the 
 Crown Prince returned to Berlin. Before that 
 year was over he met the Emperor Napoleon 
 once again — the morning after the capitulation 
 of Sedan. 
 
y. 
 
 1870 — 1871. 
 
 G 
 
1870—1871. 
 
 The Spring and early Summer of 1870 had 
 passed uneventfully ; the Crown Prince had 
 been sent by his doctors for a cure to Carlsbad, 
 from which he returned in April ; and the 
 only event which had marked the year with 
 importance in his family was the birth of a 
 daughter, Princess Sophie, on the 14th of June. 
 The King had gone to Ems, as was his annual 
 habit, when suddenly the crisis came, and the 
 war which had so long been anticipated took 
 Europe by surprise. This is not a place to 
 enter into the causes, immediate or remote, 
 which led to the eventful struggle, nor is any 
 detailed description contemplated of that 
 memorable campaign. So much only will be 
 dealt with in the following pages as may 
 serve to throw light upon the military genius 
 
 G 2 
 
 LoFC. 
 
100 FREDERICK: 
 
 and character of the subject of the present 
 sketch. 
 
 After his well-known interview with M. 
 Benedetti, the King returned immediately to 
 Berlin. He was met at Brandenburg by the 
 Crown Prince. Both appreciated the full 
 gravity of the moment and the issues that were 
 at stake ; for now, if ever, the question of an 
 united Germany was to be finally decided, and 
 Prussia was to triumph or to disappear. All 
 along the route two private secretaries had 
 been constantly occupied in deciphering the 
 telegraphic messages which were handed in at 
 every station ; and it was on the King's arrival 
 at Berlin that the Crown Prince read to him, 
 by the flickering light of a gas-jet in the 
 station waiting-room, a despatch from Paris 
 announcing the stormy meeting in the French 
 chambers, which clearly indicated the condition 
 of the public mind in Paris. It was to be war ; 
 and the King on learning its contents simply 
 said : " I think I can only answer this message 
 by ordering the mobilization of the whole 
 German army, and in half an hour I shall be 
 ready to sign the necessary papers." The gas- 
 lamp by which the eventful message was read 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 101 
 
 was afterwards taken from its place and 
 retained as a cherished relic. 
 
 The plan of campaign had long been pre- 
 pared, and all went forward with order and 
 precision. On the 19th of July the French 
 Charge d' Affairs at Berlin handed in the declara- 
 tion of war, and the whole fighting strength of 
 Germany was already mobilizing and streaming 
 to the Rhine. The King assumed the supreme 
 command of the united German Army, while 
 General Moltke, as Chief of the Staff, accom- 
 panied his head-quarters, and directed the 
 military operations. The available forces were 
 divided into three armies. The first, commanded 
 by General von Steinmitz, was ordered to con- 
 centrate on the Moselle, in the neighbourhood 
 of Treves. The second was placed under 
 the command of Prince Frederick Charles, 
 whose head- quarters were first fixed at 
 Mayence, and directed to press forward to 
 the frontier. The Third Army, which was to 
 concentrate on the Upper Rhine, and to 
 form the left, or southern wing, was similarly 
 to advance across the frontier, keeping up 
 close communication with the centre. It 
 was commanded by the Crown Prince. His 
 
102 FREDERICK: 
 
 Chief of the Staff was General von Blumenthal ; 
 the Artillery were under the orders of 
 Lieutenant-General Herckt, and the Engineers 
 under Major-General Schulz. The Crown 
 Prince was well fitted, both by his character 
 and his rank, to assume the difficult task of 
 leading and conciliating 1 the various elements 
 of which the Third Army was composed. 
 At least a dozen different dialects of German 
 were spoken in its ranks. It consisted of 
 the two Bavarian Army Corps, the combined 
 Corps of Baden and Wiirtemberg, and the 
 Fifth, Sixth, and Eleventh Prussian Army 
 Corps, with the Second and Fourth Cavalry 
 divisions, amongst which might be found 
 Westphalians, Hessians, and Thuringians, 
 with the regiments from Waldeck and 
 Frankfort. 
 
 On the 25th of July, the christening of 
 Princess Sophie took place. It was an 
 anxious party that met round the baptismal 
 font, for there were few present there who 
 were not under orders for the front. The 
 gentlemen were already in their high boots 
 and campaigning accoutrements. Emotion, 
 anxiety, and excitement made the King 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 103 
 
 unable to hold his little grandaughter at the 
 baptismal font, according' to wont, and he 
 deputed the task to the Queen Augusta. 
 On the 25th, the Crown Prince once more 
 went to church, and received the Communion 
 with the Princess, and early on the morning 
 of the 26th he departed without taking 
 leave ; he wished to spare his wife the agony 
 of parting. He first proceeded to Munich, 
 to pay a hasty visit to the King of Bavaria. 
 The reception accorded him wherever he 
 showed himself, the enthusiasm which greeted 
 his appearance by the side of the young 
 King in the theatre, augured well for the 
 spirit of the Bavarian troops. Proceeding 
 from Munich to Stuttgart, he paused on 
 his way at Ingoldstadt to introduce himself 
 as their commander to the assembled officers 
 of the Bavarian Army, and addressed them 
 in the following words : " I cannot sufficiently 
 express to you the honour which I feel has 
 been done me by your King in entrusting 
 his army to oy command. Let us not 
 conceal from ourselves that we have before 
 us a momentous struggle, but the universal 
 enthusiasm which we are witnesses of 
 
104 FREDERICK : 
 
 from every corner of Germany bids me hope 
 that, with God's help, it will be a victorious 
 struggle, which will lead at last to a peace that 
 shall crown our German Fatherland with pros- 
 perity. Let us then rely on our good cause, 
 upon our good sword ! " By Stuttgardt and 
 Carlsruhe he proceeded to Spires, where his 
 head-quarters were first established, and at once 
 began that difficult task, which it is his special 
 merit to have carried through so successfully, 
 of consolidating his army, morally as well as 
 practically, and welding its many elements into 
 one harmonious whole. On the day of his 
 arrival, the 30th, he was in the camp of the 
 Bavarians, observing, encouraging, asking a 
 friendly question of this man and that, and 
 spreading by his genial presence, that con- 
 tagious enthusiasm which is worth so much on 
 the eve of battle. The same day he issued his 
 Proclamation to the Army : — 
 
 " Soldiers of the Third Army, 
 
 " Appointed by my royal father Com- 
 mander-in-Chief of the Third Army, I greet the troops 
 of Prussia, Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, and Baden, who are 
 henceforth under my command. It fills me with pride 
 and satisfaction to be advancing against the foe at the 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 105 
 
 head of an army composed of men from every part of 
 our common Grerman Fatherland, for the national 
 cause, for the right, for the honour of Grermany. We 
 are marching to a great and grave struggle, hut con- 
 vinced of the justice of our cause, and relying on your 
 bravery, your endurance, and your manliness, we have 
 no misgivings as to its victorious issue. Therefore let 
 us hold fast to our true brotherhood in arms, that with 
 Grod's help we may unroll our banners to new victories 
 for the glory and the peace of our united Father- 
 land. 
 
 " Frederick "William, 
 
 " Crown Prince of Prussia." 
 
 On the 3rd of August the Prince pushed on 
 his head-quarters to Landau, and issued orders 
 that on the following day his troops should 
 cross the Lauter, and enter hostile territory. 
 Reconnaissances had proved that the French 
 showed no disposition to strike the first blow, 
 and the fact that the frontier lines were still 
 unoccupied, justified the presumption that they 
 were not yet fully prepared. The Seventh 
 French Corps d'Armee, under General Felix 
 Douay, detailed to protect the Southern passes 
 of the Vosges, which was the first to come to 
 close quarters with the Third Army, had been 
 the last to complete its mobilization, and the 
 
106 FREDERICK : 
 
 General was quite unprepared to carry out an 
 instruction despatched on the 27th of July to 
 join the division of Marshal MacMahon, whose 
 troops were concentrated near Strasburg. The 
 stragetic plan of the Emperor Napoleon to 
 unite the armies of Metz and Strasburo- to 
 cross the Rhine with an overwhelming force 
 and occupy Baden and the Palatinate, was 
 anticipated by the rapidity of the German 
 mobilization and advance. 
 
 As day broke on the morning of the 4th 
 the Crown Prince advanced on Weissenburjr. 
 The town itself, situated on the river Lauter, 
 was fortified with obsolete ramparts dating 
 from the last century, but the heights to the 
 south-west, known as the Geisburg, afforded a 
 very strong position, and were occupied by 
 General Douay with eleven battalions of 
 infantry and four batteries of artillery. The 
 Crown Prince arrived on the field of battle 
 at a quarter past nine, and directed operations 
 in person. Before midday the town was in 
 the hands of the Germans, and what remained 
 of the garrison their prisoners. The whole 
 attack was then concentrated on the Geisberg. 
 Many of the regiments had been as much as 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 107 
 
 eight hours on the march, but their determined 
 advance carried all before it, and the French, 
 who were heavily outnumbered, abandoned 
 their positions one by one. A stubborn resist- 
 ance was made in the Schloss, with its out- 
 houses, crowning 1 the summit, and a first 
 attempt to carry the position by storm was 
 repulsed ; but still new troops succeeded. The 
 French, with great coolness, reserved their fire 
 till the enemy was within certain range, and 
 then opened a deadly hail from every point 
 of vantage. The colours of the Seventh Royal 
 Grenadiers, who led the advancing column, 
 were passed from hand to hand, as one by one 
 the bearers were shot down. At length a 
 battery was brought to bear upon the strong- 
 hold, now surrounded on every side by the 
 Prussian and Bavarian troops, and towards 
 one o'clock the survivors surrendered, and the 
 first battle of the war was won. 
 
 The victorious regiments were drawn up on 
 the heights as the Crown Prince rode up the 
 bloody slopes of the Geisberg, where the dead 
 and wounded were lying on every side, in 
 evidence of the severity of the struggle. On 
 his way he paused here and there to speak 
 
108 FREDERICK : 
 
 to a wounded soldier, and then standing still 
 in the midst of his young troops, still black 
 with powder-smoke and soiled with the dust 
 of battle, he addressed a few stirring words 
 of gratitude to each and all for their steadiness 
 and gallantry. The tattered flag of the Royal 
 Grenadiers was brought him, and he kissed 
 it, and embraced the wounded commander of 
 the regiment, Major von Kaisenberg, who had 
 fallen at the head of the storming column, 
 with the colours in his hand. Then, learning 
 that General Douay had fallen in the battle, 
 he desired to be shown the body of this 
 distinguished officer. The Crown Prince went 
 in alone to the peasant's cottage where he 
 lay ; it was a moving and suggestive sight ; 
 in the morning their chances were equal ; 
 in the flush of victory, the pathetic contrast 
 of this brave man's fate now touched him 
 deeply ; not a soul of all the thousands he 
 had commanded was watching at his side, 
 only his dog sat whining by the corpse. 
 
 The German troops had undoubtedly out- 
 numbered the French considerably. Some 
 sixteen battalions had been engaged on their 
 side, while the division of General Douay 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR, 109 
 
 numbered less than 9,000 men ; but the 
 strength of the French position had more 
 than compensated for the inequality of 
 numbers, and the steadiness and determina- 
 tion shown by the Germans had been exem- 
 plary. Besides, the first ordeal had been 
 successfully overcome ; Prussians and Bavarians 
 had conquered side by side. The importance 
 of the victory could scarcely be over-estimated, 
 but it was,, dearly bought, for ninety-one officers 
 and upwards of 1,400 men were left on the 
 battlefield. 
 
 In the afternoon of the 4th head-quarters 
 were advanced to Schweighofen, and on the 
 following day to Sulz, some seven miles from 
 the village of Worth. The news of the 
 defeat of his advance -guard reached Marshal 
 
 &■ 
 
 MacMahon the same evening- at Strasburg. 
 He at once pushed forward with all the forces 
 he could muster, to retrieve, if possible, the 
 disaster, by covering the passes of the Vosges, 
 and attempting to drive the invading army 
 back over the Alsatian frontier. With this 
 object he took up a strong position, on the 5th, 
 along a line of wooded heights to the west of 
 the village of Worth, in communication with 
 
110 FREDERICK : 
 
 the more distant fortress of Bitsch. In the 
 rear of his position lay Beichshofen, connected 
 with Worth by a high road ; to the north-east 
 was the village of Froschweiler, to the south 
 Elsasshausen, the left and right centres of the 
 French lines, the extreme right extending as 
 far as Morsbrunn, and the extreme left to 
 Neuweiler, in the direction of Bitsch. The 
 attack was expected on the 7th, and it had 
 been the intention of the Commander of the 
 Third Army to postpone the decisive encounter 
 till that day, when he would have been able to 
 bring all his five army corps into action simul- 
 taneously ; but during the night of the 5th, 
 and in the early morning of the 6th, a lively 
 interchange of shots took place between the 
 French outposts and the advance guard of the 
 Fifth Prussian Corps in the centre, and the 
 Second Bavarian Corps on the right. The 
 General in command of the Fifth Corps, 
 noticing considerable movement in the French 
 lines about 4 a.m., was under the impression 
 that they were about to retreat from their 
 positions, and ordered a reconnaissance in force. 
 From this reconnaissance the decisive battle 
 developed itself; for though orders were 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. Ill 
 
 despatched to the various commanders to 
 avoid bringing on a general action at present, 
 matters had already gone too far to make this 
 course practicable, and the French had assumed 
 the offensive. The commander of the Eleventh 
 Corps, which formed the left of the first line, 
 seeing the Fifth Corps and the Bavarians 
 engaged, prepared to render assistance, and by 
 midday all three corps were fully employed. At 
 half-past twelve, the Crown Prince and his Staff 
 arrived on the field of battle, and about the 
 same time the First Bavarian Corps and the 
 Wtirtemburg division, which had had upwards 
 of ten miles to march that morning, were draw- 
 ing into line, while the Baden regiments were 
 following hard behind. 
 
 The first object of the Crown Prince was to 
 drive the French out of Worth, and having 
 done this, to move forward and contest the 
 positions held by the left wing of Marshal 
 MacMahon's army, extending in a north- 
 easterly direction to Froschweiler, while a sim- 
 ultaneous movement was to be directed against 
 the French right at Elsasshausen, to prevent 
 the possibility of their attacking 1 the Fifth 
 Prussian Corps in flank. 
 
112 FREDERICK : 
 
 Immediately after the arrival of the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, an advance was ordered along 
 the whole line. After a brief but severe 
 struggle, Worth was carried by General von 
 Kirchback, and two attempts to retake it were 
 repulsed. Meanwhile the Eleventh Corps, 
 advancing against the French right, drove 
 them back from Morsbrunn to Elsasshausen, 
 and joined hands with the centre, now moving 
 upon Froschweiler. All along the road from 
 Morsbrunn they had fought a desperate hand 
 to hand struggle, through woods and vineyards ; 
 the ground did not permit of re-forming, and 
 the fight was man for man. The dead and 
 wounded lay clubbed or bayonetted, French 
 and German, side by side or locked together in 
 the death grapple where they fell. Just outside 
 Elsasshausen General von Bose, who commanded 
 the corps, was severely wounded, but still man- 
 aged to keep his seat in the saddle; an hour 
 later he received a second wound at Frosch- 
 weiler. Thus the French right, still fighting 
 with unremitted courage, was forced to yield 
 step by step along the whole position, and the 
 progress of the German left was the signal for 
 a concentrated attack on Froschweiler. About 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR, 113 
 
 three o'clock in the afternoon the batteries 
 opened fire upon it from three sides, and 
 as- the flames of the burning houses marked 
 the havoc which the shells had made, the 
 combined right and centre advanced to storm 
 the heights. The Crown Prince, when he 
 had issued his final orders, leapt upon his 
 horse and rode after the storming columns, 
 through Worth and across the field of 
 battle. At four o'clock Marshal MacMahon 
 recognized that his position was no longer 
 tenable, and gave orders to retire. It was 
 at this point, in order to cover his retreat 
 on Reichshofen, and stay the pursuit of the 
 victorious Germans left from Elsasshausen, 
 that he ordered that desperate charge of 
 the brigade of Cuirassiers, which, executed 
 with the unfaltering devotion of a forlorn hope, 
 became one of the most trao-ic and heroic 
 episodes in a story abounding in tragedy and 
 heroism. If the roads beyond Reichshofen to 
 Bitsch, Zabern, and Strasburg were secured, it 
 was at a frightful cost. The French cavalry 
 charged into a valley of death ; mown down 
 by the simultaneous fire of artillery and infantry, ' 
 they lay in ordered ranks, with their faces to 
 
 H 
 
114 FREDERICK : 
 
 the foe that few of them ever reached, a grisly 
 army of the dead. 
 
 The French had fought with the utmost 
 gallantry, and all that mortal men could do to 
 avert disaster had heen done ; hut attacked 
 simultaneously on the North, East, and South, 
 with his retreat threatened, the Marshal had 
 no choice but to retire. He reached Zabern on 
 the following day, and withdrew thence to 
 Chalons, while other portions of the army fell 
 back on Bitsch and Strasburg. In the evening 
 the Crown Prince rode over the battlefield and 
 congratulated his troops on this decisive 
 victory ; the massed bands were playing the 
 national hymn as he rode up the heights of 
 Froschweiler, greeted by the joyful cheers of 
 officers and men. But it was a scene of deso- 
 lation that met his eyes, the dead of Reich- 
 shofen lay in grim and ghastly heaps, and there 
 were terrible gaps in his own regiments. On 
 the French side some 200 officers and 9,000 
 men were prisoners, while the losses in killed 
 and wounded amounted to upwards of 6,000, 
 but the victory was obtained at the cost of 500 
 officers and more than 10,000 men liors dc 
 combat. Amongst the distinguished French 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 115 
 
 officers who had been wounded, the Crown 
 Prince found General Baoult, who succumbed 
 to his injuries a few weeks later, tying on his 
 camp-bed, and, grasping his hand, spoke a few 
 words of kindly solicitude, and while offering 
 to convey any communication he might wish to 
 his family, desired him to command his services. 
 The following day, the 7th, was devoted to 
 rest. In the morning the Crown Prince again 
 rode over the field of battle, and was then for 
 the first time able to appreciate the full 
 measure of the carnage and desolation that the 
 clays work had made. In the garden of a 
 farm-house which had not suffered from the 
 passing storm, he found a Bavarian trooper, 
 who had made himself very much at home, 
 enjoying a quiet breakfast, and as was his wont 
 addressed a few friendly words to him. Stand- 
 ing at attention with his hand at the salute, 
 the honest Bavarian allowed his enthusiasm to 
 carry him away, and exclaimed : "If only we 
 had had vour Roval Highness to lead us in 
 1866, you would have seen how we would have 
 thrashed those cursed Prussians ! " — " I never," 
 said the Crown Prince, " received a compliment 
 that pleased me better." 
 
 H 2 
 
116 FREDERICK: 
 
 The road now lay open into the heart 
 of France, and the advance was continued 
 through the passes of the Vosges. The 
 Baden contingent was told off to invest the 
 fortress of Strasburg, and on the 11th, from 
 head-quarters at Petersbach, the following 
 proclamation was issued to the victorious 
 troops : — 
 
 " Soldiers of the Third Army, 
 
 " Having with the victorious battle of Weissen- 
 burg crossed the frontier into French territory, and. 
 then by the brilliant victory of Worth driven the 
 French out of Alsace, we have by now advanced across 
 the Yosges far into France, and have established com- 
 munications with the First and Second Armies, before 
 whose successful arms the foe has equally been com- 
 pelled to retire.* It is jour great gallantry, your high 
 spirit, your endurance under every difficulty and exer- 
 tion, that we have to thank for these important achieve- 
 ments. In the name of the King of Prussia, our 
 Commander-in-Chief, and in the name of the Allied 
 Princes, I thank you, and I am proud to find myself at 
 the head of an army against which the enemy has 
 hitherto been unable to hold his ground, whose deeds 
 our common German Fatherland is watching with 
 enthusiasm — Frederick William." 
 
 * Spicheren and Saarbiikk- 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 117 
 
 Simple words and unadorned, but words 
 which went home to every man among them, 
 who knew that appeal to their common nation- 
 ality was no empty phrase with their leader, 
 whom they would have followed, Bavarians, 
 Wiirtembergers, and all of them, to the end of 
 the world. For by now their confidence in him 
 was equal to their regard, and each individual 
 felt himself to be the object of his leader's fore- 
 thought and solicitude. " In the hospitals," 
 says, one of his biographers, " the wounded 
 seem to forget their pain when he drew near, 
 and many in their delirium could speak of 
 nothing- but their leader." And how he had 
 won the hearts of his army the following ex- 
 tract from the letter of a Bavarian officer will 
 serve to illustrate : — 
 
 " It is the Crown Prince, in the first place, that we 
 have to thank for the brotherly relations which subsist 
 between the troops, for Prussians and Bavarians going 
 arrn-in-arm. Even the private soldiers are made his 
 comrades for life and death : he speaks to them, not 
 condescendingly, but with such an unmistakable ring 
 of personal interest, and with such a genial maimer, 
 that the fellows' hearts go out to him every time. And 
 so does his to them. So overcome was he the other day 
 
118 FREDERICK : 
 
 ill conferring an exceptional military distinction on a 
 private soldier, that in his enthusiasm he placed his 
 hands upon the hero's shoulders and kissed him. There 
 was a moment's breathless silence, and the muskets 
 trembled in the soldiers' hands." 
 
 On the 16th of August the Crown Prince 
 arrived with his Staff at Nancy, and awaited 
 news of the movements of the First and Second 
 Armies. On the 19th two officers who had 
 been despatched to the King's head-quarters at 
 Pont-a-Mousson returned with news of the three 
 battles that had been fought round Metz, of 
 the last of which, Gravelotte, they had them- 
 selves been eye-witnesses. The army of Marshal 
 Bazaine was now shut up in Metz, and sur- 
 rounded by seven army corps under the 
 command of Prince Frederick Charles, it was 
 precluded from taking any further active part 
 in the campaign. On the 20th the Crown 
 Prince went to Pont-a-Mousson, and saw the 
 Kino; for the first time after an eventful month. 
 The coveted distinction of the Iron Cross of 
 the first class was here bestowed upon him, but 
 with his instinctive chivalry, he declared he 
 could not wear it unless a similar decoration 
 were bestowed on General von Blumenthal. 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 119 
 
 Meanwhile the enemy was straining every 
 nerve to form a new army at Chalons, where 
 the broken columns of MacMahon's force had 
 halted in their retreat. These were reinforced 
 by the corps of General Failly and two divisions 
 from Belfort, while large numbers of the Garde 
 Mobile were despatched in haste from Paris. 
 The position was well selected, but no prepara- 
 tions had been made for the reception of such 
 a number of troops, and it became untenable 
 before the rapid advance of the Germans, The 
 day after the battle of Gravelotte a council of 
 war had been held at the German head-quarters, 
 at which it had been decided to form a Fourth 
 Army (the Army of the Meuse) composed of 
 three corps drawn off from the Second Army, 
 to be placed under the command of the Crown 
 Prince of Saxony. This army was to co-operate 
 with the Third Army, and their first object was 
 to be the destruction of the force now muster- 
 ing at Chalons. On the night of the 20th, 
 the Crown Prince rejoined his Staff at 
 Vaucouleurs, to which the head -quarters had 
 been moved from Nancy. In illustration of 
 the spirit in which he carried out the instruc- 
 tions of his Kinof and Father to wage no war or< 
 
120 FREDERICK : 
 
 the peaceful inhabitants of France, the follow- 
 ing proclamation, issued to the inhabitants of 
 Nancy, will be read with interest :— 
 
 " Germany is at war with the Emperor of the 
 French, not with the French people. The population 
 need fear no hostile measures. I am occupied in 
 restoring the people, and especially for the town of 
 Nancy, the means of communication which were broken 
 by the French Army. I* trust that business and trade 
 will revive, and that the authorities will remain at 
 their posts. I claim for the maintenance of my army 
 only the excess of provision which is not required for 
 the support of the native population. All that are 
 peacefully inclined, and particularly the population of 
 the town of Nancy, may count upon the most indulgent 
 treatment," 
 
 And this was literally carried out. The 
 military field-post was made available for the 
 inhabitants of Nancy, and with extraordinary 
 rapidity the telegraph wires and railway lines 
 which the French troops had destroyed were 
 set in workino- order again. 
 
 The fortress of Toul, which lay on the line of 
 march, offered a determined resistance. The 
 Crown Prince had ordered that the town was 
 to be spared as much as the exigencies of war 
 
GROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 121 
 
 would permit, and especially that the Cathedral, 
 a masterpiece of Gothic architecture, was to be 
 kept well out of the line of fire. Bombarded 
 for a whole day, Toul still held out, and the 
 troops investing the fortress were ordered to 
 rejoin the main body marching on Chalons, a 
 detachment being left behind to mask it until 
 the reserves came up, when the surrender was to 
 be enforced. On the 23rd head- quarters were 
 at Ligny. The King had left Pont-a-Mousson 
 that morning, and after passing the night at 
 Commercy, was timed to arrive at Ligny 
 towards noon on the 24th. The streets of the 
 little toAvn were bright with uniforms, and all 
 its inhabitants had crowded out to see the 
 young commander of the Third Army, who, sur- 
 rounded by his Staff, was awaiting the King's 
 arrival. As the clock struck twelve a Hussar 
 came galloping across the market-place and 
 delivered a sealed order to the Prince, who 
 hastily read its contents, and passed it on to 
 General Blumenthal. There was great news. 
 The French had evacuated Chalons on the 21st, 
 and the town was already occupied by the 
 German cavalry. The King arrived soon after 
 one o'clock at Ligny, and the changed aspect of 
 
122 FREDERICK : 
 
 affairs was considered. The direction north- 
 wards taken by Marshal MacMahon's Army 
 afforded strong grounds for the presumption 
 that it was the Emperor's intention, if possible, 
 to relieve Bazaine, and intercepted despatches 
 subsequently confirmed the accuracy of this 
 surmise. His first plan, to retire on Paris with 
 the army of Chalons, was abandoned in defer- 
 ence to reports from the capital, where the 
 Empress Eugenie warned him that to abandon 
 Bazaine and to return himself to Paris would 
 be the signal for revolution. 
 K In the King's head-quarters at Bar-le-Duc a 
 council of war was held. The determination to 
 despatch the Fourth Army and the two Bava- 
 rian corps only of the Third Army, to intercept 
 Marshal MacMahon's progress, was combated 
 by the Crown Prince, who maintained that it 
 was of paramount importance that all available 
 forces should combine to strike a decisive blow 
 in the North, even if the advance on Paris were 
 delayed. His advice, supported by the weight 
 of General Blumenthal's opinion, prevailed, and 
 consequently the whole of the Third Army, in 
 conjunction with the Fourth, faced round to 
 the right and hurried by forced marches to the 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 123 
 
 North. On the 28th reconnaissances took place 
 which left no further doubt as to the where- 
 abouts of Marshal MacMahon's Army. After 
 a series of engagements in which the Crown 
 Prince of Saxony carried off the palm at Beau- 
 mont, the French drew back on the fortress of 
 Sedan, which, on the evening of the 31st August, 
 was surrounded on three sides by the German 
 troops. 
 
 It would be out of the question here, in the 
 short space which can be accorded to it, to give 
 any account of the memorable battle which 
 dealt the French Empire its death-blow. 
 Fighting began at daybreak ; Marshal Mac- 
 Mahon had drawn up his army in a semi-circle 
 round Sedan, extending from the north by 
 east to south ; the Avest was undefended, and 
 passage over the Meuse at Donchery was thus 
 open to the German advance. The task before 
 the Third and Fourth Armies, which the two 
 Crown Princes led, under the supreme com- 
 mand of the King himself, was to surround the 
 French position, preventing the possibility of 
 an eastward move, and at the same time 
 cutting off their retreat across the Belgian 
 frontier to the north, while, to meet the 
 
124 FREDERICK : 
 
 eventuality of a westward movement, should the 
 three sides of their front be driven back, the 
 Sixth Army Corps had been detached to take up 
 a strong position some twenty miles to the west 
 of Sedan, with instructions to hold the roads 
 and passes till the main body had time to come 
 up. By four o'clock in the afternoon the 
 French positions were all in the hands of the 
 Germans, and a living wall, consisting of eight 
 Army Corps, surrounded the whole French 
 army in the fortress of Sedan. A brief pause 
 ensued ; only to the north the cannon 
 thundered, and in the village of Bazeilles a 
 desperate fight still raged in the ruined streets. 
 Then, as no message of surrender came, the 
 guns began to play on the devoted fortress, 
 great clouds of smoke rolled up, and forked 
 flames began to issue from the burning 
 houses. 
 
 Colonel von Bronsart, who was despatched 
 by the King to demand the surrender, found a 
 white flag raised upon the walls, and was 
 admitted within the gates. He had asked to 
 be led to the General in command, and was 
 conducted to a room in the Prefecture, where he 
 found himself face to face with the Emperor 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 125 
 
 Napoleon. From him the Emperor learned 
 that the King of Prussia was present with the 
 besieging army, and despatched General Beille 
 in company with Colonel von Bronsart to 
 deliver to his Majesty the celebrated letter, in 
 which he wrote that, having failed to find 
 death in the midst of his troops, there was 
 nothing left him but to surrender his 
 sword. Shortly before their arrival the King 
 and the Crown Prince had met. It was now 
 seven o'clock. We are all familiar with that 
 twilight picture ; the veteran King standing on 
 a slight eminence, close behind him the Crown 
 Prince, Bismarck. Moltke, Blumenthal ; General 
 Beille advancing towards them with bare head, 
 and the fateful letter in his hand. Three years 
 before General Beille had been in attendance 
 on the Crown Prince during his visit to the 
 French Exhibition. The latter recognizes him, 
 and immediately steps forward to greet him. 
 The King reads the letter, and passes it to 
 the Princes who are with him, and to his Staff, 
 then he turns to the Crown Prince and clasps 
 him to his heart. It had not been known from 
 the first that the Emperor was himself in 
 Sedan ; with his surrender there was at least 
 
126 FREDERICK : 
 
 a hope that the war which had already entailed 
 such heavy sacrifices was at an end. 
 
 But the end was not yet to be. MacMahon's 
 army were all prisoners of war, the army of 
 Bazaine was interned at Metz ; but the events 
 of the 4th of September in Paris decided an 
 advance on the capital. On the 6th, the King 
 and Crown Prince arrived in Rheims, and a 
 few days were devoted to rest. The people of 
 Kheims were astonished to see the Commander 
 of the Third Army, accompanied only hy one 
 or two of his Staff, quietly walking through the 
 streets of their city, and studying the marvels 
 of their famous Cathedral. Every measure of 
 indulgence was accorded to the population 
 during the German occupation ; an order from 
 head-quarters gave instructions that no troops 
 were to be quartered on the poorer inhabitants, 
 and the local newspapers bore witness to the 
 courtesy and moderation of their invaders. 
 During his stay at Rheims, the Crown Prince 
 addressed an appeal to all the States of 
 Germany, to join in founding an institution 
 similar to that which he had inaugurated in 
 1864 for the relief of the victims of war. ' ( As 
 this war," he wrote, " has called out an united 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 127 
 
 German Army, in which the sons of every race 
 are contending in brotherly rivalry for the palm 
 of valour, so let the provision for the invalided 
 and the destitute whom war will leave on our 
 hands be an undertaking which the whole 
 German race shall co-operate in." 
 
 Meanwhile, at home in Germany, the women's 
 work was no less zealous than that of their sons 
 and husbands at the front. The Queen and 
 the Crown Princess were incessantly at work, 
 organizing help for the destitute at home, and 
 relief for the wounded and the prisoners. 
 Near the French frontier almost every house 
 had been turned into a hospital. The 
 Crown Princess herself was established at 
 Hamburg, in order to be nearer to the seat 
 of war, and in the great " Lazareth "* here, 
 under her direct superintendance, as many 
 as a thousand beds were at one time made 
 up. The Crown Princess's work was addition- 
 ally arduous, as she had to pay frequent visits 
 to her sister, Princess Alice, at Darmstadt, 
 whose baby was born in October while her 
 husband was away at the war. Yet hardly 
 
 * A fall account of this institution has been published by 
 Miss Florence Lees (Mrs. Craven). 
 
128 FREDERICK: 
 
 a clay passed without her attendance, not 
 a patient lay there who did not receive 
 some kindly word of sympathy, a sympathy 
 that went directly home to each of those 
 who knew that their royal leader had never 
 spared himself in battle, and that there were 
 no less anxious hearts in the old Hamburg- 
 
 o 
 
 Palace than in the humblest cottage that 
 had sent a father or a son to fight. 
 
 At his head-quarters of Coulommiers, on 
 the 15th September, the Crown Prince 
 occupied the house in which King Frederick 
 William III., with his three eldest sons, had 
 rested, during the advance of the Allies to 
 Paris in 1814. On the 19th the soldiers of 
 the Third Army looked down upon the 
 distant spires and domes of Paris, and on the 
 following day the Crown Prince established 
 himself in the Prefecture at Versailles. On 
 the arrival of the King he gave up this 
 residence to his father, and transferred his 
 own head-quarters to the villa " Les Ombrages," 
 the property of Madame Andree Walther. 
 And so the long siege began with its repeated 
 sorties and all its well-known incidents. 
 The news of the fall of Metz was received 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 129 
 
 at Versailles on the 28th October, and the 
 King commemorated this event by creating 
 a new precedent in the family of Hohenzollern, 
 in bestowing the baton of Field- Marshal on 
 his Son and his nephew, Prince Frederick. 
 Charles. . - At the close of the rescript in 
 which he announced this determination . to 
 his son, after commenting on the brilliant 
 achievements of the Third Army, he said : 
 " You are, therefore, entitled to the highest 
 grade of military rank, and I hereby appoint 
 you Field-Marshal. It is the first time that 
 this distinction, which I also confer upon 
 Frederick Charles, has been granted to* 
 Princes of our house. But the successes. 
 gained in this campaign have been of: a" 
 character, and have led to issues of .ah 
 importance, entirely without a precedent 
 hitherto, and, therefore, I feel justified in- 
 departing from the tradition of our family. 
 What I as a father feel, in being able to 
 express to you my own thanks, and the 
 country's, in such a form as this, it needs 
 no words to describe. Your loving and 
 grateful father, William." ';."."." 
 
 And so Christmas came, the first Christmas. 
 
 i 
 
130 FREDERICK : 
 
 from home. The bitter Winter weather had 
 set in with terrible severity ; but there was 
 not wanting the brighter side. The French 
 population of Versailles had found a friend 
 in their enemy, a friend whose ears were 
 always open to listen to an honest grief, 
 who had guaranteed their town and its 
 treasures his royal protection, and who did 
 all that lay in his power to alleviate the 
 horrors of war, so that even here the " Notre 
 Fritz " was fast becoming- a household word. 
 When the guns of Mont Valerien opened fire 
 on St. Cloud, it was the German troops under 
 his command who saved all that was saved 
 from the treasures of the Palace, the removable 
 works of art and the library ; and, on the appeal 
 of M. Regnault, the distinguished scientist, he 
 organized a little expedition to save all that 
 was irreplaceable, the models, the drawings, 
 and the moulds, from the China factory of 
 Sevres, which was also in danger of destruc- 
 tion from the French fires. "Fas est et ab 
 hoste doceri." The subjoined letter, from his 
 hostess in Versailles to a friend, which has 
 recently been published in Germany, speaks for 
 itself : — 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 131 
 
 '' Those were indeed bad times, but we thought our- 
 selves happy to be under the protection of that stately 
 and friendly gentleman, who appears to us, as we now 
 think of him, to have been a good genius who warded 
 off mischief from our household. Although, according 
 to the laws of war, he was our master, and the owner 
 for the time of all that we had, he behaved himself 
 always as if he were our guest. I can never forget the 
 gentleness with which he used to ask for anything, 
 whether for himself or his Adjutant, apologizing for 
 giving us trouble, fearful of causing any inconvenience, 
 and enquiring whether this or that would interfere with 
 our own arrangements. On Christmas Eve, when a huge 
 chest arrived from Berlin for the Crown Prince, he 
 invited his hostess and her family to partake of his 
 Christmas cake. ' This cake,' said he, as he cut off 
 slices for the French ladies, ' was baked by my wife, 
 and you must oblige me to taste it.' He then chatted to 
 them about the Christmas festival in his own happy 
 household, and translated passages from the letter of the 
 Crown Princess and the letters of his two eldest 
 children." " In those fateful days," she continues, 
 " we learned to know the whole good and open heart of 
 your late Emperor. On the terrible 19th of January, 
 1871, when there was fighting at Mount Valerien, 
 Bougival, and St. Cloud, and our troops were driven 
 back upon Paris, many thousands of m} T fellow-country- 
 men were taken prisoners. At six o'clock in the 
 evening the Crown Prince had learned that among 
 
 I 2 
 
132 FREDERICK:" 
 
 tliem there were several men who were not professional 
 soldiers — lawyers, artists, teachers, merchants, and 
 others. He asked the French officers who were taken 
 prisoners to notify to these civilians that if they gave 
 their names to him he would place escorts at their 
 service, so that they might return to their homes and 
 work. This generous noblesse in your Prince made a 
 deep impression upon the French mind. It has never 
 been forgotten, and I know with what profound respect 
 the knightly conqueror was spoken of at the time. The 
 older folk in France, in whom the recollection of those 
 days must always ahide, hold the memory of the noble 
 Emperor Friedrich in the greatest esteem." 
 
 Just after Christmas the heavy siege guns, 
 which had at length arrived, opened fire on 
 the city and its surrounding forts. 1 he Crown 
 Prince himself was at first against the bom- 
 bardment, but the terrible losses of the 
 German troops in the bloody battle before ' 
 Paris, and the unprecedented severity of 
 the Winter, made it imperative that the pro- 
 tracted seige should be terminated as soon as 
 possible. 
 
 Meanwhile the long-desired consummation of 
 the German ideal was drawing near. After the 
 battle of Sedan, the South German States had 
 signified their readiness to adhere to the 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 133 
 
 Northern Confederation ; before Christmas 
 all preliminaries were complete, and the 
 Princes, on the proposition of the King of 
 Bavaria, joined with the Northern Diet in 
 inviting King William to assume the Imperial 
 Dignity over an united Germany. The 18th of 
 January, 1871, was fixed for the solemnization 
 of this great event, and the Crown Prince was 
 entrusted with all the preparations for the 
 ceremony. Every regiment in the army of 
 investment was instructed to send its colours 
 in charge of an officer and two non-commis- 
 sioned officers to Versailles, and all the higher 
 officers who could be spared from duty were 
 ordered to attend, for the army was to represent 
 the German nation at this memorable scene. 
 The Crown Prince escorted his father from the 
 Prefecture to the palace of Versailles, where all 
 the German Princes or their representatives 
 were assembled in the Galerie des Glaces. A 
 special service. was read by the military chap- 
 lains, and then the Emperor, mounting on the 
 dais, announced his assumption of Imperial 
 authority, and instructed his Chancellor to 
 read the Proclamation issued to the whole 
 German nation. Then the Crown Prince, as 
 
134 FREDERICK : 
 
 the first subject of the Empire, came forward, 
 and performed the solemn act of homage, 
 kneeling down before his Imperial Father. 
 The Emperor raised him and clasped to his 
 arms the son who had toiled and fought and 
 borne so great a share in achieving what many 
 generations had desired in vain, and fulfilling 
 the prophetic words of King Frederick William 
 IV. : " An imperial crown must be won upon 
 the field of battle." 
 
 The following day the last desperate sortie 
 from the beleagured city took place. The 
 battle was in the immediate vicinity of 
 Versailles, and the Crown Prince was on the 
 field throughout the day. The French fought 
 with the courage of despair, for the city was 
 exhausted, and unless they could dislodge the 
 Germans from their positions and break 
 through, surrender was inevitable. But when 
 the early darkness closed, this final effort had 
 not availed, and four days afterwards the 
 first overtures were made for a cessation of 
 hostilities. 
 
 On the 7th of March the Crown Prince left 
 Versailles. The war was over, and on the 
 last Sunday, as he sat at service in the little 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 135 
 
 church, which he had never failed to attend 
 during his long residence there, the words 
 of the text, " How beautiful upon the 
 mountains are the feet of him that bringeth 
 good tidings, that publisheth peace," must 
 have fallen upon his ears witli a peculiar 
 sweetness and a deeper meaning than ever 
 before. After a brief journey to Rouen and 
 Amiens, to inspect the Army of the North, and 
 convey the Emperor's thanks to General von 
 Goeben for his decisive victory at St. Quentin, 
 he rejoined his Imperial Father at Nancy, 
 where he issued his last address to his arm}''. 
 "I take, my leave of you," it concluded, 
 " Prussian and Bavarian corps, soldiers of 
 Wurtemberg and Baden, with the hope and in 
 full confidence that the brotherhood of arms 
 and the spirit of union cemented on the bloody 
 field of battle may never disappear, but 
 increase in vitality and strength, to the honour, 
 the glory 3 and the blessing of our common 
 Fatherland." But the parting was not to be a 
 final one, for, needless to say, he was at Munich 
 in July, when the Bavarian troops returned to 
 make their triumphal entry. It was a touch- 
 ing meeting, and the words which he spoke at 
 
136 FREDERICK : 
 
 the ensuing banquet were a message to every 
 man who had fought under his command, 
 which he might bear back with pride to his 
 mountain village, and repeat in time to come 
 with all those memories and episodes which 
 many: a cottage home throughout the length 
 and breadth of Germany still teems with. " In 
 this campaign," he said, "I learned what we 
 may expect from Bavaria in good and evil days. 
 With the help of the Bavarians we have won 
 an honourable peace, which we hope will 
 endure. And as in war they did their duty, 
 <so may they now emulate the rest of the 
 German family in furthering the arts of 
 peace, and in practising in peace the- virtues 
 of a-soldier." - ... - '■••'" _ .•_'-.; •■-.._._.,.._,. 
 
 After the war of 1870, it became the. Crown 
 Prince's annual duty to inspect the military 
 contingents of the South German States, and 
 the associations of the great campaign were 
 thus continually refreshed. It was ever his 
 aim to bind faster those bonds of union which 
 hisrpersonal influence had done so much to pro- 
 mote,: '-and, by guaranteeing to the various 
 component elements of the- Empire respect for 
 their individual character and institutions, to 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 137 
 
 enlist the public sympathy for the changed 
 order of thing's. 
 
 From Nancy it was one long triumphal pro- 
 gress home. Berlin was reached on the 17th of 
 March ; and, though no official reception was 
 allowed, the Royal carriage in which the King 
 and the Crown Prince were to be seen side by 
 side could only proceed at a foot pace through 
 the dense masses that crowded the streets, 
 cheering them with the cheers of a triumphant 
 nation. With one pretty picture the record of 
 the great campaign may fitly close, when, a 
 little later, in response to the call of the people 
 who thronged about his Berlin Palace, a 
 window opened, and they saw in the midst of 
 his young family, and beside the Crown 
 Princess, the hero of so many victories, happy 
 in his own home, with his youngest child in his 
 arms. 
 
 Men have judged and will judge his military 
 genius differently. How thorough was his 
 practical knowledge of the soldier's business 
 is~ clear from the fact that the new drill 
 regulations for the infantry, which by order 
 of the reigning Emperor are to supersede the 
 old ones, had been long planned by him. It 
 
138 FREDERICK : 
 
 was his decisive march at Koniggratz which 
 decided the fate of the dsij, it was his insistence 
 on the necessity of leading the whole of his 
 Army to Sedan that ensured the surrender of 
 Marshal MacMahon's Army and the person of 
 the Emperor Napoleon. Few great leaders 
 can show such an unvarying record of successes, 
 and none have possessed in a higher degree the 
 most indispensable quality of the successful 
 soldier, the power of attaching to himself the 
 love and confidence of his followers. He showed 
 a rare and striking example of simplicity and 
 unselfishness to his soldiers, He, never 
 admitted luxuries, and would not even accept 
 necessaries if he knew that his men were 
 without food and drink. His thought was 
 always for others, never for himself. The 
 verdict of an Englishman' who had the most 
 exceptional opportunities of observing the 
 events which have just been described, cannot 
 fail to be interesting" to. English readers. 
 General Sir Beauchamp Walker, who in his 
 capacity as British Military Attache, and do 
 less as a personal friend, accompanied the 
 Crown Prince's Staff through the campaigns 
 of 1866 and 1870, writes :— 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 139 
 
 " The great characteristic which distinguished him 
 was his coolness in difficulty ; whatever happened, he 
 and Blumenthal kept their heads clear. His judgment 
 was calm in action, his consideration was humane in 
 success. What more can one say of the noblest man I 
 have ever known ? " 
 
VI. 
 
 1871—1887. 
 
VI. 
 
 1871—1887. 
 
 Hitherto we have followed in the Prince's 
 footsteps, along the path of public duty, and 
 through scenes of continual activity. Now, 
 a long period of peace lies before us, and while 
 considering this quieter picture, Ave may also 
 glance back again and see how the intervals of 
 rest were spent, and what were the interests 
 and occupations of one who, though circum- 
 stances had made him a soldier, was at heart a 
 man of peace. A love of study, an enthusiasm 
 for Art, with a full consciousness of its lofty and 
 ennobling mission, continued with him through- 
 out his life, while he found in the Crown 
 Princess one who shared his cultivated tastes, 
 and actively co-operated in directing those 
 labours of love which it became his especial 
 mission to promote. His own words will best 
 testify what he held the aim of all true Art to 
 be. Speaking at the opening of the Jubilee 
 
144 FREDERICK : 
 
 Exhibition of the Berlin Academy, in 1886, he 
 said : " But look to it, that our Art be never 
 untrue to its high calling, to be for man- 
 kind, high and low, rich and poor, that 
 elevating and spiritualizing influence which 
 helps man up to God. - - Then, after that, let it 
 fulfil its other calling: — the union of nations 
 and individuals, with all their different utter- 
 ances, in the common worship of the ideal." 
 
 Needless to say, their Court at Berlin was a 
 meeting place for all that was remarkable in 
 various fields of culture. In Berlin and Vienna, 
 of all the European capitals, the distinctions of 
 class are still most rigorously marked, and 
 there is accordingly less social intercourse 
 between the various grades and faculties. 
 Moreover, party spirit still runs very high, 
 opinions coincide with social positions, and the 
 mutual antipathy of the various political 
 denominations is by no means confined to the 
 precincts of the Chamber. The parties at the 
 Crown Prince's Palace, however, formed a 
 bright exception to this somewhat monotonous 
 uniformity of clannish ness, and there would be 
 gathered together scholars and theologians, 
 archaeologists and explorers, artists and men of 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 145 
 
 letters, without distinction of birth or political 
 opinion. Many a young and unknown singer, 
 and many a struggling musician, have owed 
 their first introduction to the public notice to 
 the Winter concerts at their palace, and all that 
 was new in the field of design, all that was 
 original or remarkable in Art, was assured 
 beforehand of their interest and support. Our 
 own countrymen can bear witness to the fact 
 that no English author or painter of eminence 
 whom business or pleasure took to Berlin, 
 ever failed to find a warm welcome there ; 
 and it was always matter for regret if any 
 such passed through the capital unnoticed or 
 unknown. 
 
 It was therefore a peculiar satisfaction to the 
 Crown Prince, debarred as he was by the rule 
 he had made himself, from any participation in 
 affairs of State, when the office of Protector of 
 Public Museums was conferred upon him. 
 Those who have seen them before his interest 
 and energies were enlisted in their behalf, and 
 since, have testified to the extraordinary de- 
 velopment and improvement of these collec- 
 tions under his sympathetic control. The Old 
 Museum, founded but little more than fifty 
 
 K 
 
146 FREDERICK: 
 
 years ago, has few rivals in Europe in com- 
 pleteness, certainly none in arrangement. The 
 pictures, judiciously added to by recent pur- 
 chases, for the most part from England, 
 though still comparatively few in number, are 
 thoroughly representative of the various schools 
 in their rise and evolution ; — the print room, 
 enriched under the Prince's regime by the 
 famous acquisitions from the Hamilton Collec- 
 tion, is probably the best managed institution 
 of its kind that exists ; — the marbles from 
 Pergamos, recovered by the indomitable perse- 
 verance of Herr Humann, have under his 
 auspices been added to reinforce the weaker 
 side of the Museum, its classical sculpture ; 
 while it can show, what we in England, with 
 all our wealth of treasures, have not yet been 
 able to afford ourselves, a gallery of casts from 
 the great sculptures of the world, which it was 
 his aim to render complete. The Museum of 
 Industrial Art, corresponding to our own 
 Museum at South Kensington, has grown up 
 entirely under the supervision of the Crown 
 Prince and Princess. A third institution, the 
 Ethnological Museum, in which he took the 
 keenest interest, is still in process of arrange- 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 147 
 
 merit, and though already open, will not be 
 completed for some time to come.* 
 
 But it was not only the moral and intellectual 
 progress of the people which the Prince and 
 Princess have been ever zealous to promote ; 
 the material prosperity was a matter of no 
 less concern. And so well was their devotion 
 to this work understood in Germany that, on 
 the celebration of their silver wedding-, the 
 present which the country placed in their hands 
 
 * In an eloquent and touching speech, at a meeting held on 
 the 1st of July, Dr. Richard Schone, the Director-General of 
 the Royal Berlin Museums, summed up the great services 
 rendered to Art by the departed Emperor. He enumerated 
 the new Museums that had been inaugurated under his 
 fostering hand, and described the efforts made by him to 
 place the collections at Berlin on a footing of equality with 
 those of other countries. The excavations at Olympia, he 
 added, would remain a permanent monument of his zeal for, 
 and devotion to, knowledge. " In the midst of a whole 
 nation's mourning," he said, " they may scarcely venture to 
 raise their voices, whose privilege it was to serve and to 
 labour under him, in that more restricted field to which the 
 Emperor Frederick, as Crown Prince, on behalf of his Im- 
 perial father, bestowed his special protection. But if, as 
 long as the light of his eyes was not darkened, our mouths 
 were closed in respectful reserve, now, at least, that he has 
 gone from us, we may be permitted, over his grave, to give 
 full expression to the reverence, the love, and the unalterable 
 gratitude, which we had learned to feel for him." 
 
 K 2 
 
148 FREDERICK: 
 
 was a sum £50,000, collected from the highest 
 and the lowest, and in every portion of the 
 Empire, to be distributed as they judged fit, 
 among the various charities with which they 
 were connected. How thoroughly this gift 
 was appreciated appears from their message of 
 thanks : " We must express our especial satis- 
 faction at the fact, that our silver wedding has 
 been made the occasion of giving to the day 
 on which we made our marriage vow, and 
 founded, with God's help, the happiness of our 
 lives, its fairest consecration, and a significance 
 which our feelings and our aspirations approve, 
 by the inauguration of charitable institutions, 
 and by collections for objects at once noble and 
 of public utility." 
 
 Space would fail to enumerate all the founda- 
 tions and institutions which owe their existence 
 to the initiative of the royal pair, or in which 
 they have taken an active interest. The so- 
 called " Workmen's Colonies," whose object is 
 the reclaiming of tramps and finding temporary 
 occupation for the unemployed ; the " Fort- 
 bildung's Schule " institutions for the technical 
 and practical education of working-men in their 
 leisure hours, owe much to the Crown Prince's 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 149 
 
 promotion and patronage ; while it needs but 
 to mention the Society for the Promotion of 
 Health in the Home, the Victoria School for 
 the Training of Nurses, the Victoria Foundation 
 for the Training of Young' Girls in Domestic 
 and Industrial Work, to show the practical 
 nature of the public services to which they 
 devoted themselves with the cordial co-opera- 
 tion of the municipal officers of Berlin. Broad 
 and tolerant in religious opinion, the Crown 
 Prince was a determined opponent of the anti- 
 Semitic movement, and a firm supporter of the 
 liberty of conscience. He was a zealous 
 protector of the order of Freemasons, and a 
 number of speeches made by him to various 
 lodges are on record, in which the same key- 
 note is always struck, the practical work they 
 have to do, and the necessity of obsolete 
 customs and traditions yielding to the law of 
 human progress. 
 
 But it was especially at Potsdam, in the 
 Summer months, away from the restraints 
 of the capital and the absorbing calls of social 
 and public duties, that the home-life of the 
 Soldier-Prince displayed its brightest side. 
 The occupations afforded by the little farm 
 
150 FREDERICK: 
 
 at Bonis tedt, the visits to the schools, the 
 care of poorer and humbler neighbours, have 
 been already alluded to. A charming picture 
 was afforded every year, as Christmas came 
 round, when all the tenants of the Bornstedt 
 estate and their children met round the 
 Christmas-tree and the long tables ranged 
 with presents, to distribute which the 
 kindly landlord and his family never 
 failed to come from Berlin. And again, 
 in the Summer, when the school-feast came 
 round, and the playing ground of the little 
 Princes and Princesses was filled with tiny 
 beings, shy and full of awe at first, but 
 before long brimming over with excitement 
 and delight, and carrying away a memory 
 which would never be forgotten of those 
 who led their romps, and stood by to watch 
 their merry games. Indeed, the Crown 
 Prince and Princess were never happier 
 than when they were surrounded by the 
 children of the poor ; and every school or 
 institution with which they were in any way 
 connected was sure of its annual invitation. 
 The education of their own children had 
 from the first absorbed their anxious care. 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 151 
 
 The young Princes were brought up in the 
 strictest simplicity, and early encouraged 
 to take their part in those offices of kindness 
 and charity in which their parents found a 
 pleasurable duty, while by frequent association 
 with their humbler brethren they were taught 
 to understand the harder realities of life. 
 The Crown Prince himself had been the 
 first of his house to enter a public university. 
 In the case of his two sons, a more striking 
 departure from ancient usage was decided 
 upon, and when Prince William was fifteen 
 years of age, and Prince Henry twelve, they 
 were sent to the Gymnasium at Cassel, 
 which occupies the place in Germany of one 
 of our greater public schools. They were 
 left by their parents, who accompanied them 
 thither, in charge of General von Gottberg, 
 their military governor, and Dr. Hinzpeter, 
 their former tutor. Prince William, who 
 was placed at once in one of the higher 
 forms, passed his final examinations after 
 some two years' study, and when he came 
 of age in 1877, on completing his 18th year, 
 quitted Cassel to join the regiment in which 
 his father had also begun his military career, 
 
152 FREDERICK : 
 
 nearly thirty years before. Prince Henry, 
 who was destined for a naval career, on 
 leaving Cassel, joined the cadet ship " Niobe," 
 at Kiel, and after a year's apprenticeship, 
 started in the " Prince Adalbert " for a two 
 year's cruise round the world. The two 
 young Princes inherited from their mother 
 their taste for English games and field sports. 
 The first lawn-tennis court in Berlin and 
 Potsdam, where the game is now growing- 
 popular, was, needless to say, in the gardens 
 of the New Palace ; the river Havel, with 
 its wooded lakes, was near for bathing and 
 boating ; and on a little model frigate pre- 
 sented by our King William IV. to the 
 King of Prussia, they learned their first 
 essays in navigation. There is no one who 
 follows with a keener interest all great events 
 in the world of sport and athletics in 
 England than the present German Emperor. 
 The youngest daughter of the Crown Prince 
 and Princess was born on the 22nd of April, 
 1872, and named Margaret, after her god- 
 mother, the reigning Queen of Italy, who came 
 to Potsdam for the christening ceremonies. 
 The close friendship of the heirs to the thrones 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 153 
 
 of Germany and Italy was bearing fruit, for 
 in the following year (1873) King Victor 
 Emmanuel, who until the downfall of the 
 French Empire had from a sense of obligation 
 maintained sympathetic relations with the 
 Emperor Napoleon, paid a visit to the Court 
 of Berlin, which was returned by the Crown 
 Prince immediately, and by the Emperor him- 
 self as soon as public duty admitted of his 
 absenting himself from the capital. Latterly 
 there were few years when business or pleasure 
 did not take the Crown Prince over the Alps. 
 Many will remember, with special interest at 
 the present time, an incident which occurred 
 during his visit to Rome in 1878, when he 
 went as the Emperor's representative to attend 
 the funeral of the founder of the new Italian 
 kingdom. Appearing on the balcony of the 
 Quirinal with King Humbert and Queen Mar- 
 gherita, he lifted the little Prince of Naples in 
 his arms to show him to the people. The 
 quick imagination of the Roman crowd seized 
 on the symbolic side of this natural movement, 
 and gave vent to the most enthusiastic demon- 
 strations of deliMit. 
 
 In the same year, after the marriage of his 
 
154 FREDERICK: 
 
 eldest daughter, Princess Charlotte, with the 
 Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Meiningen, the 
 Crown Prince had accompanied the Crown 
 Princess to England. During their visit to 
 Hatfield House in the beginning of June came 
 the news of the desperate attempt of the 
 socialist Nobiling on the life of the Emperor 
 William. The evening after the receipt of 
 this alarming news the Crown Prince and 
 Princess were once more in Berlin, where the 
 Government was placed in the Prince's hands 
 during the Emperor's temporary disablement. 
 
 It was not until the last month of 1878 that 
 the aged Monarch was sufficiently recovered to 
 resume the reins of government. During these 
 six months the Congress of Berlin had met 
 and separated. One famous State document, 
 bearing the Crown Prince's signature, belongs 
 to this period of the Regency, a letter to Pope 
 Leo XIII. , at the moment when those negotia- 
 tions with the Vatican were re-opened, which 
 paved the way for an ultimate reconciliation. 
 The following extract contains the two essential 
 points : the firm determination of the Prussian 
 Sovereign to remain independent of the control 
 of the Church, and the profession of readiness 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 155 
 
 to approach the questions at issue in a con- 
 ciliatory spirit : — 
 
 " The demand advanced in your letter of the 17th 
 of April, that the constitution and the laws of Prussia 
 should be modified to meet the principles of the 
 Roman Catholic Church, is one which no Prussian 
 Sovereign will be able to admit, because the inde- 
 pendence of the Monarchy, which it is now my duty to 
 defend, as an inheritance received from my fathers and 
 an obligation owed to my country, would cease to be 
 absolute if the free development of its legislation were 
 to be subordinated to the control of another power with- 
 out. Though it is therefore not in my power, and 
 perhaps not in that of your Holiness either, to remove 
 an antagonism of principles, which has for a thousand 
 years been more keenly felt in the history of Germany 
 than in that of any other country, I am nevertheless 
 prepared to meet the difficulties which both parties have 
 inherited in this conflict, in the peace-loving and con- 
 ciliatory spirit which my convictions as a Christian 
 enjoin." 
 
 When the brief period of Regency was over 
 the Crown Prince resumed his quiet, unobtrusive 
 life once more ; but there was no work of public 
 utility, no historic centenary, no inauguration 
 of national monuments in which he did not take 
 his part, sometimes by the side of the Emperor, 
 
156 FREDERICK: 
 
 sometimes as his representative. The Winter 
 which followed these troublous times was indeed 
 a sad one for the royal household — in De- 
 cember Princess Alice died, and in March fell 
 the crushing blow which has been already 
 alluded to, the death of the beloved Prince 
 Waldemar. 
 
 The small English community of Berlin was 
 sure of the Crown Prince's interest and pro- 
 tection, and the building of the English church, 
 in the gardens of the Monbijou Palace, with 
 the funds which were collected on the occasion 
 of the Silver Wedding, was a source of 
 continual occupation to the Crown Princess, 
 who studied every detail herself with an 
 artist's care. There is a pleasant memory of 
 home about the little church, prettily situated 
 in the Palace garden, and its completion was 
 the realization of a long cherished dream. 
 The speech made by the Crown Prince at the 
 ceremony of laying the foundation stone will 
 be especially interesting to English readers : — 
 
 " I feel," he said, " a peculiar pleasure in addressing 
 those who have met together to-day to witness the lay- 
 ing of the foundation-stone of the first English church 
 in this town ; for this act realizes a hope which not the 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 157 
 
 Crown Princess alone, but I also, have long cherished. 
 The fulfilment of this hope, however, seemed very 
 difficult, and would have remained so, but for the 
 efforts, not only of the English congregation, but also 
 of many friends and well-wishers both in England and 
 here. I dwell with pleasure on the thought that the 
 Emperor, in granting the use of this piece of Crown- 
 land, has been actuated by the same feelings which 
 prompted his brother and predecessor, King Frederick 
 William IV., to aj^propriate one of the rooms of the 
 Palace of Monbijou to the use of the English congre- 
 gation, who had till then held their church services 
 in a room at an hotel. I am glad that the anniversary 
 of the Queen's birthday has been chosen for laying 
 the foundation-stone of the English church, especially 
 as the Queen's recent bereavement* prevents any 
 other celebration of the day this year. The Prince 
 of "Wales and the other members of the Poyal 
 Family are certainly present with us in spirit to-day, 
 for to their zealous efforts is chiefly owing the 
 success of the fete in London which provided so large a 
 portion of the funds for the building and carrying out 
 of the plans, furnished by the talent of the eminent 
 Berlin architect, Professor Raschdorff. 
 
 " The Crown Princess and I shall always take an 
 additional interest in the church, because you know 
 that the English residents, while providing it for their 
 own worship, intend it at the same time to be a 
 
 * The death of the Duke of Albany. 
 
158 FREDERICK: 
 
 memorial of the 25tli anniversary of our wedding day. 
 Let me conclude by expressing every good wish for the 
 perfect success of the undertaking, and the hope that it 
 may contribute towards making their foreign home 
 more home-like to the English residents in Berlin." 
 
 " I am quite proud of my English," said the 
 Crown Prince, in giving the manuscript of this 
 speech to Mr. Teignmouth Shore, who had been 
 most active in promoting the scheme, " I wrote 
 it all out myself." 
 
 In this connection also may be mentioned an 
 incident recorded by Mr. Perry at an interview 
 in Buckingham Palace, many years after the 
 old days at Bonn. 
 
 " After kind enquiries," Mr. Perry writes, 
 " about my children, whose names he remem- 
 bered after so many years, he took a little 
 prayer-book from his desk, and holding it out 
 to me, asked me if I remembered it. I did 
 not. ' You lent me that,' he said, ' one Sunday 
 when I came into your seat in the English 
 church at Bonn, and I kept it, and always 
 carry it about with me. I like your English 
 service so much.' " 
 
 And so the years went by brightly and use- 
 fully, in spite of the ever-increasing difficulty 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 159 
 
 of the position, as the heir to the throne grew 
 older, witnessing' in due course the marriage of 
 Prince William to Princess Augusta Victoria of 
 Schleswig-Holstein, witnessing the birth of 
 grandchildren, and all the lights and shadows 
 of home-life, varied by continual journeys as 
 duty called or pleasure ; for the wandering 
 spirit acquired in youth was strong to the last. 
 One of these journeys calls for more than a 
 passing record. It was towards the close of 
 1883 that the Crown Prince was charged to 
 return on the King's behalf the visit that 
 King Alfonso of Spain had paid to the Prussian 
 capital. Circumstances had rendered it ex- 
 pedient that the nearer route through France 
 should be abandoned, and the journey made by 
 sea from Genoa to Valencia. The advent of 
 the Prince in Italy was invariably marked by 
 popular demonstrations of affection ; and late 
 as the hour was when the Royal party arrived 
 in Genoa, the streets were thronged to receive 
 him, for it was still fresh in the people's memory 
 that the Crown Prince and Princess had 
 initiated an appeal to their own countrymen on 
 behalf of the sufferers in the recent calamity of 
 Ischia, After spending the night in the Royal 
 
160 FREDERICK : 
 
 Palace, he embarked on the " Prince Adalbert," 
 the vessel in which his son had sailed round the 
 world, and arrived at Valencia, after a stormy 
 passage, on the 22nd of November. At Madrid 
 every form of festivity was instituted in his 
 honour ; and at the Court Ball the veteran 
 General von Blumenthal, who accompanied him, 
 was forced to take part in the royal quadrille, 
 a performance which he said weighed more 
 heavily on him than the prospect of another 
 campaign would have done. 
 
 All was new ground to the Crown Prince, 
 who spent every available moment in the picture 
 galleries, and after a fortnight at Madrid he 
 devoted another week to a tour among the 
 classic cities, finding a new revelation of Art in 
 the marvels of the Alhambra, in the great 
 Mosque, with its thousand columns of the city of 
 the Caliphs, in the vast design of the Cathedral 
 of Seville. During his stay at Madrid a telegram 
 reached him from Berlin, instructing him to 
 return by Borne, ostensibly to thank the King 
 for his hospitality at Genoa, but also to afford 
 an opportunity for a visit to the Pope, whose 
 conciliatory policy promised to effect an end so 
 ardently desired by the Emperor William, the 
 
GROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 161 
 
 re-establishment of peace with the Catholic 
 Church and party. In Rome the Crown Prince 
 was the guest of the King at the Quirinal. 
 A visit direct from the Quirinal to the Vatican 
 could scarcely, in the actual state of relations, 
 have been acceptable. A curious compromise 
 was therefore resorted to. From the Quirinal the 
 Prince drove first to the German Embassy. 
 Thence he proceeded to the official residence of 
 the Prussian Minister accredited to the Pope, 
 and there, dismounting from the carriage which 
 bore the arms of the house of Savoy, he drove 
 with his Staff in the carriages of the Prussian 
 Legation to the Vatican. He had previously 
 disarmed the possibility of misinterpretation on 
 the part of the national party, by placing, in 
 the morning, a wreath on the grave of King 
 Victor Emmanuel. There was no other person 
 present at his interview with the Pope, and 
 what passed remained at the time subject for 
 conjecture. The incident is introduced here 
 not on account of its political aspect, but in 
 illustration of the admirable tact and judgment 
 through which the Prince succeeded in offend- 
 ing neither party. " Being the guest of the 
 King of Italy," he said himself, " I have also 
 
 L 
 
162 FREDERICK : 
 
 been able to pay a visit to the Pope. These 
 are facts of great importance, of which our 
 country will reap the benefit." 
 
 The mention of Rome recalls the memory of 
 one who, having witnessed there the solution of 
 the Italian question, was during thirteen years 
 the Queen's representative at Berlin, and who 
 acquired, as few foreigners could ever hope to 
 do, the confidence both of the Court and the 
 Government. In Lord Ampthill, gifted as he 
 was in an extraordinary measure with social 
 and intellectual charm, the Crown Prince and 
 Princess found a warm friend, and they took 
 the greatest pleasure in the society both of 
 himself and of his wife — a friend of the Crown 
 Princess's early days. His little villa on the 
 hill near Sans Souci was a favourite spot with 
 them, and the scene of many cherished recol- 
 lections. An admirable scholar and a qualified 
 critic, he was at the same time a thorough man 
 of the world, a master of the literature of four 
 languages, and he possessed the gift of expres- 
 sion in each ; his mind was a storehouse of 
 memories and portraits, and while it was a 
 privilege to listen to his conversation, he 
 possessed the rare and lovable quality of 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 163 
 
 seeming to bestow his best upon whomsoever he 
 might for the moment be in contact with. His 
 early death, in 1884, was a great grief and a 
 genuine loss to the royal pair, in whose lives 
 he had become such a familiar figure. The 
 day after his death the Crown Prince came 
 himself to the little villa to lay a wreath upon 
 the coffin, and he took a rosebud from it away 
 with him to keep. 
 
 When in the summer of 1886 the University 
 of Heidelberg celebrated its fifth centenary, the 
 Crown Prince was again the Emperor's repre- 
 sentative. His speech on this occasion, apart 
 from its intrinsic merit, and its telling- force in 
 the mouth of one who was looked on as the 
 typical representative of United Germany, has 
 also a touching interest from the fact that it is 
 the last important public speech which he ever 
 made in that clear, familiar, ringing voice of 
 his. So soon after the shadows began to close 
 around him, and the silence fell. This speech, 
 which inevitably loses much in translation, is so 
 remarkable that it shall be given unabridged. 
 Addressing himself to the Grand Duke of 
 Baden as Chancellor, and the assembled 
 University, he said : — 
 
 L 2 
 
1 64 FREDERICK : 
 
 "As bearer of the greetings and congratulations of 
 His Majesty the Emperor, I am filled with pride and 
 pleasure at the enthusiasm with which on these festal 
 days her sons, both young and old, have gathered. round 
 their princely Chancellor, looking back with him on the 
 glorious history of this University, and realizing, with 
 gratitude to God, that in the 500 years of her existence 
 she has never known a brighter period than that in 
 which we live. Founded in the dawn of our age of 
 culture, the University of Heidelberg has experienced 
 and shared in all the changeful phases through which 
 the Grerman character has passed, in the hard-won 
 development of its individuality. She has flourished 
 and drooped in turn ; suffered and battled for the 
 freedom of belief and research ; has known sorrow 
 and exile, that at last, supported by the firm and 
 gentle hand of her royal protector, she might cover 
 her honourable wounds with the gala robe of 
 victory. 
 
 " Like the Grerman nation, whose noblest possessions 
 her voice was ever raised to defend, she has seen ful- 
 filled the desire of centuries. Her shield of honour 
 gleams the brighter in the sun of our united Father- 
 land. With deep emotion I recall to-clay the 
 momentous hour* in which your Royal Highness was 
 
 * At the ceremony at Versailles, when the Emperor 
 assumed the Imperial dignity, the Grand .Duke of Baden was 
 the first to step forward and call for a cheer for the " German 
 Emperor." 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 165 
 
 the first to greet the leader of our victorious nation by 
 the noble name of Emperor. This recollection has for 
 me a deep significance at the festival which we are 
 celebrating. To be the first to put in action a great and 
 good resolve is a privilege of your illustrious house and 
 of this famous University. 
 
 "It is my pleasant duty in the mission I fulfil to 
 acknowledge to her honour how loyally Heidelberg per- 
 formed her part in fostering those mental and social 
 conditions which were the first step to our national 
 regeneration. She was ever liberally hospitable to 
 teachers as to pupils. From every province they 
 flocked to her, and in the loving arms of their Alma 
 Mater, they realized once more that a greater mother 
 was their parent. , 
 
 "So here in the quiet of the student's life was 
 developing what history, after long wanderings, has 
 vouchsafed us. In the south-western corner of the 
 Empire, near the old frontier, and therefore near the 
 danger, the son of the North learned to love the son of 
 the South as his brother, that he might return again to 
 his home, and spread abroad the fair faith that all the 
 people are one people, which faith is our treasure and 
 our strength. 
 
 " And now that we possess it once more, this blessing 
 of unity, there is blown back from the mighty whole a 
 breath which brings vigour to the dear old home where 
 we were educated. Wider grow the aims of knowledge, 
 wider our aspirations, more grateful the duty of the 
 
166 FREDERICK : 
 
 teacher to proclaim them, and of the pupil to appreciate 
 them. 
 
 " The Fatherland and the Academic Commonwealth 
 can only exercise a beneficial influence on one another 
 if they preserve the same virtues in their respective 
 spheres of activity. The higher the results we achieve 
 in science and in history, the loftier the aims to which 
 we aspire, the greater prudence and self-denial we shall 
 need. 
 
 " My dearest wishes and my confident hope, which I 
 offer to the University to-day, are recorded in the 
 appeal I make to teachers and to scholars, to bear in 
 mind the duty most imperiously devolving on us, when 
 elated with success, in learning as in living, to be 
 conscientious and severe in intellectual discipline, and 
 to promote the feeling of brotherhood among comrades, 
 that from the spirit of independence and the love of 
 peace may ensue the necessary force to develop all the 
 forms of our national life. So may it be granted to this 
 University, one of the oldest schools of German culture, 
 to remain in energy her youngest." 
 
 In the Winter a severe cold brought on a 
 hoarseness, which was not at first regarded 
 as of serious importance, and was lightly treated 
 by the Emperor himself, who would say 
 with a smile, " I cannot sing," apologizing 
 for his enforced silence. But as the weeks 
 went by, and no improvement was revealed, 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 167 
 
 there were not a few who began to feel a 
 certain anxiety ; and the festivities on the 
 22nd of March, when the Emperor William 
 attained his ninetieth birthday, and Prince 
 Henry was formally betrothed to his cousin, 
 Princess Irene of Hesse, when he was called 
 upon to represent the aged Monarch at a 
 number of functions, were a severe strain upon 
 his overtaxed energies. A cure at Ems was 
 recommended, but proved of no service ; and 
 it was after his return from Ems that those 
 sinister rumours first began to spread abroad, 
 which enlisted for the royal patient not 
 only the sympathy of Germany, but that of 
 Europe and of countries far beyond the seas, 
 where his name had become a proverb for 
 all that was lovable and generous and of 
 good report ; a sympathy which, we have 
 the Chancellor's guarantee for it, was the 
 one source of gratification and consolation 
 to the last dark weeks of the aged Emperor's 
 waning life. 
 
 He was nevertheless well enough to take 
 part in the rejoicings at the Queen's Jubilee, 
 and as he rode in the procession in the 
 white uniform of the Cuirassiers his stately 
 
168 FREDERICK : 
 
 presence and his kindly, friendly face, together 
 with the sentiment of some grave crisis 
 hanging over the head of the soldier-hero, 
 made a deep and lasting impression on all 
 who were present at that memorable scene. 
 Men spoke of nothing but the German Crown 
 Prince, as if they, too, had a special claim 
 upon him. They knew that he was gifted 
 with all the virtues which Englishmen admire, 
 and that he loved our country well, and 
 through the dark year that followed there 
 was but one topic that all were absorbed 
 in, one prayer that went up through the 
 length and breadth of the land, that this 
 man's life might be spared. It will have a 
 pathetic interest to many who were witnesses 
 of the last great public ceremony in which 
 he took part to know what was passing in 
 his own mind as he rode past, the observed 
 of all observers. His quick observation 
 was at work, noting upon that day, as 
 he ever did in foreign countries, anything 
 which struck him as worthy of admiration, 
 with a view to its subsequent adaptation 
 in his own. After his death was found in 
 a little pocket-book, which he carried with 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 169 
 
 him on that day, the following entry : " The 
 ambulance arrangements on the day of the 
 Jubilee. The drinking- troughs for horses and 
 dogs, and the cabmen's shelters in the streets 
 of London." 
 
 From London the Crown Prince went alone 
 for a brief visit to Scotland, and appeared to 
 derive great benefit from the fresh mountain 
 air and the vigorous life he led. During his 
 stay at Braemar he was asked by a gentleman 
 to do him the honour of christening a steam- 
 launch. He gave it the name of " The White 
 Heather," showing how his thoughts still 
 travelled back to the memory of a day, nearly 
 thirty years before, when in these same Scotch 
 mountains he had plucked the sprig of white 
 heather to give to his English bride. Rejoin- 
 ing the Crown Princess and his three youngest 
 daughters, the Crown Prince went from Scot- 
 land to Toblach, in Tyrol, and later to Venice 
 and Baveno. Finally, the Villa Zirio, at San 
 Remo, was chosen as a Winter residence, and 
 when he re-entered Berlin it was as German 
 Emperor. The events of last year are still too 
 fresh in the memory of all to need recapitula- 
 tion here. We all remember too well the 
 
170 FREDEEICK : 
 
 changing hopes and fears, the doubts that 
 trembled into certainty, and left no room for 
 hope. It was a gloomy New Year at Berlin; 
 and when the usual season of Carnival came 
 round there was but little heart in the 
 gaiety. Ever thoughtful of others, and 
 mindful how important an interest is in- 
 volved in the social season to large numbers 
 of the working-classes, the Crown Prince 
 had sent a message from San Remo, desiring 
 that all should take its usual course ; but 
 at every meeting there was present an un- 
 bidden guest — the sinister rumour passing 
 through the throng. February the 9th, the 
 day upon which the operation of tracheotomy 
 was performed, had been fixed for the annual 
 subscription ball in the Royal Opera House, 
 the proceeds of which are devoted to the Berlin 
 charities. The house was full, as ever, but 
 through the dense crowd the unwelcome news 
 began to spread, and there was no mirth in any 
 of the thousand faces — not a dance was danced 
 that night, and all the people seemed touched 
 as by the sense of a personal sorrow. A month 
 later anxious crowds were gathered round the 
 Palace in Berlin. The Emperor was sinking 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 171 
 
 from the exhaustion of age ; far from the 
 son who had been ever at his side in the 
 hour of danger, he fought the last great 
 battle alone. But gently sleep fell upon 
 him, full of years and full of honour, and 
 without a struggle, the long laborious life was 
 closed. 
 
VII. 
 
 1888. 
 
VII. 
 
 1888. 
 
 On the night of the 11th of March the Emperor 
 Frederick reached his capital, in a wild storm 
 of sleet and snow ; he had borne the journey 
 well, and the few who witnessed his arrival 
 were struck by his vigorous demeanour. His 
 old friend and ally, King Humbert, had 
 travelled to Genoa to salute him as Emperor 
 on his way, and the last meeting between the 
 two Sovereigns, whose lives had had so much 
 in common, was a very touching one. All 
 along the line from the German frontier, 
 thousands had flocked to every railway station 
 in the hope of obtaining a fleeting glimpse of the 
 illustrious traveller, and silently but sincerely 
 his people welcomed him home. The Chancellor 
 and the Ministers of State had gone as far as 
 Leipzig to meet the Royal train, and transact 
 
176 FREDERICK : 
 
 with the Emperor such immediate business as 
 required his personal direction. On his arrival, 
 shortly after eleven, the Emperor drove straight 
 to the Palace of Charlottenburg, which gives 
 its name to a suburb some three miles from 
 the city. A little later, through the white 
 snow-covered Linden Alley, lined by troops 
 with flaming torches, the body of the first 
 German Emperor, dressed in his military cap 
 and cloak, with the Order of " Merit " on his 
 breast, was solemnly borne from the Palace to 
 the Cathedral where he was to lie in State. 
 
 Oh the following day the Emperor Frederick 
 issued his proclamation to the German nation, 
 and a rescript addressed to the Imperial 
 Chancellor was simultaneously published, in 
 which he paid a warm tribute of esteem to his 
 father's faithful friend and counsellor, and set 
 forth the principles which were to characterize 
 his government. These two remarkable docu- 
 ments, which will be found in the Appendix, 
 composed entirely by the Emperor's own hand, 
 would alone suffice to mark Lis brief and tragic 
 reign, and their lessons will not all be lost. 
 At last, after the long years of waiting and 
 restraint, his own heart might find expres- 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 177 
 
 sion ; and now, when the power came, it was 
 already too late. He was not even able to 
 look for the last time on the father he had 
 loved and served so well ; only from the 
 window of his palace he watched the funeral 
 procession winding past to the Mausoleum 
 in the garden of Charlottenburg, where 
 Queen Louise and King Frederick William III. 
 lie side by side in their marble sleep. It was a 
 moving scene to many a war-worn veteran, that 
 last farewell to the good old Emperor ; it was a 
 moving scene to all who had lived through the 
 mighty changes that his reign had witnessed ; 
 but what must have been in the mind of the 
 illustrious mourner, as he turned back from the 
 window into his silent chamber ! He also had 
 meant to be his people's father ; he had pre- 
 pared himself with untiring devotion to duty 
 for his great task, the thought of which in times 
 before had almost overwhelmed him till his 
 strong faith reconquered his misgivings of 
 himself : he had not neglected to make 
 acquaintance with people of every party, class, 
 and calling, so as to be in touch with the inner 
 life and aspirations of the nation ; he had kept 
 his life clean and spotless, and above all little- 
 Mi 
 
178 FREDERICK : 
 
 ness and spite, to be a bright example in the 
 eyes of men. And now, when he came to be 
 crowned at last, there was nothing left him to 
 do but to husband what strength remained to 
 him for the daily routine of duties that he must 
 needs fulfil, to give up all the rest for ever, 
 bravely to surrender himself and bow to the will 
 of God. The service of man had been his life- 
 long study, and now, when the time for 
 realization should have come, it was only given 
 him to teach one lesson, but that the hardest 
 of all to learn and the noblest of all to teach, 
 the lesson of self-renouncement and unmurmur- 
 ing resignation. To the last his force of will 
 maintained him, worn and harassed as he was 
 by all that his disease entailed upon him, and 
 by the oppression of his enforced silence, he left 
 no portion of his daily task undone, and on the 
 sick-bed where others rest he still worked 
 bravely on. When he was well enough to 
 spend the afternoons in the garden of the 
 Palace, he would send for his horses, and watch 
 his favourites being exercised with a look of 
 wistful interest. His love for animals was 
 great ; from his earliest youth he had made a 
 certain race of Italian greyhounds his particular 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 179 
 
 pets, and was always to be seen in the country 
 followed by two or three of these delicate and 
 graceful animals, and not a day had passed 
 in old times, either in Berlin or Potsdam, 
 without his visiting the stables to feed with his 
 own hand the horses who knew his footstep and 
 expected his daily visit. 
 
 Day after day through the Spring weeks dense 
 crowds hung round the Charlottenburg Palace, 
 in spite of its great distance from Berlin,, for 
 the chance of seeing that beloved face at the 
 window, or of catching a passing glimpse of him 
 when later, as the weather mended, a few short 
 drives were sanctioned. If the love and care of 
 all who surrounded him, if the sympathy and 
 admiration of the world were any consolation to 
 the strong mind for its forced inactivity- to the 
 strong man for his waning strength, such con- 
 solation was not wanting ; and indeed it was a 
 theme to which he constantly recurred, the 
 sincere feeling evinced for him in foreign 
 countries, and what most particularly touched 
 him, the expression this feeling found in France. 
 This is no place to intrude upon the ministries 
 of that closer circle that watched his sick 
 chamber and tended his latter days with loving 
 
 M 2 
 
180 FREDERICK: 
 
 and unwearying devotion, but probably never 
 has it been granted to any single individual to 
 find such a place as he found, by the mute 
 appeal of his pathetic story, in the hearts of all 
 classes and all countries. 
 
 There were three bright passages in the 
 brief three months of his reign, with the daily 
 record of which all are still familiar. The first 
 was the Queen's visit to Berlin, during which 
 he perceptibly rallied ; the second, the marriage 
 of his sailor son, Prince Henry, to Princess- 
 Irene of Hesse, at which he was able to be 
 present ; and the third, the move from Charlot- 
 tenburg to the old home at Potsdam, to which 
 he now gave the name of " Friedrichskron " ; 
 the palace where he was born, where he had 
 spent the happy Summers of his married days, 
 and where he was now all too soon to close his 
 bright and useful life. The last crisis set in 
 very soon after his arrival at Friedrichskron, 
 and his state was declared to be hopeless. 
 Brave and patient as he had been throughout 
 his long and cruel illness, with its wearing and 
 painful recurrent crises, bravely as he had 
 received his death-warrant, so bravely he met 
 his end. 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 181 
 
 The 14th of June was the birthday of 
 Princess Sophie. He sent for her quite early 
 in the morning to give her the flowers he had 
 ordered for her, and seemed quite cheerful and 
 bright, but his strength was exhausted by the 
 progress of the disease and his long heroic 
 struggle against it. To the end he had ' ' done 
 out the duty," he had suffered without com- 
 plaining, as through life he had kept his great 
 shield white, and now the silent Emperor 
 bowed his head, and was ready, if ever man was 
 on earth, to meet God face to face. A little 
 before midday on the 15th of June, surrounded 
 by the whole of his family, he passed away 
 without a struggle. 
 
 After death, his body was by his own express 
 wish wrapped in his military mantle, and the 
 Empress placed in his arms the sword he had 
 worn in his various campaigns ; round his neck 
 she hung his Grand Cross of the Order " Pour le 
 Merite," and on his breast she laid the wreath 
 of oak leaves she had given him on his return 
 from the war of 1870. 
 
 His coffin was placed in the church where 
 his sons Prince Sigismund and Prince Walde- 
 mar rest, in the gardens of Sans Souci, 
 
182 FREDERICK : 
 
 awaiting the Mausoleum that is to be built to 
 receive it. The funeral ceremony took place 
 upon the clay of Waterloo, a bright day between 
 rainy days, and never were the parks and 
 gardens of Friedrichskron more beautiful than 
 on that morning, with the fresh green of the 
 late season, and the birds singing in all the 
 trees. 
 
 In the great semi-circular garden in front of 
 the Palace, facing the avenue which leads to 
 Sans Souci, the solemn procession formed ; 
 under the trees surrounding it troops were 
 drawn up, to the left infantry, to the right 
 calvary, amongst which were the Life Guards 
 with black cuirasses : there was no crowding, 
 the public were excluded here ; along the 
 avenue more troops were drawn up waiting to 
 join the procession. The coffin lay in the 
 Jasper Hall, opening on a terrace facing the 
 garden, and there a preliminary service took 
 place. Then as the coffin was placed upon the 
 bier, the soft and solemn singing ceased, and 
 the military bands stationed round the semi- 
 circle began a weird and melancholy music, 
 chorales of the German Protestant Church, 
 each taking up the other, and so on down the 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 183 
 
 avenue till the sound died away in the trees. 
 All the while muffled drums were beating. 
 The procession formed ; the charger he had 
 ridden in the Avar of 1870, a superb chestnut, 
 called Worth, which knew him and followed 
 him as a dog does its master, was led behind 
 the bier, and the veteran Field-Marshal von 
 Blumenthal carried the Imperial banner. It 
 was a small procession, but very solemn and 
 impressive. The sun shone out on the helmets 
 and cuirasses, on the gardens he had loved and 
 cared for, on the terrace where he walked in 
 the Summer evenings in pleasant converse with 
 some favoured guest, while amid the weird 
 music of the military bands, and the roll of the 
 muffled drums, the slow procession, was lost in 
 the green of the trees. 
 
 And now in conclusion let us fiance back 
 
 o 
 
 over the career and character of this singularly 
 gifted life. The time allotted him to reign in 
 was too brief and troubled for the accomplish- 
 ment of any public acts that could leave a 
 permanent trace behind them ; but the whole 
 tendency of his example, the note of idealism 
 which he supplied to temper the sterner 
 material virtues of the national character, his 
 
184 FREDERICK : 
 
 breadth and tolerance in questions of religion, 
 the consistent record of his simple and unselfish 
 life, will not be soon effaced, and will some day 
 be better understood. The genius of each 
 nation is different, and we should do ill to 
 judge the German by our own, or to expect 
 that like causes would necessarily lead to like 
 effects, but the genius of every vigorous nation 
 is progressive, and it was his merit as a ruler to 
 have appreciated this. 
 
 To those who never knew him, it will be im- 
 possible to convey an adequate idea of his 
 irresistible personal charm, of the smile in his 
 eyes, and the kindly brightness of his face, 
 which brought a contagious light and gladness 
 wherever he entered in. His sense of humour 
 was keen, and like all simple characters in 
 whom the child is only gone to sleep, 
 he delighted in innocent amusement. While 
 none the less, though known only to his 
 closest intimates, there lay beneath this out- 
 ward brightness the inevitable accompaniment 
 of the idealistic nature, the " eternal note of 
 sadness," the deep depression of the earnest 
 thinker. All who were brought into contact 
 with him fell immediately under the charm of 
 
CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR. 185 
 
 his manner, which, with all its naturalness and 
 geniality, was never wanting in dignity. And 
 where such acquaintance ripened into closer 
 intimacy, experience only developed a warmer 
 admiration. To quote once again the words of 
 one who had exceptional opportunities for 
 studying his character in the most trying times, 
 in camp and on the battlefield : " He was not 
 only the most lovable, but the noblest man with 
 whom I have ever associated — noble in his acts, 
 noble in his speech, noble in his judgment of 
 others. I never knew him say an unkind thing 
 of anyone, man or woman, living or dead — not 
 that his judgment of others was always favour- 
 able, but it was never expressed in other than 
 the most kindly terms." * 
 
 Destined from his birth to rule, he schooled 
 himself to learn submission, and to abide his 
 time in patience. Free to command the energies 
 of his subordinates, he was full of kindly con- 
 sideration, and never suffered custom to blunt 
 his gratitude for a service loyally performed. 
 Though constantly engaged in the public duties 
 of his lofty station, he still found time for all 
 those private acts of kindliness and sympathy, 
 * General Sir Beauchamp Walker. Letter to the Author. 
 
lob FREDERICK. 
 
 as neighbour, as master, as friend, which earn 
 for private persons the love and admiration of 
 their fellows. He had acquired wide and 
 varied learning, and his high ambition was to 
 open a royal road to knowledge to the richest and 
 the poorest of his subjects alike. For him the 
 earth displayed her marvels to a loving eye, and 
 Art not vainly revealed her treasures ; he had 
 seen much, toiled much, enjoyed much. He 
 was essentially a man, and there was no human 
 interest or emotion which he could not share. 
 
 An active and industrious youth, a married 
 life crowned with many blessings, and not-un- 
 tempered by the sorrows man is heir to, and a 
 public career which was rich in great results, 
 had prepared him for a brilliant and useful 
 future. All too early, too soon for the accom- 
 plishment of many cherished plans, after an 
 heroic endurance of pain and disappointment, 
 he was taken from us in the pride of his man- 
 hood and strength ; and as they bore him on 
 that Summer morning from his happy home of 
 thirty years, there came into the present 
 writer's mind the words : — 
 
 " Thou art the ruins of the noblest man 
 That ever lived in the tide of times. " 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 The Emperor Frederick's Proclamation to 
 his People. 
 
 The Emperor's glorious life is ended. 
 
 In the dearly-loved father whom I mourn, 
 and for whom all the members of my Royal 
 House are with me sorrowing, Prussia's loyal 
 people has lost a King crowned with glory, the 
 German nation has lost the founder of its unity, 
 the re-established Empire has lost the first 
 German Emperor. 
 
 His exalted name will remain indissolubly 
 connected with all the greatness of the German 
 Fatherland, in re-creating which the persistent 
 labour of Prussia's people and Princes has found 
 its fairest reward. 
 
 In raising the Prussian Army with unweary- 
 ing and paternal care to the height of its grave 
 mission, Kino- William established the sure 
 foundation of those victories which were won 
 
190 APPENDIX. 
 
 under his leadership by German arms, and 
 from which the national unity arose. He thus 
 secured the Empire that powerful position for 
 which till then every German heart had longed, 
 but hardly dared to hope. 
 
 And what he won for his people in the fire 
 and sacrifice of battle it was granted him 
 to establish and promote, through long laborious 
 years of government consecrated to the work of 
 peace. 
 
 Resting secure on her own strength, Germany 
 stands respected in the councils of the nations, 
 and only desires to enjoy and develop what she 
 had won, in peace. 
 
 That this is so, we must thank the Emperor 
 William. His constant fidelity to duty, his 
 unremitting energy, labouring only for the good 
 of the Fatherland, supported as he was by the 
 self-sacrificing devotion which the Prussian 
 nation has ever unwaveringly shown, and 
 all the German races have shared. 
 
 On me have now devolved all the rights 
 and duties, bound up with the throne of my 
 House, which I am resolved faithfully to ob- 
 serve so long as it may please God's will that I 
 shall reign. 
 
APPENDIX. 191 
 
 Deeply conscious of the greatness of my task, 
 my sole endeavour will be to carry on the work 
 in the sense in which it was begun, to make 
 Germany a stronghold of peace, and in harmony 
 with the federal governments, as well as with 
 the constitutional bodies of the Empire and 
 of Prussia, to further the prosperity of the 
 country. 
 
 To my loyal people, which has through the 
 story of many centuries stood by my House in 
 good and evil days, I place my unreserved 
 confidence. For I am convinced that, resting 
 on the basis of the inseparable union between 
 Prince and people, which, independently of all 
 changes in political life, has been the imperish- 
 able heritage of the House of Hohenzollern, my 
 throne will ever be as sure as the prosperity of 
 the country which I am now called upon to 
 govern, to which I promise and vow to be a 
 just and faithful King, in joy as well as in 
 sorrow. 
 
 May God grant me His blessing and strength 
 
 for this work, to which henceforth I dedicate 
 
 my life. 
 
 FREDERICK, I.R, 
 
 Berli.v, March 12, 1888. 
 
192 APPENDIX. 
 
 Rescript addressed to the Imperial 
 Chancellor. 
 
 " My Dear Prince, 
 
 " At the opening of my reign I feel 
 the necessity of addressing you, for so many 
 years the tried first servant of my father, now 
 resting in God. You were the faithful and 
 courageous counsellor who gave form to the 
 aims of his policy, and secured their successful 
 realization. 
 
 " To you the warm thanks of myself and of 
 my House are in duty due. 
 
 " You have, therefore, a right, before all 
 others, to know what are the guiding principles 
 by which my rule will be governed. 
 
 " The constitutional and legal ordinances of 
 the Empire and of Prussia must first and fore- 
 most be consolidated in the respect of the 
 nation and in the national life. Therefore, 
 those shocks which repeated changes in the 
 institutions and laws of the State entail are to 
 be avoided as far as it is possible. 
 
APPENDIX. 193 
 
 The furtherance of the duties which fall to 
 the Imperial Government must leave those 
 stable principles undisturbed upon which 
 hitherto the Prussian State has securely rested. 
 
 In the Empire the constitutional rights of all 
 the Federal Governments are to be as con- 
 scientiously observed as those of the Imperial 
 Diet ; but from both a similar respect for the 
 rights of the Emperor will be expected. At 
 the same time it must be kept in view that 
 these mutual rights are only intended to serve 
 the promotion of the public welfare, which 
 remains the supreme law, and that new and 
 undoubted national requirements which may 
 make themselves felt must be satisfied in full 
 measure. 
 
 The most indispensable and most certain 
 guarantee for the unimpeded furtherance of 
 this work I hold to be the maintenance in 
 unabated strength of the defensive forces of the 
 nation, my well-tried army, and my growing 
 navy, which is finding important duties to 
 perforin, now that we have acquired possessions 
 beyond the seas. Both must continually 
 maintain that standard of efficiency and 
 thoroughness of organization which have 
 
 N 
 
194 APPENDIX. 
 
 already established their fame, and guarantee 
 their effective service in the future. 
 
 I am resolved to govern in the Empire and in 
 Prussia with a conscientious observation of the 
 the provisions of their respective constitutions. 
 For these were established by those who have 
 gone before me in wise appreciation of the in- 
 evitable requirements of social and political life, 
 and the questions it presents for solution, 
 and must be respected by each and all, that 
 their vigour and beneficent influence may be 
 assured. 
 
 It is my will that the principle of religious 
 toleration, which has for years been held sacred 
 in my family, shall continue to extend its pro- 
 tection to all my subjects, to whatsoever re- 
 ligious community and creed they may belong. 
 Every one of them stands equally near my 
 heart, for all of them equally in the hour of 
 danger proved their complete devotion. 
 
 In entire accord with the views of my im- 
 perial father, I shall warmly support every 
 movement towards furthering the economical 
 prosperity of every class of society, reconciling 
 their conflicting interests, and mitigating, as far 
 as may be possible, unavoidable differences, 
 
APPENDIX. 195 
 
 without encouraging the anticipation that 
 every social evil can be removed by State 
 intervention. 
 
 I consider as intimately connected with 
 social questions the control of the education of 
 youth. While, on the one hand, a higher culti- 
 vation must be extended to ever- widening 
 circles, we have at the same time to beware of 
 the dangers of half-education, of awakening 
 demands which the nation's economic develop- 
 ment is unable to satisfy, of neglecting the 
 real business of education in a one-sided effort 
 after increase of knowledge. 
 
 Only a generation growing up on the sound 
 principle of the fear of God, and in simplicity of 
 morals, will possess sufficient power of resistance 
 to counteract the dangers which the whole 
 community incurs in a time of rapid economic 
 development, through the example of the 
 highly luxurious life of individuals. It is my 
 will that no opportunity be lost in the public 
 service of manifesting all possible opposition to 
 the temptation to inordinate expenditure. 
 
 My unbiassed consideration is assured in 
 advance to every proposal of financial reform, 
 if the old Prussian principle of economy will 
 
 N 2 
 
196 APPENDIX. 
 
 not enable us to avoid the imposition of new 
 burdens, and to effect an alleviation of the 
 demands that have hitherto been made. 
 
 I consider as beneficial the measure of self- 
 government accorded to greater and smaller 
 communities in the State. On the other hand, 
 I suggest for examination the point whether 
 the right of levying taxes conferred upon these 
 communities, which is exercised by them with- 
 out sufficient regard to the burdens simul- 
 taneously imposed by the Empire and the 
 State, may not press too heavily upon the 
 individual. 
 
 In like manner it will have to be considered 
 whether a reform in the direction of simplifica- 
 tion may not be admissible in the organization 
 of the authorities, so that by reducing the 
 number of officials an increase migfht be made 
 to their emoluments. 
 
 If we succeed in maintaining in full vigour 
 the bases of political and social life, it will 
 afford me especial satisfaction to assist in 
 promoting to its perfect development the pro- 
 gress which Art and Science in Germany can 
 boast in so large a measure. 
 
 For the realization of these my intentions, I 
 
APPENDIX. 197 
 
 count upon the devotion you have given such 
 constant proof of, and the support of your tried 
 experience. 
 
 May it be granted me on these principles to 
 lead the people of Germany and Prussia to new 
 honours in the field of practical development, 
 with the unanimous co-operation of all the 
 organs of the Empire, the devotion of the 
 people's representatives, and all the official 
 bodies, with the responsive confidence of every 
 class of the population in Germany and Prussia. 
 
 Not dazzled by the splendour of great 
 achievements, I shall be content, if hereafter 
 it be said of my government, that it was 
 beneficial to my people, useful to my country, 
 and a blessing to the Empire ! 
 
 Your affectionate, 
 
 FKEDEEICK, I.R 
 
 Berlin, March 12, 1888. 
 
 Henderson, Rait, & Spalding, Printers, Marylebone Lane, London, W. 
 
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