Maurice Francis Egan
Ten Years Near the German Frontier: A Retrospect and a Warning

PREFACE

The purpose of this book is to show the reflections of Prussian policy and activity in a little country which was indispensable to Prussia in the founding of the German Empire, and which, in spite of its heroic struggle in 1864, was forced to serve as the very foundation of that power; for, if Prussia had not unrighteously seized Slesvig, the Kiel Canal and the formation of the great German fleet would have been almost impossible.

The rape of Slesvig and the acquisition of Heligoland – that despised 'trouser button' which kept up the 'indispensables' of the German Navy – are facts that ought to illuminate, for those who would be wise, the past as a warning to the future. There is no doubt that the assimilation of Slesvig by Prussia led to the Franco-Prussian war, and liberated modern Germany from the difficulties that would have hampered her intention to become the dominant power in the world. The further acquisition of Denmark would have been only a question of time, had not the march of the Despot through Belgium aroused the civilised world to the reality of the German imperial aggression – until then, unhappily, not taken seriously. Had Germany followed the policy which induced her to hold Slesvig, in spite of the promise that the Slesvigers, passionately Danish, might by vote decide their own fate – and seize Denmark, the Virgin Islands, not American, would have been German possessions. The change of policy which sent the German army into Belgium and Northern France, instead of into Denmark, was, in a measure, due to the belief in Germany, that the war would be short; and, with France helpless, Russia terrorised and England torn by political factions, she could control the Danish Belts that lead from the North Sea to the Baltic and treat these waters as German lakes.

She reckoned as erroneously on that as she reckoned on controlling the Mediterranean and on smashing the Monroe Doctrine by practically possessing Argentine and Brazil. She built well, however, when she made Kiel the pride of the Emperor and the Empire. Europe watched the process, and hardly gave a thought to the outrage on humanity and liberty it involved. The world is suffering for this indifference. The retention of Danish Slesvig created the German sea power and the constant threat to Denmark concerns us all. It is a world question; and it must be answered in the interest of Democracy.

Denmark is geographically part of Germany. In normal times you reached Berlin from Copenhagen in a night. In a few short hours you may see German sentinels on the Slesvig frontier, and hear the field practice of German guns. A Zeppelin might have reached Copenhagen from Berlin in eight hours, and an army corps might land in Jutland in about double that time.

Copenhagen is so near what was that centre of world politics – the German court – its royal family is so closely allied with all the reigning and non-reigning royal families of Europe, and its diplomatic life so tense and comprehensive, – that it has been well named the whispering gallery of Europe.

I have not attempted to keep out of this sketch of my diplomatic experiences and deductions all traces of amusement; but, as to the terrible seriousness of the greater part of this record, I may appropriately quote the answer of Bismarck's tailor, when that genius of blood and iron accused him of asking an enormous price for a fur coat, of 'joking.' 'No,' answered the tailor, 'never in business!'

And, in spite of the fact that there are lights and even laughs in the diplomatic career, it is a serious business; and the sooner my fellow countrymen recognise this, the fewer international errors they will have to regret.

Maurice Francis Egan.

CHAPTER I
A SCRAP OF PAPER AND THE DANES

Let us trace deliberately, with as much calmness as possible, the beginning of that policy, of 'blood and iron' which made the German Empire, as we knew it yesterday, possible. It began with the tearing up of 'a scrap of paper' in 1864. It began in perfidy, treachery, and the forcible suppression of the rights of a free people. It began in Denmark; and nothing could make a normal American more in love with freedom, as we know it, than to live under the shadow of a tyrannical power, cynically opposed to the legitimate desire of a little nation to develop its own capabilities in its own way.

The Hanoverian on the throne of England in '76, – that 'snuffy old drone from a German hive' – never dared to suggest that the colonies should be crushed out of all semblance of freedom; but, suppose our language had been different from that which his environment compelled him to speak, and that he had resolved to force his tongue on our own English-speaking people; suppose that he and his counsellors had resolved that German should be the language spoken in sermons and prayers from Washington's old church in Alexandria to Faneuil Hall; suppose that all the colleges and schools of the country, as well as the law courts, were forced to use this alien tongue; that a German-speaking Empire existed to the south of us, and the minority in this German domain, arrogant, closely connected with the Hanoverian régime, ruled us with the mailed fist, would we submit without constant efforts to obtain justice?

And yet Denmark, in the province of Slesvig, has endured these things since 1864. She alone of all the world resisted the beginning of German tyranny, of German arrogant evolution; and her resistance was useless because the rest of Europe saw in the future neither the German Empire nor the Kiel Canal.

Denmark is, as every schoolboy knows, geographically part of Germany; and the Pan-Germans spoke of it benevolently as 'our Northern province.' It might long ago have been their Northern province if England and Russia had not been powers in the world and if the great Queen Louise of Denmark, a beautiful and fragile little woman, with a heart of gold and a will of steel, had not used all her wits to keep her country free by the only means of diplomacy she knew – the ties of family.

Queen Louise, the wife of Christian IX., new king of an old line, was not born in the purple, though her blood was the bluest in Europe. The beautiful princesses, her three daughters, later the Empress of Russia, Dagmar, the Queen of England, Alexandra, and the Duchess of Cumberland, Thyra, made their frocks and were taught all the household arts – for their father, royal by blood as he was, was a poor officer.

These princesses hold lovingly in remembrance the time of their poverty; these princesses love the old times. There is a villa on the Strandvej (the beach way) called Hvidhöre, white as befits the name, with sculptured sea-nymphs and pretty gardens and a path under the strand to the Sound. Here, until 1914, the Empress Dowager of Russia and the Queen of England regularly spent part of the summer and autumn. The Russian yacht, The Polar Star, and the English Victoria and Albert appeared regularly in the Sound, the officers added to the gaiety of Copenhagen and the royal ladies went to Hvidhöre, 'where,' as the Widow Queen of England said to my wife, smiling, 'we can make our own beds, as we did when we were girls.'

The servants might drop a plate or two during luncheon or stumble over a chair; but the Empresses of Russia and of India made no objections – 'the dear old people were a little blind, perhaps, but then they had served our father, King Christian.' And anything that relates to their father is sacred to these ladies; and everything concerning Denmark very dear.

In 1907 the small parties at Hvidhöre went on as usual, though the great royal gatherings at the palace of Fredensborg had ceased. Here, in the time of the old Queen Louise, from sixty to eighty scions of royalty, young and old, had often gathered under the high blue ceiling, from which looked down beautiful white gods and goddesses.

In 1907-8 King Frederick VIII. gave occasionally a dinner on Sunday night at the country house not far from Copenhagen, Charlottenlund, when it was hard to keep from turning one's back to a royalty, – there were so many crowned heads present. There, if Queen Alexandra made it plain that she wanted to speak to you, you, approaching her, found yourself with your back to the King of Greece or to King Haakon of Norway, or to the Queen of Denmark herself!

Times have changed; the circumstances which made the late mother of King Frederick so powerful in keeping 'the family' together can never occur again.

Of the four daughters of the late King Frederick, two married, one in Sweden and the other in Germany. The Danish princess, Louise, who became the wife of His Serene Highness, Prince Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Bruno of Lippe-Schaumbourg, is to the Danes a lovely and pathetic memory. They say that he treated her badly, that the bride fled from him to the protection of her parents, whom they censured for not taking her home before her death. The criticism – which even found expression in public disapproval – was unreasonable, but the mass of the Danes is always more generous than just in the treatment of its children. In 1908-9, to mention the name of Prince Friedrich was to commit a social error; he was taboo; every mother in Denmark was furious at the stories told of his injuries to their dead Princess Louise.

Princess Ingeborg, born in 1878, married the 'blue Prince,' Charles of Sweden, Duke of Westgothia. King Frederick VIII., after the failure of the German marriage, kept his two other daughters, Thyra and Dagmar, in the background. He was a very sympathetic king, and he liked to talk of ordinary affairs; he was truly much interested in the life immediately around him. 'I do not encourage princes in search of wives,' he said; 'I shall keep my daughters with me.' Princess Thyra – one cannot conceal the age of princesses, while there is an Almanach de Gotha– was born on March 14th, 1880, and Princess Dagmar on May 23rd, 1890. The Princess Thyra is of the type of her beautiful aunt, the Queen Mother of England; like her aunt, she looks much younger than her age; the Princess Dagmar has the quality of this royal family, of always seeming to be ten years, in appearance, younger than they are. They were our near neighbours for ten years, and my wife often threatened to marry them to nice 'Americans'; – King Frederick, considering this impossible, gave his consent at once! He often brought them in to tea, and they met 'nice Americans,' and seemed to like them very much.

The Emperor William – who wanted to be called the Emperor of Germany rather than the German, or Prussian Emperor, as we always called him – showed no affection for his Danish relatives; but, nevertheless, he did not underrate the value of Denmark as the 'whispering gallery' of Europe.

In the old palace of Rosenborg, in Copenhagen, there is a room so arranged that, by means of a narrow tunnel in the wall, Christian IV., a contemporary of Queen Elizabeth, could hear what his guards said, in their cabinet, at all hours of the day and night. 'There is a similar room at Potsdam,' a Dane said to me; 'William always listens when he is not speaking!' William knew what the Danes said of the German marriage; his plans did not lie in the way of annexing either of the Danish princesses, whose sympathies were not with the despoilers of the country; he had his eyes on the son of their aunt, the Duchess of Cumberland, who was later to marry his daughter. But royal marriages had ceased to strengthen or weaken Denmark; the Archduke Michael of Russia 'hung around' for a time; others came; but King Frederick walked out with his daughter, Princess Thyra, both evidently content. Princesses are expected to make marriages of 'convenience,' but Princess Thyra, like her aunt, Princess Victoria of England, does not seem inclined to make a marriage of that kind. Princess Dagmar was too young to be permitted to expect suitors, when her father lived; and the Princess Margaret, daughter of Prince Valdemar, brother of King Frederick, for whom, it was said, overtures had already been made on behalf of the growing Prince of the House of Saxony, was younger still. Denmark had ceased to be a marriage market of kings; the futility of attempting to cement international relations by royal alliances was becoming only too evident. Prince Valdemar, brother of King Frederick, had refused more than once a Balkan kingdom, and, when consulted by very great personages as to a marriage of his oldest son to the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, had answered, like his brother Frederick, that he preferred 'to keep his children at home.'

Nevertheless, the previous royal marriages and the fact that nearly every diplomat at Copenhagen was a favourite with his sovereign, sent by a relative of the court at home to please the court at Copenhagen, gave the post unusual prestige, and made 'conversations' possible there which could not have taken place elsewhere. The court circle, when one had the entrance, but not until then, was like that of an agreeable family. Nearly every minister at Copenhagen was destined for an embassy. When my predecessor, Mr. O'Brien, was translated to Tokyo, our prestige was enhanced; the Danes believed that our country but followed the usual precedent, according to which their French M. Jusserand had been made ambassador at Washington. Even the United States had begun to understand the importance of the post; and it was in the line of diplomatic usage when it was rumoured that I had been offered Vienna. I met, too, ministers to Copenhagen who considered themselves, because of royal patronage, ambassadors by brevet, and who exacted 'Excellency,' not as a courtesy but a right!

Mr. Whitelaw Reid wrote to me, speaking of my post as a 'delightful, little Dresden china court'; the epithet was pretty, and there were times, when the young princesses and their friends thronged the rococo rooms of the Amalieborg Palace, that it seemed appropriate. When the processions of guests moved up the white stairs between the line of liveried servants, some of them with quaint artificial flowers in their caps, the sight was very like a bit out of Watteau.

Bismarck had not looked on Denmark as a negligible country; he knew its importance; there was a legend that one of the few persons he really respected and feared in Europe was the old Queen Louise. Besides, he knew the history of Denmark so well, that he chose to correct the supposed taint in the blood of the Hohenzollerns by choosing an Empress for William II. of 'the blood of Struense.' This Struense, the German physician who, through the degeneracy of Christian VII., had in 1770 become the guide, the philosopher, and – it was said – the more than friend of his Queen, Caroline Matilda, tried to be the Bismarck of Denmark; but he was of too soft a mould, – the disciple of Rousseau and Voltaire rather than of Machiavelli and Cæsar Borgia. He was drawn and quartered, after having confessed, in the most ungentlemanly way, his relations with the queen, sister of King George III. of England.

It is probable that part of the Emperor's dislike to Bismarck was due to that 'mot' of the Iron Chancellor about the royal marriage he had helped to make. It was the kind of 'mot' that William would not be likely to forget. It is an axiom of courts that the child of a Queen cannot be illegitimate. Even the Duke de Morny, son of Queen Hortense of Holland, bore proudly 'Hortensias' in the panels of his carriage during the Third Empire in France. Nevertheless, though Queen Caroline Matilda had died, in her exile at Celle, protesting her innocence, it was understood that Struense was the father of the supposed daughter of Christian VII., the daughter who married into the House of Slesvig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg. Her descendant, the Princess Augusta Victoria Frederika-Louisa-Feodora-Jenny married the Emperor William II., on February 27th, 1881, at Berlin. It was a love match – at least on the side of the empress. One of the ladies in waiting at the German court once told my wife that the famous Augusta Victoria rose – the magnolia rose of our youth – was always cherished by her imperial majesty because of its association with her courtship – 'the emperor knew how to make love!' the empress said.

The appearance of Struense among the ancestors of the empress, to which Bismarck is said to have so brutally alluded, was not agreeable to the proudest monarch in Europe. Queen Caroline Matilda, sister of the second George of England, was only fifteen years of age when she came to Denmark to become the wife of Christian VII. in 1766. And, if anything could have excused her later relations with Struense (her son, Frederick VII., was undoubtedly legitimate) – it was the attitude of her degenerate husband and her mother-in-law, Julianna Maria. Having been dragged one bitter cold morning to the castle of Elsinore, she confessed her guilt; but under such circumstances of cruel oppression that the confession goes for little; circumstances, however, were against her, and the courts of Europe only remember that she was the daughter of a king, of blood sufficiently royal, to make up for her declension.

In Copenhagen, in 1908, the echoes of public opinion in London, among the higher classes at least, showed that the momentary insecurity caused by the reverses in the Boer war had passed. People had forgotten the emperor's telegram to Oom Paul. Nobody wanted war; therefore, there would be no war. 'If we have no property,' St. Francis of Assisi, pleading for his Order to the Pope, said, 'we shall need no soldiers to protect it.' It was forgotten that, reversely, if we have property, we must always have armies and fleets to protect it. It was not war that anybody wanted; but there was property to be had, which could only be had by the use of armies and fleets.

In Paris (for reasons which secret history will one day disclose, and for other reasons only too plain), the German designs were apparently not understood by high officials who directed the course of France. France made the mistake, as we are always likely to do, of reading its own psychology into the minds of its opponents. Paris believed, to use Voltaire's opinion of the prophet Habakkuk, that Germany was capable of everything, except the very thing that Germany was preparing without rest, without haste, and without shame to do – to bleed her white!

From echoes in Copenhagen, we learned, too, that in Petrograd, Germany was better understood because the Russian spies were real spies; they knew what they were about, and, being half oriental, they understood how to use the scimitar of Saladin. There were other spies who knew only the use of the battle-axe of Coeur-de-Lion; but they were often deceived though very well paid; in fact, the ordinary paid spy is a bad investment. In Belgium the Internationals talked universal peace; indeed, among others than the Internationals, the army was disliked. As in Holland, German commercial aggression was feared. The most amazing thing is that Internationalism did not weaken the morale of the heroic Belgians when the test came.

In Copenhagen, the idea of a permanent peace seemed untenable, and war meant ruin to Denmark. This was not a pleasant state of mind; but it did not induce subserviency. In the vaults of Hamlet's castle of Elsinore on the delectable Sound, Holger Dansker sits, waiting to save Denmark from the ruthless invader. There are brave Danes to-day who would follow Holger, the Dane, to the death, who believe that their country never can be enslaved; but, though the conquering Germans spared Denmark, they did not need the knowledge of the fate of Belgium to convince them of what they might expect as soon as it pleased the Kaiser to act against them. The fate of Belgium had confirmed the fears they had inherited. There is no doubt where their hearts were, but a movement – a slight movement – against Germany would have meant for the King of Denmark the fate of the King of Belgium or the King of Serbia. That he is married to a princess half German by blood would not shield him. Belgium was not spared because its queen was of German birth.

Copenhagen, as I have said, was not only a city of rumours, but a city of news. The pulse of Europe could be felt there because Europeans of distinction were passing and repassing continually, and the Danes, like the Athenians of St. Paul's time, love to hear new things. But there was and is one old query which all Denmark never forgets to ask: Will Danish Slesvig come back to its motherland? Slesvig-Holstein is the Alsace-Lorraine question in Denmark. For Slesvig Denmark would dare much. She could not court certain destruction but, in her heart, 'Slesvig' is written as indelibly as 'Calais' was written in the heart of the dying queen, Mary Tudor.

She had forgiven and forgotten the loss of her fleet and the bombardment of Copenhagen by the English in 1807 and 1814. She then stood for France and new ideas, and Tory England made her suffer for it. She lost Norway in 1814; she was reduced almost to bankruptcy; and, until 1880, she could only devote her attention to the revival of her economic life. Holstein was German; Slesvig, Danish. They could not be united unless the language of one was made dominant over the language of the other. The imperial law of Germany governed Holstein; all Slesvig legislation had since 1241 been based upon the laws of the Danish King Valdemar. To force the German law and language on Slesvig was to wipe out all Danish ideas and ideals in the most Danish of the provinces of Denmark. The attempt to Germanise Slesvig took concrete form in 1830. Desiring to bring it under German domination, Uve Lornsen, a Frisian lawyer, proposed to make the Duchies of Slesvig and Holstein self-governing states, separated from Denmark, and entirely under German influence. As, according to him, only royal persons of the male lineage could govern the united Duchies, the King of Denmark might have the title of Duke until the male line should become extinct. Uve Lornsen met remonstrances based on the laws and traditions of the Danes with the arrogant assertion, uttered in German:

'Ancient history is not to be considered; we will have it our own way now.'

Kristian Poulsen, a Dane, who knew both the German and the Danish views, opposed the beginning of a process which meant the imposition of autocratic methods on a people who were resolved to develop their own national spirit in freedom.

In Slesvig there are 3613 square miles. In the greater part of this territory, consisting of 2190 square miles, Danish was the vernacular, while 1423 square miles were populated by speakers of German. German power had secured German teaching for 220,000 people in churches and schools. The injustice of this will be seen when it is understood that only 110,000 were given opportunities, religious and educational, of hearing Danish. Danish could not be used in the courts of law. It was required that the clergy should be educated at the University of Kiel, and other officials of the state could have no chance of advancement unless they used German constantly and fluently. The teachers in the communal schools were all trained in Germany. The Danish speech was not used in a single college. In a word, the German influence, under the eyes of a Danish king and government, was driving out all the safeguards of Danish national life in Slesvig.

King Christian VIII., partly awakened to the wrongs of the Slesvigers, issued in 1840 a rescript insisting on the introduction of Danish into the law courts. The German partisans were outraged by this insult to German Kultur; no tongue but the German should be used even in Danish Slesvig. The king, the Danish court, for over two hundred years had been Germanised; the king did not dare to announce himself as a nationalist; but, against the German partisans, he decided that the Danish kings had always possessed the right of succession in Denmark, that the succession was not confined to the male line in Slesvig.

In Holstein the position was different. If the Danish line should become extinct, the succession might fall to the Russian Emperor; but Slesvig must be Danish. On the death of King Christian VIII. in 1848, feeling ran high in Denmark and in Slesvig-Holstein. In truth, all Europe was in a ferment. The results of the French revolt in 1830 were still leavening Europe. The Assembly of Holstein and Slesvig was divided in opinion. The desire of the Germans in the provinces to control the majority became more and more apparent. Danish interests must disappear, the beginning of the German 'Kultur,' not yet developed by Bismarck, must take its place. Five deputies were sent to Copenhagen, with, among other demands, a demand that the Danish part of the country be incorporated into the German confederation.

The citizens of Copenhagen had reason to believe that the Holstein counts, Moltke and Reventlow-Criminel, potent ministers and men of strong wills, might influence King Frederick VII. to give way to the Germans. The king determined to dismiss these ministers; the demands of the Town Council of Copenhagen and the people of Denmark were answered before they were made. His Majesty had 'neither the will nor the power to allow Slesvig to be incorporated in the German Confederation; Holstein could pursue her own course.'¹

But the German opposition in the provinces had not been idle. Berlin had shown itself favourable to the Duke of Augustenburg, and the Prince of Noer had headed a band of rebels against Denmark and instigated the garrison of Rendsborg to mutiny on the plea that the Danes had imprisoned their king. A contest of arms took place between the two parties. Prussia interfered; but Prussia was not then what it is now. At the conclusion of a three years' war, the rebels were defeated and the King of Denmark decreed that Slesvig should be a separate duchy, governed by its own assembly. The German party so juggled the election – 'Fatherland Over All' governed their point of view, the end justified the means – that the Assembly shamefully misrepresented the Danes. It was Prussianised.

The Danes did not lose heart – Slesvig must be Danish; but if they allowed their language to disappear, there could be no hope for their nationality. On the other hand, the Germans held, as they hold to-day, that all languages must yield to theirs. The German press would have extirpated the Danish language; it was seditious; the Danes were rebels. From the Danish side to Tönder-Flensborg, the official speech and that of the people was Danish. Between the two Belts – the space can easily be traced on the map – Danish was spoken in the churches every second Sunday. In the schools both Danish and German was permitted; in the courts of law both languages were used. You made your choice! The world was deceived by an unscrupulous Assembly and the German press into the belief that Slesvig was German, lovingly German, and that the Danes were merely restless malcontents, hating the beneficent Prussian rule simply from a perverted sense of their own importance.

The crucial moment came in 1864. Denmark had no real friends in Europe. The United States, if her people had understood the matter, would have been sympathetic; but, at the moment, she was fighting for her own existence as a nation. The European powers, in spite of all their statecraft, allowed themselves to be blinded. Austria, apparently proud and noble, allowed herself, as usual, to be made the tool of Prussia. The two powers, on the false pretence that the right of Christian IX. to the succession to the duchies was involved, forced Denmark, which stood alone, to surrender Slesvig-Holstein and Lauenburg. This was the beginning of the mighty German Empire; it made the Kiel Canal possible, and laid the foundation of the German Navy. Slesvig, too, supplied the best sailors in the world. Bismarck, when he cynically treated Slesvig as a pawn in his game, had his eye on a future navy – a navy which would one day force the British from the dominion of the sea.

He had his way. He became master of the Baltic and the North Sea. Prussia, in forcing the Danish king to cede Slesvig, admitted his right to the Duchies; yet the pretext for war on Denmark had been that no such right existed. Prussia soon threw off her ally, Austria. She did not want a half owner in the Holstein Canal or in the coming fleet at Kiel.

It must be remembered that, when Christian IX. had ascended the throne of Denmark, it had been with the consent of all the great European powers. They had practically guaranteed him the right to rule Slesvig-Holstein, and yet England and France and Russia stood by and allowed the outrage to take place. France made an attempt to satisfy her conscience. In the treaty of peace France had this clause inserted:

'H.M. the Emperor of Austria hereby transfers to H.M. the King of Prussia all the right which according to the Treaty of Peace of Vienna of October 30, 1864, he had acquired in respect to the Duchies of Slesvig and Holstein, provided that the northern districts of Slesvig shall be united to Denmark, if the inhabitants by a free vote declare their desire to that effect.'

This was a 'scrap of paper' – nothing more! Nevertheless a scrap of paper may be inconvenient. Austria, never scrupulous when the acquisition of new territory was expedient, was willing to help Prussia to tear it up. Bosnia and Herzogovina raised their heads. Austria wanted help from Prussia. Here was the Prussian chance to induce her to abrogate her part in clause fifty of the peace treaty. What matter? Denmark, in time, must be German, as Slesvig was German, in spite of all right. Austria would play the same game with the Slavs as Prussia had played with the Danes. Individuals might have consciences, but nations had no system of ethics, and therefore no canons (except those of expediency), to rule such consciences as they had. Prussia treated the right of the Danes in Slesvig, guaranteed by a 'scrap of paper,' to a free vote as to their fate, with contempt. It had amused Bismarck to deceive France, the exponent of the new democracy in Europe, but that was all. Slesvig was to be crushed until it became quiescently Prussian. Prussia needed it, therefore it must be Prussian. Fiat!

This is a plain, unvarnished tale. Few of my fellow-countrymen have known it. Some who knew it hazily concluded that Slesvig had become German of its own free will that it might belong to a prosperous and great empire. Others, who remembered that, even in their struggle for freedom in 1864, the Danes paused for a moment to give us their aid at the request of President Lincoln, had a vague idea that wrong had been done somehow; but how great the wrong, and how terrible the effect of the wrong was to be on the history of the world, none of them even dreamed; and yet it was plain enough to those who watched the policy of blood and iron of this, the new Germany.

People who believed that Prussia had any respect for an engagement that might seem to work against her own designs ought to have been warned by the experience of Denmark. But there were those who believed that the acquisition of Heligoland from the British was a mere trifle, in which Germany had the worse of the bargain, as there are people who held that the Danish West Indies were of no manner of importance to us. They classed these acquisitions with that of Alaska – 'Seward's folly!'

And, in 1864, the old powers of Europe were so satisfied with their own methods, or so engaged with internal questions, that they let the monstrous tyranny of the conquest of Slesvig pass almost in silence. Prussia alone kept her eyes on one thing – the increase of her military power. In 1878 she induced Austria to abrogate her part in the treaty of Vienna of October 30, 1864. Austria agreed to give up any rights acquired by her in Slesvig-Holstein under the fifth clause of that treaty. This withdrawal (not to be irreverent, it was like the washing of the hands of Pontius Pilate) left Slesvig naked to her enemy. The Prussian autocrats chuckled when they found themselves bound by a 'scrap of paper' to the restoration of the northern districts of Slesvig to Denmark, 'if the inhabitants by a free vote declare their desire to that effect.'

The Imperial German statesmen, astute and unscrupulous, have always taken religion into consideration in making their propaganda. The German Crown Prince's sympathy with the same methods as used by Napoleon Bonaparte was perhaps inherited from his ancestors, as Napoleon, too, knew the political value of religion. The Church, an enslaved Church in a despotic state, – the reverse of Cavour's famous maxim – has always been one of statesmen's tools. They have never hesitated to use religion as the means of accomplishing the ends of the state. In fact, the Catholic Church in Germany was in great danger of being enslaved. The old wars of the popes and the emperors – so little understood in modern times – would be very possible, had the victory of Germany been a probability.

Let us see what happened in Slesvig. Since '64, Prussia has governed Slesvig. This rule has been a prolonged and constant attempt to force the Danes from their homes. A very distinguished and rather liberal German diplomatist, Count Brockdorff-Rantzau, once asked me, 'As an American, tell me frankly what is wrong with our position in Slesvig?'

'Everything,' I said. 'You seem even to assume that the religion of the people should be the religion of the state.'

'The state religion in Slesvig is as the state religion in Denmark, Lutheranism.'

'But not Germanised Lutheranism. I have the testimony of a Lutheran pastor himself, the Reverend D. Troensegaard-Hansen, to the effect that the authorities in Slesvig prefer German materialistic teaching to Danish Christianity, and that all kinds of influence is brought to bear on the clergy to make them German in their point of view. If, in the Philippines, we attempted to do the things you do in Slesvig, there would be no end of trouble.'

He laughed. 'But democrats as you are, you will never keep your promise to grant those people self-government.'

'We will.'

'Your democracy is not statesmanlike. It would be fatal for us to let the Slesvigers defy our power. They must be part of Germany; there is no way out.'

'Either you want difficulties with them or you are worrying them just as a great mastiff worries a small dog.'

'But suddenly a gymnast raises the Danish flag, or somebody utters a seditious speech in Danish, or school books are circulated in which ultra-Danish views of history are given. If a country is to be ruled by us, it must be a German country. We can tolerate no difference that tends to denationalise our population. It is a dream – the Danish idea that we shall give up what we have taken or, rather, what has been ceded to us.'

'Without the consent of the people?'

'Who are the people? When you answer that I will tell what is truth. Come, you are a democrat; by and by, when you Americans are older, you will see democracy from a more practical point of view.'

The practical point of view in Slesvig was squeezing out gradually the independence of the Slesvigers. The Dane loves passionately his home, his language, his literature. He may be sceptical about many things, but it would be difficult to persuade him to deny that the red and white flag, the Danish flag, did not come down from heaven borne by angels! His culture is Danish, and part of his life. He keeps it up wistfully even when he swears allegiance to another nation. The Danes in Denmark will never cease to regard Slesvig as their own. It is one flesh with them; but Prussia has torn this one body asunder. Fancy a 'free election' being permitted in a country ruled by Prussian autocrats or a 'free election' in Alsace-Lorraine under German rule!

The geographical position of Denmark is unfortunate. There are imperialists of all countries who hold that the little countries have no right to live; Junkerism is not confined to Germany. The geographical position of most of the little countries is unfortunate, but none is so unfortunate as that of Denmark. When the war broke out, it seemed to her people that the road to German conquest lay through her borders. The Powers That Were in Germany decided to attack Belgium, and for the moment Denmark escaped.

Do you think that it was an easy thing for a proud people to be in the position of old King Canute before the advancing ocean? The waves came on, but nobody in his wildest imaginings ever dreamed that the modern Danish Canute could stem the tide. The Danes have their army and their navy; officers and men expected to die defending Denmark. What else could they do? Death would be preferable to slavery. The Dane does his best to forget; but always the echo of the words of the sentinel in Hamlet recurs:

''Tis bitter cold, and I am sick at heart.'

No number of royal alliances counts as against a bad geographical place in the world and the evil disposition of a strong neighbour. A change of heart has come over the world since Germany induced Austria to be her catspaw in 1914. The example of a country which deliberately asserted that might makes right, and followed this assertion with deeds that make the angels weep, has shocked the world, and forced other nations to examine their consciences. After all, we are a long time after Machiavelli. After the great breakdown in Russia there was a feeling among some of the conservatives in Denmark that the cousin of the Tsar of Russia, King George of England, might have laid a restraining hand on the Russian parties that forced the Tsar to abdicate. But the very mention of this seemed utterly futile. The King of Spain, though married to an English princess, could expect little help in any difficulty, were the interests of the English Ministry not entirely his. The contemplation of these alliances offers much material for the man who thinks in the terms of history.

When President Fallières visited Copenhagen in 1908, there was a gala concert given at the Palace of Amalieborg in his honour. The President was accompanied by a 'bloc' of black-coated gentlemen, some of them journalists of distinction.

There was no display of gold lace, and the representatives of the French Republic were really republican in their simplicity. The Danish court and the diplomatic corps were splendid, decorations glittered, and the white and gold rococo setting of the concert room was worthy of it all. The Queen of Denmark – now the Dowager Queen – was magnificent, as she always is at gala entertainments, possessing, as she does in her own right, some of the finest jewels in Europe.

Fallières represented the new order. His hostess, the Queen, is the daughter of Charles XV., a descendant of Bernadotte. Representing the lines of both St. Louis and Louis Philippe was the Princess Valdemar, now dead, who, as Marie of Orleans, came of the royal blood of the families of Bourbon and Orleans.

It was interesting to watch this gracious princess, whose father, the Duc de Chartres, had been with General McLellan during our Civil War. She adapted herself to the circumstances, as she always did, and seemed very proud of the honours shown to France. The Countess Moltke-Huitfeldt, Louise Bonaparte, was not in Denmark at the time. It would have added interest to the occasion, had this descendant of the youngest brother of the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte been there.

Count Moltke-Huitfeldt, married to Louise Eugénie Bonaparte, is almost as French in his sentiments as his wife, and, for her, when the United States joined hands with France, it was a very happy day. One of the events that made the fine castle of Glorup, the seat of the Moltke-Huitfeldts, interesting was the visit of the ex-Empress Eugénie.

The Empress Eugénie, like all the Bonapartes, acknowledged the validity of the Patterson-Bonaparte marriage. She has always shown a special affection and esteem for the Countess Moltke-Huitfeldt.

The estate of Glorup, with its artificial lake and garden, in which Hans Christian Andersen often walked, was copied by an ancestor of the present count's from a part of Versailles. It was at its best during the visit of the empress, who was the most considerate of guests. The American Bonapartes were not ranked as royal highnesses for fear, on the part of Napoleon III. and Prince Napoleon, 'Plon-plon,' of raising unpleasant questions as to the succession.

Jerome himself, for a short time King of Westphalia, never pretended that his American marriage was not valid. Meeting Madame Patterson-Bonaparte by accident in the Pitti Palace, he whispered to the Princess of Würtemburg – she had then ceased to be Queen of Westphalia – 'There is my American wife.' Mr. Jerome Bonaparte was offered the title of 'Duke of Sartine' by Napoleon III. if he would give up the name of his family, which, of course, he declined to do. Under the French laws, as well as the American, he was the legitimate son of Jerome Bonaparte. The presence of the Countess Moltke-Huitfeldt would have added another interesting touch to the assemblage in Amalieborg Palace, a touch which would have served for a footnote to history. In spite of the name 'Moltke,' Count Adam and his wife are as French as the French themselves. Names in Denmark are very deceptive.

The question of war was even then, in 1908, in the air. The German diplomatists were polite to Fallières, but they considered him heavy and bourgeois, and believed that he represented the undying dislike for Germany which the French system of education was inculcating.

'If the French schools teach the rising generation to hate Germany, what is the attitude of the German educators?' I asked.

'We know that we are hated, and we teach our young to be ready for an attack from wherever it comes; but we love peace, of course.'

In 1908, it was generally thought that the Kaiser himself was inclined to keep the peace. Now and then an isolated Englishman would declare that he had his doubts, when a German traveller seemed to know too much about his country, or when amiable German guests asked too many intimate questions.

It was the custom for the older colleagues to offer the newer ones a history of the Slesvig-Holstein dispute, which dated from the fifteenth century. On my arrival, Sir Alan Johnston had presented me with a volume on the subject by Herr Neergaard, considered the 'last word' on the subject. The pages, I noticed, were uncut, so I felt justified in passing it on to the newest colleagues, taking care, in order to give him perfect freedom, not to autograph it!

It was, as a French secretary often said, 'a complication most complicated'; but one fact was clear – the deplorable position of a liberty-loving people, deprived of the essentials that make life worth living!

The great barrier to the entire domination of Prussian ideals in this area between the Baltic and the North Sea is the existence of the Danish national spirit in Slesvig. 'If the other nations of Europe had looked ahead, the power of Prussia might have been held within reasonable bounds; the war in 1870 would have been impossible; this last awful world-conflict would not have occurred. Germany would have been taught her place long ago.' How often was this repeated!

The relations between the Emperor William and the Emperor of Russia were supposed to be unusually friendly then, after the practical defeat of Russia by Japan. In older days, Queen Louise of Denmark thought she had laid the foundation for a certain friendliness; but, nevertheless, the Tsar, though closely related to the Kaiser and dominated largely by his very beautiful German wife, was never free to ignore the Slavic genius of his people. Kings and emperors – all royal folk – made up a family society of their own until this war. We have changed all that, as the man in Molière's comedy said; and yet, as a rule, German royal princesses remained Prussian in spite of all temptation, while other women seemed naturally to adopt the nationalities of their husbands. The princesses connected with the Prussian royal house seem immutably Prussian.

The Tsar, then, like the Kaiser, cousin of the King of England, the son of a mother who remembered Slesvig-Holstein and never liked the Prussians, had second thoughts. (They were nearly always wrong when his wife influenced them.) It was one thing to call the mighty Prussian 'Willie' – all royalties have little domestic names – another to break with France and to bow the Slavic head to German benevolent assimilation. The Tsar might call the Emperor by any endearing epithet, but that did not imply political friendship; King George of Greece and Queen Alexandra were very fond of each other, but the queen would never have attempted to give her brotherly Majesty the Island of Crete which he badly wanted. With the death of the queen of Christian IX., assemblies of royalties ceased in Denmark; the old order had changed.

There was no neutral ground where the royalties and their scions could meet and soften asperities by the simplicity of family contact.

The point of view in Europe had become more democratic and more keen.

Even if there had been a Queen Louise to try to make her family, even to the remotest grandchild, a unit, it could not have been done. Reverence for royalty had passed out with Queen Victoria; the idols were dissolving, and restless ideals became visible in their places.

Prussia had drawn her states into a united empire; tributary kings were at the chariot wheel of the Prussian Emperor, not because the kings so willed, but because the subjects of the kings – the commercial people, the landowners, the military caste, the capitalists, the increasingly prosperous farmers – discovered it to be to their advantage.

Bismarck's policy of blood and iron meant more money and more worldly success for the Germans. Although the smaller Teutonic states had lost their freedom, Bismarck began to pay each of them its price in good gold with the stamp of the empire upon it. To take and to hold was the motto of the empire: – 'We take our own wherever we find it!'

The old Germans disappeared; the Germans who were frugal and philosophical, poor and poetical, were emerging from the simplicity of the past to the luxury of the present.

As a rule, I found the Russian diplomatists very well informed and clever. Their foreign office seemed to have no confidants outside the bureaucratic circle. The Russian journalist, like most other journalists, was not better or earlier informed of events than the diplomatists. As Copenhagen was the place where every diplomat in the world went at some time or other, one was sure to discover interesting rumours or real news without much trouble.

While the newspapers or magazines of nearly every other nation gave indications in advance of the public opinion that might govern the cabinets or the foreign offices, the Russian periodicals gave no such clues. There was no use in keeping a Russian translator; real Russian opinion was seldom evident, except when a royalty or a diplomatist might, being bored by his silence, or with a patriotic object, tell the truth.

'What prevents war?' I asked in 1909 of one of my colleagues.

'Lack of money,' he answered promptly, repeating the words of Prince Koudacheff. 'Germany and Russia will fly at each other's throats as soon as the financiers approve of it. You will not report this to your Foreign Office,' he said, laughing, 'because America looks on war, a general European war, as unthinkable. It would seem absurd! Nobody in America and only ten per cent. of the thinking people in England will believe it! As for France, she is wise to make friends with my country, but she would be wiser if she did not believe that Germany will wait until she is ready to make her revanche. There are those in her government who hold that the revanche is a dream – that France would do well to accept solid gains for the national dream. They are fools!'

'Iswolsky is of the same opinion, I hear,' I said, for we had all a great respect for Iswolsky. But when the London National Review repeated the same sentiments over and over again, it seemed unbelievable that the Kaiser's professions of peace were not honest. Yet individual Pan-Germans were extremely frank. 'We must have our place in the East,' they said; 'we must cut the heart out of Slavic ambitions, and deal with English arrogance.' In a general way, we were always waiting for war.

In 1909, Count Aehrenthal, then a very great Austrian, told a celebrated financial promoter who visited our Legation, that war was inevitable. The Austrians and the Russians feared it and believed it – feared it so much that when I was enabled to contradict the rumour, there was a happy sigh as the news was well documented. Austria did not want war; Russia did not want war.

'But the Emperor of Germany?' I asked of one of the most honourable and keenest diplomatists in Berlin.

'He is surrounded by a military clique; he desires to preserve the rights and prerogatives of the German Empire, above all, the hereditary and absolute principle without a long war. A war will do it for him – if it is short. He himself would prefer to avoid it. Yet he must justify the Army and the Navy; but the war must be short.'

'But does he want war?'

'He is not bloodthirsty; he knows what war means, but he will want what his clique wants.'

These two diplomatists are both alive – one in exile – but I shall not mention their names. My colleagues were sometimes very frank. It would not be fair to tell secrets which would embarrass them – for a harmless phrase over a glass of Tokai is a different thing read over a glass of cold water! And, in the old days, before 1914, good dinners and good wines were very useful in diplomatic 'conversations.' Things began to change somewhat when after-dinner bridge came in. But, dinner or no dinner, bridge or no bridge, the diplomatic view was always serious.

In Denmark the thoughtful citizen often said, 'We are doomed; Germany can absorb us.' Count Holstein-Ledreborg once said, 'But Providence may save us yet.'

'By a miracle.'

It seemed absurd in 1908 that any great power should be allowed to think of conquering a smaller nation, simply because it was small. 'You don't reckon with public opinion – in the United States, for instance, – or the view of the Hague Conference,' I said.

'Public opinion in your country or anywhere else will count little against Krupp and his cannon. Public opinion will not save Denmark, for even Russia might have reason to look the other way. That would depend on England.'

It seemed impossible, for, like most Americans, I was almost an idealist. The world was being made a vestibule of heaven, and the pessimist was anathema! Was not science doing wonderful things? It had made life longer; it had put luxuries in the hands of the poor. The bad old days, when Madame du Barry could blind the eyes of Louis XV. to the horrors of the partition of Poland, and when the proud Maria Theresa could, in the same cause, subordinate her private conscience to the temptations of national expediency, were over. No man could be enslaved since Lincoln had lived! The Hague Conference would save Poland in due time, the democratic majority in Great Britain and Ireland was undoing the wrongs of centuries by granting Home Rule for Ireland, and, as for the Little Nations, public opinion would take care of them!

'What beautiful language you use, Mr. Minister,' said Count Holstein-Ledreborg; 'but you Americans live in a world of your own. Nobody knows what the military party in Germany will do. Go to Germany yourself. It is no longer the Germany of Canon Schmid, of Auerbach, of Heyse, of the Lorelei and the simple musical concert and the happy family life. Why, as many cannons as candles are hung on the Christmas trees!'

I repeated this speech to one of the most kindly of my colleagues, Count Henckel-Donnersmarck, who was really a sane human creature, too bored with artificiality to wear his honours with comfort.

'Oh, for your dress coat,' he would say. 'Look at my gold lace; I am loaded down like a camel. The old Germany, cher collègue, it is gone. I long for it; I am not of blood and iron; the old Germany, you will not find it, though you search even Bavaria and Silesia. And I believe, with the great Frederick, that your great country and mine may possess the future, if we are friends; therefore,' he smiled, 'I will not deceive you. The Germany of the American imagination, our old Germany, is gone.' He hated court ceremonies, whereas I rather like them; they were beautiful and stately symbols, sanctified by tradition. He ought to have danced at the court balls, but he never would. He was lazy. He was grateful to my wife, because she ordered me to dance the cotillions with Countess Henckel, who must dance with somebody who 'ranked,' or sit for five or six hours on a crimson bench.

The Danes had no belief that we could or would help them in a conflict for salvation, but they liked us. In 1909, when Dr. Cook suddenly came, they declared that they would take 'the word of an American gentleman' for his story of the North Pole. Sweden accepted him at once, England was divided – King Edward against Cook; Queen Alexandra for him! When Admiral Peary made his claim, the Queen of England said, – 'Thank heaven! it is American against American, and not Englishman against American.'

We were all glad of that; and I was very grateful to the Danes for showing respect for the honour of an American, in whom none of us had any reason to disbelieve. There was no warning from the scientists in the United States. The German savants accepted Dr. Cook at once. In fact, until Admiral Peary sent his message, there seemed to be no doubt as to Cook's claims, except on the part of the Royal British Geographical Society. I joined the Danish Royal Geographical Society at his reception; it was not my duty to cast aspersions on the honour of an American, of whom I only knew that he had written The Voyage of the Belgic, had been the associate of Admiral Peary, and was a member of very good clubs. Even if I had been scientific enough to have doubts, I should have been polite to him all the same.

As it was, Denmark was delighted to welcome Cook because he was an American; he had apparently accomplished a great thing, and besides, he directed attention from politics at a tremendous public crisis. The great question for the Danish Government was as usual: Shall we defend ourselves? Shall we build ships and keep a large army and erect fortresses, or simply say 'Kismet' when Germany comes? The Conservatives were for defence; the Radicals and Socialists against it. Mr. J. C. Christensen, one of the most powerful of Danish politicians, of the Moderate School, holding the balance of power, was in a tight place. Alberti, the clever Radical, had been supported by Christensen, who had been innocently involved in his fall. Alberti languished in jail, and Christensen was being horribly assailed when Dr. Cook came and Denmark forgot Christensen and went wild with delight!

In 1907-8, Denmark trembled for fear that she would lose her freedom. When would the Germans attack? The disorder in Slesvig was perennial. A bill for a reasonable defence had been proposed to the Danish Parliament. King Frederick had had great difficulty in forming a ministry. Count Morgen Friis, capable, distinguished, experienced, but with some of the indolence of the old grand seigneur, had refused. Richelieu could not see his way clear; nobody wanted the responsibility. The Socialists and the Radicals, practical, if you like, did not believe in building forts in the hope of saving the national honour.

King Frederick VIII. was at his wit's end for a premier, for, as I have said, even Count Morgen Friis, a man of undoubted ability and great influence, failed him. King Frederick, because of his desire to stand well with his people, was never popular. His glove was too velvety, and he treated his political enemies as well as he did his friends. Count Friis was known to lean towards England, and he was very popular; he would have stood for a strong defence.

Admiral de Richelieu was a man of great influence, a devoted Slesviger, and the greatest 'industrial,' with the exception of State-Councillor Andersen, in Denmark; he was not keen for the premiership, and his friends did not care that he should compromise their business interests; for, in Denmark, business and politics do not mix well.

Finally, King Frederick called on Count Holstein-Ledreborg, without doubt, with perhaps the exception of – but I must not mention living men – the cleverest man in Denmark. Count Holstein-Ledreborg was a recluse; he had been practically exiled by the scornful attitude taken by the aristocracy on account of his Radicalism, but had returned to his Renascence castle near the old dwelling-place of Beowulf. Count Holstein-Ledreborg was the last resource, he had been out of politics for many years. Although he was a pessimist, he was a furious patriot. He had a great respect for the abilities of the Radicals, like Edward Brandès, but very little for those – 'if they existed,' he said – of his own class in the aristocracy. He was one of the few Catholics among the aristocracy, and he had a burning grievance against the existing order of churchly things. The State church in Denmark is, like that of Sweden and Norway, Lutheran. Until 1848, except in one or two commercial towns where there was a constant influx of merchants, no Catholic church was permitted. The chapel of Count Holstein in his castle of Ledreborg, was still Lutheran. He was not permitted to have Mass said in it, as it was a church of the commune. This made the Lord of Ledreborg furious. There must be Lutheran worship in his own chapel, or no worship; this was the law!

There was something else that added to his indignation. One day, very silently, he opened the doors that concealed a panel in the wall. There was a very Lutheran picture indeed! It was done in glaring colours, even realistic colours. It represented various devils, horned and tailed and pitch-forked, poking into the fire in the lower regions a pope and several cardinals, who were turning to crimson like lobsters, while some pious Lutheran prelates gave great thanks for this agreeable proceeding. 'In my own chapel,' said Count Holstein, 'almost facing the altar; and the law will not permit me to remove it!'

Being an American, I smiled; thereby, I almost lost a really valued friendship.

'I shall arrange with the king to give a substitute for the chapel to the commune – a school-house or a library – and have the chapel consecrated,' he said. 'I think I see my way.'

'"All things come to him who knows how to wait,"' I quoted.

In 1909, at the time of the crisis, he accepted the task of forming a cabinet to get the defence bill through Parliament, but he made one condition with the king – that he should have his own chapel to do as he liked with. He carried the defence bill through triumphantly and then, having made his point, and finding Parliament unreasonable, from his point of view, on some question or other, he told its members to go where Orpheus sought Eurydice, and retired! He died too soon; he would have been a great help to us in the troubled days when we were trying to buy the Virgin Islands. He was my mentor in European politics, and a most distinguished man; and what is better, a good friend. At times he was sardonic. 'I would make,' he said, 'if I had the power, Edward Brandès (Brandès is of the famous Brandès family) minister of Public Worship!' (As Brandès is a Jew and a Greek pagan both at once, it would have been one of those ironies of statecraft like that which made the Duke of Norfolk patron of some Anglican livings.) Count Holstein disliked state churches. He was a strange mixture of the wit of Voltaire with the faith of Pascal, and one of the most inflexible of Radicals.

The party for the defence and for the integrity of the army and navy had its way; but, owing to the attitude of the Socialists, a very moderate way. 'If Germany comes, she will take us,' the Radicals said with the Socialists; 'why waste public money on soldiers and military bands and submarines?'

But there are enough stalwarts, including the king, Christian, to believe that a country worth living in is worth fighting for!

CHAPTER II
THE MENACE OF 'OUR NEIGHBOUR TO THE SOUTH'

In 1907, Russia seemed to me to be, for Americans, the most important country in Europe. Our Department of State was no doubt informed as to what the other countries would do in certain contingencies, for none of our diplomatic representatives, although always working under disadvantages not experienced by their European colleagues, had been idle persons. But all of us who had even cursorily studied European conditions knew that the actions of Germany would depend largely on the attitude of Russia. It was to the interest of Emperor William to keep Nicholas II. and the Romanoffs on the throne. He saw no other way of dividing and conquering a country which he at once hated and longed to control.

The Balkan situation was always burning; it was the Etna and Vesuvius of the diplomatic world; wise men might predict eruptions, but they were always unexpected. To most people in the United States the Balkans seemed very far off; Bulgaria with her eyes on Macedonia, the Tsar Ferdinand and his attempt to put his son, Boris, under the greater Tsar, him of Russia; Rumania and her ambitions for more freedom and more territory; Serbia, with her fears and aspirations, appeared to be of no importance – of less interest, perhaps, than other petty kingdoms. But at one fatal moment Austria refused to allow Serbia to export her pigs, and we came to pay about two million dollars an hour and to sacrifice most precious lives, much greater things, because of the ferocious growth of this little germ of tyranny and avarice.

Most of us have fixed ideas; if they are the result of prejudice, they are generally bad; if they are the result of principle, that is another question. When I went to Denmark at the request of President Roosevelt, I had several fixed ideas, whether of prejudice or principle I could not always distinguish. I had been brought up in a sentiment of gratitude to Russia – she had behaved well to us in the Civil War – and in a firm belief that her people only needed a fair chance to become our firm friends. We must seek European markets for our capital and our investments, and Russia offered us a free way.

Towards the end of the year 1908, the signs in Russia were more ominous than usual. It had always seemed to me – and the impression had come probably from long and intimate association with some very clever diplomatists – that Russian problems, industrially and economically, were very similar to our own, and that, in the future, her interests would be our interests. She was in evil hands – that was evident; Nicholas II., after the peace of Portsmouth, was not so pleased with the action of President Roosevelt as he ought to have been, and the arrogant clique, the bureaucrats who controlled the Tsar, regarded us with suspicion and dislike.

At the same time, it was plain that a great part of the landed nobility looked with hope to the United States as a nation which ought to understand their problems and assist, with technical advice and capital, in the solving of them. The Baltic Barons, many with German names and not of the orthodox faith, preferred that the United States, by the investments of her citizens in Russia, should hold a balance between the French and the German financial influences, for Germany was slowly beginning to control Russia financially, and French capital meant a competition with the German interests which might eventually mean a conflict and war. The well instructed among the Russian people, including the estate owners whose interests were not bureaucratic, feared war above all things. The Japanese war had given them reason for their fears.

To my mind there were three questions of great importance for us: How could we, with self-respect, keep on good terms with Russia? How could we discover what Germany's intentions were? And how could we strengthen the force of the Monroe Doctrine by acquiring, through legitimate means, certain islands on our coasts, especially the Gallapagos, the Danish West Indies and others which, perhaps, it might not be discreet to mention.

While the United States seemed fixed in her policy of keeping out of foreign entanglements, it seemed to me that the rule of conduct of a nation, like that of an individual, cannot always be consistent with its theories, since all intentions put into action by the party of the first part must depend on the action and point of view of the party of the second part. I had been largely influenced in my views of the value of the Monroe Doctrine by the speeches and writings of ex-President Roosevelt and Senator Lodge. It was a self-evident truth, too, that, for the sake of democracy, for the sake of the future of our country, the autonomy of the small nations must be preserved. This attitude I made plain during my ten years in Denmark; perhaps I over-accentuated it, but to this attitude I owe the regard of the majority of the Danish people and of some of the folk of the other Scandinavian nations.

The position taken by Germany, under Prussian influence, in Brazil and Argentine, certain indications in our own country, which I shall emphasise later, the intrigues as to the Bagdad Railway, and the threats as to what Germany might do in Scandinavia in case Russia attempted to interfere with German plans in the East, were alarming. Then again was the hint that Denmark might be seized if Germany found Russia in an alliance against England.

From my earliest youth, I knew many Germans whom I esteemed and admired; but they were generally descendants of the men of 1848, that year which saw the Hungarians defeated and the German lovers of liberty exiled. There were others of a later time who believed, with the Kaiser, that a German emigrant was simply a German colonist – waiting! These people were so naïve in their Prussianism, in their disdain for everything American, that they scarcely seemed real! When a German waiter looked out of the hotel window in Trafalgar Square and said, waving his napkin at the spectacle of the congested traffic, 'When the day comes, we shall change all this,' we Americans laughed. This was in the eighties. Yet he meant it; and 'we' have not changed all this even for the day!

The alarm was sounded in South America, but few North Americans took it seriously, and we knew how the English accepted the German invasions to the very doors of their homes. However, when I went to Denmark in August 1907, deeply honoured by President Roosevelt's outspoken confidence in me, I became aware that Prussianised Germany might at any moment seize that little country, and that, in that case, the Danish West Indies would be German. A pleasant prospect when we knew that Germany regarded the Monroe Doctrine as the silly figment of a democratic brain unversed in the real meaning of world politics.

Again, I saw exemplified the fact that in the eyes of the Kaiser, a German emigrant was a German colonist. Once a German always a German; the ideas of the Fatherland must follow the blood, and these ideas are one and indivisible. Consequently, no place could have been more interesting than the capital of Denmark. Here diplomatists were taught, made, or unmade.

Until we were forced to join in the European concert by the acquirement of the Philippines, the post did not seem to be important. 'You always send your diplomatists here to learn their art,' the clever queen of Christian IX. had said to an American. It may not have been intended as a compliment!

In the second place, Copenhagen was the centre of those new social and political movements that are affecting the world; Denmark was rapidly becoming Socialistic.

She, one of the oldest kingdoms in the world, presented the paradox of being the spot in which all tendencies supposed to be anti-monarchical were working out. She had already solved problems incidental to the evolution of democratic ideals, which in our own country we have only begun timidly to consider.

In the third place, Copenhagen was near the most potent country in the world – Germany under Prussian domination. I make the distinction between 'potency' and 'greatness.'

And, in the fourth place, it gave anybody who wanted to be 'on his job' a good opportunity of studying the effect of German propinquity on a small nation. Unfortunately, in 1907-8-9-10-11, no experience in watching German methods seemed of much value to our own people or to the English. The English who watched them critically, like Maxse, the editor of the National Review of London, were not listened to. Perhaps these persons were too Radical and intemperate. The English Foreign Office had, after the Vatican, the reputation of having the best system for obtaining information in Europe, but both the English Foreign Office and the Vatican Secretariat seemed to have suddenly become deaf. We Americans were too much taken up with the German gemütlichkeit, or scientific efficiency, to treat the Prussian movements with anything but tolerance. The Germans had won the hearts of some of our best men of science, who believed in them until belief was impossible; and, with most of my countrymen, I held that a breach of the peace in Europe seemed improbable. There was always The Hague! The only thing left for me was to let the Germans be as gemütlich as they liked, and to watch their attitude in Denmark, for on this depended the ownership of the West Indies.

My German colleagues, Henckel-Donnersmarck, von Waldhausen, and Brockdorff-Rantzau, were able men; and, I think, they looked on me as a madman with a fixed idea. Count Rantzau, if he lives, will be heard of later; he is one of the well-balanced among diplomatists. I realised early in the game that my work must be limited to watching Germany in her relations with Denmark. I knew what was expected of me. I had no doubt that the United States was the greatest country in the world in its potentialities, but I had no belief, then, in its power to enforce its high ideals on the politics of the European world.

In fact, it never occurred to me that our country would be called upon to enforce them, for, unless the Imperial German Government should take it into its head to lay hands on a country or two in South America, it seemed to me that we might keep entirely out of such foreign entanglements as concerned Western Europe and Constantinople and the Balkans. If, however, there should be such interference by France and England with the interests of Germany as would warrant her and her active ally in attacking these countries, Denmark and, automatically, her islands would be German. Then, we, in self-defence, must have something to say. Secret diplomacy was flourishing in Europe, and nothing was really clear. After the event it is very easy to take up the rôle of the prophet, but that is not in my line. If a man is not a genius, he cannot have the intuition of a genius, and, while I accepted the opinions of my more experienced colleagues, I imagined that their fears of a probable war were exaggerated. Besides, I had been impressed by the constantly emphasised opinion – part of the German propaganda, I now believe – that our great enemy was Japan.

Since the year 1874, when I had been well introduced into diplomatic circles in Washington, I had known many representatives of foreign powers. Since those days, so well described in Madame de Hegermann-Lindencrone's Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, the German point of view had greatly changed. It was a far cry from the days of the easy-going Herr von Schlözer to Speck von Sternberg and efficient Count Bernstorff, a far cry from the amicable point of view of Mr. Poultney Bigelow taken of the young Kaiser in the eighties, and his revised point of view in 1915. Mr. Poultney Bigelow's change from a certain attitude of admiration, in his case with no taint of snobbishness, was typical of that of many of my own people. I must confess that no instructions from the State Department had prepared me for the German echoes I heard in Denmark; but even if Treitschke had come to the United States to air his views at the University of Chicago, I should probably have considered them merely academic, and have treated them as cavalierly as I had treated the speech of the waiter in the Trafalgar Square hotel about 'changing all that.'

Nietzsche's philosophy seemed so atrocious as to be ineffective. But we Americans, as a rule, take no system of philosophy as having any real connection with the conduct of life, and, except in very learned circles, his was looked on as no more part of the national life of Germany than William James is of ours. In a little while, I discovered that the Kaiser had imposed on the Prussians, at least, a most practical system of philosophy, which our universities had come to admire. I had not been long in Denmark when I realised that Germany, in the three Scandinavian countries, was looked on either as a powerful enemy or as a potential friend, and that she tried, above all, to control the learned classes.

The United States hardly counted; she was too far off and seemed to be hopelessly ignorant of the essential conditions of foreign affairs. Her diplomacy, if it existed at all, was determined by existing political conditions at home.

I visited Holland and Belgium; Germany loomed larger. She was bent on commercial supremacy everywhere. One could not avoid admitting that fact.

As to Denmark, it was piteous to see how the Danes feared the power that never ceased to threaten them. Prussia has made her empire possible by establishing the beginnings, in 1864, of her naval power at the expense of Denmark. The longer I lived in Denmark the more strongly I felt that Germany was getting ready for a short, sharp war in which the United States of America, it seemed to me (as I was no prophet), was not to be a factor, but Russia was.

The members of the German Legation were very sympathetic, especially the Minister, Count Henckel-Donnersmarck. He loved Weimar; he loved the old Germany. It was a delight to hear him talk of the real glories of his country. His family, in the opinion of the Germans, was so great that he could afford to do as he pleased; I rather think he looked on the Hohenzollerns as rather parvenus. He was of the school of Frederick the Noble rather than of William the Conqueror.

'Do you mind talking politics?' I asked him one day.

'It bores me,' he said, 'because there is nothing stable. My country feels that it is being isolated. Since Algeria, in 1906, she stands against Europe, with Austria.'

'Stands against the United States?'

'No, no; we shall always be at peace,' he said. 'Our interests are not dissimilar; our military organisation is almost perfect. Yes, we learned some lessons even from your Civil War, though you are not a military people. Your country is full of our citizens.'

'Your citizens, Count!'

'Ah, yes, – in Brazil and Argentine, everywhere, a German citizen is like a Roman citizen, proud and unchanging, that is the German citizen who understands the aims of modern Germany. Civis Romanus sum! The older ones are different; it is a question of sentiment and memories with them. Your great German population will always keep you out of conflict with us, though even you, who know our literature, are at heart English – I mean politically. You cannot help it. Your Irish blood may count, but the point of view is made by literature. It gets into the blood. See what Homer has done for those old savages of his. Our bankers can always manage the finances of New York, as they manage those of London. It would be a sad day for Germany if we should break with you; some of us know that Frederick the Great saw your future, and believed that we always ought to be friends. But do not imagine that your nation, great as it is, can do anything your people wills to do. Great power, I understand, is hidden in your country; but, as the actors say, you cannot get it across the footlights. It is not, as Gambetta spoke of the Catholic religion in France, a matter for export.'

'Our education,' Count Henckel-Donnersmarck resumed, 'is practical; Goethe and Schiller mean little now to us. Bismarck has made new men of us. I shall not live long, and I cannot say I regret it,' he said; 'and, as the lust of power becomes the rule of the world, my son must be a new German or suffer.'

'Count Henckel,' as he preferred to be called, did not remain long in Copenhagen; he was recalled because, it was reported, he did not provide the Kaiser, who carefully read his ministers' reports, with a sufficient number of details of life in Denmark.

When I took his hint and went to Germany, at Christmas – Christmas was a divine time in the old Germany! – I found that Count Henckel was right. Berlin was hygienic, ugly, and more offensively immoral than Paris was once said to be.

There was an artificial rule of life. Even the lives of the boys and girls seemed to be ordered by some unseen law. You could breathe, but it was necessary not to consume too much oxygen at a time. That was verboten; and there were cannons on the Christmas trees!

CHAPTER III
THE KAISER AND THE KING OF ENGLAND

It was pleasant to renew old memories among diplomatists and ex-diplomatists in Copenhagen. I remembered the old days in Washington, when Sir Edward Thornton's house was far up-town, when the rows between the Chileans and Peruvians – I forget to which party the amiable Ibañez belonged – convulsed the coteries that gathered at Mrs. Dahlgren's, when Bodisco and Aristarchi Bey and Baron de Santa Ana were more than names, and the Hegermann-Lindencrones² were the handsomest couple in Washington. So it was agreeable to find some colleagues with whom one had reminiscences in common. Then there were the Americans married to members of the corps. Lady Johnston, wife of Sir Alan; Madame de Riaño, married to one of the most well-balanced and efficient diplomatists in Europe. These ladies made the way of my wife and my daughters very easy.

An envoy arriving at a new post has one consolation, not an unmitigatedly agreeable one. He is sure of knowing what his colleagues think of him. And for a while they weigh him very carefully. The American can seldom shirk the direct question: 'Is this your first post?' It required great strength of mind not to say: 'I had a special mission to the Indian Reservations, and I have always been, more or less, you know – '

'Ah, I see! Calcutta, Bombay – !'

'Not exactly – Red Lake, you know – the Reservations, wards of our Government.'

'Oh, red Indians! I was not aware that you had diplomatic relations with the old red Indian princes. But this is your first post in Europe?'

You cannot avoid that. However, the longer one is at a post, the more he enjoys it. In the course of nearly eleven years, I never knew one of my colleagues who did not show esprit de corps. They become more and more kindly. You know that they know your faults and your virtues. In the diplomatic service you are like Wolsey, naked, not to your enemies, but to your colleagues. They can help you greatly if they will.

After the peace of Portsmouth, which in the opinion of certain Russians gave all the advantages to Japan, the Emperor of Germany spoke of President Roosevelt with added respect, we were told. The attitude toward Americans on the part of Germans seemed always the reflection of the point of view of the Kaiser. From their point of view, it was only the President who counted; our nation, from the Pan-German point of view seemed not to be of importance.

It was rather hard to find out exactly what the Kaiser's attitude towards us was. Some of the court circle – there were always visitors from Berlin – announced that the Kaiser was greatly pleased by the result of the Portsmouth conference. He knew the weakness of Russia, and though he believed that German interests required that she should not be strong, he feared, above all things, the preponderance of the Yellow Races. I discovered one thing early, that the Pan-German party propagated the idea that the Japanese alliance with England could be used against the United States.

It was vain to argue about this. 'Japan is your enemy; the Philippines will be Japanese, unless you strengthen yourselves by a quasi-alliance with us; then England, tied to Japan, can not oppose you.' One could discover very little from the Kaiser's public utterances; but he indemnified himself for his conventionality in public by his frankness in private.

He described the Danish as the most 'indiscreet of courts.' He forgot that his own indiscretions had become proverbial in Copenhagen. Whether this 'indiscretion' was first submitted to the Foreign Office is a question. His diplomatists were usually miracles of discretion; but the city was full of 'echoes' from Berlin which did not come from the diplomatists or the court. The truth was, the Kaiser looked on the courts of Denmark and Stockholm as dependencies, and he was 'hurt' when any of the court circle seemed to forget this.

In his eyes, a German princess, no matter whom she married, was to remain a German. The present Queen of Denmark, the most discreet of princesses, never forgot that she was a Danish princess and would be in time a Danish queen.

Every German princess was looked upon as a propagator of the views of the Kaiser; – the Queen of the Belgians was a sore disappointment to him; but, then, she was not a Prussian princess. When one of the princesses joined the Catholic Church, there was an explosion of rage on his part.

As far as I could gather, in 1908-9-10, he was chambré, as liberal Germany said, surrounded by people who echoed his opinions, or who, while pretending to accept them, coloured them with their own.

It was surmised that he despised his uncle, King Edward. Evidences of this would leak out.

He admired our material progress, and he was determined to imitate our methods. The loquacity of some of our compatriots amused him.

He understood President Roosevelt so little as to imagine that he could influence him. There was one American he especially disliked, and that was Archbishop Ireland; but the reason for that will form almost a chapter by itself.

As I have said, it seemed to me most important that good feeling in the little countries of Europe should be founded on respect for us.

Somebody, a cynic, once said that the only mortal sin among Americans is to be poor. That may or may not be so. It was, however, the impression in Europe. It was difficult in Denmark to make it understood that we were interested in literature and art, or had any desire to do anything but make money. The attempt to buy the Danish West Indies, made in 1902, was looked on by many of the Danes as the manifestation of a desire on the part of an arrogant and imperial-minded people to take advantage of the poverty of a little country. 'You did not dare to propose to buy an island near your coast from England or France, or even Holland,' they said. This prejudice was encouraged by the German press whenever an opportunity arose. And against this prejudice it was my business to fight.

Until after the war with Spain – unfortunate as it was in some aspects – we were disdained; after that we were supposed to have crude possibilities.

German propagandists took advantage of our seeming 'newness,' forgetting that the new Germany was a parvenu among the nations. Our people en tour in Europe spent money freely and gave opinions with an infallible air almost as freely. They too frequently assumed the air of folk who had 'come abroad' to complete an education never begun at home; or, if they were persons who had 'advantages,' they were too anxious for a court entrée, asking their representative for it as a right, and then acting at court as if it were a divine privilege.

It was necessary in Denmark to accentuate the little things. The Danes love elegant simplicity; they are, above all, aesthetic. My predecessor, who did not remain long enough in Denmark to please his Danish admirers, called the Danes 'the most civilised of peoples.' I found that he was right; but they were full of misconceptions concerning us. We used toothpicks constantly! We did not know how to give a dinner! The values of the wine list (before the war, most important) would always remain a mystery to us. In a word, we were 'Yankees!' To make propaganda – the first duty of a diplomatist – requires thought, time and money. The Germans used all three intelligently.

One cannot travel in the provinces without money. One cannot reach the minds of the people without the distribution of literature. Unhappily, Governments before the war, with the exception of the German Government, took little account of this.

One of the best examples of an effective propaganda, of the most practicable and far-sighted methods, was that of the French Ambassador to the United States, Jusserand. He did not wait to be taught anything by the Germans.

We have two bad habits: we read our psychology as well as our temperament – the result of a unique kind of experience and education – into the minds of other people, and we despise the opinion of nations which are small. The first defect we have suffered from, and the latter we shall suffer from if we are not careful. Who cares whether Bulgaria respects us or not? And yet a diplomatist soon learns that it counts. It is a grave question whether the little countries look with hope towards democracy, or with helpless respect towards autocracy. We see that Bulgaria counted; we shall see that Denmark counted, too, when the moment came for our buying the Virgin Islands.

The German propaganda was incessant. Denmark was in close business relations with England. Denmark furnished the English breakfast table – the inevitable butter, bacon and eggs. But the trade relations between England and Denmark were not cultivated as were those between Denmark and Germany. The German 'drummer' was the rule, the English commercial traveller the exception.

As to the American, he seldom appeared, and when he came he spoke no language but his own. In literature the Germans did all they could to cultivate the interest of the Danish author. He was petted and praised when he went to Berlin – that is, after his books had been translated. Berlin never allowed herself to praise any Scandinavian books in the original. As to music, the best German musicians came to Denmark. Richard Strauss led the Rosenkavalier in person; the Berlin symphony and Rheinhart's plays were announced. Every opportunity was taken to show Denmark Germany's best in music, art and science. 'If you speak the word culture, you must add the word German.' This was a Berlin proverb. 'All good American singers must have my stamp before America will hear them,' the Kaiser said. Danish scientists were always sure of recognition in Germany, but they must be read in German or speak in German when they visited Berlin.

In 1908 King Edward came to Copenhagen. He was regarded principally as the husband of the beloved Princess Alexandra. He did not conceal the fact that Copenhagen bored him, and the Copenhageners knew it. However, they received him with an appearance of amiability they had not shown to the Kaiser on the occasion of his visit.

No Dane who remembered Bismarck and Slesvig and who saw at Kiel the growing German fleet could admire the Emperor William II. Even the most ferocious propagandists demanded too much when they asked that. They looked on the visits of King Frederick VIII. to Germany with suspicion.

When the Crown Prince, the present Christian X., married the daughter of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, they were not altogether pleased. They were reconciled, however, by the fact that the Crown Princess was the daughter of a Russian mother. Besides, the Crown Princess, now Queen Alexandrina, was chosen by Prince Christian because he loved her. 'She is the only woman I will marry,' he had said. And when she married him, she became Danish, unlike her sister-in-law, the Princess Harald, who has always remained German, much to the embarrassment of her husband, and the rumoured annoyance of the present king, who holds that a Danish princess must be a Dane and nothing else.

The Danish queen's mother is the clever Grand Duchess Anastasia Michaelovna,³ who was Russian and Parisian, who loved the Riviera, above all Cannes, and who was the most brilliant of widows. When the sister of Queen Alexandrina married the German Crown Prince in 1905, the Danes were relieved, but not altogether pleased. Those of them who believed that royal alliance counted, hoped that a future German Empress, so nearly akin to their queen, might ward off the ever-threatening danger of Prussian conquest.

The Crown Princess Cecilia became a favourite in Germany; it was rumoured that she was not sufficient of a German housewife to suit the Kaiser.

'The Crown Princess Cecilia is adorable, but she will not permit her august father-in-law to choose her hats,' said a visiting lady of the German autocratic circle; 'she might, at least, follow the example of her mother-in-law, for the Emperor's taste is unimpeachable!' My wife remembered that this serene, well-born lady wore a hat of mustard yellow, then a favourite colour in Berlin!

In April 1908, King Edward VII. and Queen Alexandra made a visit to Copenhagen. It was the custom in Denmark that, when a reigning sovereign came on a gala visit, the Court and the diplomatists were expected to go to the station to meet him. The waiting-room of the station was decorated with palms which had not felt the patter of rain for years, and with rugs evidently trodden to shabbiness by many royal feet. Amid these splendours a cercle was held.

The visiting monarch, fresh from his journey, spoke to each of the diplomatists in turn. He dropped pearls of thought for which one gave equally valuable gems.

'The American Minister, Your Majesty,' said the Chamberlain. 'Glad to see you; where are you from?' 'Washington, the capital.' 'There are more Washingtons?' 'Many, sir.' 'How do you like Copenhagen?' 'Greatly – almost as well as London' (insert Stockholm, Christiania, The Hague, to suit the occasion).

And then came the voice of the Chamberlain – 'The Austrian Minister, Your Majesty.' 'How do you like Copenhagen?' The same formula was used until the chargés d'affaires, who always ended the list, were reached: 'How long have you been in Copenhagen?'

King Edward was accompanied by a staff of the handsomest and most soldierly courtiers imaginable; they were the veritable splendid captains of Kipling's Recessional. Queen Alexandra was attended by the Hon. Charlotte Knollys and Miss Vivian. It was a great pleasure to see Miss Knollys again. To those who knew her all the tiresome waiting was worth while; she seemed like an old friend.

The police surveillance was not so strict when the King and Queen of England were in Copenhagen; but when any of the Russian royalties arrived, the police had a time of anxiety though they were reinforced by hundreds of detectives.

In Copenhagen it was always said that the Empress Dowager, the Grand Duke Michael, the Archduchess Olga, and others of the Romanoff family, were only safe when in the company of some of the English royal people. The Empress Dowager of Russia, formerly the Princess Dagmar of Denmark, never went out without her sister. They were inseparable, devoted to each other, as all the children of King Christian IX. were. It was not the beauty and charm of Queen Alexandra that saved her from attack; it was the fact that England was tolerant of all kinds of political exiles, as a visit to Soho, in London, will show.

At the station, just as the King and Queen of England entered, there was an explosion. 'A bomb,' whispered one of the uninitiated. It happened to be the result of the sudden opening of a Chapeau claque in the unaccustomed hands of a Radical member of the Cabinet who, against his principles, had been obliged to come in evening dress.

We, of the Legation, always wore evening dress in daylight on gala occasions. One soon became used to it. Our American citizens of Danish descent always deplored this, and some of our secretaries would have worn the uniform of a captain of militia or the court dress of the Danish chamberlains, which, they said, under the regulations we were permitted to wear. Not being English, I found evening dress in the morning not more uncomfortable than the regulation frock coat. I permitted a white waistcoat, which the Danes never wore in the morning, but refused to allow a velvet collar and golden buttons because this was too much like the petit uniforme of other Legations.

There was one inconvenience, however – the same as irked James Russell Lowell in Spain – the officers on grand occasions could not recognise a minister without gold lace, and so our country did not get the proper salute. On the occasion of the arrival of the King of England, I remedied this by putting on the coachmen rather large red, white and blue cockades. Arthur and Hans were really resplendent!

Later, when my younger daughter appeared in society after the marriage of the elder, there was no difficulty. All the officers who loved parties recognised the father of the most indefatigable dancer in court circles. A cotillion or two at the Legation amply made up for the absence of uniforms. Our country, in the person of its representative, after that had tremendously resounding salutes.

Prince Hans, the brother of the late King Christian IX., who has since died, was especially friendly with us. He was beloved of the whole royal family. His kindliness and politeness were proverbial. When he was regent in Greece, he had been warned that the Greeks would soon hate him if he continued to be so courteous. His equerry, Chamberlain de Rothe, told me that he answered: 'I cannot change; I must be courteous.' He is the only man on record who seems to have entirely pleased a people who have the reputation of being the most difficult in Europe.

Prince Hans came in to call, at a reasonable time, after the arrival of the King and Queen of England; we were always glad to see him; he was so really kind, so full of pleasant reminiscences; he had had a very long and full life; he was the 'uncle' of all the royalties in Europe. He especially loved the King of England. Having lived through the invasion of Slesvig, he was most patriotically Danish; he looked on the Prussians as an 'uneasy' people.

'The King of England is much interested in the condition of your ex-President, Grover Cleveland,' he said. 'If you will have him, he will come to tea with you; I will bring him. He is engaged to dine with the Count Raben-Levitzau and, I think, to go to the Zoological Gardens and to dine with the Count Friis; but he will make you a visit, to ask personally for ex-President Cleveland and to talk of him after, of course, he has lunched at the British Legation.'

I said that the Legation would be deeply honoured. Informal as the visit would be, it would be a great compliment to my country.

'The German Legation will be surprised; but it can give no offence; I am sure that it can give no offence. King Edward is not pleased altogether with his nephew. When the emperor came to Copenhagen in 1905 he was not so friendly to us as he is now. Poor little Denmark. It has escaped a great danger through Bertie's cleverness,' Prince Hans murmured. From this I gathered that Prince Hans felt that the king's coming to the American Legation would be noticed by all the Legations as unusual, but especially by the German Legation. From this I judged that some danger to Denmark might have been threatening.

'The Kaiser dined in this room,' Prince Hans said, 'when he was here in 1905 – no, no, he took coffee in this room, and not in the dining-room. However, as Madame Hegermann-Lindencrone has told, the German Minister, von Schoen, who gave so many parties that all the young Danish people loved him, and his wife could not decide where coffee was to be taken; the Kaiser settled it himself. It is an amusing story; it has made King Frederick laugh. If the King of England comes to tea, you will not be expected to have boiled eggs, as we have for the Empress Dowager of Russia and Queen Alexandra and King George of Greece, some champagne, perhaps, and the big cigars, of course.'

'And, as to guests?'

'Only the Americans of your staff, I think, who have been already presented to the king.'

The announcement that the King of England would take tea with us did not cause a ripple in the household; the servants were used to kings. King Frederick had a pleasant way of dropping in to tea without ceremony, and the princesses liked our cakes. Besides, Hans, the indispensable Hans, had waited on King Edward frequently, so he knew his tastes. But the king did not come; Prince Hans said that he was tired. He sent an equerry, with a most gracious message for Grover Cleveland, and another inquiry as to his health. The royal cigars lasted a long time as few guests were brave enough to smoke them. The king at the Cercle at court was most gracious. 'I hope to see you in London,' he said. My colleagues seemed to think that his word was law, and that I would be the next ambassador at the Court of St. James's. I knew very well that his politeness was only to show that he was in a special mood to manifest his regard for the country I represented.

The King of England was failing at the time as far as his bodily health was concerned, but he had what a German observer called 'a good head' in more senses than one. He still took his favourite champagne; his cigars were too big and strong for most men, but not too big and strong for him. He showed symptoms of asthma, but he was alert, and firmly resolved to keep the peace in Europe, and, it was evident – he made it very evident – he was determined to keep on the best terms with the United States. During the pause between the parts of the performance at the Royal Opera House, where we witnessed Queen Alexandra's favourite ballet, Napoli, and heard excerpts from I Poliacci and Cavalleria, the king renewed the questions about Grover Cleveland's health. Prince Hans suddenly announced that he was dead. As every minister is quite accustomed to having all kinds of news announced before he receives it, I could only conclude that it was true. Several ladies of American birth came and asked me; I could only say, 'Prince Hans says so.' Countess Raben-Levitzau, whose husband was then Minister of Foreign Affairs, seemed to be much amused that I should receive a bit of information of that kind through Prince Hans. Late that night, after the gala was over, a cable came telling me that the ex-President was well. I was glad that I was not obliged to put out the flag at half-mast for the loss of a President whom the whole country honoured, and who had shown great confidence in me at one time.

Prince Hans was full of the sayings and doings of the King of England after his departure. He called him 'Bertie' when absent-minded, recovering to the 'King of England' when he remembered that he was speaking to a stranger. Once, quoting the German Emperor, he said 'Uncle Albert.'

'Denmark will not become part of Germany in the Kaiser's time – "Uncle Albert" will see to that. England will not fight Germany in his time on any question; therefore Russia will not go against us.'

'But the Crown Prince. What of him?'

'"Uncle Albert" will see to that if the Kaiser should die – but life is long. The King of England will cease to smoke so much, and, after that, his health will be good; he has saved us, I will tell you, by defeating at Berlin the designs of the Pan-Germans against Denmark.'

The late King of England had new issues to face, and he knew it. The cause of sane democracy would have been better served had he lived longer. Perhaps he had been, like his brother-in-law, King Frederick of Denmark, crown prince too long. Nevertheless, he had observed, and he was wise. He may have been too tolerant, but he was not weak. In Denmark, one might easily get a fair view of the characters of the royal people. The Danes are keen judges of persons – perhaps too keen, and the members of their aristocracy had been constantly on intimate terms with European kings and princes. 'As for Queen Alexandra,' Miss Knollys once said, 'she will go down in history as the most beautiful of England's queens, but also as the most devoted of wives and mothers. The king makes us all work, but she works most cheerfully and is never bored.'

The visit of the King of England caused more conjectures. What did it mean? A pledge on the part of England that Denmark would be protected both against Germany and Russia? Notwithstanding the opinion that the Foreign Office in England did all the work, the diplomatists held that kings, especially King Edward and the Kaiser, had much to do with it.

CHAPTER IV
SOME DETAILS THE GERMANS KNEW

I gathered that Germany, in 1908, 1909, 1910, was growing more and more furiously jealous of England. To make a financial wilderness of London and reconstruct the money centre of the world in Berlin was the ambition of some of her great financiers.

Our time had not come yet; we might grow in peace. It depended on our attitude whether we should be plucked when ripe or not. If we could be led, I gathered, into an attitude inimical to England, all would be well; but that might safely be left 'to the Irish and the great German population of the Middle West.' It was 'known that English money prevented the development of our merchant marine'; but this, after all, was not to the disadvantage of Germany since, if we developed our marine, it might mean state subsidies to American ocean steamer lines. This would not have pleased Herr Ballin.

Count Henckel-Donnersmarck held no such opinions, but the members of the Berlin haute bourgeoisie, who occasionally came to Copenhagen, were firmly convinced that English money was largely distributed in the United States to prejudice our people against the beneficent German Kultur, which, as yet, we were too crude to receive. I gathered, too, that many of the important, the rich business representatives of Germany in our country reported that we were 'only fit to be bled.' We were unmusical, unliterary, unintellectual. We knew not what a gentleman should eat or drink. Our cooking was vile, our taste in amusement only a reflection of the English music halls. We bluffed. We were not virile. The aristocrat did not express these opinions; but the middle class, or higher middle class, sojourners in our land did. 'Good Heavens!' exclaimed one American at one of our receptions to a German-American guest; 'you eat that grouse from your fists like an animal.'

'I am a male,' answered Fritz proudly; 'we must devour our food – we of the virile race!'

The pretensions of this kind of German were intolerable. He was the most brutal of snobs. He arrogated to himself a rank, when one met him, that he was not allowed to assume in his own country. It was often amusing to receive a call from a spurious 'von,' representing German interests in Milwaukee, Chicago, or Cincinnati, who patronised us until he discovered that we knew that he would be in the seventh heaven if he could, by any chance, marry his half-American daughter to the most shop-worn little lieutenant in the German army! To see him shrivel when a veritable Junker came in, was humiliating. I often wondered whether the well-to-do German burghers of St. Louis or Cincinnati were really imposed upon by men of this kind.

The Nobles' Club in Copenhagen is not a club as we know clubs. There are chairs, newspapers from all parts of the world, and bridge tables, if you wish to use them. You may even play the honoured game of l'ombre– after the manner of Christian IV., or, perhaps, His Lordship, the High Chamberlain Polonius, of the court of his late Majesty, King Claudius. People seldom go there. It is the one place in Denmark where the members of the club are never found.

The country gentlemen have rooms there when they come to town. It is in an annex of the Hotel Phoenix. A few of the best bridge players in Copenhagen meet there occasionally; the rest is silence; therefore it is a safe place for diplomatic conversations.

A very distinguished German came to me with a letter of introduction from Munich, in 1909 – late in the year. His position was settled. He was not in the class of the spurious 'vons.' He was, however, high in the confidence of the Kings of Saxony and Bavaria, both of whom, he confessed, were displeased because the United States had no diplomatic representatives at their courts. He had been persona non grata with Bismarck because of his father's liberalism; he had been friendly with Windthorst, the Centre leader, and he had been in some remote way connected with the German Legation at the Vatican. We talked of Washington in the older days, of Speck von Sternberg⁴ and of his charming wife, then a widow in Berlin; of the cleverness of Secretary Radowitz, who had been at the German Embassy at Washington; of the point of view of von Schoen, who had been Minister to Copenhagen. He spoke of the Kaiser's having dined in our apartment, which von Schoen had then occupied; and then he came to the point.

'Is the United States serious about the Monroe Doctrine – really?' he asked.

'It is an integral part of our policy of defence.'

'We, in Germany, do not take it seriously. I understand from my friends you have lived in Washington a long time. We are familiar with your relations with President Cleveland and of your attitude towards President McKinley. We know,' he said, 'that President McKinley offered you a secret mission to Rome. We know other things; therefore, we are inclined to take you more seriously than most of the political appointees who are here to-day and gone to-morrow. Your position in the affair of the Philippines is well known to us. It would be well for you to ask your ambassador at Berlin to introduce you to the Emperor; he was much pleased with your predecessor, Mr. O'Brien. There is, no doubt, some information you could give his Imperial Majesty. You have friends in Munich, too, and in Dresden there is the Count von Seebach whom you admire, I know.'

'I admire Count von Seebach, but I am paid not to talk,' I said; 'but about the secret mission to Rome in the Philippine matter – you knew of that?'

It was more than I knew, though President McKinley, through Senator Carter, had suggested, when the Friars' difficulty had been seething in the Philippines, a solution which had seemed to me out of the question. But how did this man know of it? I had not spoken of it to the Count von Seebach, or to anybody in Germany. No word of politics had ever escaped my lips to the Count von Seebach, who was His Excellency the Director of the Royal Opera at Dresden.

'Yes; we know all the secrets of the Philippine affair, even that Domingo Merry del Val came to Washington to confer with Mr. Taft. I want to know two facts, – facts, not guesses. Your ministers who come from provincial places, after a few months' instruction in Washington, cannot know much except local politics. They are like Pomeranian squires or Jutland farmers. We know that Henckel-Donnersmarck and you are on good terms, and we are prepared to treat you from a confidential point of view.'

This was interesting; it showed how closely even unimportant persons like myself were observed; it was flattering, too; for one grows tired of the foreign assumption that every American envoy has come abroad because, as De Tocqueville says in Democracy in America he has failed at home.

'Mr. Poultney Bigelow, whom you doubtless know, once said in conversation with the Kaiser, that his father would rather see him dead than a member of your diplomatic corps, and he was unusually well equipped for work of that kind. With few exceptions, as I have remarked, your service is pour rire. What can a man from one of your provincial towns know of anything but local politics and business?'

I laughed: 'But you are businesslike, too; I hear that, when the Kaiser speaks to Americans – at least they have told me so – it is generally on commercial subjects. He likes to know even how many vessels pass the locks every year at Sault Sainte Marie, and the amount of grain that can be stored in the Chicago elevators.'

'It is useful to us,' my acquaintance said. 'You would scarcely expect him to talk about things that do not exist in your country – music, art, literature, high diplomacy – '

My reply shall be buried in oblivion; it might sound too much like éloquence de l'escalier.

After an interval, not without words, I said:

'It is not necessary for a man to have lived in Washington or New York in order to have a grasp on American politics in relation to the foreign problem at the moment occupying the attention of the American people or the Department of State. Every country boy at home is a potential statesman and a politician. I recall the impression made on two visiting foreigners some years ago by the interest of our very young folk in politics. "Good heavens!" said the Marquis Moustier de Merinville, "these children of ten and twelve are monsters! They argue about Bryan and free silver! Such will make revolutions." "I cannot understand it," said Prince Adam Saphia. "Children ask one whether one is a Republican or Democrat."'

'That may be so,' he said. 'Your Presidents are not as a rule chosen from men who live in the great cities.'

'You forget that, while Paris is France, Berlin, Germany – '

'No, Berlin is Prussia,' he said, smiling; 'but London is England; Paris, France; and Vienna would be Austria if it were not for Budapest.'

'New York or Washington is not, as you seem to think, the United States.'

'That may be,' he said, 'nevertheless it is difficult for a European to understand. It may be,' he added thoughtfully, 'there are some things about your country we shall never come to understand thoroughly.'

'You will have to die first – like the man of your own country who, crossing a crowded street, was injured mortally and cried: "Now I shall know it all." You will never understand us in this world.'

'That is blague,' he said. 'We Germans know all countries. Besides, you know the German language.'

'Who told you that? It's nonsense!' I asked, aghast.

'The other day, I have heard that the Austrians were talking in German to the First Secretary of the German Legation at the Foreign Office, when you suddenly forgot yourself and asked a question in good German!' he said triumphantly.

This was true. Count Zichy, secretary of the Austrian-Hungarian Legation, had dropped from French into German. Now, I had read Heine and Goethe when I was young, and I had written the German script; but that was long ago. There were great arid spaces in my knowledge of the German language, but something that Count Zichy had said about an arbitration treaty had vaguely caught my attention, and I had blundered out, 'Was ist das, Herr Graf?' or something equally elegant and scholarly. This was really amusing. My friends had always accused me of turning all German conversation toward Wilhelm Meister and Der Erlkönig, since I could quote from both!

'You can finesse,' continued the great nobleman. 'You are not usual. Your Government has sent you here for a special mission; it is well to pose as a poet and a man of letters, but you have been reported to our Government as having a mission secrète. You are allied with the Russians; we know that you are not rich.' This very charming person, who always laid himself at 'the feet of the ladies' and clicked his heels like castanets, did not apologise for discussing my private affairs without permission, and for insinuating that I was paid by the Russian Government.

'Do you mean – ?'

'Nothing,' he said hastily, 'nothing; but the Russians use money freely; they would not dare to approach you. Nevertheless, I warn you that their marked regard for you must have some motive, and yours for them may excite suspicions.'

'Surely my friend Henckel-Donnersmarck has not reported me to the Kaiser?'

'Our ministers are expected to report everything to the Kaiser, especially from Copenhagen; but Henckel-Donnersmarck does not report enough. He is either too haughty or too lazy. My master will send him to Weimar, if he is not more alert; but we have others!'

'I like him.'

'It is evident. Why?' asked the Count, with great interest.

'I sent him a case of Lemp's beer. He says it is better than anything of the kind made in Germany – polite but unpatriotic.'

'You jest,' said the Count. 'You have the reputation of being apparently never in earnest, but – '

'You shall have a case too,' I said, 'and then you can judge whether his truthfulness got the better of his politeness, or his politeness of his truthfulness.' He rose and bowed, he seated himself again.

'Remember, we shall always be interested in you,' he said; 'but there is one thing I should like to ask – are you interested in potash?'

'I have no business interests. If you wish to talk business, Count, you must go to the Consul General.'

That was the beginning. Henckel and I continued to be friends. He seldom spoke of diplomatic matters. He assured me (over and over again) that, if the ideas of Frederick the Great were to be followed, Germany and the United States must remain friends. I told him that Count von X. had said that 'if the United States could arrange to oust England from control of the Atlantic and make an alliance with Germany, these two countries would rule the world.'

'You will never do that,' he said. 'You are safer with England on the Atlantic than you would be with any other nation. I am not sure what our ultra Pan-Germans mean by "ruling the world." You may be sure that your Monroe Doctrine would go to splinters if our Pan-Germans ruled the world. As for me, I am sick of diplomacy. Why do you enter it? It either bores or degrades one. I am not curious or unscrupulous enough to be a spy. As to Slesvig, I have little concern with it. If Germany should find it to her interest, she might return Northern Slesvig; but there would be danger in that for Denmark. She must live in peace with us, or take the consequences.'

'The consequences!'

'Dear colleague, you know as well as I do that all the nations of the earth want territory or a new adjustment of territory. In the Middle Ages, nations had many other questions, and there was a universal Christendom; but, since the Renascence, the great questions are land and commerce. Germany must look, in self-defence, on Slesvig and Denmark as pawns in her game. She is not alone in this. You know how tired I am of it all. No man is more loyal to his country than I am; but I should like to see Germany on entirely sympathetic terms with the kingdoms that compose it and reasonably friendly to the rest of the world; but we could not give up Slesvig, even if the Danish Government would take it, except for a quid pro quo.'

'What?'

'Well, let us say a place in the Pacific, on friendly terms with you. Your country can hardly police the Philippines against Japan. Germany is great in what I fear is the New Materialism. As to Slesvig, in which you seem particularly interested, ask Prince Koudacheff, the Russian Minister; write to Iswolsky, the Russian Minister, or talk to Michel Bibikoff, who is a Russian patriot never bored in the pursuit of information. These Russians may not exaggerate the consequences as they know what absolute power means.

'There is one thing, Germany will not tolerate sedition in any of her provinces, and, since we took Slesvig from Denmark in 1864, she is one of our provinces. The Danes may tolerate a hint of secession on the part of Iceland, which is amusing, but the beginning of sedition in Slesvig would mean an attitude on our part such as you took towards secession in the South. But it is unthinkable. The demonstrations against us in Slesvig have no importance.'

Michel Bibikoff, Secretary of the Russian Legation, was most intelligent and most alert. Wherever he is now, he deserves well of his country. As a diplomatist he had only one fault – he underrated the experience and the knowledge of his opponents; but this was the error of his youth. I say 'opponents,' because at one time or other Bibikoff's opponents were everybody who was not Russian. A truer patriot never lived. He was devoted to my predecessor, Mr. O'Brien, who was, in his opinion, the only American gentleman he had ever met. He compared me very unfavourably with my courteous predecessor, who has filled two embassies with satisfaction to his own country and to those to whom he was accredited.

At first Bibikoff distrusted me; and I was delighted. If he thought that you were concealing things he would tell you something in order to find out what he wanted to know. For me, I was especially interested in discovering what the Tsar's state of mind was concerning the Portsmouth peace arrangements. Bibikoff had means of knowing. Indeed, he found means of knowing much that might have been useful to all of us, his colleagues. A long stay in the United States would have 'made' Bibikoff. He was one of the few men in Europe who understood what Germany was aiming at. He predicted the present war – but of that later. He had been in Washington only a few months. I suffered as to prestige in the beginning only, as every American minister and ambassador suffers from our present system of appointing envoys. No representative of the United States is at first taken seriously by a foreign country. He must earn his spurs, and, by the time he earns them, they are, as a rule, ruthlessly hacked off!

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1

H. Rosendal, The Problem of Danish Slesvig.

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2

Madame Hegermann-Lindencrone is the author of In the Court of Memory and The Sunny Side of Diplomacy.

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3

On the outbreak of the war, the Grand Duchess threw off her allegiance to Germany, and resumed her Russian citizenship.

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4

Baron Speck von Sternberg died on May 23rd, 1908.

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