Influence Of The German Empress On Kaiser's Reign.

New York Times 100 years ago today, June 8, 1913:
No Other Consort of a Prussian Ruler Ever Wielded Such a Beneficent Influence Over Her Husband, or Made Such an Impression Upon the People, by Whom She Is Regarded with Profound Affection.
By a Veteran Diplomat.
    NO retrospection of the last twenty-five years would be complete without some reference to the very important and beneficent influence which the Empress of Germany has exercised upon the Kaiser's reign.
    The scope of her influence has extended far beyond her immediate domestic circle and the Court of Berlin. It has reached every portion of her husband's dominions, and when the necessary time has elapsed to permit of a correct perspective, history will record that no other consort of a Prussian ruler has ever left such an impress upon her people.
    One of the most valuable qualities of the Kaiserin is her extraordinary tact. It is due to this more than anything else that she has been able to exercise an influence upon the Kaiser without his being aware of the fact. By the leading members of his Court, and by the principal statesmen in Germany, she is regarded not merely in the light of his guardian angel, but as his most sensible counsellor.
    "While the Empress takes but little part in politics, on the plea that women should have no concern whatsoever in the conduct thereof, she has at least on three occasions, to my knowledge, intervened in important crises.
    Thus, in 1892, when Gen. Count Caprivi, having differed with William on the subject of the new education laws, had written to tender his resignation of the office of Chancellor, the Empress at once indited an autograph letter, in which, with expressions of mingled pathos and dignity, she appealed to him so strongly not to desert her husband, or to subject him to the anxiety, the trouble, and even the odium, of another crisis in connection with the Chancellorship, that Caprivi at once traveled down to Hubertusstock, where the Emperor was staying, and informed him that he withdrew his resignation unconditionally, and would remain in office.
    Two years later, when Caprivi again resigned, it was mainly the personal entreaties contained in the letters which the Empress addressed to her aunt, old Princess Clovis Hohenlohe, which caused the latter to withdraw the opposition that until then had stood in the way of the Prince's acceptance of the Chancellorship.

The Kaiser and Bülow.
    The third occasion was when the Kaiserin intervened to bring about the downfall of Prince Bülow. It may be remembered that while the Emperor was at Highcliffe Castle, in England, "en garçon," in 1908, he wrote a number of confidential letters to Prince Bülow, then Chancellor, recording table talk and smoking-room conversation with English friends and acquaintances. These utterances were put together at the Department of Foreign Affairs at Berlin by the direction and with the full approval of Bülow in the form of an interview with an unnamed Englishman, and were given, not by the Emperor, but by the German Foreign Office, to a well-known English journalist in Berlin for publication in the London press as an expression of the Kaiser's views to him. The article created a tremendous amount of criticism in Germany, on account of the pronouncedly English leanings on the part of the Emperor which it displayed, and the monarch was roundly accused of pursuing a personal foreign policy of his own, without regard to the wishes of his people.
    Bülow was alarmed by the popular clamor, and, instead of admitting that it was he who was responsible for the article and for its publication, threw in his lot with the Emperor's critics, and joined in the hue and cry for guarantees that there should be no personal action in future by the Kaiser in foreign matters, excepting with the co-operation and approval of the Ministers of State. William, who was in ill health at the time, deferred to what he believed to be popular sentiment, and gave the necessary assurances, although there is nothing in the Constitution of the German Empire, or of the Kingdom of Prussia, that places any curb upon the initiative of the Kaiser in the direction and control of matters of foreign policy.
    But while the Emperor was willing to forgive Prince Bülow for his disloyalty to the sovereign to whom he owed rank, fortune, and everything he possessed, the usually kind and gentle Empress was relentless. She could not forgive what she described as the base ingratitude and treachery of Bülow, and, aided and abetted by her two eldest sons, the Crown Prince and Prince Eitel Fritz, never rested until Bülow had been driven out of office.
    It may be added that Bülow, while in office, was the chief obstacle in the way of an understanding between the houses of Hohenzollern and of Guelph, which, had it not been for him, would have come together in 1907, on the death of Prince Albert of Prussia, Regent of Brunswick, when the Duke of Cumberland made all the requisite advances and gave those assurances of respect for the Constitution of the Empire that are now considered as perfectly satisfactory and fully sufficient by the Prussian Government and by the German people. Inasmuch as Princess Victoria Louise, the only daughter of the Emperor, has rarely. if ever, left the side of her mother, the latter undoubtedly favored and contributed to the romance which found its culmination in the marriage of the young girl to Duke Ernest Augustus of Brunswick two weeks ago — a marriage that signalized the end of a bitter feud of nearly half a century between the houses of Guelph and Hohenzollern.
    To the Empress must be attributed the very strongly developed religious revival apparent throughout Germany since Emperor William came to the throne. Prior to his reign church-going was, as a rule, eschewed by the male sex, women constituting the backbone of the congregations, while the clergy of the Lutheran persuasion were looked down upon and treated by the territorial nobility much in the same way as upper servants are treated — that is to say, on a par with farm bailiffs, stewards, and housekeepers. In a word, religion and everything pertaining thereto were not considered fashionable.
    To-day all is changed. Under the guidance of the Empress, her husband, reared by his broadminded mother in the ideas of Strauss and of Renan, has become a strict churchman, and Court, nobility, bureaucracy, and the middle and lower classes as well have followed suit.
    Free-thinking and neglect of religious duties are at present considered bad form in Germany. Everybody professes the most profound interest in questions and enterprises relating to the Church, and a large number of daughters of the most illustrious houses of the German nobility have conferred their hands and their hearts upon penniless Lutheran pastors, whose social status has thereby been entirely changed. Moreover, if during the last quarter of a century more churches have been built, particularly in Berlin, than had been the case in the entire previous century, this is because every one has become aware that the easiest way of winning the good graces of the Empress and the favor of her consort is by building a church, endowing some hospital, or creating some philanthropic institution.
    The Empress is ever ready to help in every good work, and her private charities are very great. But she does not approve of the higher education or emancipation of women, and, like her husband's English grandmother, the late Queen Victoria, entertains a holy horror of everything pertaining to the female suffrage movement. Women, according to her views, should remain in their own sphere, and should regard their duties to their husbands, their children, and their homes as their first and foremost obligations. The nursing of sick, the training of young people, and the organization and direction of charitable Institutions, she thinks, afford plenty of scope for those members of the fair sex who have no domestic tasks to occupy their time. She claims that in this way a woman is able to exercise a far more important and beneficial influence than by endeavoring to supplant men in professions essentially masculine; and certainly she herself constitutes a striking illustration of the truth of her contentions, since her influence is felt throughout the length and breadth of the land — a gracious, womanly-influence in every sense of the word.

A Boon to Actresses.
    Among the many philanthropic organizations which owe their origin to the Empress is the Central Association of German Actresses, which has of late years done more toward elevating the stage in Germany than has ever been accomplished by members of the aristocracy who have seen fit to join the dramatic profession with that object in view. The work of this society is to enable actresses to provide themselves at the lowest possible cost with the costumes considered necessary by the managers of the theatres. It is well known that, although plays in Germany are beautifully put upon the stage, the salaries paid to the actresses do not in many cases cover the expenses of the stage dresses.
    The Empress makes a point of giving all her Court and evening gowns, which were formerly the perquisites of her dressers and maids, to the association, and has induced her daughters-in-law, her sister, Princess Frederick Leopold of Prussia, and the other Princesses and ladies of the Court of Berlin to follow her example. Those who feel that they cannot afford to give the dresses are asked to sell them as cheaply as possible to the association, and the latter turns them over at a merely nominal cost to such women of the dramatic profession as are in need thereof. The organization is managed entirely by great ladies, the Empress herself acting as President, and in this manner they are brought into personal contact with actresses both of high and low degree.
    The intercourse thus established has been most beneficial, for it has not only helped to place the social status of the stage on a more agreeable basis, but it also constitutes an incentive to ladies of the theatrical profession to keep their names and reputations free from blemish, since they naturally understand that the Empress and the women of the great aristocracy can treat them as friends only so long as they live up to the same standard of respectability as that which prevails in the best circles of society and at Court.

As a Soldier.
    Despite the Empress's aversion to the emancipation of women and to their masculinity, she holds the Colonelcy of a number of Prussian and Russian regiments, whose uniform she occasionally wears, in a somewhat feminized form, at those grand military pageants of which the Kaiser is so fond. Her favorite garb of this kind is the uniform of her bodyguard, recruited from non-commissioned officers of the Second Regiment of Pomeranian Cuirassiers, of which she is also Colonel. The tunic of this guard, which she sometimes wears, is of snow-white cloth, and, held in its place by the silver shoulder-straps of a Colonel, is the orange ribbon of the Order of the Black Eagle which crosses her breast to the left hip, Where the jewel of the order is attached by a large rosette. The star of the order is worn on the left, while just below it are a number of small decorations. With this white tunic, with its silver buttons, silver lace, and scarlet facings, a white skirt is worn, while the headgear is the old-fashioned tricorne with plume, now worn by the Palace Guards, which the officers of the Pomeranian Cuirassiers were wont to don in the early part of the last century.
    Thus attired, the Empress takes her place by the side of her husband at the saluting point of any grand reviews at which she may happen to be present, and as soon as a regiment of which she happens to be the Colonel approaches, she at once canters off, taking her place at its head, and leads it past her husband in true military fashion, saluting with her riding whip before returning to his side.
    Most of the early youth of the Empress was spent at Prinkenau, the fine Silesian country seat of her parents, the late Duke and Duchess of  Schleswig-Holstein-Augustenburg. Her father died in her early girlhood, and she thereupon became the ward of his brother, Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, who makes his home in England, where he is married to Queen Victoria's daughter Helena. The result of this was that the Empress spent much of her girlhood with Prince and Princess Christian at Cumberland Lodge, in England, where she saw a great deal of her mother's aunt, Queen Victoria. Thanks to this, she speaks English perfectly.
    The Emperor made her acquaintance during a day's shooting at Prinkenau. He was en route to the chateau, when, having lost his way in the forest, he met a young girl, of whom he inquired his whereabouts, and how to proceed. This was Princess Augusta Victoria, and he always declared that he fell in love with her at that moment.
    She was a total stranger to Berlin court life and Berlin society at the time of her marriage, and at first found it very difficult to adapt herself to the formal etiquette by which royal personages are surrounded at Berlin.
    It was here that her American kinswoman, Countess Waldersee, came to her assistance, instructed her, and acted as her mentor, not only in matters of etiquette and manner, but in the attitude to be observed toward the various members of Berlin society as well. The Countess Waldersee was Miss Esther Lee of New York, daughter of the late David Lee, who was in the wholesale grocery business in this city. Her first husband was the late Prince Frederick of Holstein, (first cousin of the Kaiserin's father,) who sacrificed his royal status and became a mere noble, as Prince Noer, in order to wed her on a footing of equality. Her second husband was the late Field Marshal Count Waldersee, who commanded the international force, including a United States contingent, that relieved the siege of the foreign legations in Peking in 1900. Emperor William has never forgotten the services rendered by Mme. von Waldersee to his wife in the early years of his marriage, and there is no one who is a more welcome guest at the Neues Palais at Potsdam and at his palace in Berlin.
    There has always been a question as to whether or not the Empress had any share in the downfall of Bismarck. That she ever liked him is out of the question, for in 1864-5 be was not only instrumental in barring her father from the throne of the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, which had been wrested from Denmark by the German Bund, but even went out of his way to proclaim the Duke as unfit to reign, by reason of his alleged "stupidity." No wonder, therefore, that the Empress was brought up to believe the Iron Chancellor as something akin to the devil, and the manner in which he was viewed in her home when a child may be best gathered from the fact that whenever her nurses and governesses were desirous of putting a stop to her naughtiness, and of frightening her into obedience, they would exclaim. " Bismarck is coming!"
    This childhood impression has continued so deep that even to this day, whenever the Empress shows any signs of reluctance to comply with her husband's wishes or betrays irritation, he is in the habit of springing upon her the familiar old cry of "Bismarck is coming!" which at first always makes her start, as she did in infancy and girlhood, and then causes her to burst into laughter and restores her at once to good humor.

Her Forgiving Disposition.
    That she resented Bismarck's attacks upon her husband after his retirement from the Chancellorship is only natural. But that she is of a forgiving nature is shown by the circumstance that she traveled all the way to Friedrichsruhe at a moment when the sickness of her children demanded her presence by their bedside in order to attend the private and home funeral of the statesman who had deprived her father of a throne, and who had sent him to an early grave, as a broken-spirited and thoroughly embittered man.
    Since the beginning of her married life the Empress has made it a rule always to breakfast alone with her husband, and thus to be assured of at least one hour's seclusion for a quiet conversation with him each day. Only those who know the absence of all privacy from which monarchs suffer so cruelly will be able to appreciate the rôle which this tête-à-tête breakfast has played in the twenty-five years of the Kaiser's reign.
    The Empress's influence upon her children is even still more pronounced than that upon their father, and it is no exaggeration to assert that they literally worship her. In fact, the story is told that when one of her younger sons was being prepared for confirmation, and the divine intrusted with the task endeavored to impress upon him that all human beings were sinners, he angrily remonstrated to the effect that it was "all very well as far as papa is concerned, but as for mother, she is not a sinner, she is an absolute saint."