"Kaiser Has Kept All Europe From War"

New York Times 100 years ago today, June 8, 1913:
Alfred H. Fried, Noted Peace Advocate, Declares That Is German Ruler's Great Achievement.
Alfred H. Fried, author of the following article, has been for over twenty years in the front rank of those interested in the movement for universal peace. In 1892 he founded the German Peace Society and later became a member of the International Peace Institute. He has already writ-ton a number of articles and pamphlets on the proceedings of the Hague Conference and other matters relating to the peace propaganda.
By Alfred H. Fried.
    MY thoughts go back to a Sunday in June, 1888. Emperor Frederick, on whom liberal Germany had pinned its hopes, had succumbed a few days before to his insidious ailment. His son, Crown Prince Wilhelm, had become German Emperor at the age of 29 years. On Unter den Linden, where so often the history of Prussia and Germany had been enacted, there was much unrest. Never shall I forget those days, when the masses were in a state of nervous flurry and excitement due to grief, disappointment, and care.
    Suddenly a thrill ran through the assembled thousands on the street. From the direction of the Brandenburg Gate came the blare of trumpets, the dazzling flash of uniforms, the stamping of horses, and the cheers of the crowd.
    The "new master" had come in unheralded from Potsdam to Berlin — for the first time as Emperor. Half a squadron of the Imperial Body Guard, that splendid crack regiment, with their shining cuirasses and eagle-crowned helmets, and with drawn swords in their hands, were galloping in front of his carriage. Behind came another half squadron of these picked men. At top speed this troop rushed along the Linden toward the old castle of the Hohenzollerns.
    For all who witnessed this scene it was unforgettable. It marked a new era; that was quite apparent. The old Brandenburg traditions of simplicity had been swept aside — for many years no ruler had showed such pomp in Berlin. And the military staging of the thing seemed an evil omen.
    People trembled at what the near future might disclose. On all sides the young Emperor was looked upon as an ambitious soldier, thirsting for warlike deeds. Was not the first announcement made by him from the palace in which the corpse of his father lay addressed to his army? And was it not written therein: "We belong together, I and the army; we are born for one another, and we must hold together indissolubly, whether God wills peace or storm."
    Since then a quarter of a century has elapsed, and the fears aroused in those days have not been realized. To-day one grasps the full importance of this — of the fact that the sword of that young Potsdam Lieutenant, whom fate placed at the head of a people numbering millions, has remained unstained by blood; that a quarter of a century of his reign has passed without a war.
    "On account of his position and character," said Anatole France recently about the Kaiser, "he was destined to wage war. He has composed pieces of music, made speeches, written poems, painted pictures; he has taken part in yachting, studied sculpture and theology, dabbled in all kinds of things, in short, except in the waging of war."
    Times have certainly changed. Something has come into being in the world that no longer allows war to pass as an everyday occurrence, as was the case a generation before Emperor William's accession to the throne. New social forces have arisen which, by strengthening the feeling of solidarity among nations and developing international co-operation, have automatically created an obstacle in the path of war.
    Princes are, like others, creatures of circumstance and children of their times, and naturally one will not grant such high commendation to a monarch of to-day who has been able to avoid warlike entanglements for a quarter of a century as one would have been justified in doing at the beginning or in the middle of the last century. Nevertheless, in this very special case, one must not so greatly underestimate the personal equation, when one is aware of the guiding elements in European politics, the historical entanglements which have arisen and brought about antagonisms that clash threateningly with each other. Justice will be meted out to the influence of the German Emperor on the peaceful development of the last twenty-five years when it is clearly understood how the retarded rise of Germany to the position of a united nation fostered an exaggerated national consciousness and a warlike tradition, both of which would have been strong enough on several occasions to triumph over the feelings of international fellowship engendered by culture. Such tendencies would have made it easy for a conscienceless monarch to carry out warlike plans.
    The question of personality, then, is by no means so secondary in the development of mankind as the materialistic conception of history would make us believe. The individual, to be sure, cannot prevent natural development; but, on the other hand, he can either hasten it or retard it.
    Herein lies the great merit of the Kaiser. He grew up under the shadow of those great warlike events which consolidated Germany into a nation; his youthful days were passed amid the excitement engendered by the new-born feeling of nationalism and by military successes. He ascended the throne at an age when impressions thus formed are not yet curbed by a mature knowledge of the world. Yet, in spite of this, he did not allow himself to be carried away by the tendencies of the time either for good or evil.
    With full consciousness he plunged into the work of development,and there were times when, in order to overcome the martial spirit of a certain portion of the nation, an iron determination to have peace was needed. The fact that William II., under such circumstances, did not allow himself to be swept away by any tide of party influence, and worked for the peaceful out as the achievement of his career, to be rated all the higher because it would often have been easy for him to find a justification for any warlike policy of his in the state of public opinion.
    His desire for peace was by no means accidental; it was intentional. That was shown by the words which he spoke on Nov. 14, 1907, in the Guildhall at London. There he called attention to the fact that, as far back as 1891 — a few years after his accession to the throne — he declared on the same spot that he would endeavor "before all else to keep peace." And he added significantly: "History, I hope, will do me the justice to acknowledge that I have unswervingly striven toward this goal." That was not simply a retrospect, but a promise for the future, an announcement of a life's purpose. That the ruler of the greatest military power in Europe should declare his wish to figure in history with the unblemished laurels of peace was, for Europe, something entirely novel.

Peace with Bayonets.
    When one recognizes this determination on the Emperor's part to maintain peace, one will probably be able to understand also his efforts to build up Germany's defensive strength. That sort of peace which depends solely on bayonets is not, to be sure, the ideal of cultured humanity, which endeavors to create enduring peace on a basis of international legality.
    It is in the highest degree meritorious and necessary to devote every ounce of effort to lightening the burden imposed by this state of preparedness for war. Now, if Kaiser Wilhelm has done very little in this direction and very much in the opposite one, it must be borne in mind that this is due primarily to the fact that, being by no means desirous of conquests, but of maintaining peace, he felt that he must place in the hands of his people the means of preventing other nations from taking advantage of his pacific attitude. Nationalistic elements in Germany often hurled at him the reproach that his reiterated declaration of the peaceful spirit that actuated him put a trusty weapon in the hands of his enemies. He was told that they would make their political plans with the knowledge that he would not, under any circumstances, allow matters to develop into a war. The only way of proving such a reproach without basis was not to allow Germany to be left behind in the international armament race. That there are ways and means of limiting this international rivalry and that Wilhelm II. has up to the present refrained from employing them in order to bring about a gradual lessening of international warlike preparations cannot be denied. But it is hardly reasonable to expect that a ruler, born and bred a soldier and intrusted with the maintenance of warlike traditions fresh in his people's minds, should break with the past in all directions.
    Kaiser Wilhelm, in the first quarter of a century of his reign, has to his credit this great achievement: he has kept his people and all Europe from war. This great achievement is not at all belittled by the fact that he has until now held aloof from those courses by which the world's peace might have been placed on a new basis. We do not know how the Kaiser may act in the future so far as they are concerned.
    That he is by no means so greatly opposed to those modern ideas which aim to assure peace by an organized agreement between nations is shown by many of his statements. He is perhaps the first European statesman who has brought the conception of "Europe" into statecraft. He it was who called upon the peoples of Europe to protect their "sacred possessions." He it was who during the Boxer troubles of 1900 spoke of the "interests of Europe." He it was who exhorted the German soldiers bound for China to get upon terms of good comradeship with the troops of the other nations, since "they were all fighting for the same cause, that of civilization."
    Many people who have spoken with the Kaiser are unanimous in saying that he is not opposed, at all events, to an agreement between the European powers. Prof. Mabillau of Paris, who conversed with the Kaiser at Kiel in 1907, stated in L'Opinion that the Kaiser had said that there must be a union of the European nations for the harmonious and peaceful progress of all nations. A similar report was made by Sir Max Wachter, himself interested in a European union, who had repeated opportunities to talk with the Kaiser about it.
    But the best witness to the fact that the Emperor favors such a thing is the French Senator d'Estournelles de Constant, well known on account of his notable work for international cooperation. He spoke on several occasions with the Kaiser, and in the Summer of 1909 was with him at Kiel. In the reports of these meetings which Baron d'Estournelles made in the Temps is the following sentence:
    "The Kaiser has remained true in a general way to his original idea of a union of all civilized nations for the greater progress of each."
    This, from the lips of d'Estournelles, has the importance of a historical document.
    Nor must one forget that the first of the Kaiser's Imperial Chancellors, Caprivi, gave public expression to the idea of such a European concert. In his Dantsig speech of February, 1894, that became famous, he said: "Would that the coming century might advance the cause of the union of European nations," and he added: "We wish to solve only problems of civilization, to facilitate the peaceful coexistence of nations, to consolidate European strength for a day when it may become necessary, for the advancement of a great political programme common to all of them, that a large body of nations be brought together." This public utterance of the Kaiser's highest coadjutor gives an insight into that ruler's own ideas.
    From all this it becomes sufficiently clear that the Kaiser's ideas tend in a direction which has been pointed out by the foremost apostles of peace in Europe and America. The form in which these ideas are to be realized is not clear. But that is not remarkable when one takes into consideration that the problem of how to bring nations together still provokes the liveliest discussion.
    Up to now all that has been demonstrated is that modern culture and the interdependence of nations arising therefrom make a union necessary. As to its form, not even the most prominent of its advocates has reached a decision.
    The historical development of the European Nations is largely to blame for this. Tradition is in Europe a living issue which doubtless retards progress, but with which one absolutely must reckon unless time is to be wasted on Utopian absurdities. So why is it to be wondered at that a man like Kaiser Wilhelm, who certainly, in his inmost self, is bound to the historical traditions of his position and his people, should not have been able yet to find the bridge leading from acknowledged necessity of reform to complete realization of it.
    When at the funeral of Edward VII. the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pichon, held a long consultation with the Kaiser, it was reported that the latter had spoken to the French statesman of his favorite dream. It was reported that Pichon said to an interviewer: " The Nations of Europe must, in the interests of humanity and civilization, agree with each other, give each other support, and form a great peaceful union." Soon after an official denial was issued, but it did not deny either the interview or the idea — only the fact that the Kaiser wished to form a union of nations. This denial was most salutary, for the best of ideas may become dangerous when undesirable means are employed to make it a reality. To endeavor to unite the European Nations as has been done before under entirely different circumstances would have come under this head. The most serious obstacle in the way of a European union is that most people, when it is mentioned, think of something like the United States of America, Switzerland, the German Empire, or some such confederation.

His Future Mission.
    The Kaiser's firm desire for peace, combined with the military power, the greatest in the world, that he controls, has engendered the wish that he might take the initiative toward a union of the leading European military powers for the purpose of preventing all future wars by military repression. Andrew Carnegie has again and again sought to interest the Kaiser in this. At the New York Peace Congress of 1907 he said: "Just now the power to do away with war ... seems to lie in the hands of the German Emperor alone. An appeal from him to form a union for this special purpose would meet, a joyous response from more than six nations."
    Carnegie also said that such a peace-union, would achieve its ends by "the founding of an international police force, formed not for attack but for the protection of the civilized world."
    After Carnegie made the above statement the danger of a European conflict arose through the Balkan troubles and a united Europe succeeded in averting it. Carnegie's theory was made into a reality by the force of circumstances, and although it is not yet known who was the leader in this European peace-union, there is no longer any doubt that Kaiser Wilhelm was one of those most actively concerned in accomplishing it
    As a result of the perilous Balkan crisis the leading civilized nations of the Old World have drawn closer together. The acute feeling of hostility between Germany and France, appar-
which in earlier times would unquestionably have led to war, seems to have been allayed. The antagonism between Germany and England,  [stet]
ently, is about to cool down. These three nations, together with their allies and the great American Republic, now about to celebrate one hundred years of peace with England, will have the power to dictate peace to the world.
    To the Kaiser will fall the great task of assuming the lead in this mission. The universal desire for peace must be turned into deeds. Kaiser Wilhelm must take the great step and give expression to the spirit of our time.
    His glory as a man of peace, great enough how, will become greater, and his wish to figure in history as a hero of peace will be fulfilled. And historians of the future, in a position to appreciate fully this great and restless epoch through which we are passing in the transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century — this epoch in which the contours of world-organization began to appear out of general chaos — such historians will speak of Wilhelm II. as the compelling force in that process of change, and will bestow upon him the title of "The Great Conciliator."