



Produced by Norbert Mueller and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)







  [Illustration: _From a photograph by Brown and Dawson_
    WILLIAM II
    GERMAN EMPEROR
    From a photograph taken since the beginning of the war of 1914]




  THE GERMAN EMPEROR
  AS SHOWN
  IN HIS PUBLIC UTTERANCES

  BY

  CHRISTIAN GAUSS
  PROFESSOR Of MODERN LANGUAGES, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY


  NEW YORK
  CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
  1915


  COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY
  CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

  Published February, 1915




PREFACE


Unlike his grandfather, who shielded himself behind his Chancellor,
the present Emperor has always insisted upon making himself the
storm-centre of the debates in his Reichstag and among his people.
He has played with many, if not all, of his cards upon the table. In
accordance with this policy he has gone through his country from end
to end and into foreign lands, everywhere announcing his policies and
his views on every possible subject of interest or controversy. Up to
1905 he had made upward of five hundred and seventy speeches, and since
that time has made almost as many more. It was manifestly impossible
to give all of these speeches, and it was also thought unfair to give
merely extracts which might fail to represent the spirit of the entire
pronouncement. They are all printed, therefore, in the completest
form available. Particular speeches have often been reported to the
press in widely differing versions. In all cases only those speeches
are here presented which have received official or semiofficial
sanction. The text followed for pronouncements made before 1913,
with the one exception of the _Daily Telegraph_ interview, October
29, 1908, has always been that of the recognized and standard edition
in four volumes, edited by J. Penzler and published in the Reclam
_Universal-Bibliothek_. Now and then only portions of certain addresses
appear to have been reported, and on a few occasions parts of speeches
are given directly and other parts are merely summarized. In all such
cases the speech is translated from the form sanctioned in the official
version. In no case has any change been made. Where significant
differences exist in the versions of addresses as given officially and
unofficially, the official version is in every instance printed first.
It has been the aim to present faithfully the language and spirit of
the speaker, and his phraseology and emphasis have been reproduced as
closely as was at all consistent with fair English usage. The speeches
have been chosen to represent in due proportion his many interests,
and range therefore from agriculture and art to Biblical criticism,
national and international politics.

The Emperor has, of course, not given titles to his speeches, and
the headings have been assigned by the compiler. It has been his
aim to explain the circumstances under which each address was
delivered and to make plain the references to events embodied therein.
Questions which have had a continuous interest, or which have had
some lasting effect on Germany's policy, such as the attitude toward
Alsace-Lorraine, the Social Democratic party, the retirement of
Bismarck, the development of the navy, the Morocco question, have
been treated at greater length on the first fitting occasion. For
the introductions, therefore, the compiler assumes responsibility.
In preparing them he has had recourse to many incidental sources
of information, and in many cases the true inwardness of certain
situations is still as much a matter of controversy as the causes
of the present war. For his facts generally, he has followed where
possible, besides such incidental and contemporary sources, Bruno
Gebhardt's "Handbuch der Deutschen Geschichte" (1913), the "Cambridge
Modern History--The Latest Age," volume XII (1910), and the volumes of
the "Statesman's Yearbook." In addition, for information concerning
the internal development of Germany he has consulted and drawn
upon the literature of this subject which has appeared in the last
decade, but is more particularly indebted to Doctor Paul Liman's
"Der Kaiser," Dawson's "The Evolution of Modern Germany," Barker's
"Modern Germany," Price Collier's "Germany and the Germans," Forbes's
"William of Germany," Gibbons's "The New Map of Europe," and the
"_Reichsgesetzblatt_."

As the Emperor has spoken upon almost every phase of German political
life, with the editorial introductions which aim to set forth briefly
the occasion and causes of each address, it is hoped that altogether
the volume will offer a fairly accurate picture of the trend of German
affairs for the last twenty-five years.

For help in the preparation of this volume,