William II wears blinkers; he can sometimes see in front of him, but never around him nor behind.  He believed that the Tzar and the Russian Press were going to be affected by the same sort of enthusiasm which he had inspired in the Tzarewitch, but the Tzar, Russia, and the Russian Press considered matters dispassionately and saw them in their right light; they were even of opinion that William II had displayed far too much vanity in his reception of the Tzarewitch and too little dignity.  Consequently, after the departure of the Tzarewitch, the Emperor-King of Prussia, had a fit of rage, furious with disappointment at not having been able to follow up the success which he had obtained with the Tzarewitch himself.  In one of those fits of ungovernable temper which lead him to commit so many irreparable mistakes, and which are the despair of his Government and his Court, he caused Von Caprivi’s Press to publish the news of an attempt upon the life of the Tzar.  But the methods of reptile journalism are now thoroughly understood and the Emperor Alexander, guessing the source of this lie, demanded an immediate apology, which Admiral Prince Henry hastened to convey, in the name of his brother, to the Russian Embassy.  At the same time that he invented this story of the attempt on the life of the Tzar, the King of Prussia, German Emperor, proposed a toast in honour of the Duke of Edinburgh, Commander-in-Chief of the British Fleet, in which he looked forward to “the glorious day when the British fleet should fight the common enemy.”  The common and double enemy of England and Germany, as every one is aware, is France and Russia.

March 11, 1893. [3]

Until quite recently, the proposed military law was heatedly discussed in Germany.  Realising that the Military Commission was on the point of rejecting it, William II finished his speech in the following words—­

“The supporters of the proposed Sedlitz Law accused the Government of weakness, when it withdrew the Bill in the face of the clearly declared opposition of a majority of the nation.  Well, then, the proposed military law provides us with an opportunity of showing that my Government is not a weak one, and that the firm will of my grandfather, the Emperor William, lives again in me.”

A few days before the vote in the Reichstag, Herr Bebel had raised the question of International Arbitration wherein, he said, lay Germany’s best means of proving her love for peace, even should it involve the risk of having the question of Alsace-Lorraine brought before an International Tribunal.  Hereupon, Von Caprivi, Chancellor of the Prusso-German Empire, replied to the applause which had come from almost the entire Reichstag, as follows—­