William of Germany | Page 6

28 per mille, as
compared with 17 per mille to-day; that only a start had been made
with railway construction; that the country, with its not very generous
soil, depended wholly upon agriculture; that savings-bank deposits
were not one-twelfth of what they are now; that there were 60 training
schools where there are 221 to-day, and 338 evening classes as against
4,588 in 1910; that many of the principal towns were still lighted by oil;
that there was practically no navy; and that the bulk of the aristocracy
lived on about the same scale as the contemporary English yeoman
farmer. Berlin contained a little less than half a million inhabitants,
compared with its three and a half millions of to-day, and the state of
its sanitation may be imagined from the fact that open drains ran down
the streets.
The Emperor's father, Frederick III, second German Emperor, was
affectionately known to his people as "unser Fritz," because of his
liberal sympathies and of his high and kindly character. To most
Englishmen he is perhaps better known as the husband of the Princess,
afterwards Empress, Adelaide Victoria, eldest daughter of Queen
Victoria, and mother of the Emperor. Frederick III had no great share in
the political events which were the birth-pangs of modern Germany,
unless his not particularly distinguished leadership in the war of 1866
and that with France be so considered. The greater part of his life was
passed as Crown Prince, and a Crown Prince in Germany leads a life
more or less removed from political responsibilities. He succeeded his
father, William I, on the latter's death, March 9, 1888, reigned for
ninety-nine days, and died, on June 15th following, from cancer of the
throat, after an illness borne with exemplary fortitude.
To what extent the character of his parents affected the character of the
Emperor it is impossible to determine. The Emperor seldom refers to
his parents in his speeches, and reserves most of his panegyric for his
grandfather and his grandfather's mother, Queen Louise; but the
comparative neglect is probably due to no want of filial admiration and

respect, while the frequent references to his grandfather in particular
are explained by the great share the latter took in the formation of the
Empire and by his unbounded popularity. The Crown Prince was an
affectionate but not an easy-going father, with a passion for the arts and
sciences; his mother also was a disciplinarian, and, equally with her
husband, passionately fond of art; and it is therefore not improbable
that these traits descended to the Emperor. As to whether the alleged
"liberality" of the Crown Prince descended to him depends on the sense
given to the word "liberal." If it is taken to mean an ardent desire for
the good and happiness of the people, it did; if it is taken to mean any
inclination to give the people authority to govern themselves and direct
their own destinies, it did not.
The mother of the Emperor, the Empress Frederick, had much of Queen
Victoria's good sense and still more of her strong will. A thoroughly
English princess, she had, in German eyes, one serious defect: she
failed to see, or at least to acknowledge, the superiority of most things
German to most things English. She had an English nurse, Emma
Hobbs, to assist at the birth of the future Emperor. She made English
the language of the family life, and never lost her English tastes and
sympathies; consequently she was called, always with an accent of
reproach, "the Engländerin," and in German writings is represented as
having wished to anglicize not only her husband, her children, and her
Court, but also her adopted country and its people. A chaplain of the
English Church in Berlin, the Rev. J.H. Fry, who met her many times,
describes her as follows:--
"She was not the wife for a German Emperor, she so English and
insisted so strongly on her English ways. The result was that she was
very unpopular in Germany, and the Germans said many wicked things
of her. She hated Berlin, and if her son, the present Emperor, had not
required that she should come to the capital every winter, she would
have lived altogether at Cronberg in the villa an Italian friend
bequeathed to her.
"She was extremely musical, had extensively cultivated her talents in
this respect, and was an accomplished linguist. Like her mother, Queen

Victoria, she was unusually strong-minded, and was always believed to
rule over her amiable and gentle husband. Her interest in the English
community was great, another reason for the dislike with which the
Germans regarded her. To her the community owes the pretty little
English church in the Mon Bijou Platz (Berlin), which she used to
attend regularly, and where a funeral service, at