throne.  Royal highnesses are not uncommon in a country with such a feudal history and so many courts as Germany.  The young Prince, moreover, was never, to use a phrase of to-day, in the limelight.  He was never involved in a notorious scandal.  He had not, as his eldest son, the present Crown Prince, has, published a book.  He was more or less absorbed in the army, the early grave of so many dawning talents.  And there was no newspaper press devoted to chronicling the doings and sayings of the fashionable world of his time.  His natural abilities would doubtless have secured him reputation and success in any sphere of life, but, as he himself would probably be the first to admit, much of his fame, and even much of his merit, is due to the splendid opportunities afforded him by his birth and position.

At the same time it is obvious that if his people at this period had not much opportunity of studying the young Prince, he had been studying them and their requirements as these latter appeared to him.  He had evidently thought much on Germany’s conditions and prospects before he came to the throne, and was Empire-building in imagination long before he became Emperor.  It is not hard to guess the drift of his meditations.  The success of the Empire depended on the success of Prussia, and the success of Prussia, ringed in by possibly hostile Powers, on union under a Prussian King whom Germans should swear fealty to and regard as a Heaven-granted leader.  From the history of Prussia he drew the conclusion that force, physical force, well organized and equipped, must be the basis of Germany’s security.  Physical force had made Brandenburg into Prussia, and Prussia into the still nascent modern German Empire.  He knew that France was only waiting for the day to come when she would be powerful enough to recover her lost provinces.  Russia was friendly, but there was no certainty she would always be so.  Austria was an ally, but many people in Austria had not forgotten Sadowa, and in any case her military and naval forces were far from being efficient.  An irresistible army, and a national spirit that would keep it so, were consequently Germany’s first essentials.

Simultaneously a new fact of vital importance for Germany’s prosperity presented itself for consideration—­the growth of world-policy in trade, the expansion of commerce through the development caused by new conditions of transport and intercommunication in which other nations were already engaged.  The Prince saw his country’s merchants beginning to spread over the earth, and believing in the doctrine that trade follows the flag, he felt that the flag, with the power and protection it affords, must be supplied.  For this it appeared to him that a navy was as indispensable as was an efficient army for Germany’s internal security.  All other great countries had fine navies, while to Germany this complement of Empire was practically wanting.  Accordingly he now took up the study of naval science and naval construction.