In January, 1887, a Shadow fell on the House of Hohenzollern, the Shadow that must one day fall on every living creature.  It was noticed that the Crown Prince was hoarse, had caught a cold, or something of the kind.  A stay at Ems did him no good, Doctors Tobold and von Bergmann, the leading specialists of the day, were consulted, a laryngoscopic examination followed, the presence of cancer was strongly suspected, and an operation was advised.  At this juncture, at the suggestion, it is said, of Queen Victoria, it was decided to summon the specialist of highest reputation in England, Sir Morell Mackenzie, who, having examined the patient, and basing his opinion on a report of Professor Virchow’s, declared that the growth was not malignant.  It was now May, and on Mackenzie’s advice the patient visited England, where, accompanied by Prince William, he was present at the celebration of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee.  Some months after his return to the Continent were spent with his family in Tirol and Italy, until November found him in San Remo, where a meeting of famous surgeons from Vienna, Berlin, and Frankfort-on-Main finally diagnosed the existence of cancer, and Mackenzie coincided with the judgment.

The old Emperor died on March 9th.  He had taken cold on March 3rd, and on the 7th a chronic ailment of the kidneys from which he suffered became worse, he could not sleep, his strength began to ebb, and it was clear the end was near.  On the 6th, however, he was able to speak for a few minutes with Prince William, with Bismarck, and with his only daughter, the Grand Duchess of Baden, who had arrived post-haste the night before to be present at the death-bed.  The Grand Duchess, as the Emperor spoke, besought him not to tire himself by talking.  “I have no time to be tired,” he murmured, in a flicker of the sense of duty which had been a lifelong feature of his character, and a few hours later he passed quietly away.  The funeral, headed by Prince William and the Knights of the Black Eagle, took place on the 20th.  The new Emperor Frederick, who had hurried from San Remo on receiving news of the Emperor’s condition, was too ill to join it, but stood behind a closed window of his palace and saluted as the coffin went by.

The incidents of the Emperor Frederick’s ascent of the throne, the amnesty and liberal-minded proclamations to his people, and in particular the heroic resignation with which he bore his fate, are events of common knowledge.  One of them was the so-called Battenberg affair.  Queen Victoria desired a marriage between Princess Victoria, the present Emperor’s sister, then aged twenty-two, and Prince Alexander of Battenberg, at that time Prince of Bulgaria, so as to secure him against Russia by an alliance with the imperial house of Germany.  Prince Bismarck objected on the ground that the marriage would show Germany in an unfriendly light at St. Petersburg, and might subject a Prussian princess to the risk of expulsion from Sofia.  Another account is that the Chancellor feared an increase of English influence at the German Court with the Prince of Bulgaria as its channel.  In any case, the result of the Chancellor’s opposition was to place the sick Emperor in a delicate and painful situation.  It was ended by his yielding to the Chancellor’s representations, and the marriage did not come off.