“We have only just put off mourning for my unforgettable grandfather, Kaiser William I, and already we have had to lower the flag for my beloved father, who took such an interest in the growth and progress of the navy.  A time of earnest and sincere sorrow, however, strengthens the mind and heart of man, and so let us, keeping at heart the example of my grandfather and father, look with confidence to the future.  I have learned to appreciate the high sense of honour and of duty which lives in the navy, and know that every man is ready faithfully to stake his life for the honour of the German flag, be it where it may.  Accordingly I can, in this serious hour, feel fully assured that we shall stand strongly and steadily together in good or bad days, in storm or sunshine, always mindful of the Fatherland and always ready to shed our heart’s blood for the honour of the flag.”

To his people he promised that he would be a

“just and mild prince, observant of piety and religion, a protector of peace, a promoter of the country’s prosperity, a helper to the poor and needy, a faithful guardian of the right.”

To the Parliament a week later he announced that he meant to walk in the footsteps of his grandfather, particularly in regard to the working classes, to acquire the confidence of the federated princes, the affection of the people, and the friendly recognition of foreign countries.  He said that in his opinion the

“most important duties of the German Emperor lay in the domain of the military and political security of the nation externally, and internally in the supervision of the carrying out of imperial laws.”

The highest of these laws, he explained, was the Imperial Constitution and “to preserve and protect the Constitution, and in especial the rights it gives to the legislative bodies, to every German, but also to the Emperor and the federated states,” he considered “among the most honourable duties of the Emperor.”

While the order of these addresses is different to what it would be in England, it entirely accords with the spirit of the Prussian monarchy and the political system of the German people.  Settled in the heart of Europe, the nation rests on the army, and it is hardly too much to say that, from the Emperor’s point of view, possibly also from the popular German point of view, the interests of the army must be considered before the interests of the rest of the population.  An English monarch, who issued his first address to the British navy, would be as justified in doing so by the real necessities of Great Britain as a German Emperor who first addresses the German army is justified by the real necessities of Germany; for the British navy is as vital to the British as the German army is to the German nation.  In England, however, the monarch’s respect for the people and Parliament takes precedence of his respect for the army, not vice versa as in Germany.