The King of Prussia, German Emperor, just to keep his hand in, stimulates the military virtues of his recruits, and for the hundredth time presides over the taking of the oath of fidelity.  He teaches the recruits that the eagle is a noble bird, which soars aloft into the skies and fears no danger; also, that it is the business of the said recruits to imitate the eagle.  He adds that the German navy is the only real one, that all others are spurious imitations, and he concludes by saying that “the German Navy will achieve prosperity and greatness along paths of peace, for the good of the Fatherland, as it will in war, so as to be able, if God will, to crush the enemy.”  William II never speaks of conquering the enemy or being superior to him; it is always “crush.”  It is this crushing German navy that our sailors are to go and salute at Kiel.

It looks as if our artists were lending a hand to William, and gratifying this passion of his for crushing people.  An Alsatian friend of mine, who knows his Germany well, said to me the other day that, in sending their pictures for exhibition at Berlin, our painters are likely to ruin their own market.  For a long time the King of Prussia has wanted to have a salon at Berlin, and he looks to French painters to give it brilliancy and to attract those foreign artists who are accustomed to French exhibitions.  Once it has become the fashion to go to Berlin, French artists will find that they have helped to ruin their own business.  How can anybody suppose that William II really wishes to do honour to French art?  Do not let us forget that Frederick III said “France must have her industrial Sedan, as she has had her military Sedan.”

March 28, 1895. [10]

It seems then, that Germany’s proudest ambitions are about to be realised at the fetes at Kiel.  That patriotic hymn of theirs, which up to the present has been a dead letter for those peoples who have not yet been incorporated in the Prussianised Empire, will now become a living thing.  Henceforward all Europe must hear and accept the offensive utterance which the Germans shout:  “Deutschland ueber Alles!” Yes, Germany over all things.

That her Emperor should have willed it, is enough to bring together in his triumphant procession all the following—­

Russia, despoiled of her triumph at Constantinople by the Congress of Berlin, and exposed on her flank by the Baltic Canal.

England, tricked at Heligoland and at Zanzibar, and whose power is threatened by the very fleet which she is going to salute.

Spain, threatened in the Carolines, who has only been protected from Prussian presumption by her own indomitable pride.

Denmark, cynically robbed of Schleswig-Holstein.

Italy, from whom the German navy, when it has become the equal of the German army and fulfilled the dream of William II, will take Trieste.  It is true that, to make up for Trieste, diplomacy at Berlin is putting Salonika in pickle with a good deal of English pepper, intending to offer it as a hors d’oeuvre to Austria, Germany’s advanced and submissive sentinel in the East.