Chapter VII: Part 7

He rose. "More of this in a day or two, after I have seen Moltke, Tirpitz and old Zep. In the meantime remember this: Super is the thing. We must have super-guns, super-submarines, super-aircraft--ordinary arms will not do in the struggle to come. Our enemies are ordinary men, fighting with ordinary means, while we are supermen bent on superhuman effort, and consequently need super-arms."

He turned from Bohlen. "Announce me to the Princess Maria," he commanded Buelow.

*CHAPTER XXVII*

*BERTHA'S WEDDING DAY*

Krupp Hospitality--A Nasty Custom--"Old Fritz at Play--The Bride
Arrayed--Abdul's Present--The Wedding Service--A Glimpse of
Essen

On October the 15th, 1906, Bertha Krupp was married, and, presto! Wilhelm jumped into the saddle: Krupp _en croupe_ was meant for both the heiress and her husband-to-be.

To be sure, Essen was _en fete_ for the War Lady and Gustav. For them flags and garlands and paper flowers. Rivers and oceans of paper flowers! They recalled Unter den Linden when some yellow or brown, or maybe a white, majesty is expected to make his state entry through the Brandenburg Gate. And almost as many girls in white as paper flowers on lantern posts and over doorways, while every boy had his face and his hands washed, and all the professors and directors wore their locks in curls.

To-day all victims of Moloch labour, of burns and crashing irons, of scaffolds that gave way and mountains of steel a-tremble, of engines gone wrong and cars off the track, and a thousand and one other accidents connected with work, were freshly shaved and voluble of their sufferings and Fraulein's kindness. Johann gave a leg to prevent bubbles in the casting of a royal Prussian cannon, and Fraulein bought him an artificial one, offering this advantage over the real article: he might throw it at his wife when nettled. Heinrich had lost the sight of an eye in the service of the works, and Fraulein not only procured him a glass one, but added a steel pince-nez that made him look like a twopenny clerk. And Mariechen and Maertchen had good jobs in the ammunition shops, since their husbands were killed in an earth-slide at the Germania shipyards near Kiel--"Fraulein looks after everything and everybody." In short, city and country-side, town hall and hospital, the well-to-do and the poor, old and young, the joyous and the lame and the halt--all looked their best in Bertha's honour and acted _gemuetlich_-like (which was mostly noise) in Bertha's honour--when the War Lord came into sight!

Once upon a time the War Lady had been sternly admonished not to bring more than three attendants on her state visit to Berlin; in repaying that visit--for his intervening comings to Essen were more or less impromptu or on business--the War Lord brought twenty times three, sixty: personal friends, courtiers, generals and army officers.

When, years before, he inflicted two-thirds of this number on King Christian, the Continent stood aghast at his inconsiderate impudence, for the Copenhagen Court was notoriously poor then. But Bertha was his ward and was under his thumb, and, besides, had "money to burn."

So he embraced this opportunity for paying off old debts by inviting to Essen a number of nobles whose hospitality he had enjoyed, for there they would be more sumptuously lodged and dined and wined than at his own house.

The call to Villa Huegel was snapped up by all who could crowd into the Imperial train, for Krupp hospitality is proverbial in the Fatherland's mansions and country houses; and the Prussian aristocrat, living at home on superannuated venison, herrings and potatoes, washed down by diluted fusel-oil called Schnapps, likes nothing better than to gorge himself at the expense of persons whose lack of rank precludes dreaded return visits.

Savings in the household exchequer weigh heavy enough with the War Lord to put him into royal good humour, but the limelight radiating from Essen, because the richest girl on the planet married a poor but capable man, was the main thing, of course. For the Wolff Bureau, that feeds the Continental Press with "pap" about "All Highest" doings and with governmental lies, would mention Wilhelm and his myrmidons twenty times as often as the bride and groom.

There would be--as a matter of fact, there were beforehand--long-winded litanies about the War Lord's love for his ward and his surpassing efficiency as a guardian; his consummate wisdom in the selection of a husband for Bertha; the unheard-of increase in the value of the Krupp property under Wilhelm's guidance--columns of that sort of symphony to Imperial ears.

And the War Lord's show: State coach and six, forty more horses from the royal stables, one hundred flunkeys, and the "great surprise!"--but that did not come off. "That woman wouldn't stand it."

When the War Lord was shown into Frau Krupp's boudoir he beamed most graciously. "I cannot make Bertha a Royal Princess," he said, "but I will treat her like one. How many guests have we?"

"In the villa a little over three hundred, Your Majesty."

"Well, I had a thousand ribbons printed--have the rest distributed among the loyal people. But let the police do it, as there is sure to be a terrible scramble for these souvenirs, and we don't want the Moscow tragedy repeated." (He referred to the crushing and killing of hundreds of men, women and children at the People's Festival during the Tsar's coronation.)

Meanwhile the Master of Ceremonies had opened the silver-gilt casket filled with layers upon layers of pieces of white ribbon, about one inch broad by five long. There was a baronial crown above the letter "B" at the top, and gold fringe at the bottom.

The Baroness turned purple at the sight, but her son-in-law pulled her sleeve in time. "Mamma will arrange with His Excellency," he said; and the unsuspecting War Lord got busy with one of his quintette of meals, served to him separately.

"An unheard-of honour," pleaded Herr Krupp von Bohlen, who had followed Her Ladyship into an inner room, as he dangled one of the garter-ribbons before her eyes.

"I call it a nasty, indecent custom, and my daughter will have none of it," replied Frau Krupp hotly.

Krupp von Bohlen looked both hurt and indignant. "Pardon me, madam, the customs of our Royal Family must not be spoken of in that style where I am. And what is deemed honourable for Royal Prussian Princesses can but add dignity and renown to a subject favoured like one of them."

"If an announcement of that kind is considered fair and decent in royal circles," angrily replied Frau Krupp, "it is their affair; as to the daughter of the Baroness von Ende, she would blush to think of such a custom."

Krupp von Bohlen advanced his chin an inch more.

"Matters affecting the Royal Family are beyond discussion," he said haughtily, "and if you ever again approach the subject, please remember that I am a Prussian officer. But that aside. His Majesty has graciously commanded, and the order is to be carried out to the letter." He bowed stiffly and retired.

The Baroness let herself fall into an arm-chair, and, elbows on knees, buried her face in both hands. A scandal in the air, but she was determined to risk it. Let the feelings of Prussian Princesses be what they may in regard to the ancient custom; there was to be no distribution of _her_ daughter's garter for the War Lord's friends and her own cottagers to gloat over.

She had spent half an hour in this sort of brown study, agitated by reflections bordering on _lese-majeste_ most horrible, when Barbara rushed in: "Oh, Mamma, Uncle Majesty and everybody are at 'Old Fritz's,' and Uncle wants all the gentlemen to take chances under the hammer. He is making them give up watches and decorations, and he whispered to me he hopes some get smashed. Come and see the fun."

To be sure Frau Krupp was in no humour to attend the Imperial circus--it is a stock joke with Wilhelm to frighten under-dogs out of their wits by subjecting their valuables to seeming destruction, and Her Ladyship had been an unwilling witness more than once. But Barbara's naive: "What a beautiful box--more presents?" made her sit up. Why should not "Fritz," oldest of family servants, essay to _corriger la fortune de la maison de Krupp_? A chance in a million, but stranger things have happened!

As everybody knows, "Fritz" has a falling weight of fifty tons, and has been hammering steel blocks into shape since 1860. When Bertha's grandfather started building it family, friends and competitors the world over thought him crazy, and said so, but "Fritz" has never missed a day's work in fifty-four years, and seems to be good for a century still. Indeed, the marvellous delicacy of his adjustment remains unimpaired, and occasionally the manager makes him crack nuts without injuring the kernel.

The War Lord was smashing his friends' watch-glasses without hurt to dial or hands when Frau Krupp and Barbara came upon the scene.

"The trunk of the Krupp heiress, containing some of her choicest wardrobe," explained Wilhelm banteringly in an undertone. Then aloud: "I'll forfeit ten marks to any charity madam may name if Fritz injures the casket in the slightest. Those with me raise a hand." Two dozen hands went up. "Sorry I did not make it a hundred marks," whispered Wilhelm to von Scholl, as he placed the casket on the steel table. Then, standing off, he commanded: "One--two--three."

Down came the Brobdingnagian not like fifty, but like a hundred thousand tons, hitting the table an earthquake-like smack. It was all over in a second, but both Wilhelm and the War Lady's mother thought a lot in that tiny fragment of time. The casket was, of course, as flat as a window-pane and not much thicker, while of its contents there was no trace, the silk having become part and parcel of the metal. Nothing short of the melting-pot, said the expert, would yield isolated strains of the thousand bedizened ribbons. And, on top of it, Fraulein Krupp collected 250 marks for her orphanage!

Was it the loss of his ten marks, the blotting out of his "indecent surprise," or thoughts of the murderous fruit which the marriage about to be solemnised would yield him that clouded the War Lord's brow as he walked up the middle aisle of the chapel? He was to give the bride away. The groom was the War Lord's man, his discovery, his creature! He found him secretary of legation with the least of the kings, grubbing along on a salary of five hundred pounds a year, and destined in all probability to marry either a spindle-shanked or a bull-necked "Fraulein von" with an infinitesimal dot. The goal of his ambition: a berth as minister plenipotentiary at the Court of a minor king! Salary: seven hundred pounds per year.

Well, he (the War Lord) was about to give in marriage this candidate for polite poverty and subaltern honours a nice, healthy, well bred and intelligent girl of good family, likewise revenues compared with which the civil list of the average German king were twopence! It surely should follow as a matter of course that common gratitude, if not inborn discipline, would make Krupp von Bohlen the instrument of any warlike mischief the author of his good luck might contemplate. Indeed, he had vowed so much.

Now Lohengrin and rustling silks: The bride and groom.

The latter, like most of the men present, in showy uniform, blue and gold; the War Lady in lilac _crepe de Chine_, myrtles in her blonde hair.

She was rather pleasant than pretty to look upon: a massive face, indicating a not unkindly disposition; blue eyes, wavy hair, a firm mouth; a bit strong on figure.

Her head-dress was typical enough for Germany: myrtle, the "bleeding," commemorating the cruelty of the barbarous islanders who pierced the shipwrecked with spears and arrows!

Ancient history aside, the sign of the myrtle leaf was indeed prophetic of the horrors this marriage would impose upon humanity, in accordance with the compact between the War Lady's husband and the War Lord; but, as nine out of every ten German brides are myrtle-bedecked, the fashionable crowd in the chapel had no mind for the augury.

Still, why mauve, the colour of mourning and old age, for the wedding gown? Since it was of the War Lady's own selection, it suggested almost a premonition of the evil in store for Europe.

Did Bertha's lens of imagery conjure up the ghosts of the millions who must die by the output of her factories that her own unborn offspring have more milliards to play with, and was she mourning in advance for the children she would render fatherless, for the hosts doomed to extinction because profits in the wholesale murder of men are surpassing high?

Who knows?

It is almost inconceivable that a person like the War Lady, engaged in the appalling trade of death-dealing, regarded her business other than a gigantic slaughter monopoly--a privileged one, to be sure, yet the most heinous of crimes against God and men just the same.

At the Courts of the eighteenth century "punishment boys" were kept, to be thrashed when small highnesses deserved to have their jacket warmed. Here, at the altar, Bertha, used to Royal State on account of her wealth, was about to engage a punishment boy. In future Gustav was to take the blame for all the enormities her factories would visit upon humanity!

The old-time punishment boys were well paid for their pains; the Krupp punishment boy was to have an income of seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling per annum. The old-time punishment boys were frequently loved by the masters for whom they suffered; Herr Krupp von Bohlen was loved by the young woman whom he relieved of grievous responsibility. Yet the note of mourning in her attire, and at her bosom the mark of "Abdul Hamid the Damned"!

The War Lady is sincerely religious, and so is the War Lord's Imperial lady, only more so. Indeed, with Her Majesty the Church is almost an obsession, yet both the Queen of Prussia and the Queen of Essen have accepted presents from the wholesale assassin of Christians, who remembered only one thing to his credit in the course of thirty-three years of absolute rule: that he did not murder his brother. This was his plea to the Young Turks when deposed.

For many years the Berlin Court was a pensioner of the man who prided himself on having spared the life of his mother's son, making up for this unnatural restraint by spilling the blood of forty thousand "Christian dogs." Five millions cash "Abdul the Damned" lent to the War Lord (and he is still whistling for its return), and season after season he sent material for the Queen of Prussia's underlinen and summer dresses. Bales of Oriental stuffs, gauzes, linens, laces and silks from Tscheragan Serai used to be delivered at the Neues Palais about every April the first, filling the house with real "Turkish delight," of which Her Majesty's sisters, the rich and the poor, likewise partook according to their needs or the favour in which they were held at the moment.

And when Her Prussian Majesty is _en grande tenue_ she often augments the great Napoleon's diamonds, captured at Waterloo (the same that once blushed at the generous bosom of his sister Paulette), by those that the great Frederick gave to his lovely mistress La Barbarina, the dancer, and took back again when he tired of her; and when even multiplication fails to give satisfaction--for a Queen of Prussia must have more diamonds than an American multi-millionairess--she adds the parure of brilliants and the numerous brooches and buttons and bracelets given her by The Damned.

After all, this seems appropriate enough for the Queen of a country pieced together of territories gained by assassination, war, treachery and other atrocities; but think of the War Lady accepting gifts from the most despicable of men and kings! Surely there must be some fellow-feeling of malign camaraderie between the makers of murderous tools and their users, a sort of revival of swordsmiths-worship and the veneration in which the great men of old held their Curtanas and Flamberges!

Possible, or shall we set it down to mere female thoughtlessness, which in some respects seems akin to that of half-savages after the style of the story Mark Twain once told the War Lord:

"Where is 'Liza?" asked the master of the house, when he missed the coloured waitress at breakfast.

"Can't come round for a few days. Just had a tiny wee baby," answered the housemaid, grinning.

"A baby! How's that?"

"Oh, just nigger-shiftlessness, I reckon."

But it wasn't thoughtlessness, or shiftlessness alone, that made the War Lady pin to her breast the grand cordon of the _Osmanie_ Order of Virtue; it spelled, at the same time, a bid for war material, decreed by the businesslike groom. The War Lord saw it and smiled. "Bravo, Gustav, you are the stuff," and "Bertha, as is fit, the yielding lamb."

And the organ pealed and cooed, and the chorus of cathedral singers chanted off the key, and the voice of the officiating minister droned, and everybody thought it most "heavenly," but boring; and the generals and army officers smacked their lips, anticipating the table delicacies in store; and the courtiers congratulated themselves because it was all fun and no work; and each lady thought she looked a heap better than her best-beloved friend; and the War Lord stared at the ceiling contemplating ways and means for mining the Krupp quarry of wealth and efficiency to within an inch of hell.

"And so I pronounce you man and wife," sang out the minister, expecting the biggest fee!

"Hail thee, Frankenstein," thought Wilhelm. He inflated his chest as the archangel aspiring to omnipotence may have done: from this moment on the means for such aggrandisement as only Napoleon dreamt of were in his hands, and he was free to plunge the world into irremediable ruin if he liked.

Through Bertha's resignation, through von Bohlen's connivance, he now owned the Krupp works; he _was_ Frankenstein--Frankenstein, the hideous, the abhorred, whose malignity was equalled only by the accumulated wretchedness he meant to visit on all resisting.

Even as he extended his hand to the bride, with lip congratulations, he thought of the riot of despair the troth just sealed spelt for his own people and the nations to be subdued! Was he then--is he then--the hideous fantasm of one bent on naught but destruction?

God knows--mere physical observation discerns no more than the frightful selfishness that has lashed the War Lord to ever-increasing efforts of fury since Bertha's wedding day and is driving him still.

As overlord of the greatest industrial plant in the world, he deliberately diverted it from its legitimate _raison d'etre_ as a cradle of life and progress and turned it into a dividend-mill for the cultivation of human hatred and the making of corpses, at the same time endowing it with a soul still more monstrous: his thrice-abhorred Kultur.

He had steel hammers enough to line, side by side, a road reaching from Liverpool Street Station to Hyde Park; steel boilers enough to start a second Pittsburgh; more machinery than the rest of the kingdom boasts; more electric motors than Paris or London employs in its public conveyances, etc.; and with unparalleled selfishness in evil suborned them exclusively to his passion for destruction, adding unlimited capital and business capacity, utter disregard for human life and extraordinary facilities for chemical-physical research, begetting inventive genius of a high order. There is the explanation of the frightful catalogue of Hunnish sins that have disgraced civilisation since the 29th of July, 1914, according to the findings of Lord Bryce's Committee.

"The _Kapellmeister_, at Your Majesty's orders?" reported Count Eulenburg.

"Hohenfriedberger March," replied the War Lord, locking his teeth.

Hohenfriedberg is a shining mark in Prussian history, for in June, 1745, Frederick the Great overwhelmed the Austrians near the small Silesian village, nearly annihilating Prince Karl and his Saxon allies. He composed a march in honour of the event, a rather stirring piece of musical claptrap, among the best that came from his pen.

"I can drive the Austrians too," thought the War Lord, as he stepped from the chapel, the bride's mother on his arm. And, the military band outside executing some flourishes when he passed, he added grimly: "Bayonet in back, if necessary."

*CHAPTER XXVIII*

*A FORESHADOWING OF "LUSITANIAISM"*

The Rise of Herr Ballin--A Woman's Vanity--Herr Ballin at the
Schloss--"Frightfulness" on the Sea--Smoothing the Way--The War
Lord and Wedell--A Spy Plot--Overrunning England with Spies

On the eve of the day when the _Lusitania_ snatched the world's speed record from the North German Lloyd, the red discs in the Chancellor's and in Count Wedell's office bobbed up almost simultaneously:

"I want to see the Jew Ballin. To-morrow morning at the earliest. You heard about the _Lusitania_?" Before Prince Buelow could say "Yes," the War Lord had hung up the receiver, simultaneously pressing the button marked Wedell, whom he asked to bring in the Ballin personalia.

"No ordinary Jew," explained the chief of the Secret Service.

"But common stock?"

"Very, Your Majesty."

"How does Ballin dress?"

"Affects the American business man, All Highest, in demeanour and dress."

"A genius, you said?"

"For making money, absolutely, Your Majesty."

"Let's hear about his beginnings." The War Lord sat down in a low chair and lit a cigarette. No such luxuries for Count Wedell, though. The head of the Secret Service stood while he read from his card index in telegraphic style:

"Born emigrant agents.--Son, brother and nephew of drummers-up of steerage cargo.--Learnt rudiments of trade in his native Hamburg.--Finished in London----"

"Perfect finishing school for aspiring German boys," interrupted the War Lord; "the English educating their future business rivals--touching!"

"I have often thought about that in connection with our war," said Wedell. "Of course, Your Majesty expects to win, but victory does not beget good will. Suppose London, Birmingham, Liverpool and the rest say no more foreign clerks and other employes, especially none of Teutonic origin?"

"Don't you worry. Any little game of that kind will be forestalled in the terms of peace. Finish your Ballin."

"Returned home," read Wedell from his cards, "secured employment in minor steamship line to bring Poles and Hungarians to Hamburg for shipment to the States. Hapag people soon awoke to the fact that the devil of a genius was weaning their quarry away from them.--Approached Ballin with promises of double salary. Ballin refused--then acquired controlling interest in employer's line.--Then sold out to Hapag."

"That happened when?"

"In 1886, Your Majesty."

"Since then business has grown immensely, hasn't it?"

"Its gross profits climbed from L125,000 to L2,825,000 per annum in twenty-five years, while its fleet increased from twenty-six to one hundred and eighty pennants. Tonnage in 1886, 50,000; to-day, exceeding one million."

"That will do," said Wilhelm. "Send in Haeseler."

Count Haeseler had arrived the night before from Konopischt, had been waiting to report to His Majesty for an hour or more, and, to kill time, had been paying visits to officials and pensioners living in the big pile. There had been cigars and cognac galore, and Gottlieb was on excellent terms with himself when he saw His Majesty.

"Went to bed with an attack of the heart, and got up refreshed and happy," he said.

"I see Franz Ferdinand's reputation at home is of the value of nothing, but, still, he treated you like a white man," interpreted the War Lord.

"Majesty hit the nail upon the head, as usual. Not an Austrian, Hungarian, Croatian, Servian, Bosniak or Pollack alive would not gladly spend his last _heller_ to buy a dose of prussic acid for the heir to the throne, but to Your Majesty's representative he was all charm. Nearly gave me a horse."

"Forgot to send it to the station with the other baggage, eh? Well, aside from cheating my field marshal, how is he going on?"

"Like a steam-roller. The next time Your Majesty will deign to inspect the Sixth Infantry or the Wilhelm Hussars, Majesty will not recognise them. Fellows like me are being relegated to the scrap-heap by the dozen, and he cares no more for archdukes' privileges than the white souls of valets de chambre. His iron broom is busy with horse, foot and artillery, with the navy and the air fleet all at the same time, and wherever he touches there is a clean sweep and a howl of dismay, pitiful enough to move a tiger, but not Nero."

"He is stirring them up," rejoiced the War Lord.

"He is making the Austrian army a worthy adjunct of Your Majesty's forces," said Haeseler, very earnestly.

"And you taught him these new stratagems?"

"I would never have been allowed to leave the country alive if the Hungarians knew what I did teach Nero."

"Dirty trick," said the War Lord, "not to give Gottlieb the horse." Then imperiously: "I expect your detailed report about all the reforms in the Austrian army and navy in a fortnight."

"There will be no gun missing, I promise Your Majesty."

Count Haeseler referred, of course, to the astounding memory and precision of the great Napoleon. Once, when occupied by much business, the Emperor sent an officer to Belgium to investigate military stores. The officer handed in his report. Napoleon gave him back the document with these words: "There are two guns missing at Ostend." And there were two missing.

"And your general opinion of Franz based on intimate observation?" queried Wilhelm.

"He seems to regard himself as a sort of necessary barricade to progress, yet has no patience with the idea uppermost in Austria that _laissez faire_ must be perpetuated for ever and a day simply because it's as old as the hills."

"And the Duchess?"

"With Your Majesty's leave, confidently expects to be Empress of Austria."

"Must have Pan-German leanings."

"No, Your Majesty; only the truly womanly passion to be the most envied of her sex."

"Slav conflict with Austria suits me all right," said the War Lord. "The Czechs and Hungarians wanting Sophie, the Austrian Germans will feel the more inclined to join my Germanic Federation."

"But," said Haeseler, "Franz counts upon Your Majesty to help at the enthronisation of Sophie by force, if necessary."

The War Lord went to a bookshelf and pulled out a volume bound in red with atrocious gold decorations. "And Franz brags about having read every strategic work ever written," he commented.

"Majesty refers to Moltke's introduction of the Franco-Prussian war."

"Yes, but this isn't the volume. Can you quote from memory?"

"I will try my utmost, Your Majesty: 'The days are past when for dynastical ends armies went forth----'"

"Take an '_echte_,' Edward's brand," said the War Lord.

There was a royal carriage at the station for Herr Ballin, and the royal coachman, keen for marks, waved his whip frantically to attract attention, and coin: the shipping king, emerging from a first-class compartment, affected not to see. Berlin has two kinds of cabs, and Ballin chose the Noah's Ark brand at threepence a mile. When he said "Schloss," the driver quizzed him curiously and decided at once to put him down at the kitchen entrance. "Must be a relative of some housemaid," he calculated, and could not understand at all why the royal carriage, though empty, drove plumb ahead of him when they reached the Schlossplatz. Of course the War Lord's livery meant to impress upon the Court Marshal that he had been on the spot.

Court Marshal von Liebenau left the reception to his aide and ran upstairs.

"With Majesty's permission. Regular Jewski, second-class cab. How long shall he wait?"

"Show him up instantly."

From this it may be gathered as from the scene witnessed at the Wilhelmstrasse, that waiting for Majesty is a punishment meted out on religious or other grounds.

Ballin had anticipated questions, and received instructions. "The _Lusitania_," said the War Lord, after the curtest, not to say abruptest of welcomes, "must teach you Hamburgers and the Lloyd people this important lesson: In the ocean greyhound to be built hereafter, the naval value is obviously of greater importance than trade or dividend considerations, for the moment war is declared all your vessels will pass under my exclusive control, and I need all the auxiliaries, with a prodigious coal supply and a speed unsurpassable by cruisers, I can get. If war with England came to-morrow, the _Lusitania_ would be turned loose upon our commerce at once, and neither Wilhelmshaven, nor Bremen nor Hamburg boasts a vessel capable of overtaking her. She can sink our ships right and left, and show a clean pair of heels every time. Until yesterday I considered _Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, der Kroenprinz, die Deutschland_ and the flyer named after me capable commerce destroyers, but the _Lusitania_ could sink either of these giants, and boast of her record in the nearest English harbour protected by mines."

"But Majesty doesn't anticipate that merchantman will turn upon merchantman, and that passenger steamers in particular will be sunk either by vessels of the same lay calibre or by regular men-of-war?" ventured Herr Ballin, who evidently believed at that time in "scraps of paper."

"Herr Ballin," said the War Lord, "you were described to me as the most far-seeing and progressive of sea lords outside of my navy. Surely you can't be of opinion that in the great war to come international niceties will be allowed to cut any figure? If Germany must draw the sword before my navy is superior to the British, I propose to save my men-of-war and trust to submarines."

"But passenger steamers----" quoth Herr Ballin rather more timidly.

"Passenger steamers carry freight, and in time of war all goods that might possibly be of use to the enemy in any way, manner or form I consider contraband. And contraband spells destruction."

"Does Your Majesty anticipate that the English, French or Russians would attack Hamburg liners while engaged in the passenger traffic?"

"If they half know their business they will. For my part, I would not hesitate a moment to sink the _Lusitania_, or any other Cunarder at sight, since all are supposed to be in the service or, at least, at the service of their Government."

Herr Ballin breathed hard as he said: "May it please Your Majesty, what about neutrals? Like the Cunarders, the Hapag carries on every journey hundreds of American citizens."

"I don't know anything about a Yankee's food value," replied the War Lord cynically. "I think the denizens of the big herring-pond will have to make the best of them."

Herr Ballin bowed low. "As Your Majesty commands."

"It is settled then," continued the War Lord. "On your part, bigger and faster boats than the English; on my part, I promise to advise you of the date of the outbreak of hostilities long enough beforehand to save your vessels for the Fatherland. Even if circumstances decree their internment _en masse_, Germany will be the gainer in the end, when both our navy and our merchant marine remain unbroken."

Ballin was retreating backwards toward the door, when the War Lord recalled him. "I am dickering with Wilhelmina about Curacao for a coaling station, and"--banteringly--"if you could stir up war between the Netherlands and some other colonial power I would be very much obliged. We got the coaling station in the Red Sea through our pro-Boer sympathies. Curacao would make an excellent _aperitif_ after getting over Dutch troubles."

"The United States would object."

"Of course, but there are some twenty-six millions of Germans in America, every mother's son of them fighting-mad for me--part of my invisible army and almost as important as the other. The Germans in America have an immense vote-swaying power; they control Washington to a large extent, and some of the State Legislatures absolutely. And, as you know, each American State is sovereign. Suppose I would threaten to decree secession for the States between New York and Seattle, taking in New York, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri, etc. etc., where would Washington be? Would Roosevelt risk Civil War because I want a place to coal my ships not exactly five thousand miles from the Panama Canal?

"I tell you, my men controlling a large portion of the American Press won't let him. And, by the way, Ballin, the Hapag, the Lloyd, Woermann, etc., will have to give more extensive support to my German Press in America than is done now. _Die Staats Zeitungs_, the _Herolds_, and whatever-they-call-them can't live on wind. Ridder is a rapacious cuss and a Jesuit besides; but my Washington bureau tells me that his complaints are not altogether groundless. As my Germans become more and more Americanised, the German papers' circulations are dwindling, and likewise slumps the advertising. For this we must make up. German shipping and the industries engaged in international trade must support the German Press in New York, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Kansas City and the minor towns, as my Government supports the _Norddeutsche Allgemeine_ and Krupp his _Neueste Nachrichten_.

"By the way," he added, grabbing a "Bismarck pencil" suspended from a wire and scribbling on his calendar block, "I will have to tell Krupp, Loewe and the rest of the ammunition hogs to loosen up on those German papers in America. Podbielski shall see them about it. Of course he is no stockholder, but his dear Emma is." (The War Lord referred to the scandals connecting a German general with subserviency to army purveyors to the extent of awarding contracts exclusively to firms in which he was financially interested.)

"It might serve the Hapag and '_meine Wenigkeit_' (literally my inferiority, meaning your humble servant) if specifically informed respecting the invisible army Your Majesty was graciously pleased to allude to," bowed Herr Ballin.

"In the States," explained the War Lord, "my volunteers are mostly full-fledged citizens--universal suffrage, otherwise a stench in my nostrils, is working overtime for the German Cause there--but in the rest of the world merchant-princes, manufacturers, trade agents and skilled workmen do yeoman duty for me and the Fatherland. Of course we have a lot of adherents in England--'naturalised' they call them. Funny term! I hold that it would be most unnatural for a German to embrace another nationality, especially the English."

"Whenever you hear of troubles in Ireland, put it down to my invisible army. That same army has before this fomented labour troubles in Russia, and it never sleeps in France, particularly not in Paris."

And, lowering his voice, the War Lord talked of invisible forces building concrete gun-platforms along the French and Belgian frontiers--"foundations for manufacturing plants," he added sarcastically.

"Of course I am doing my bit in other respects too," he concluded. "I have fed some of these German editors from the States at my own table, and ---- bad manners they had too; and I have baited them with minor orders in plenty. If Ridder behaves himself I will make him a 'von' some day, and that German Congressman from Missouri--I forget his name--will get a five-pronged coronet too. But to return to Curacao. If I get a foothold there, I will have both French and English for neighbours--excellent chances for picking a quarrel if desirable."

The War Lord put a finger down vigorously on the Wedell--and Adjutant von Moltke buttons. The nephew of the great Field Marshal responded almost instantly. "I want Wedell."

"Count Wedell is in waiting, Your Majesty." Even while the equerry spoke, the sign language of the telephone announced that the Chief was at the Schloss.

"That Jew of yours will be useful," said Wilhelm approvingly. "He will obey orders like Krupp, but remember His Majesty can't do all the reconnoitring himself. I tell you for the hundredth time that your department is negligent with respect to England. You must get Ballin to help you."

Count Wedell winced. "If I have had the misfortune to fall short of Your Majesty's expectations----" he stuttered.

"'My resignation is, etc.' The old Wedell complaint; I know what you want to say. Only recently I stopped your cousin's litany by remarking: 'I thought you liked your salary and perquisites.' None of that nonsense, please. Listen: I have played sleuth for you at Portsmouth; I know the dockyards there like my pocket. The Solent and Cowes are open books to my General Staff, owing to descriptive matter and diagrams I have furnished, and what I did not tell Tirpitz about Gibraltar is not worth knowing. Really," he added, "English _naivete_ is astonishing, particularly in the face of the Press campaign. With the most widely circulated and best informed newspapers constantly reminding them that my whole naval policy is directed against Great Britain, English officials--military, naval and civilian--extend me every opportunity for the study of old England's defence and weakness. Thanks to my inspection, my General Staff is as well informed about the Gibraltar signal station as the first English Sea Lord--it is to laugh.

"And how they opened their ports to me: Leith, Port Victoria, Folkestone were as free to the _Hohenzollern_ as Piccadilly Circus.

"The next time I visit Edward I will drive my yacht right up above Tilbury. See if I don't."

"Poor devil of a pilot," mocked Count Wedell.

"Now, don't credit the English War Office with more circumspection than the average German schoolboy has," guffawed Wilhelm; "the pilot will probably get the V.C., and I promise Tirpitz some astounding information for, while on the bridge, I will pump the pilot dry--absolutely dry.

"I really worked hard for your department," concluded Wilhelm; "now show that you can follow my lead."

"Perhaps Majesty favours establishment of semaphores on the British coast on a larger scale."

"After we prohibited the keeping of carrier pigeons in the neighbourhood of German naval stations? No, _Herr Graf_, I am not dispensing meal tickets to penny-a-liners just now. Think of something new, something Ballin can do for us."

"I submit that cheap excursions to English harbours and seaside resorts, arranged by the Hamburg line during the holiday season----"

"I take it all back," cried Wilhelm. "You are earning your salary, Wedell. Capital idea. The Naval Intelligence Service shall subscribe for a hundred berths, sending its most expert photographers, topographers, surveyors, fortification experts and naval men. In mufti, of course, and you will have men on board to spot fools that betray their official connections. Tell Ballin I want some of his largest steamers for this service, so that my army and my navy men get well lost in the crowd. The larger the crowd, the more men of military age and reservists, of course."

"Your Majesty thinks of everything."

"I have to," said the War Lord. "And make a note of it. Amateur photography is to be encouraged in the schools, the press, in society. No use sending crowds of Germans to England unless they bring back plenty of photographic evidence relating to the enemy coast and land defences. As a special inducement, Ballin shall have a dark-room on board and develop films free of charge. In that way we will get duplicates of everything."

"I beg to submit," said Wedell, "there is still another aspect to Your Majesty's enlightened prospect."

"Fire away!"

"The legend of impossible invasion will suffer a collapse with everybody observing that the supposed impregnability of Dover is all moonshine."

"Not half bad," said the War Lord. "Those tourists will make splendid _commis voyageurs_ for our army of invasion."

"_Agents provocateurs_!"

Wilhelm shrugged impatiently. "Fouche's business! Of course my War Office will furnish the dates for the excursions. Sounds ridiculous, but England's little vest-pocket army indulges in annual manoeuvres like my own, and it would be curious if some valuable information could not be gleaned from a boat full of military and semi-military sightseers. Of course the English naval manoeuvres are much more important. Sometimes a simple tourist sees things for which the official and unofficial representatives of my Admiralty and your own department, Wedell, search in vain."

The discussion continued in the same vein for another half-hour, the War Lord impressing upon Wedell the absolute necessity of increased espionage in England. "Thirty-six years ago," said Wilhelm in conclusion, "Bismarck had over thirty thousand spies and sympathisers in France doing his work. Have we got as many in England to-day? How many are on the pay-rolls of English railways, of Scotch railways and, particularly, of Irish railways? You can't tell off-hand? Report within three days. And don't forget the proofs, if you please. I likewise want to know how many of your men are detailed to attack British arsenals, harbours, wireless stations and so forth in the event of war. Whatever their number, duplicate, nay, treble it, and don't be sparing with promises. If we invade England, we won't get out in a hurry, tell them, and there will be plenty of pickings for our friends while we are on the Insular side of the Channel.

"Remind them that our army of occupation remained in France two years and five months after peace had been signed. I propose to enjoy English hospitality even a while longer, and the people that serve us 'before and aft' can make enough money while we are in England to evacuate with us and live on their interests in the Fatherland after Threadneedle Street has paid the last instalment. Think of it! Serve the War Lord and feather one's own nest at the same time."

Wilhelm had been sitting down uncommonly long. Indeed he had been almost confidential with his pal in the conspiracy international. He now rose, squared his shoulders and assumed his favourite character of the graven image.

"I don't like Krupp's ignorance of things English. Shall make a few trips into England, and see what there is to be seen," he said in a tone of command. He continued: "I want a talk from Court Chaplain Dryander on the chosen people, not on the Jews--on the term. Got impressed with it while talking to Ballin. Germans the chosen people! Sounds good!"

"Dryander will report at eleven to-morrow morning. Order (Professor) Delbrueck to be here at the same time. I will see him after the sky-pilot has gone. Parsons are such romancers; it's well to digest their palaver to the accompaniment of historic facts."

"One thing more." The War Lord grabbed a pencil and marked asafoetida on half a dozen pages of his daily calendar. "I want to have a conference with chemists by and by."

*CHAPTER XXIX*

*SOME MORE SECRET HISTORY*

Deluding Rathenau--Callous Experiments--What Lord Palmerston
Said--The Kaiser's Aims

"What is this I hear?" demanded the War Lord, having scantily acknowledged Herr Krupp von Bohlen's low obeisance. "I want you to understand once and for all that your wife is my ward, and that any offence to her spells disrespect to Majesty."

The Overlord of the Krupp works was confused with surprise. He attempted to make answer, but did not get further than a formal: "May it please Your Majesty."

"I have no further commands for you at the moment," he was cut short. "Wait in the Adjutant's room until called."

"A.E.G.," cried Wilhelm to the adjutant of the House Marshal's office, opening the door for Krupp.

"My dear Rathenau," he said, when an old man, stout and stockily built, with a philanthropic chin and a complexion denoting indifferent health, walked in. "My dear Rathenau, being credited with seeing ahead, perhaps you'll tell me what this means?" And he pointed to half a dozen entries topping his daily calendar.

"Asafoetida," read the electrical end of the Jewish triumvirate of self-made men--Ballin, Thyssen, Rathenau. "Does Majesty want me to create a corner in the reverse of eau de Cologne?"

"Yes and no," said Wilhelm. "But like Ziethen did before Frederick, sit down. And so you may not fall asleep like the great cavalry leader when visiting the king in his old age, I will tell you a story."

He retailed the yarn about the meeting between Franz Ferdinand and Cardinal Schlauch, the Secret Service man in the bed, and what No. 103 wished he had placed under the bed before the interview.

"It gave me an idea," he continued, "an idea, I confess, strengthened at Essen. Why not bottle the noxious gases set free in the furnaces, and let them loose on the enemy?"

"What, kill them wholesale?" cried Rathenau, moving uneasily in his chair. Philanthropy is one of his hobbies, and underhanded methods go against his grain. The War Lord knows this, and clapped the silencer on his savage bluntness.

"Kill them? No. Wholesale? No, too. There is to be no gale of these gases--just a breeze to knock out, or knock over, offensive or defensive. I figure this way: Maybe the enemy, entrenched, has to be dislodged at any price to gain some given point. We can't get at them with the ordinary style of weapon; they won't come out even to be hand-grenaded. In such cases, I hold it good strategy to smoke them out."

"Asphyxiating gas," mumbled Rathenau half to himself.

"A good name--something suspending animation--suspending it while we take the coveted place. We won't lose a man, and the enemy is mulcted out of prisoners only, for all placed _hors de combat_ by our chemicals will be cared for by the Red Cross."

"Majesty does not intend to have the gases absolutely poisonous?" inquired Rathenau.

"Now, would I have asked you, whose humanity all Berlin admires, if I did?" cried the War Lord; "if I was signing death warrants, I would not have applied to you, but to Krupp. He is a natural born butcher, I tell you. Krupp devises means to destroy life with the gusto of an American barkeeper mixing cocktails. They blamed Nero for saying he wished the Roman people had but one head that he might knock it off. You should see Krupp gloat over my new howitzers."

"And those noxious gases, the workings of which Your Majesty observed at Essen, do not inflict permanent injury?"

"In the majority of cases black coffee suffices to make the men fit for work again; in a minor number of cases mild palliatives are required. I advised free distribution of milk for those suffering from a weak stomach. Hypodermic injections are resorted to once or twice a week. So you see our 'gassing' will be quite harmless."

When the President and Owner of the "A.E.G." (German for General Electric Company) still refused to wax enthusiastic, the War Lord tried a new tag. "It's the charitableness--I almost said the Christianity--of the thing that mainly attracts me," he lied. "You remember Valentina's husband in _The Huguenots_. He was murdered during St. Bartholomew's night, at the side of my ancestor, Admiral Coligny. The Comte de Nevars had been asked a little while before to join in the massacre of the Protestants, but refused, pleading that his family contained a long list of warriors, but not a single assassin. So am I trying to curtail killing by the proposed new method of attack. Prisoners, yes; the more the merrier; but deaths and wounds as few as possible."

"Hydrochlorine, with the accent on the hydro, might possibly serve Your Majesty," said Rathenau, after thinking hard for a few seconds.

"Very well, write it down," ordered the War Lord. "Besides Krupp, who can furnish this chemical?"

"The Ruhr Chemical Works and the Ludwigshafen Aniline Factory might."

Rathenau was dismissed with scant thanks, and Krupp was readmitted to listen to the substance of Wilhelm's conference with the President of the A.E.G., the latter's philanthropic objections being carefully marked as the War Lord's own, while the diluting advised was dismissed as namby-pamby.

Krupp, after listening respectfully, said: "May it please Your Majesty, I have had a little experience with asphyxiating gas. We used it to destroy a number of consumptive cows, thinking it the more humane method. They were to be benumbed before slaughter.

"God forbid that Bertha, who is very much attached to the animals on the estate, ever learns what really did happen. As for myself, I had an inkling, but where experience is to be gained charity must take a back seat."

"Well said," commented the War Lord. "Go on!"

"We tethered the cattle in an enclosure, their heads over a furrow from which the poison gas was rising. It had a sharp, bitter smell, and as it caught the animals' throat they gasped and choked. Some attempted to breathe deeply and could not, and all went giddy, it seemed, but did not lose consciousness.

"The chief vet. had predicted that the intense irritation of the bronchial mucous membrane would fill the tubes with a fluid which the animals could not expel, and this is what did happen.

"We let them suffer for experience's sake, then gave them salted water. This cleared their lungs and forestalled complete suffocation."

"You have gathered the technical information from the medical report?" asked the War Lord.

"Partly from that, partly from observation," replied Krupp. "When the vets. stated that the animals were on the point of slow suffocation--drowning, we killed them by the quicker method. But one cow was allowed to die by poison gas, to give necessary clues to the medical men. They stated, after investigation, that the gas had had a corrosive action, destroying the mucosa."

"Very interesting," said the War Lord, who had seemingly forgotten about his pretended motives of philanthropy. "Your chief vet. shall report in full to my Ministry of Cult. I shall order that from now on condemned animals shall be delivered to the concerns manufacturing this kind of gas for scientific experiments."

The red disc on the War Lord's desk went up. Wilhelm looked at the clock. "Delbrueck." Then, turning to Krupp: "You shall wait and hear what he has to say."

The successor of Professor Treitschke was bringing the War Lord an essay on "Germany as the Land of the Chosen People," a sort of theological-political tract, suggested by Wilhelm and partly formulated by Court Chaplain Dryander. Its present form had been decided on by Professors Harnack, Schiemann, Meyer and the editor of the Prussian Annals (_Preussische Jahrbuecher Magazin_).

"Typed," said the War Lord approvingly. "I wish you would instil that modern idea into those of your colleagues, who annoy me by their handwriting. The worse it is, the more scientific they deem it. I will read it presently. Now tell Krupp how you view the situation with regard to England."

"The United Kingdom they call it," sneered Delbrueck, the most loquacious of "that damned band of professors," to quote Palmerston. "Well, there will be one less in the quartette when war comes--Ireland. The Green Isle will join us when the first shot is fired by a German battery. Further, there is every reason to believe that the title of Emperor of India will be as obsolete as that of King of Jerusalem before hostilities are under way a month, while New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Canada will certainly not miss the chance for gaining independence."

Herr Krupp looked at His Majesty in quite bewildered fashion. Evidently he had not reckoned on such far-reaching eventualities, but the War Lord had.

"Miss their chance for independence? Not likely! Go on, Delbrueck. Tell him about the Boers."

"I needn't assure you, Herr Krupp, on which side the defeated of 1901 will fight. It is self-evident," said Delbrueck.

"And Egypt?" ventured Herr Krupp, to show his patriotism.

"German industry and discipline shall fructify the land of the Pharaohs like the Nile itself. We will drive out the English of course," cried the War Lord.

"The arming of India will be a tremendous task," he continued. "As you know, I am sending the Crown Prince to India, and the military experts accompanying him will furnish all missing links."

"May I suggest that His Imperial Highness sound the Indian Princes," interpolated Professor Delbrueck.

"All that is provided for," retorted the War Lord.

But Delbrueck would not be discouraged in his optimisms. "In addition," he went on, "Krupp guns will bark forth the declaration of independence by South Africa, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the rest of the British dominions, territories and Island Kingdoms. Quite an undertaking, eh?"

At this point the War Lord came to Delbrueck's relief. "Finally there is that beggar Turkey. You mustn't be hard on Abdul Hamid, Krupp. Bad pay, of course, but he never hesitates about pulling chestnuts out of the fire for me, and I like him. Besides, since we pay China a subsidy of a million per year for getting ready to wallop Nicholas, why not treat Constantinople with liberality?"

Krupp bowed and promised to talk the matter over with his board of directors, but the War Lord scarcely listened. He had deigned to express a wish--woe to the person, or persons, not interpreting the wish as an All Highest command.

He turned to the professor. "Delbrueck," he said, "I had a letter from Francis Joseph. He has set his heart on Bosnia, and wants me to support him. Is there any way of arguing with Russia from the historic point of view?"

"I will look into the matter for Your Majesty at once."

"Very well. If you do not succeed, Russia will get a glimpse of my shining armour, which is the best argument, after all."

"Now you know my friends, official and otherwise," concluded Wilhelm, again addressing Krupp; "about my aims I have talked to you before. Always bear in mind that I am German Emperor--an expansive title relating to all lands and peoples of the Germanic family, no matter what name they may go under.