My arrival in Berlin took place just at the beginning of the golden-wedding festivities of the old Emperor William I. There was a wonderful series of pageants: historic costume balls, gala operas, and the like, at court;but most memorable to me was the kindly welcome extended to us by all in authority, from the Emperor and Empress down. The cordiality of the diplomatic corps was also very pleasing, and during the presentations to the ruling family of the empire I noticed one thing especially:
the great care with which they all, from the monarch to the youngest prince, had prepared themselves to begin a conversation agreeable to the new-comer. One of these high personages started a discussion with me upon American shipping; another, on American art; another, on scenery in Colorado; another, on our railways and steamers;still another, on American dentists and dentistry;and, in case of a lack of other subjects, there was Niagara, which they could always fall back upon.
The duty of a prince of the house of Hohenzollern is by no means light; it involves toil. In my time, when the present emperor, then the young Prince William, brought his bride home, in addition to their other receptions of public bodies, day after day and hour after hour, they received the diplomatic corps, who were arranged at the palace in a great circle, the ladies forming one half and the gentlemen the other. The young princess, accompanied by her train, beginning with the ladies, and the young prince, with his train, beginning with the gentlemen, each walked slowly around the interior of the entire circle, stopping at each foreign representative and speaking to him, often in the language of his own country, regarding some subject which might be supposed to interest him. It was really a surprising feat, for which, no doubt, they had been carefully prepared, but which would be found difficult even by many a well-trained scholar.
An American representative, in presenting his letter of credence from the President of the United States to the ruler of the German Empire, has one advantage in the fact that he has an admirable topic ready to his hand, such as perhaps no other minister has. This boon was given us by Frederick the Great. He, among the first of Continental rulers, recognized the American States as an independent power; and therefore every American minister since, including myself, has found it convenient, on presenting the President's autograph letter to the King or Emperor, to recall this event and to build upon it such an oratorical edifice as circumstances may warrant. The fact that the great Frederick recognized the new American Republic, not from love of it, but on account of his detestation of England, provoked by her conduct during his desperate struggle against his Continental enemies, is, of course, on such occasions diplomatically kept in the background.
The great power in Germany at that time was the chancellor, Prince Bismarck. Nothing could be more friendly and simple than his greeting; and however stately his official entertainments to the diplomatic corps might be, simplicity reigned at his family dinners, when his conversation was apparently frank and certainly delightful.
To him I shall devote another chapter.
In those days an American minister at Berlin was likely to find his personal relations with the German minister of foreign affairs cordial, but his official relations continuous war. Hardly a day passed without some skirmish regarding the rights of ``German-Americans''
in their Fatherland. The old story constantly recurred in new forms. Generally it was sprung by some man who had left Germany just at the age for entering the army, had remained in America just long enough to secure naturalization, and then, without a thought of discharging any of his American duties, had come back to claim exemption from his German duties, and to flaunt his American citizen papers in the face of the authorities of the province where he was born. This was very galling to these authorities, from the fact that such Americans were often inclined to glory over their old schoolmates and associates who had not taken this means of escaping military duty; and it was no wonder that these brand-new citizens, if their papers were not perfectly regular, were sometimes held for desertion until the American representative could intervene.
Still other cases were those where fines had been imposed upon men of this class for non-appearance when summoned to military duty, and an American minister was expected to secure their remission.
In simple justice to Germany, it ought to be said that there is no foreign matter of such importance so little understood in the United States as this. The average American, looking on the surface of things, cannot see why the young emigrant is not allowed to go and come as he pleases. The fact is that German policy in this respect has been evolved in obedience to the instinct of national self-preservation. The German Empire, the greatest Continental home of civilization, is an open camp, perpetually besieged. Speaking in a general way, it has no natural frontiers of any sort--neither mountains nor wide expanses of sea. Eastward are one hundred and thirty millions of people fanatically hostile as regards race, religion, and imaginary interests; westward is another great nation of forty millions, with a hatred on all these points intensified by desire for revenge; northward is a vigorous race estranged by old quarrels; and south is a power which is largely hostile on racial, religious, and historic grounds, and at best a very uncertain reliance.
