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and conceal emotions, his extraordinary will-power, his stedfastness of purpose, and his unswerving adherence to the object attained, were not generally characteristic of the Greeks of to-day, and yet Venizelos was a genuine Greek. His ancestors were living in Hellas when the Venetian Admiral Francesco Morosini bombarded and destroyed the Parthenon (about the middle of the seventeenth century). The name was originally Byzantine. The family had gone to Pylos, on the fertile western coast of the Peloponnesus, having been compensated by the Venetian Republic with a generous gift of land for the part they took in the efforts of Athens to cooperate against the Turks. From Pylos they moved to Crevatas, near Sparta, and then to the island of Crete, whence Venizelos in 1910 was invited by the Military League to assume the leadership in the revolution. Venizelos had himself in Crete taken an active part in uprisings against the Turk. He was a dreamer of dreams, his optimism as boundless as was his ability to transform dreams into realities. His hopes and his dreams were, however, interwoven with pure calculation. He was a kind of prophet and never had believed a Balkan confederacy was a hopeless impossibility.57

RENÉ VIVIANI, PREMIER OF FRANCE

In America it is sometimes as difficult to dislodge a Cabinet officer as it is in France to retain one. The French form of government makes the Cabinet, as to its members, responsible to Parliament for official acts performed by the President of France. This for a new Premier makes the problems of forming a Cabinet and getting a Parliament to indorse it, a task sufficient to daunt many aspirants for that great political honor. René Viviani for a second time had the task, his first having been a failure; but his successor's Cabinet soon failed, and Viviani took up the task. Parliament then approved his selection by a generous majority vote, in spite of the fact that the list was practically identical with a list M. Ribot had just before submitted. The personality of Viviani, rather than the men whom he chose, brought him success where others had failed. What that personality was America had an opportunity to learn, in 1917, when Viviani came to this country with Joffre. A fine thing it was seen to be.

When the war began Viviani was Premier, and in his fifty-second year, or about the age of most active leaders in French politics. He was born in Algiers, where a new France of mixed race had sprung up since Algiers became a French colony. After law studies in

57 Adapted, in the main, from articles by T. Lothrop Stoddard and Miltiades Christophides in The Review of Reviews (New York).

Paris, he was enrolled in the Algerian bar, but with his great ability he soon gravitated toward Paris, where in 1889 he was made secretary of the Paris bar, an honorable position from which other chiefs of the Republic, including Gambetta, had made their start in public life. Four years later he was elected to Parliament, and he had held his seat ever afterward, with the exception of a four-year term in another office. In 1906, when he made his reappearance in Parliament, Clémenceau, then Premier, made him Minister of Labor. He held over in the later Briand Government until the end of 1910, when he was made Minister of Public Instruction.

Viviani, therefore, had had ample experience in public life when the war began and found him Premier. Unlike Briand and Millerand, who like him were Independent Socialists, he had not been a group leader. Perhaps his kind of independence had sometimes stood in the way of his success. He had never bent to the discipline of the United Socialists under Jaurès, whom he did not follow otherwise than to give recognition to him as leader. He was equally his own man under Briand and Clémenceau. Personally and professionally he was an old friend of President Poincaré, tho standing at the other end in politics. This became an advantage to him in a political crisis, for it eased the personal relations which existed between him and the President.

As a speaker Viviani ranked high. Joffre when here told us he was the best orator in France. But he was a little too academic to have the same popularity as Jaurès. Viviani as Premier made answer for France to the German ultimatum in August, 1914. "France must consult her own interests," said he. He was essentially an artist; he knew the work of almost every living French painter of any prominence. No poet gained renown in France without some gracious word from him, uttered when the poet was striving for recognition. He was essentially a man of taste, a discerning critic, and a perfect magician in the use of words. He had attracted, perhaps, more attention than any recent statesman in France because of his intellectual gifts. He had a fine presence, flashing eyes and a voice that was described as “a kaleidoscope of sound, changing effects in every new combination." At one moment it was soft with pathos, at another poetic and musical, and it could flow with martial energy.58

55 Compiled from articles in The Literary Digest, The Evening Post, The Tribune, The Times and The Review of Reviews (New York).

WILLIAM II, THE FORMER GERMAN EMPEROR

At the outbreak of the war friends of William of Hohenzollern, who when the war ended had become the most humiliated, if not the most hated man, of his generation, insisted that he was naturally a peaceful man, altho he had grown up in a tradition of war. His avocations, such as yachting at Kiel, digging for antiquities at Corfu, and building museums, clearly were not the occupations of a man wholly given over to martial deeds. The development of his country, his gifts to universities, his courtesy to American and other yachtsmen at Kiel, all seemed to show a recognition of the high value of peaceful pursuits. Germany had had other rulers who were, perhaps, as energetic as he, but none with such varied interests. Every one who had been at a regatta at Kiel recalled his cordial way, and how he took defeats like a sportsman and victories like a gentleman. Yachting was not a passing fad with him. Year after year he had built boats and induced his subjects to do likewise. Men who had been on his yacht noted how little "style" he put on, how he enjoyed the sudden excitement and accidents due to wet decks and gusty breezes.

It was, perhaps, at Forfu that he showed most clearly how well he liked the pursuits of peace. There, week after week, each spring for several years, he had lived above the town in a villa built for the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, or in his private steamship, the Hohenzollern. The usual sleepiness of Corfu suffered a change when the Kaiser got there. He was accompanied by no pomp, only the necessary staff and one or more famous scholars. Of the latter one was Dr. Dorpfeld, architect and excavator, with whom he enjoyed getting up in the morning by six and going to the site of a Greek temple, where excavations were made. He not only went early but often stayed till the workmen went home, his excitement when anything was turned up delightful to see.

Miss Anna Topham, an English woman, serving some years as governess to the Kaiser's only daughter, who afterward became the Duchess of Brunswick, and thus had had an opportunity for observing the Kaiser under pleasant circumstances, wrote a book about him, "Memoirs of the Kaiser's Court," which was published before there had been any threat of war. She had not been long in the imperial family when she discovered that the Emperor was not always "playing the part of the frowning imperial personage of fierce mustaches, corrugated brow, and continually clenched mailed fist"—that he frequently "receded from this warlike attitude and became an ordinary, humorous, domestic 'papa.'"

The presence of the Emperor at some of his numerous residences,

however, would make a great difference in the atmosphere of the place. "A certain vitality, and still more a certain amount of strain, became visible," said Miss Topham. "Everybody was to be ready to do anything and go anywhere at a moment's notice to be always in the appropriate costume for walking, riding, or driving. It was altogether a strenuous existence for the entourage, that had always, so to speak, to be mobilized for active service, which was probably just what the Emperor wished. From early morning till night there was hardly a moment of respite from duty."

The Kaiser's six sons and his favorite child, his daughter, were always in his mind. He had a chivalrous way in making his wife

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the leading personage on State occasions. He led a simple household life, in spite of the splendor of his surroundings. Professor Münstenberg of Harvard recalled having seen the Empress in a magnificent evening-gown, wearing long chains of superb pearls, sitting down at the Emperor's side after dinner to do crochet work for a Christmas bazar, while talk between the two and their guests flitted hither and thither. The Kaiser was fond of long walks, rode horseback often and went hunting. Whenever State affairs permitted it, he took an outing. A multitude of topics were familiar to him, in science and art, branches of technique and practical life, movements in social reform and religion. He had one of the rarest of qualities, the

ability to meet every one in his own field, such as Theodore Roosevelt had. After a Congress of Arts and Sciences during the St. Louis World's Fair, which was attended by more than a hundred leading European scholars of all scientific denominations, the international party went to Washington, where Professor Münstenberg had the honor of introducing each to the President, who received them in the East Room, where he talked with philologists about philology, with naturalists about natural science, with historians about history, with geographers about geography, and with lawyers about law.

Six years later Professor Münstenberg came to believe that the Kaiser in that art could outdo Roosevelt. It was at the hundredth anniversary of Berlin University to which the scholarly masterspirits of the world had come as delegates. After a great banquet in the gala halls of the Berlin castle, the Emperor received the foreign scholars personally, and Professor Münstenberg happened to stand quite close to him. He found it an intellectual delight to watch the versatility with which he met every man with a mention of his particular subject. The feat became the more fascinating because he addrest every one in his own language, speaking especially French and English with almost the same ease as German.

Caricatures made him appear a pompous man, who talked in a medieval and mystical way about divine rights which had lifted him above mankind. In reality, according to Professor Münstenberg, he was genial and thoroughly human. He would never stoop to undignified behavior, would never play the Emperor in shirt-sleeves; and in informal talk would stick to a certain formality when he spoke about royal persons. He did not in friendly anterooms appear to think himself a human being above others, but it was different with the office which had come to him by inheritance. That was treated as if it had been God-given. The crown to him was of divine grace, just as the wedding ring was of divine grace. A king was more than a citizen; he became the bearer of an office. This exprest the view which not only the Emperor had of himself, but which practically every German had of the meaning of royalty.

After the war had been some months in progress, observers noticed that the Kaiser's hair had become quite white, his face drawn and care-worn, his manner abrupt and lacking the ceremonial calm that once was shown. He was trying to carry the weight of the war upon his own shoulders; no detail was too trifling to escape his attention, and he was working twenty hours a day. The Kaiser was constantly at the front with his sons. He was in Berlin seldom. As the German troops moved forward in the west he made his camp in deserted French châteaux or in a portable house. Each day he was in his

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