automobile at daybreak and it was common for him to do 200 miles a day along trenches. Always he had with him tobacco and cigarets for his "children," as he frequently called his soldiers in little talks when the machine halted. His interest in their comfort, his presence on the field, his devotion to the fatherland, early in the war inspired in soldiers something that approached veneration. His face in those days never lost gravity of expression. He never indulged in humorous sallies.

William II was fifty-nine years old on January 27, 1918. Altho one of his arms was withered, he had been a great out-of-doors man, and after a weak childhood grew into a strong and rugged man. What was called a typical day at the front was thus described by an eye-witness early in October, 1914: 59

"Rid yourself, first of all, of the idea that the Emperor is a heroic figure. He is a man not exactly of small stature, but he is distinctly below the average height and rather fat, so that he is more like a typical German beer drinker and sausage eater than a knightly cavalier. Moreover, his left arm is about ten inches shorter than the right arm and partially paralyzed. This deformity strikes the eye unpleasantly, tho one can not withhold a certain admiration for the energy which enabled the Kaiser to become a good shot and a passable rider in spite of this tremendous handicap.

"On this particular occasion the Kaiser had been sleeping in a French château, but not without elaborate precautions against a surprize attack. The château was fortified against aerial attacks. Sacks were piled on the roof and a protective shield of metal network was erected. Whenever the Kaiser moves his quarters a small army of military engineers precedes him to carry out these defensive measures before his arrival. Around the château were men of his special body-guard, a detachment was outside of his bedroom door, another in the hall, another at the front door, and two more detachments were in the rooms immediately above and beneath his own room. Three unbroken lines of sentries surrounded the house, a whole battalion of infantry and several squadrons of cavalry were encamped in the parks. This was some twenty miles from the front, and the château was connected by field-telegraph with the headquarters of the nearest army, so that any sudden retreat of the German legions should not place the Supreme War Lord in danger.

"Soon after sunrise the Kaiser emerged from the château and greeted his soldiers with his customary 'Good morning, soldiers,' to which all of them in the immediate vicinity replied in unison: 'Good morning, Your Majesty.' A motor-car was in readiness and he was whirled swiftly toward the front, while the troops which had guarded him stood rigidly at attention. Ten drummers of the body-guard beat their drums

59 The account was printed in The Herald (New York).

by way of salute. The imperial standard was conveyed in the second motor-car and the officers of the imperial suite followed in others. The cavalry of the body-guard preceded the monarch to the place where he left the motor-car to mount his horse.

"Then followed a spectacular progress from point to point in the rear of the fighting-line-at a safe distance to the rear, I may add, because the Supreme War Lord must not be exposed to stray bullets or shrapnel. Large bodies of reserves had bivouacked in those parts and fresh troops were marching up from the direction of the frontier. The Kaiser halted and addrest a fervently patriotic oration to one regiment and another to the second regiment as he rode from place to place. During the morning he delivered no less than nine speeches, all bombastic and excessively martial in tone. Lunch was taken in the open air at a table in front of a certain General's tent. Wine and food commandeered from the residence of a French country gentleman supplied the Kaiser with a splendidly luxurious meal prepared by his own cook and served by his flunkeys in gorgeously striped uniforms. None of the pomp of the imperial court was abandoned at the front. More visits to the troops and more speeches in the afternoon and back by automobile to the château for dinner. At no moment during the day had the Kaiser been within range of the enemy's fire."

The Kaiser had as a war talisman-it availed him little, however, as events proved -a four-leafed sprig of clover, prest, dried and tucked away in a pocketbook under his gray great-coat. Long after the beginning of the war he had carried it next his breast, where hope of victory beat. About this talisman had been woven a pretty story which THE KAISER'S SISTER, formed a new romance in the life of the

UNIFORM

Hohenzollerns. It had been plucked by child

ish hands in 1870. Tho it had become in 1914 a mere wisp of memories, Empress, war-lords, soldiers and people all said it would bring victory to the Kaiser, just as it had brought victory to his grandfather at Sedan. It appeared that the little daughter of an old court official, named Louis Schneider, during the campaign of July, 1870, had plucked in a garden this piece of clover and been allowed to present it to the old King Wilhelm, who

thereafter kept it in his note-book. After months had passed, when German troops were marching back in triumph to Berlin, one day along the route little Miss Schneider and her father were summoned into the presence of the newly made Emperor. "Here is your piece of clover," said Kaiser Wilhelm, as he opened the leaves of his notebook. "It has won me victory; it has brought me luck. I give it back to you, my child, and I hope it will bring you luck, too." The aged monarch then walked to a mirror, cut off one of his white locks of hair, and handed it with the clover leaf to Miss Schneider.

Years passed and Miss Schneider presented the precious clover leaf to the daughter of a Countess as a baptismal gift. Again years passed until it was August, 1914, and the German Empress in Berlin one day received in audience the Countess, now a widow, and her daughter, who carried in her hand the talisman of 1870, and asked if she might give it to the Emperor. "His Majesty is very busy," said the Empress, "but I will take your talisman and will give it to His Majesty with your best wishes," adding that she hoped it would be as powerful now in bringing victory as it had been for the Emperor's grandfather forty-four years before.

Late in the war the Kaiser one day after tea in Berlin, when the Empress and her ladies had retired, spoke in turn to the men present commonplace phrases enough, about the weather, new books, and the efficiency of the German railway system, and seemed to be making an effort to keep off the delicate topic of the war, when one of the party exprest admiration for the discipline and unanimity of the German people, and he said:

"That is the impression most foreigners should get, even hostile foreigners. I suppose for one thing the contrast between Germany as depicted by our enemies-Germany restive, war-tired, and half-famished -and the united, enthusiastic, still prosperous country when actually seen, would cause them a great deal of astonishment. The British theory that I am responsible for the war has got a great hold on the English people. It is curious how this theory seems to fascinate all my enemies. Yet the people who accuse me of having caused the war are the very people who previously testified to my earnestness for peace. I do not envy the man who had the responsibility for this war upon his conscience. I at least am not that man. I think history will clear me of that charge, altho I do not suppose that history will hold me faultless. In a sense every civilized man in Europe must have a share in the responsibility for this war, and the higher his position the larger his responsibility. I admit that, and yet claim that I acted throughout in good faith, and strove hard for peace, even tho war was inevitable. Why do neutrals always talk about German militarism and never about Russian despotism, the French craving for revenge, English treachery?

I think the next generation will strike a juster balance in apportioning blame.'' 60

Men who read this statement at that time recalled after the war a remark made by Dr. Muehlon, the Krupp director, that in July, 1914, the Kaiser could have prevented the war, if only he had raised his hand once to Austria-that is, if he had simply said "No" to the Austrian proposal to make war on Serbia. It was recalled, also, that, in the barbarous conduct of the war, by submarines, Zeppelins, poison-gas, devastation and deportations, the responsibility had in the main been the Kaiser's, for they were unlawful war processes which he might have stopt, but so far as known, never attempted to stop.

One respect in which the war modified his character was that, late in the conflict, he did not assert his authority or his position in the old-time autocratic way. This was revealed plainly in his treatment of members of the Great General Staff. An occasional interference with a general plan was ventured, but only after due deliberation with the Imperial Chancellor, and members of the Bundesrath. In council he had become a listener rather than a talker, prone to defer to the judgment of others, but conscious at all times, perhaps, that his knowledge of the art of war was intuitive rather than scientific. Berlin inclined at times to a suspicion that the ordeal of war had tinged his disposition with meekness and humility, altho by no means with a diminished sense of his importance as the divinely appointed leader of the German people.

Until the war began the Kaiser had kept his consort somewhat in the background. In the course of his long reign she had been almost a cipher except for her sovereignty in the domestic sphere. There she reigned supreme, prescribing, it was said, even the thickness of the socks worn by the Emperor, forbidding strong cigars and concocting a peculiar broth, or beef soup, which was his diet when his throat became sensitive. During the war for the first time he was seen thrusting the Empress forward, as if he had revised his theory that she was unlucky. In this sorrowful period, the Empress, said an Italian journalist who saw her at Vienna, had the same wonderful blue eyes that had captivated William when, as a girl of twenty-two, he first saw her in a hammock at Primkenau, her father's castle in Silesia, and called her "a rosebud." Her eyes were very large, rather dark for so pronounced a blonde, stedfast and clear, with a full pupil. It had been said that she was able "to speak all the languages of Europe just with her eyes." She cast the spell of her fascination upon the young Austro-Hungarian Empress-Queen Zita, despite the difference in their ages, and was emphatically a woman's woman, 00 Berlin letter to The Daily News (London).