But the Grand Mogul of the German War Party, its pet, darling and patron saint, was Crown Prince William, the Kaiser’s ebullient heir who contributed so conspicuously to Germany’s loss of Paris in September, 1914. For ten years he was the apple of the army’s eye. William II’s oratorical peace palaverings long ago convinced his military paladins that their hopes could no longer with safety be pinned on the monarch who would do nothing but _rattle_ his saber. "A place in the sun" could never be achieved by such tactics, they argued, so they transferred their affections and their expectations to the "young man" who cheered in the Reichstag when his father’s Government was accused of cowardice in Morocco. They placed their destinies in the keeping of the Imperial hotspur who wrote in his book, _Germany in Arms_, that "visionary dreams of everlasting peace throughout the world are un-German." Their real allegiance was sworn henceforth to the swashbuckling young buffoon, who, taking leave of the Death’s Head Hussars after two years’ colonelcy, admonished them to "think of him whose most ardent desire it has always been to be allowed to share at your side the supreme moment of a soldier’s happiness--when the King calls to arms and the bugle sounds the charge!" It was an open secret that when the Crown Prince was exiled to the command of a cavalry regiment in dreamy Danzig, far away from the frenzied plaudits of the multitude in Berlin, the Kaiser’s action was inspired by the disquieting realisation that his heir was acquiring a popularity, both in and out of the army, which boded ill for the security of the monarch’s own status with his subjects. These, then, are the men, and these their principal methods, which provided the scenario for the impending clash. As with every great "production," preliminary plans were well and truly laid. Rehearsals, in the form of stupendous maneuvers on "a strictly warlike basis," had brought the chief actors, scene shifters and other accessories to first-night pitch. The stage managers’ work was done. They had now only to take their appointed places in the flies and wings and let the tragedy proceed. The rest could be left to the puppets on both sides of the footlights. A month of slow music, and then the grand _finale_. CHAPTER V SLOW MUSIC July in Berlin of the red summer of 1914 began as placidly as a feast day in Utopia. The electric shock of Serajevo soon spent its force. Germans seemed to be vastly more concerned over the effect of the Archduke’s assassination on the health of the old Austrian Emperor than over resultant international complications. It was Sir Edward Goschen, British Ambassador in Berlin, previously accredited to the Vienna court, who recalled to me Francis Joseph’s once-expressed determination to outlive his heir. The doddering octogenarian had realized his grim ambition.