The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2)Fontenoy, marquise de
History
The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2)
Fontenoy, marquise de
Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria, 1830-1916; William II, German Emperor, 1859-1941
Fair-haired and blue-eyed, with the down of a blond moustache upon his
upper lip, the young prince is a typical Hohenzollern, and resembles
his grandfather, Emperor Frederick, more than he does his father. He
is passionately devoted to everything military, and keenly relishes
the idea that the six months following the attainment of his majority
are to be devoted to military duties at Potsdam, for although he has
held a commission of lieutenant of the first regiment of Foot Guards
since his tenth year, he is only now about to be called upon to fulfil
the duties of his rank with the regiment.
It will be in every sense of the word an arduous training, for the
first regiment of Guards being considered all the world over as the
crack corps of the German army, and as the embodiment of military
perfection in every sense of the word, its officers, realizing that
it is, so to speak, the star phalanx of Germany, are engaged, morning,
noon and night, in maintaining it at its proper standard, and there
are no officers anywhere in Europe who are so hard worked as those
of the first regiment of Prussian Guards;--that regiment which in the
days of Frederick the Great's father was composed entirely of giants,
recruited, or rather purchased often, at a cost of several thousand
dollars apiece, from all parts of the world!
The prince must be on the drill grounds and the manoeuvre fields as
early as four o'clock in the morning, returning for a sort of luncheon
towards ten or eleven; he must devote his afternoon to military
studies of one kind or another; while from four o'clock till seven his
time will be taken up by barrack-room inspections, company reports,
and the other thousand and one duties incidental to regimental life
in Germany. In the case of the crown prince the work will be
exceptionally heavy, as he is expected to acquire in the course of six
months an experience which other subalterns take years to obtain. At
the end of the term in question he is to go to Bonn, there to take
his seat, like his father before him, on the benches of the celebrated
university as an ordinary student.
From his eighteenth birthday the crown prince will have an
establishment and a civil list of his own. He will have his court
marshal, who will be at the same time the treasurer, governor, and
chief officer of his household. He will have his aids-de-camp, who
will, as far as possible, be young men of his own age and alive to the
responsibilities of their office; he will also have a palace of his
own, stables of his own, and his own shooting. Indeed the forest of
Spandau has already been for some time past strictly preserved in view
of his coming of age.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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