Germany -- Politics and government -- 1888-1918; William II, German Emperor, 1859-1941
It sounds a little gloomy as a quotation, but, fortunately for Germany
and the Emperor, for "nunc" can be put, _pace_ the poet, the
indefinite, yet all too definite, "aliquando."
XII.
MOROCCO
1905
The Emperor started for Tangier towards the end of March, but before
that he had got through imperial business of a miscellaneous kind
which exemplifies the life he leads practically at all times.
In January he had exchanged telegrams with the Czar and the Mikado
concerning his bestowal of the Order of Merit on Generals Stoessel and
Nogi, asking permission to bestow the Order and receiving expressions
of consent. Another telegram went to the composer Leoncavallo in
Naples, congratulating him on the success there of his "Roland von
Berlin." In February, the Emperor opened an international Automobile
Exhibition in Berlin, received Prince Charles, Infanta of Spain, and
the King of Bulgaria, unveiled a monument to his ancestor, Admiral
Coligny, who was killed in the Bartholomew massacre, listened to a
naval captain's lecture on Port Arthur, opened the new Lutheran
Cathedral (the "Dom") in Berlin, telegraphed thanks to the University
of Pennsylvania for its doctor's degree which the Emperor said he was
proud to know George Washington once held, attended a lecture by
Professor Delitzsch on "Assyria," and was present at a memorial
service for the painter Adolf von Menzel, who died this month. In
March he visited Heligoland, inspected the progress of some
alterations at the Royal Opera in Berlin, and sent the Gold Medal for
Science to Manuel Garcia, on the occasion of the latter's hundredth
birthday, as recognition of his invention of the laryngoscope, or
mirror for examining the throat.
Just before starting for Morocco the Emperor made the speech in which
he claimed that Germans are the "salt of the earth." In the same
speech he had previously declared that as the result of his reading of
history he meant never to strive after world-conquest. "For what," he
asked,
"has become of the so-called world-empires? Alexander the
Great, Napoleon the First, all the great warrior heroes swam
in blood and left behind them subjugated peoples, who at the
first opportunity rose and brought their empires to ruin.
The world-empire which I dream of will be, above all, the
newly established German Empire, enjoying on every side the
most absolute confidence as a peaceable, honest, and quiet
neighbour, not founded on conquest by the sword, but on the
mutual confidence of nations, striving for the same
objects."
While on the way to Morocco the Emperor put in at Lisbon to pay a
visit to the King of Portugal, and with the latter attended a meeting
of the Geographical Society. From Lisbon he went to Gibraltar, and
from thence, after a few hours' stay, he started for Tangier.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account