Germany -- Politics and government -- 1888-1918; William II, German Emperor, 1859-1941
As of interest to both Englishmen and Germans may be mentioned the
tour through India undertaken by the Crown Prince in November. Steele
once happily said of a Lady Hastings that "to love her was a liberal
education"; to make a tour through India, it might similarly be said,
is an education in the extent and character of British imperial power
and administration. The Crown Prince naturally devoted a goodly share
of his time to the delights of sport, including tiger-shooting and
pig-sticking, but he must also have learned much of England's fine
imperial spirit from his intercourse with an official hierarchy as
honest and conscientious as that of his own country. The Crown Prince,
on his return home, published a volume of hunting reminiscences which
does no small credit to him as an author.
The Emperor's "shining armour" political remark dates from this
period. He was on a visit to his Triplice ally, Kaiser Franz Josef, in
September, 1910, and made a speech at the Vienna Town Hall on the 21st
which contained a reference to the loyal conduct he claimed Germany
had observed when the action of Austria-Hungary in annexing Bosnia and
Herzegovina, despite the wording of the Treaty of Berlin, had raised
an outcry in other countries, and in particular strained Austrian
relations with Russia. After thanking his audience for the personal
reception given him, he continued:
"On the other hand, it seems to me I read in your resolution
the agreement of the city of Vienna with the action of an
ally in taking his stand in shining armour at a grave moment
by the side of your most gracious sovereign."
The outcry caused in the world by Austria's high-handed annexation,
and especially in Russia, theoretically always Austria's most probable
enemy, owing to conflicting interests in the Balkans, subsided, we
know, as suddenly as it was raised. The reason, it is currently
believed, and the form in which the rays of the shining armour acted,
was an intimation from the Emperor to the Czar that, if necessary,
Germany was prepared to fight for Austria.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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