Category: Biographies
In June of 1888, an army of workmen were toiling in the Champ de Mars upon the foundations of a noble World’s Exhibition, planned to celebrate the centenary of the death by violence of the Divine Right of Kings. Four thousand miles westward, in the city of Chicago, some seven...
In June of 1888, an army of workmen were toiling in the Champ de Mars upon the foundations of a noble World’s Exhibition, planned to celebrate the centenary of the death by viol...
2. CHAPTER II.--WILLIAM’S BOYHOODThe young Emperor was born in the first month of 1859. The prolonged life of his grandfather, and the apparently superb physical vitality of his father, made him seem much furth...
3. CHAPTER III.--UNDER CHANGED INFLUENCES AT BONNThe act of matriculation at Bonn meant to young William many things apart from the beginning of a university career. In fact, it was almost a sign of his emancipation from acade...
4. CHAPTER IV.--THE TIDINGS OF FREDERIC’S DOOMSix years of married and semi-independent life went by, and left Prince William of Prussia but little changed. He worked diligently up through the grades of military training an...
5. CHAPTER V.--THROUGH THE SHADOWS TO THE THRONEThe fact that the Crown Prince Frederic, despondent and unnerved in the presence of a mortal disease, had voluntarily pledged himself to renounce his rights of succession, was n...
6. CHAPTER VI.--UNDER THE SWAY OF THE BISMARCKSDuring the three days between the death and burial of Frederic the world saw and heard nothing of his successor save these two proclamations to the Army and Navy. This in itself...
7. CHAPTER VII.--THE BEGINNINGS OF A BENEFICENT CHANGEThe opening month of 1889 was a momentous period in the history of the young Emperor. The decoration of Puttkamer, who stood in all eyes as a type of the late Kaiser’s bitterest...
8. CHAPTER VIII.--A YEAR OF EXPERIMENTAL ABSOLUTISMThe young Emperor’s dislike for the press was indeed a fruitful source of sensational incidents during the first year or two of his reign, and still is uneasily felt to contain...
9. CHAPTER IX.--A YEAR OF HELPFUL LESSONSThe first few months of 1889 present nothing of special note to the observer. There was perhaps a trifle more nervousness on the bourses during that early spring-time which, for...
10. CHAPTER X.--THE FALL OF THE BISMARCKSWe have come now to a time when the effects of this reasserted English influence began to be apparent throughout Germany. Since his successful tour through the Westphalian strik...
11. CHAPTER XI--A YEAR WITHOUT BISMARCKThe first and most obvious thing to be said of the twelvemonth during which the Ship of State has sailed with no Bismarck at the helm, is that the course has been one of novel s...
12. CHAPTER XII.--PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICSIn the matter of personal appearance there are two quite distinct and different Williams. Those who see the young German Emperor on a State occasion think of him as almost a tal...