The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1870-07-28
HOYT & CO., Proprietors.
NOTES ON THE FOREIGN WAR.
The Cause of the Euperoan War.

The direct cause OF the hnal rupture between
France and Prussia seems to have been, as the
direct causes of such ruptures are too often apt
to be, a personal collision of an unpleasant
character between two eminent personages.
These were the King William of Prussia and
Count Benedict, the French ambassador at the
Prussian court. King William was at Ems
near Wiesbaden, place where neither his Ma
jesty nor the Prussians are particularly admir-
ed, but the waters of which are found to be
the beneficial to the venerable and rather NOR
0idly bilious constitution of the monarch.
Where the King is there is the court, and the
French ambassador consequently was at Ems,
also, conducting the negotiations set on foot by
the sudden explosion of the Prim- Bismarck
contriyance for getting Prussian prince upon
the throne of Spain These negotiations were
rather delicate, since they were intended by
France to bring the Prussian sovereign to HAT
disavowal of any hostile intentions in permit
ting the Prince, his kinsman, to accept the
Spanish crown The personal temper of the
King was therefore an element of particular
importance in the conduct of the affair; for
King William we'll knew both that the inten-
ton of Bismarck in organizing with Prlm the
candidacy of Prince Leopold really had been
hostile to France, and that he himself had for
years desired nothing so much as an opportu-
nifty of relieving his soul of profound heredi-
tary hatred of Frenchmen in general and OF
the Bonapartes in particular. Yet, at the same
time, he was well aware that he could not pos
sibly afford, in his capacity as an European
sovereign, to confess that he had connived at
the ACKNOWLEDGMENT of member of his own
family with the express object of insulting and
circumventing friendly power. Had Count
Bismarck been intrusted by the King with the
management of the affair, even out of this dis
agreeable complication peace with honor might
Count RiS-
marck, with all his contempt for abstract right
and his love for brusque and peremptory solu-
tions of diplomatic imbroglios, understands and
appreciates the importance of the public opln-
ion of Europe and of polite forms very much
better than King William, who, indeed. neither
understands nor appreciates them at all. But
Count Bismarck has been growing out of favor
with his master for some time, exactly in pro-
portion as the King has become reconcilcd with
Count Bismarck's bitter personal enemy, the
Crown Prince. So King William insisted upon
managing his intercourse with Count Benedettl
himself A sketch of the two men will satisfy
the reader how inevitable was the result of this
royal wilfulness. King William of Prussia is
one of the oldest of reigning soyereigns: He
was born in the midst of the first French Revo-
luton. As child he witnessed the humilia-
tion of Prussia of his father and of his family
by the first Napoleon, and as youth ne took
part in the avenging campaigns of 1913 and
1915. These events gave decisive color to his
opinions and his character for life. Ayounger
son, he gave himself up to military career,
felt and professed openly the utmost contempt
for democracy and conStitutonalism, and made
himself so obnoxious to all the Liberals OF
Prussia that in 1913 he was forced to fly the
kingdom after doing his utmost to induce the
government to allow him to drown the reyolu-
ton in the blood of the Berlinesc. Camp-Map
sen contrived to get him back after all exile of
nine months in England and in lS49 he sig
nalized himself by his victorious and merciless
campaign against the people of Baden. la
1852 he was made Governor-G General Of Rhenish
Prussia, and during his residence at Mayence
he contributed greatly to intensity the hatred
with which Prussia has long been regarded In
that city, doomed by the military strength OF
its position to see all its splendid commercial
advantages reduced to nought. He bitterly op-
posed the neutrality of Prussia in the Crimean
war, longing then to lead an army against
France. He became Regent in 1857 by the de-
clared lunacy, and King in 1861 by the death,
of his childless brother, Frederic William ~.
With his reign began the new military career
and policy of Prussia. In October, 1861, he
had himself crowned with great pomp, and de-
clared that he held his throne not from the
people or the constitution, but from God
alone" This brought on an open conflict be-
tween the Crown and the Parliament, during
which the King never for moment bated his
naughty absoutism. When the Liberal party
carried the elections, in 1862, the King refused
to open the session of Parliament, and when
the Parliament rejected the enormous appro-
priation asked for the army the King sent for
Bismarck, then Ambassador at Paris, to help
him conquer these obstinate contemners of di-
vine right. The House of Peers backed the
King. The Commons persisted. The Peers
voted the money refused by the Commons. The
Commons declared this vote illegal. The King
thereupon closed the session, and coolly pro-
claimed that the appropriations had been made.
This was the first instance of a successful royal
revolution against the rights of the people in
the history of Europe since the days of 1889.
1t was followed by prosecutions of the press, by
an alliance with Russia to suppress the Polish
insurrection, by an ordinance suppressing the
liberty of the press and when the Liberal par
tv succeeded in 1868 in carrying the elections
again by great majority, the king at once
fanked them by opening the war with Austria
against Denmark for the conquest of Schles-
wick -Holstein. Foreign war thus became, as it
had so often before become, the grave OF do
mestic liberty. The war of 1866 against Aus
tr;a completed what the war of 1863 against
Denmark had begun; and King William of
Prussia is to-day as completely the representa-
tive Of armed T and irresponsible kingly power
in Europe as was the Car Nicholas in 1884
He looks the character as thoroughly as ne be-
lieves in it. Stalwart, deep-chested, with
square rugged face, bristling gray mustache,
cold implacable eyes, which rather twinkle than
glitter and heavy jaw, King William Is the
beau-ideal OF veteran cuirassicr, as ready 10
ride down shopkeepers and lawyers in Berlin
as to charge the cavalry of France at Jena.
The hereditary malady of his family, which
carried off his father in a state of religious
mania and his brother as hypochondriac, be-
trays itself in King William through an incon-
ceiyable worship Of his place and prerogative
He believes in the infallibility of monarchs as
deyoutlv as Plus TX. in the infalliblity of
sas So firm is his filth in the divine nature