The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-09-27
Williams Erfurt Speech.

Consciousness of danger lends new ex-
element to the task of watching the young
German Emperor. His impressionable
temperament and his keen interest in the
affairs of the day render him peculiarly
sensitive to the influence of passing POPULAR
moods. Like every body else, too. he feels
the effects upon the imagination which this
years vast military manoeuvers have pro-
duced. Perhaps we should say that hs
more than anybody else feels the effects Of
the terrible spectacle of the mock battle
fought before him by 0,O00 soldiers with
out sign of smoke on the whole extended
field.
Military critics who saw this and even
the bigger sham conflicts in France, profess
themselves dumbfounded. They hardly
dare guess what is going TO happen when
these deadly new Mannlichers and Lebels
are used in grim earnest, with every detail
of the fight exposed to every pair of eyes.
The civilian public have eagerly read ths
accounts of these strange new battles. 1t
seems to US that these stories, limiting at
rather than describing the weird transfer
nation that warfare has undergone, are
in large measure responsible for this feel
ing OF beligerent unrest which now stirs
Europe, and Of this feeling William, in spite
of himself must be more or less the ex-
His speech at Erfurt, even in the official
version with which we are alone justified in
dealing, since the occasion was private
military dinner, bears traces of this strong
excitement. No period in Prussian history
appeals with such pathos to the Hohenzol-
lerns or Prussians generally as that when
the royal family was in flight before Napo-
leon. The old Emperor William was NOT
much gwen to tears, but he could never
speak Of those cruel days Of his boyhood and
youth without tremor in his voice. His
grandson, WHO'S far more emotional man,
brings tears to his eyes by the sound of his
own voice when. he talks of this tragic
| time. While his mind was still deeply
stirred by the tremendous smokeIess battle
he had seen, it was natural that he should
revert in his speech to that other picture
which Erfurt had witnessed, and speak
| earnestly upon the contrast between then
and now.
Itwas equally natural, perhaps, that the
Partisan papers should take these words
up and treat them almost as deliberate
| proyocation. No one need be nervous over
the incident itself. Diplomatic ruptures do
not arise from after-dinner speeches, but
this particular utterance, coming while an
undignihed rumpus over 'Lohengrin" was
being discussed and advocated, afforded
fresh ground for disagreeable talk In Paris.
With their unfailing dramatic instinct,
| the Parislans have seized upon William az
piouant personality, and think about him
make him the object of carricatures, can
ards, and grotesque imsginings-quite to
the exclusion of other personages in vest
ern Europe. They carry this concentration
of interest upon William to much further
point than they formerly did with Bis
marck. 1t follows that when he speaks OF
Napoleon and of former Franco-German
wars they leap excitedly to meet a pos
| sibly hostile meaning and stir up fresh
, crop of fools to match with tin whistles
, and asafetida pellets to disturb German
, operas or the German embassy.