New-York tribune., 1918-11-10
William, Last Caesar,
Most Hated of Men

crime since the crucifxion. In him hui
manity saw the last of the autocrats.
the final Caesar. Assertions he was at
heart peaceful, so persistently circu-
lated for years as to give them the
stamp of German propaganda, became
had long proclaimed himself the prince
Of peace stood revealed as humanity's
scourge, and against him and all he
represented rose the new world of de-
mocracy and freedom
Many doubt whether William was
entirely sane. He said repeatedly he
( possessed divine mandate to rule,
that the Almighty was his "uncondi-
tional and avowed ally" 1t is not en-
tirely clear whether such outgivings
were tie product of disordered brain
or were due to unbounded egotlsm and
an effort to impress his subjects with
the idea of reyerent and unquestioning
submission. His speeches to his armies,
in which he asserted he and they were
instruments of divine judgment upon
Germany's enemies" were regarded by
many outsi 'e Germany as pieces of
rhetoric, intended only to deceive his
cW> people.
Williams claim t. close affinity with
God was the burden of dozens of his
speeches long before as we'll as after
perhaps, none more clearly defined his
claim than his notorious divine right"
speech delivered at Brandenburg in
1890, in which he said he regarded the
German people as "a responsibility"
conferred upon him by God and that
it was "my duty to increase this her
itagc for which one day I shall be
called upon to give account Those
why try to interfere with my task |
shall crush"
World Did Not See Menace
In all this the world saw before the
war not a menace but q comedy. 1t
laughed with then then Captain Joseph
B. Coughlan, of the United States
Navy, when, returning from the war
with Spain and telling of the clash
with the commander of, the German
squadron at Manila Bay, the captain
recited the famous poem, "Hoch the
Kaiser"
Feb statesmen realized then that
the deluded Emperor in his shining
armor," maneuvring his armies and his
fleets, building up the German mill
tary system, cementing the Central
Empires and Turkey and fostering the
preaching Of the supremacy of autoc-
! racy was erecting a machine that one
day would make war upon all clvlllZa-
tion.
Meantime the German war party
grew with William as it head, and the
scheme of world domination awaited
the hour to begin its attainment 1t
came with the assassination of the
and, and his wife at Sarajevo.
Recalled from a yachting trip, Will
lam presided at a conference at Pots
dam, of representatives fthe Ger
man and Austrian armies, navies and
commercial interests. There, accord
ing to the best information obtain
able, the decision was reached to make
the assassination Of the Archduke
pretense for the world war, for which
Germany had long prepared.
Posed As Peace Lover
In the diplomatic exchanges between
Germany and Austrai On one side and
Great Britain, France and Russia on
the other, William posed as one wish
ing for peace but driven to war He
signed the orded for the mobilization
of the German army and from that
moment war was inevitable. Thereafte
he drove on mis- armies relentlessly in
the mad campaigns for victory, en-
couraging them with every device and
sometimes appearing on the front to
be proclaimed as personal commander
in a great offensive.
Publication in 1917 of correspondence
between the Kaiser and the Car.
placed the German Emperor in the
light of an unscrupulous plotter. The
kilograms disclosed Emperor William
had induced Emperor Nicholas of
Russia to sign secret agreement to
which he was to force the adherence
of France in the perfection of an Of
] lofo oil
England. The treaty was discovered
and repudiated by a Russian minister.
Failing IN his attempt, the German
Emperor set upon himself the task of
drawing England to his side against
! France and Russia. How we'll he
| thought he had succeeded in this NAV
be gathered from a letter he wrote to
President Wilson in 1914, in which he
said: King George had promised
Prince Henry of Prussia, on July 20.
IVA, that England would remain
neutral in n war involving the Central
Powers with France and Russia.
Lichnowsky's Expose
Perhaps the most direct and authori
tatlve OF the accusations against the
! German Emperor and the pan Germans
are contained in the published secret
memorandum of Prince Charles Max
Lichnowsky, who was German Ambas
sador at London at the outbreak of
hostilities. The prince unequivocally
placed the blame for the wiN on Ger
many, and for his frankness was i'm
prisoned in a Silesian chateau, perma-
nently expelled from the Prussian
House Of Lords-which action was
sanctioned by the Emperor-and finally
was exiled to Switzerland.
Emperor Williams domination over
German statesmen, diplomats and the
high command of the German army
was emphasized by DR.. William Much
Ion, former director of the Krupp
works, the great German munitions
factory, in his book on "The Devasta-
ton of Europe" In this he not only
laid blame upon Germany for bad faith
and criticised the German army for it's
brutality, but asserted that in the Ger
man Foreign Office "only he who did