New-York tribune., 1919-03-31
The Real William ii

me Ieace conference Commission on
Responsibility for the War has made a
report recommending trial Of the Ger
man Kaiser. If this recommendation is
adopted William II will regain for a
time his old, and to him vastly congenial,
place in the limel;ght. What was his
responsibility? What is his real char
acter?
Through a correspondent who has
been visiting him at Amerongen he has
Just drawn his own portrait-for pur-
poses of exculpation. His defence is two
fold-one defence contradicting the
other. In the first place, he insists that
neither he nor the German people
wanted to make war-that the war was
brought on by Russian aggression. In
the second place, he pleads that he was
never more than puppet in the hands
OF the German military leaders,
History has already shown that the
first explanation is absolutely false. The
direct cause of the war was Austria
Hungary's deliberate and unwarranted
attack on Serbia. Vienna's provocative
policy was indorsed in advance by Ber-
In, William ii approved it without re-
servations. There is even ground for
believing that the Serajevo assassination
was engineered by the Chauvinistic fac
tons in Austria and Hungary, who hoped
to Kill two birds with one stone bv get
ting rid Of the Austrian heir apparent
whom they feared and hated, and at the
same time creating a pretext for a quar-
rel with Serbia.
There is not the slightest doubt that
Germany was seeking war in the sum
mer of 1914. Every piece of German
diplomatic correspondence made public
since the close Of war corroborates that
theory.
AS to his own inconsequence after
the war started it is evident that the
Kaiser is telling something like the
truth. For a long time he cniovcd in
TINS country and among the masses in
Gemany purely fictitious reputation
He was thought to be ut least his own
lnaster-a ruler Of marked eccentrjci-
ties and personal foibles, but strong
man, imposing his will on u docile ma
ton. But this fiction was never accented
by those who came into closer contact
with his activities.
Maximilan Harden recently described
him rs can actor" He was n born
poscnr, vain, restless. unstable md in.
competent. That waB the way he inn
pressed Bialnarck. When he was a
young man hs father wrote II letter Ia
the Chancellor protesting against his
assignment to duties in the Foreign
once. on The ground that he was too
headstrong, fighty and undependable
to be permitted to have access to the
secrets of German foreign policy.
William III speaks now of the amused
tolerance" with which the German
statesmen Of his earlier days regarded
him. They knew their business. And
the generals at Grand Headquarters dur
ing the war also knew theirs when, as
he says, they hustled him out of the
room to prevent his hearing their con-
versatons over the telephone with the
NoN'iiioil'Sio VI VIC various armies. w 18th
the kalser's approval the Crown Prince
was lmmured behind the lines in the
Meuse sector. He himself was reduced
to similarly innocuous role, being sent
about ITO posture, gesticulate and hold
forth for the benefit of the home popu-
iation," in company with a sentimental
journalist of the Rosner order.
Count Hoensbroech, pan-German
agitator, wrote pamphlet the other dav
in which he drew this Illuminating
sketch of the ex-Kaiser:
"lIe is a superficial, slangy, vain, auto
cratic pomp lover, money proud, without
seriousness, entirely given to externals.
despiser of humanity without capacitv
for friendship; cherisher of prudces
petty worshipper of petty self without
any grandeur Of character; a poseur and
play actor, ard at the same time-one of
the worst things in rulers-a coward and
without personal courage Such is Will
lam H."
Here is the real "Al Highest whom
the Allies are going to bring to the bar
OF justice. He was weak man and
wicked one. And his weakness is about
the only thing that he can plead in ex-
tenuation Of his wickedness,