Non-fiction ~ current(ish) affairs
Published 19th October 1936
(First read 26/02/2015)
REVIEWS
[…] ingenious […]
The book is a very skilful mosaic of the vast amount written or
spoken by William, his majestic grandmother Queen Victoria, and his
brilliant mother the Empress Frederick, largely made possible by the
fact that the letters and papers of the Empress and of her husband,
the unlucky Frederick, Emperor for but ninety-eight days, were
smuggled out of Germany and deposited safely in this country. [The
remainder of this very long review is basically nothing but
quotations from the book.]
~Aberdeen Press
and Journal, 19/10/1936
 |
| Before he was kaiser |
Mr Benson is
brilliant and finished. Also, he has found the key to the
tortuosities of the Kaiser's foreign policy. That monarch's ultimate
intention ~ as is pretty generally admitted to-day ~ were pacific.
But, like Polonius, he preferred with indirections to find directions
out. If he wished for friendly relations with B, a straightforward
advance was not enough: it was necessary first to embroil B with C,
then to point out to the former how ill he stood with the latter, and
thus to let him reach the conclusion that to meet the German advances
would be best for 'wretched, meritorious B'.
[Unlike his
subject, Mr Benson is a realist: he has] attempted, successfully, to
pronounce a just verdict. [He] has resisted the temptation of making
the ex-Kaiser into a blundering buffoon, a monster of tactlessness;
and has shown that his uncle, for example, contributed his share to
the friction between these two kinsmen.
~W H Johnston in an
article titled Kaiser and Field-Marshal, which was a joint
review of EFB's book and of Hindenburg: The Wooden Titan by J
W Wheeler-Bennett. Published in The Yorkshire Post,
21/10/1936
Mr.
E. F. BENSON, who thoroughly knows his way about the many volumes of
royal correspondence published since the
War, has used them, together with a few other familiar sources, to
put together this slight but agreeable study of relations between the
ex-Kaiser William II and our own royal family. The volume begins with
the marriage of Queen Victoria's eldest daughter to the Crown Prince
Frederick, heir to the Prussian throne; and it leaves the eldest son
of that marriage in his house of exile to Doom, preparing to read the
Sunday morning service to his attenuated suite, and wondering (Mr.
Benson, be it said to his credit, does not often indulge in these
tricks of fictionised biography) "why it had all happened like
this."
So dramatic a story, told by a
practised craftsman like Mr. Benson, cannot fail to interest and
entertain, even though the facts on which it is based are well enough
known to every reader of pre-War history. But the story would have
been better still if Mr. Benson had been able to conjure up a little
human interest in his central figure. William II was not a great or a
wise monarch. He was impulsive where caution was needed, bombastic in
utterance, tactless and sometimes sly in his dealings with foreign
monarchs and Governments, and easily rattled in moments of crisis.
But constant insistence on these defects of his hero's character
makes Mr. Benson's book smack a little too much of the atmosphere of
war propaganda. Mr. Benson is well aware, as many passages show, that
the Princess Frederick was a difficult mother. But this is not
allowed to mitigate by one jot the indictment of William as a
difficult son. The relations between Edward VII as Prince of Wales
and William II show both of them in anything but a favourable light.
The fact that the Prince was the uncle and the Emperor the nephew
obviously made the relationship delicate and embarrassing and is, in
itself, almost sufficient to account for the chronic antipathy
between them. But here again Mr. Benson, while not particularly
flattering to the Prince, loses no opportunity of pressing home the
case against, the Kaiser.
More important, however, than these
petty personal issues is the question how far the course of history
was affected by the constant correspondence and the frequent family
meetings between royal personages which were characteristic of the
half century before the War. Much has been written and talked in the
past few years about the foreign peregrinations of British
politicians. It is not generally remembered that the place of these
personal discussions between Prime Ministers and Foreign Secretaries
was in part taken before the War by the regular intercourse between
crowned heads of States (who, for important meetings, were often
accompanied by Ministers). These meetings were, of course, habitually
used for the transaction of political business. But were they a
governing factor of policy or merely its instrument? Was the notable
falling off in such meetings in the few years immediately before the
War a cause, or a symptom, of the impending
 |
| The newish kaiser (1890) |
catastrophe? Mr. Benson's
book, in so far as it makes any contribution to this historical
problem, confirms the impression that all this personal intercourse
between royal relations, despite the immense importance attached to
it by its participants, had little decisive influence on the course
of events. Neither Willy nor Nicky deflected the policy of his
country by a single inch in the interest of friendship or cousinship
with the other; and it would be fantastic to attribute to the
temperamental incompatibility of William II and Edward VII any
determining rôle in the deterioration of Anglo-German
relations. There is no ground for suggesting that French interests
were penalised because France had no crowned head to hobnob with
royal cousins from other leading European countries. The Tsar of all
the Russias found no difficulty about allying his country with a
republic, and receiving on equal terms a President in a silk hat and
boiled shirt; and the picture of Queen Victoria consenting, albeit
with reluctance, to stand while the Marseillaise was played suggests
an irreverent comparison with M. Litvinov proposing the health of
King George V. When important interests of foreign policy were at
stake, the principles of the International of Monarchs went by the
board as easily as the principles of the Third International.
~E. H. Carr in The
Spectator, 30/10/1936
The Benson name will
stimulate interest in this though it is unlikely to achieve the sales
of his English subjects. But for anyone interested in the
international picture, the psychological aspects of the
German-English relations, this is important, and a story that bears
close reading, as written by an author whose integrity in stating
problems and facts differs openly on many points with previous
writers. [He] Covers the Kaiser's life, from a sensitive, tragic
boyhood, to his present retirement in Holland. [He] Stresses the
atmosphere of hostility between England and America at his birth,
fostered by the unpopularity of his English mother. Essential for
public libraries and colleges.
~Kirkus Reviews,
10/11/1936
Mr. E. F. Benson's
biographical study of Queen Victoria and King Edward VII has well
fitted him for writing on The Kaiser and English Relations,
for the story of William's relations with England is largely the
story of attempts by his English relatives, wiser than he, to keep
him in check. William, the grandson of Victoria, is a sort of Richard
III of Germany ~ a deformed, ambitious, unbalanced schemer, who lived
to be cursed by his own mother and to be morally execrated by his own
countrymen. These freaks occur in history. There was nothing in
William's parentage to suggest such a creature. His father was an
eminently upright man, without any egotism or desire for
self-advancement; his mother an amiable woman, who did her best to
promote the friendship of England and Germany. Yet their eldest son
grew up to trample on them and exult at his father's death, to ally
himself with Bismarck, who systematically humiliated them while the
old Emperor lived, and to overthrow all their good works. Mr. Benson
explains this degeneration from type as due to the accidents of
William's childhood ~ the paralysed arm and consequent physical
weakness, his harsh schooling that set up in him an inferiority
complex, and so led him to assert himself at all costs. At heart, Mr.
Benson maintains, he was a sheer coward, and even in his most
grandiose and blatantly truculent moments trembled inwardly for
 |
| A bit later ... |
the
consequences of his words and actions. Then, too, he had no judgment,
no common sense, no self-restraint. He would commit the silliest
errors, and endeavour to escape responsibility by denying them. Time
and again Mr. Benson catches him out on his own words. By setting a
passage from an authentic letter alongside a passage from the
Kaiser's own memoirs, adding the testimony of others, he is able to
show what a pitiful liar the man was. Altogether, Victoria, and after
her, Edward, had a bad time of it holding in this blustering,
irresponsible kinsman. Several times ~ over the Boer War, at Tangier,
at Agadir ~ he nearly precipitated a crisis; luckily, the wise
monarch of England never lost his or her head over it.
William's grand delusion ~ again to be attributed to that ingrained
conviction of personal inferiority ~ was the 'encirclement' of
Germany by the other European Powers, so he was constantly intriguing
~ you never knew where to have him. He would write warning Victoria
against the designs of Russia; at the same time he would be showering
his blandishments on the Csar. He never really hated England, Mr.
Benson shows how deep-seated his love of that country was, and how
genuinely he longed for a permanent alliance with her. He was
inordinately proud of the tincture of Stuart blood in his veins,
swelled in
glory when Victoria made him
an
Admiral of the Fleet, touched the sky when she bestowed on him a
colonelcy in an English regiment. All this strengthened
his position in
England, but his
personal behaviour at the same time made it
impossible. He was persistently rude to Edward, as Prince and King ~
he
even flouted Victoria. When the armaments competition began, through
his mad ambition to control the Atlantic, the inevitable conflict was
definitely envisaged, and when it came it was
a relief to the Kaiser, as it must have been to English statesmen who
had long despaired of holding such a trouble-maker in
check. It was then that his many wild utterances began to be
remembered against him ~
the
'mailed
fist,'
the adjuration to Germans to be Huns, etc. He found himself regarded
as a dangerous lunatic.
Mr.
Benson is
more impartial,
even ~
for
all his gentle but crushing irony ~
sympathetic
with William in some of his moods. In spite of his bloodthirstiness,
William had genuine artistic taste and ability, and to his friends he
was a pleasant companion. The final verdict is, however, quite just.
"Destiny had
been cruel in ordaining that a man of his temper and temperament
should be emperor of a great nation. Throughout his reign he had
never shown any grasp of the serious responsibilities of kingship,
never once, for all his sincere patriotism, had he rendered
any true service to his country, nor ever had he failed to use his
great abilities in the cause of European disquiet. Save for those
moments of hysterical exaltation when some impetuous and imprudent
impromptu had satiated his craving for imperial gestures, he had been
the prey of fear and jealousy
and deep-seated self-mistrust.
. . . If
only Providence
had consecrated him to be a squire of ample means
and estate, just outside some county town in England, what a pleasant
and useful existence might have been his! ... " As it is, the
Squire of Doorn has found almost his right level.
~The Sydney Morning Herald,
28/11/1936
 |
| After the invention of colour |
Kaiser William
possessed in a high degree all those characteristics which least
recommend themselves to the British. He manifested on every occasion
tendencies which in English preparatory and public schools are given
disobliging names and systematically extirpated. Sneaking, swanking
and bullying, that triple anathema of the Lower Fourth, figured
strongly in his repertoire. When thwarted, he bit no bullets, but
shouted and stamped and swore. When pleased, he gave way to
extravagant displays of emotion. Really, thought grandmama Victoria,
looking round on the family circle of crowned and coroneted
Coburgers, Willy was the naughtiest boy in Europe.
Much of the bitterness has passed from the minds of those who in
the strained atmosphere of 1918 were ready to shout "Hang the
Kaiser ! " But the impression remains that William was something
of an ass and something of a cad ; there is an unpleasant edge to the
laughter which greets his appearance in back numbers of Punch—a
journal for the suppression of which he once pleaded, eagerly but in
vain. It is therefore the more satisfactory that a writer such as Mr.
Benson should have undertaken to present the Kaiser in his most
difficult, most pathetic aspect. For there is no malice in Mr.
Benson's pen, nor is he liable to sentimental extenuations. Using the
best and sanest method of psychological approach, he has substituted
a human being for the pompous and fantastic lay-figure. The Kaiser
and English Relations leaves no room for ens.
Much importance is given to the deformity which handicapped
William from birth, the torn left shoulder which made riding so
difficult for him, though he strove so pluckily and so successfully
to overcome the disability. To this can be traced the overwhelming
sense of inferiority for which his tasteless and fatuous arrogance
and sabre-rattling were a perpetual compensation. This mental
condition of insecurity and instability in turn gave rise to
suspicion and jealousy, to dread of "encirclement," to a
conviction that only in the unassailable superiority of German arms
could he place his trust.
Such was the man who sent the Kruger telegram, who landed—' 'a
reluctant and timorous Mephistopheles"—at Tangier, and
sanctioned the despatch of the Panther to Agadir. They are singularly
futile, singularly irresponsible gestures. The whole of William's
foreign policy was of the same order ; it seemed to have been
conceived by a destructive child. His ambition was to break down the
mutual confidence of other nations rather than to construct alliances
for his own. Herein lay the difference between William and Edward
VII. He always hated Uncle Bertie, whose genial friendliness revealed
a poise which his own twisted nature could never hope to achieve. Mr.
Benson ably contrasts the manner and method of the two sovereigns :
"Each of them claimed exclusive rights of political cruising,
and regarded the other as invariably engaged, under the pretext of a
recuperative holiday, with sinister designs. The King's method on
these excursions was very different from his nephew's ; his visits to
any country were intended to promote cordial relations by his jollity
and geniality ; the Emperor's, by a display of majesty and giants, to
typify the might of Germany and to sow suspicions in his host's mind
as to the sincerity of some country with which he had friendly
relations."
William always had a sincere affection for his grandmother, Queen
Victoria. She understood him. "William's faults," she told
Edward, "come from impetuousness (as well as conceit) ; and
calmness and firmness are the most powerful weapons in such a case."
Calmly and firmly she dealt with his most outrageous actions, writing
to him after the Kruger incident the famous letter which ends : "I
hope you will take my remarks in good part, as they are entirely
dictated by my desire for your good. Victoria R.I." ; and to the
Tsar the letter which, in the same level tones, shattered the
intrigue known as the Willy-Nicky correspondence.
As he loved the Queen, so William loved England. It was a love
which England could neither understand nor repay, but years later, at
Doorn, when the tragedy of the War had separated him from England for
ever, it was still alive. In a penetrating and sympathetic epilogue,
Mr. Benson makes us aware of this. "Hate without such furnace of
underlying longing can never remain molten," he writes. If hate
is the feeling with which Kaiser William's name is most readily
associated in English minds, we should remember it is hate based on
rejection.
~The Tablet,
12/12/1936
 |
| An emperor in exile |
There is a charming
picture, at the beginning of this vivid new biography, of Victoria,
Princess Royal of England, receiving ~ by the management of her
parents ~ a proposal of marriage from Prince Frederick William of
Prussia, before she was fifteen. The desire of Queen Victoria and
the Prince Consort for a growing friendliness between Germany and
England, however, received small help from the union, for the young
bride ~ English in Prussia and Prussian in England ~ was not liked by
Bismarck. To that stern Chancellor her eldest son, William ~
psychologically as well as physically injured at birth ~ was strongly
drawn. William's nature was hardened but not strengthened by his
disability. The inferiority complex which it caused grew into a
love, as extravagant as any Oriental's, of the superficial trappings
of power. Greedy for uniforms and spectacles, self-deluding,
screwing himself to dismiss Bismarck because that mighty shadow
dwarfed his own, his lact act at the outbreak of the Great War is
entirely in character ~ the resigning of his English military and
naval rank. A grand study of the man, his relations, and his
surroundings, which cannot but enhance Mr Benson's already high
reputation.
~Western
Daily Press and Bristol Mirror,
02/01/1937
The interesting
thing to note in this book is that the biographer of Queen Victoria
and Edward VII writes critically
not only of the kaiser but of the kaiser's English relations, his
mother who was Victoria's daughter, and his uncle Edward VII. There
is an apparent disillusioned note in this new book by the former
apologist for royalty.
~The New Masses,
12/01/1937
A chatty,
superficial and inaccurate record.
~Dr. G. P. Gooch in
Notes on New Books, 1937? [Haha ~ don't dress it up, mate!]
The Kaiser and English Relations
caused [Benson] some bother, as he had originally had 'William II' in
the title, and referred throughout the text to 'the Emperor'. His
publishers maintained that the reader would be confused into thinking
that 'William II' referred to a different emperor from the one
everybody referred to as the Kaiser. Fred did not think this at all
reasonable. “The mentality of anyone who maintains that the title
'The Kaiser' connotes William II, but that the title 'William II'
connotes somebody else, is, frankly, outside my comprehension.”
Nevertheless, he was overruled and his title amended.
~Brian
Masters in The Life of E. F. Benson,
1991
