Chapter XVI How Franz Ferdinand was Fooled
Vienna’s Opinion of the Kaiser—Afternoon Tea for the War Lord—Playing Up to Ferdinand—When Britain Slammed the Door—The Archduke is Not Satisfied
“There goes our Lady of the Guns,” whispered the War Lord to Franz Este, as they stepped from the private gate into the palace yard, where their entourage, already mounted, was awaiting their advent.
“The Krupp heiress I heard about? You are her godfather, are you not?”
“More!”
Franz was so taken aback that he forgot for the moment to swing his right leg, whereupon Umberto, objecting to such left-sided proceedings, reared and would have thrown him, had not two energetic grooms pounced upon the charger.
“Be careful, it’s Italy you are riding,” chaffed Wilhelm, when the cavalcade was safely under way. Quite a stately procession: masters of horse in scarlet and gold; the adjutants on duty, outriders, grooms and a platoon of gendarmes.
“How so Italy?” queried Franz.
“Victor Emmanuel’s father used him on his several visits to Berlin, and he has been reserved for heavy-weights like yourself ever since. A wilful beast, even treacherous.”
“Hence well named,” said Franz sententiously, at the same time locking his thighs more closely. “As to the Krupp girl, what were you going to say?”
“First tell me what Vienna thinks of my connection with Krupp affairs.”
“You won’t take offence?”
“Not a bit.”
“And won’t be annoyed even if it smacks of lèse-majesté?”
“Rot and nonsense. Go on.”
Franz drove his brute nearer to the War Lord’s side.
“They do say,” he whispered, “that you sort of kidnapped Bertha against her mother’s will, and are now conducting the business solely with an eye to dividends.”
“They think me Leopold II.,” quizzed the War Lord, alluding to the business methods of the late King of the Belgians. “Excellent; a lie to be encouraged! But as a matter of fact—entre nous, of course; strictly entre nous—I acted upon the principle of jus primae noctis. In olden times, when the vassal died, the liege lord assumed charge of the property for the dead man’s eldest son, presumably his lordship’s, which action forestalled wastage of the estate. As liege lord of Prussia I deemed it my duty to prevent the disintegration of the Fatherland’s war machinery, and had myself appointed Bertha’s guardian, with full power to act. Of course, the Baroness does not like that; neither did the vassal’s widow cherish the idea of becoming a chattel.”
“And is she easily managed?” asked Franz, as he dealt the fractious Umberto a vicious blow between the ears.
“Not that fashion,” replied the War Lord, when he had caught up with his guest; “flattery is the thing with girls. That and a certain amount of unctuousness, backed by divine right, I found quite an irresistible combination.”
“You mean to say that you flatter where you can command?” asked Franz.
“Certainly not,” replied the War Lord, pulling himself up straight. “I merely insinuate that my wishes with regard to the running of the plant are her own; consequently, I do as I like at Essen.”
The War Lord raised his riding-whip in the direction of the Master of the Horse, trotting behind, whereupon that functionary gave spur and galloped ahead. Thirty seconds later the advance guard wheeled right and left, drawing up at the sides of the avenue, and leaving a clear space for Wilhelm and Franz.
“May they enjoy the dust we are kicking up,” laughed the War Lord, as they pressed on. When, on their return to the palace, the General Staff building was in sight, Wilhelm consulted his wristwatch. “Gottlieb’s tea hour,” he said quite incidentally. “Suppose we stop and have a cup!”
He referred to Count Haeseler, sometimes called the German Galliffet, though as a cavalry officer in active service his epaulettes never knew more than two stars. However, subsequently he won much fame as an administrator and organiser, and, by catering to the War Lord’s love for mounted rifles, dragoons, hussars and uhlans, enjoyed rapid and steady advancement. Still, having a will of his own and small hesitation to state it when goaded to opposition, he might never have achieved the supreme honour of field marshalship had he not been in his youth the favourite adjutant of the War Lord’s “sanctified uncle,” the Red Prince Frederick Charles, father of the Duchess of Connaught.
In the War Lord’s opinion, Frederick Charles ranked next to his Herr Grossvater (Mister Grandfather), and whenever Wilhelm became too insistent on some strategic madness of his own, Haeseler had but to say: “That’s one of the things His Royal Highness was most strenuously opposed to,” to cause the Imperial nephew to cave in.
Of course, the meeting with Franz Este had been prearranged, but Haeseler played the surprised to perfection: Too bad Imperial Highness was incog.; otherwise he might run over to Posen to inspect his regiment, the Tenth Hussars. He (Haeseler) had just had that pleasure. Schneidig, grossartig (cutting, immense), and Haeseler knocked his heels together. “Horses, men, uniforms, drill, perfect as new-laid eggs.”
“Hard boiled, I hope,” said the War Lord; and all three shook with laughter.
“And what may my marshal have been doing?” asked the War Lord.
“Reading up the testament of Frederick the Great.”
“Any relation to the testament of Peter the Great?” asked Franz anxiously.
“Imperial Highness is pleased to jest,” replied Haeseler. “Peter the Great’s last will, so called, was an invention of Napoleon to justify his making war on his friend Alexander, while the third Napoleon revived the fraud for purposes of the Crimean campaign.”
In his surprise the War Lord, who knows history only as taught in school, dropped a bit of marmalade on his white cloth tunic.
“Unless you can prove these statements, you will have to pay for cleaning this,” he said, looking sharply at Haeseler.
“May it please Your Majesty, I will consult the card index.” The marshal pulled out a drawer. “Here it is,” he said: “‘Napoleon Auteur du Testament de Pierre le Grand,’ and here is another volume: ‘Les Auteurs du Testament du Pierre le Grand.’”
“Authentic?” queried the War Lord.
“Abundantly so. Shall I send these volumes to the Schloss?”
“No; I have no time for reading olle scharteken” (ancient tomes).
“In that case I’ll want them,” said Franz, who was of a studious nature. “Have you got anything more on the subject?”
“Only an essay printed in the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung.”
“Send that too.” The Bavarian town being a stronghold of Catholicism, Franz evidently concluded that anything printed there was akin to gospel.
“But you referred to the testament of Frederick the Great.” The War Lord’s voice betrayed impatience, and Haeseler made haste to explain, i.e. repeat his lesson, as it were.
“May it please Your Majesty and His Imperial Highness.”
“‘Herr von Este,’ if you please,” interrupted Franz.
“Herr von Este,” repeated the marshal obediently, bowing low, “the most precious inheritance come to us from the hero of the Seven Years’ War is his admonition that Prussia must correct her coast line. He had intended doing so himself, but time and opportunity were unfavourable, and so his plans for blazing a road to the oceans are awaiting our initiative. By grasping it we will carry out the last will of Frederick the Great.”
“And what were his late Majesty’s plans?” asked Franz.
“To move Prussian mile-posts up to the Channel and ocean, to plant ourselves in the sea area between the English, French and Belgian coasts, the waters through which most of the world’s trade must pass,” cried Haeseler enthusiastically.
“But that would mean annexation of Belgium and Holland,” demanded Franz.
Count Haeseler, having instructions not to answer questions of that kind, bent over a series of maps illustrating the history of Frederick the Second, while the War Lord, disregarding the question, commanded curtly: “The strategic points, please.”
Count Haeseler traced them at the end of a blue pencil:
“King Frederick planned a quick march from the Rhine through Belgium, forcing Liége, then the capital of an ecclesiastical principality, and pouncing upon Nieuport on the North Sea. Next, he intended to attack Dunkirk and Gravelines. Then to Calais. His final objective point was Paris, of course.”
“Never heard of such a plan,” said Franz.
“Because at Frederick’s time these territories were an apanage of the Habsburgs,” volunteered the War Lord. “Proceed, Haeseler.”
“I can only reassert what I have submitted to Your Majesty more than once—namely, that King Frederick’s plan is as sound to-day as at the time——”
“When Prussia presented England with Canada and made secure her Empire in India,” interrupted the War Lord. “And isn’t she grateful for the inestimable services rendered by us with a generous heart?” he continued, warming his thighs and his wrath at the gas logs. “Won’t allow us to acquire coaling stations in any part of the world. Shuts the door in our face in Africa, Asia and America, and supports with treasure and blood, if necessary, any scheme intended to impede Germany’s progress, territorially and economically.
“We depend for our very life on foreign trade, yet England would restrict us to the Baltic and a few yards of North Sea coast.
“Franz,” he cried, rising and holding out his hand, “I will turn the Adriatic into an inland lake for the Emperor of the Slavs if you will help me secure the French Channel coast line, the north-eastern districts and the continental shores of the Straits of Dover. Is it a bargain?”
Franz, too, had risen, and was about to clasp the War Lord’s hand when his eye lit upon the field-marshal. “You bound me to secrecy,” he said doggedly, “yet our private pourparlers seem to be property of your General Staff.”
“The heads of my General Staff know as much as I want them to, Herr von Este, no more, no less,” replied the War Lord in a strident voice. Then, in less serious mood: “Come, now, the Kapellmeister does not play all the instruments, does he? and don’t you think I have more important things to do than worry over charts and maps and figures. That is his work,” inclining his head toward the field-marshal.
When Franz the Sullen still withheld acquiescence the War Lord continued in a bantering tone: “He is preparing the way, is Haeseler. While at Strassburg and neighbourhood, take a look at his sixteenth army corps, kneaded and knocked into invincibility by him. If there is a superior war machine, then our Blücher was beaten at Waterloo. Let his boys once get across the French frontier—they will never again leave La Belle France. Haeseler catechism!”
And more in the same boastful martinet vein, winding up with the promise of sending to the Austrian heir de luxe editions of Haeseler’s contributions to the General Staff history of the Franco-German War and of his technical writings on cavalry exercises and war discipline—a sure way of pleasing Franz. Yet it was patent enough that the Jesuit disciple was only half mollified. Desperate means were in order!
“I tell you what”—the War Lord dropped his voice—“I will lend you Haeseler for a fortnight or a month. Invite him to Konopischt” (the Austrian heir’s Hungarian seat) “and find out everything. What he doesn’t know about horse, foot and artillery, especially horse, is not worth knowing.”
At last Franz’s face lit up. “I’ll take you at your word,” he said warmly.
Franz’s thirst for military knowledge was insatiable. He had read most of the books, ancient and modern, on the science of war; had consulted all living army leaders of the day; was, of course, in constant communication with his own General Staff; and knew the methods of the Austrian, Russian, German and Spanish cavalry, both by practice and observation, since he took his honorary proprietorship of the Bavarian Heavy Troopers, the Saxon Lancers, the Russian 26th Dragoons and the Spanish Mounted Chasseurs very seriously. But to have Haeseler for private mentor and adviser, to be hand and glove with the premier cavalry expert of the world, at one time apprentice of Frederick Charles, the Red Prince, was indeed a priceless privilege.
“Will you come?” he asked Haeseler.
“Oh yes, he is coming, don’t you worry,” cried the War Lord, even before Haeseler finished the phrase: “At your Imperial Highness’s command.”
“His Excellency shall demonstrate to me that the offensive partnership you propose will be to mutual advantage,” said Franz quickly, to forestall possible further arguments on the exchange of the Italian Adriatic for the French-Belgian-Dutch Channel coasts.