CHAPTER XXXV

THE KING AND THE KAISER

London went mad when all the news was known--mad with amazement, relief, anger, joy: amazement at the deadly reality of the national danger that had been averted; relief at the safety of England; anger with the

“New majesties of mighty States”--

that, with “great contrivances of power,” had sought to encompass our inviolable island.

And there was joy--delirious, exuberant--that the hydra-headed mob no longer held the field in London.

The main thoroughfares were densely packed with shouting multitudes. In the sharp reaction of the moment, in the complex excitement occasioned by the news, people laughed and wept and sang. Social distinctions were broken down; the gloved hands of cultured women were given gladly into the grip of the grimiest workmen. Men and women of every rank exchanged greetings and congratulations. Everywhere it was “Rule Britannia!” “God save the King!” “England for ever!”

Those who recalled the street scenes on Mafeking night declared they were as nothing compared with the wild and jubilant excitement of the present hour. Banners were slung across the streets; nearly every upper window displayed a flag of some sort; and, when darkness came, Chinese lanterns, lamps and candles, supplied the want of public lighting--which, however, was speedily restored.

Any sailor who was met with casually was hoisted shoulder-high and carried through the thoroughfares amid cheering crowds. Thousands stood bare-headed before the Nelson Column in Trafalgar Square, while a young girl, with rapt face and glowing eyes, standing on the masonry, recited Tennyson’s National Song:

“There is no land like England Where’er the light of day be; There are no hearts like English hearts-- Such hearts of oak as they be.”

A vast concourse also assembled before the broad façade of Buckingham Palace; and, undeterred by its silent emptiness and the myriads of white blinds, all drawn down, shouted lustily and again and again for King and Queen. “Three cheers for the Navy!” roared a stentorian voice, and with a swift and mighty response the crowd gave not three cheers, but nearer thirty.

The next day, and the day after, and the day after that, the noise and the excitement were continued almost without abatement.

Meanwhile there had taken place at Windsor Castle, amid surroundings of quietude and regal dignity, an interview fraught with great import to England, to Germany, and to the whole of Europe.

Two mighty monarchs, constitutional rulers of great empires, came face to face, in circumstances of unexampled interest and embarrassment. It was a supreme moment, stupendous in the main problem that it presented, subtle and painful in the side-issues which that problem involved. For these were men, as well as monarchs. Not only were they men with like passions as we ourselves have, but the blood of a common ancestor flowed through the veins of each. The two were kith and kin.

Nothing mean or petty could be said or done by King or Kaiser in that trying hour. The salutation of royal personages must be exchanged after the custom of the Courts. The ritual of State observance must be followed in all its detail. Yet, notwithstanding these formalities, each exalted personage was acutely conscious of the rough, the tragic, underlying elements of the unexampled situation.

Neither could forget in that ironic moment the bombastic utterances of the royal captive, the vapouring allusion to the “mailed fist,” the “dry powder,” the “taut muscles,” and all the rest of it. Graver still were the recollections of the inspired press campaign against Great Britain, the manufactured grievances, the falsely imputed intrigues, all sequent to the unfriendly spirit shown in the memorable telegram to the President of the South African Republic. Worse than all was the evidence of enmity and jealousy afforded by the persistent increase of the German navy, the injurious uses to which Heligoland had been put, the enlargement of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, and the partial construction of a new naval base for the German fleet in the North Sea.

Vaulting ambition had inspired these things, the overmastering obsession of a supposed divine right of empire. The proud possessor of a giant’s power had sought, and found, some pretext for gigantic deeds.

And now the cup of humiliation had been presented to those proud lips. Like the great emperors of the past, whose dynasties had long lain in the dust, the modern monarch had to learn that kings propose, but One alone disposes; that He alone, above the water floods, “remains a King for ever.” This, indeed, was no triumphal entry into England’s capital. Not as William the Conqueror, but as William the Conquered, Kaiser William stood on English soil.

But if there was humiliation on the one side, there was on the other not only righteous wrath, but kingly magnanimity.

Of what precisely passed between the two august sovereigns no written record was preserved. They spoke as man to man. Nor was there any occasion for a formal treaty between the high contracting parties. King Edward, with the advice of his ministers, had already decided on the minimum of his requirements as representing the just demands of a great nation. Those requirements--absolutely inflexible, and not to be varied in any one particular--were as follows:

Heligoland was to be restored to the British Crown. The captured warships were to be incorporated in the British Navy. If the new naval base on the North Sea were not forthwith dismantled and abandoned, the British fleet would bombard every German port in Europe.

It was said that the Kaiser listened with knitted brow, and, after a brief pause, asked quietly:

“What assurances does your Majesty require?”

“Your Majesty’s word of honour,” was the answer.

“It is not intended to treat me as a hostage?”

“Your Majesty is free.”