“I wish I could have greeted you with happier news, Wilhelm.” Prince Regent Albert said as he met his nephew coming down the gangway. The death of Victoria, the Kaiserin Friedrich, had not come unexpected, but it had nonetheless been a blow to the young Emperor. In many ways, she had been the centre of an alternative court's gravity, a piece of an older and smaller, more genteel Prussia from an age before the harsh, masculine, technocratic world that modern Berlin had become. To Albert, she had been a constant companion and comfort. To Wilhelm, a certainty in a chaotic world. Neither man had taken the news well. Even a week after the funeral – not an affair of state, not exactly, but a gathering of every great family in the Empire and beyond – no celebrations were laid on to welcome home the young emperor. The crowds wore black ribbons and mostly kept respectful silence after the salute had ended. Emperor and Prince Regent quietly mounted a carriage talking them to their quarters in picturesque Blankenese. Neither spoke for the duration of the ride.
Dinner was solemn, exquisite, but unappreciated. Ballin had had the tact to quietly make all social engagements disappear, and sunset found the two men alone on the balcony, overlooking the Elbe stream glistening red gold.
“It feels like everyone I could trust is dying, uncle.” Wilhelm said after a long silence. “Bismarck is gone, Caprivi is dead, Roon and Moltke, and now grandmama... soon, nobody will be left. Who will I turn to for advice when I must govern?”It sounded almost plaintive.
“You will have to find your own, Wilhelm.” Albert said, soothingly. “I know it is hard. I miss my mother more than I can describe. But you will need to make your own way and find your own advisers, just like Friedrich did before you. You know, Bismarck.” an almost imperceptible nod pointed eastwards, up the Elbe towards Friedrichsruh, where the great man had lived out his curmudgeonly dotage. “I only ever knew him as a great man. You practically never really knew him, did you? You know only the mythos they made of him. But even when I was a boy, people fell silent when Bismarck entered the room. He was young and untested, once, too. There was a time when people mocked him for his foolishness and feared him for his impulsiveness. And I do remember Caprivi when he was new to politics. You can find good men to advise you, even in a generation as rotten as yours.” Albert raised his hands placatingly. His humor was rare, but disarming, even in such dark times.
“That is all well, but how can I learn to handle the Reichtsag with nobody to teach me? Who can I study from? Do not take it the wrong way, uncle, but you...”
“I am a Prince Regent and you will be his All-Highest Majesty. I do not hold it against you. You must do things differently. Truth be told, I don't think doing things my way works any longer, anyway. I inherited a kingdom and an Empire in Bismarck's mould that terrible year, and I tried my best to keep it that way for you. As much as I could without turning into Bismarck myself.”
“Would that have been so bad, uncle?”
Albert laughed drily. “You really did not know the man. Wilhelm, Bismarck was a bully, a blackmailer and a choleric. I could not be him if I took acting lessons with Wagner himself. Even Emperor Friedrich feared him. I don't think my valet is afraid of me, though I could be wrong there. I like to think that I reigned by appealing to my subject's sense of duty, but I fear much of the time I got along by bothering people until they humoured me. That is not an option you will have, and, you will forgive my honesty, I don't think you have the makings of a bully.”
“Then how do you think I should reign? How do you reign, for that matter? I thought I could learn it on those state visits along the route, but nobody could tell me anything useful.”
“Then I won't, either. I'm sorry. You have to do it your own way. But I can tell you a lot that doesn't work. You can't do it Bismarck's way any more, for one thing. Or mine. The Reichstag will not be bullied any longer, and I fear that is my fault.”
“Fault?” Wilhelm asked, genuinely curious. His uncle rarely spoke about mistakes.
“Fault. I was complacent. Most of my time was spent letting things run their course. Bismarck went to the Reichstag like a lion-tamer. He could make them sit and beg. But in those days, that was easier. The press did as it was told, and you could have people imprisoned for insulting the majesty of the crown. And he bribed people. Bismarck had a royal treasury set aside to buy votes and journalists. I never did any of that – well, rarely.” Albert was not proud of those episodes, but it had happened. “By now, the Reichstag is used to things running its own way. Laws are passed, and I sign them. I think it was two or three times I vetoed them, but mostly, I signed. They suggest a Chancellor, and I appoint him. Theyy are much more concerned over the fiery dragon of public opinion than they are over the toothless lion of royal displeasure. You will have to live with that.”
“I could just appoint my own Chancellor, couldn't I?
“The law says you can, but I would advise you not to try. There would be an uproar.”
“What could they do?”
“The Reichstag? Very little. You have the army, the police, and the prisons. But doing it this way breaks things that work, and making new arrangements work is hard. You have to take account of what your new partners want, and often, you will find yourself tied to people that are much worse than the ones you got rid of. Take General von der Goltz, for example.” Albert pointed out
“What about him?”
“Would you want to see him in charge of managing Elsass-Lothringen?”
Wilhelm recalled the cheerfuly amoral bloodthirstiness of his intelligence chief and shuddered. “Not really.”
“Well, if you broke the Reichstag, you might have to appoint people like him to these positions. And of course, you would never hear from people like this Ebert fellow. At least until they built you a guilloutine.”
“Never!”The thought of revolution chilled the young Emperor. He hadn't even considered the possibility.
“Well, I concede it is not likely. The people love you, Wilhelm.They respect me, but they love you from their heart. It would take a lot to disappoint that love. But still, it is extremely useful to have an institution that reflects genuine public opinion. And not only because it can be dangerous not to know what your people are thinking.”
“Something like the French Estates-General?” Wilhelm teased.
“Or the English Parliament.” Albert knew his history, too. “If you need to know what your people think. If you allow them to say it freely, you can just ask them. If you don't, you need an Okhrana. Public opinion is usually right, you know?”
“You are kidding me, uncle!”
“No, Wilhelm, I am serious. I didn't believe it myself in the beginning, but it's true. Of course not in the details. No matter what the Social Democrats say, you can't have government run by cobblers and bakers. But in the broad sense, when it comes to the big questions, public opinion gets things right. I mean, look at the Social Democrats. Their ideas of running the country are insane. But you cannot disagree that the lives of the working class in this country are hardly worth living. That is a disgrace, and I don't mind saying so. That is why I stood up to Bismarck over the Silesian strikes back then. When a cavalryman mistreats his animal so much it turns on him, we do not punish the horse, after all.”
“I know. But uncle, the Social Democrats! The idea is distasteful.”
“I always thought so, at least. That will be your task, anyway. Find some way of dealing with them. I had the luxury of ignoring them, but you won't be able to.”
The light of the Prince Regent's favourite pipe glowed gently in the gathering darkness as his nephew absorbed the thought.
