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CHAPTER XXVIII
A FORESHADOWING OF "LUSITANIAISM"

The Rise of Herr Ballin – A Woman's Vanity – Herr Ballin at the Schloss – "Frightfulness" on the Sea – Smoothing the Way – The War Lord and Wedell – A Spy Plot – Overrunning England with Spies

On the eve of the day when the Lusitania snatched the world's speed record from the North German Lloyd, the red discs in the Chancellor's and in Count Wedell's office bobbed up almost simultaneously:

"I want to see the Jew Ballin. To-morrow morning at the earliest. You heard about the Lusitania?" Before Prince Bülow could say "Yes," the War Lord had hung up the receiver, simultaneously pressing the button marked Wedell, whom he asked to bring in the Ballin personalia.

"No ordinary Jew," explained the chief of the Secret Service.

"But common stock?"

"Very, Your Majesty."

"How does Ballin dress?"

"Affects the American business man, All Highest, in demeanour and dress."

"A genius, you said?"

"For making money, absolutely, Your Majesty."

"Let's hear about his beginnings." The War Lord sat down in a low chair and lit a cigarette. No such luxuries for Count Wedell, though. The head of the Secret Service stood while he read from his card index in telegraphic style:

"Born emigrant agents. – Son, brother and nephew of drummers-up of steerage cargo. – Learnt rudiments of trade in his native Hamburg. – Finished in London – "

"Perfect finishing school for aspiring German boys," interrupted the War Lord; "the English educating their future business rivals – touching!"

"I have often thought about that in connection with our war," said Wedell. "Of course, Your Majesty expects to win, but victory does not beget good will. Suppose London, Birmingham, Liverpool and the rest say no more foreign clerks and other employés, especially none of Teutonic origin?"

"Don't you worry. Any little game of that kind will be forestalled in the terms of peace. Finish your Ballin."

"Returned home," read Wedell from his cards, "secured employment in minor steamship line to bring Poles and Hungarians to Hamburg for shipment to the States. Hapag people soon awoke to the fact that the devil of a genius was weaning their quarry away from them. – Approached Ballin with promises of double salary. Ballin refused – then acquired controlling interest in employer's line. – Then sold out to Hapag."

"That happened when?"

"In 1886, Your Majesty."

"Since then business has grown immensely, hasn't it?"

"Its gross profits climbed from £125,000 to £2,825,000 per annum in twenty-five years, while its fleet increased from twenty-six to one hundred and eighty pennants. Tonnage in 1886, 50,000; to-day, exceeding one million."

"That will do," said Wilhelm. "Send in Haeseler."

Count Haeseler had arrived the night before from Konopischt, had been waiting to report to His Majesty for an hour or more, and, to kill time, had been paying visits to officials and pensioners living in the big pile. There had been cigars and cognac galore, and Gottlieb was on excellent terms with himself when he saw His Majesty.

"Went to bed with an attack of the heart, and got up refreshed and happy," he said.

"I see Franz Ferdinand's reputation at home is of the value of nothing, but, still, he treated you like a white man," interpreted the War Lord.

"Majesty hit the nail upon the head, as usual. Not an Austrian, Hungarian, Croatian, Servian, Bosniak or Pollack alive would not gladly spend his last heller to buy a dose of prussic acid for the heir to the throne, but to Your Majesty's representative he was all charm. Nearly gave me a horse."

"Forgot to send it to the station with the other baggage, eh? Well, aside from cheating my field marshal, how is he going on?"

"Like a steam-roller. The next time Your Majesty will deign to inspect the Sixth Infantry or the Wilhelm Hussars, Majesty will not recognise them. Fellows like me are being relegated to the scrap-heap by the dozen, and he cares no more for archdukes' privileges than the white souls of valets de chambre. His iron broom is busy with horse, foot and artillery, with the navy and the air fleet all at the same time, and wherever he touches there is a clean sweep and a howl of dismay, pitiful enough to move a tiger, but not Nero."

"He is stirring them up," rejoiced the War Lord.

"He is making the Austrian army a worthy adjunct of Your Majesty's forces," said Haeseler, very earnestly.

"And you taught him these new stratagems?"

"I would never have been allowed to leave the country alive if the Hungarians knew what I did teach Nero."

"Dirty trick," said the War Lord, "not to give Gottlieb the horse." Then imperiously: "I expect your detailed report about all the reforms in the Austrian army and navy in a fortnight."

"There will be no gun missing, I promise Your Majesty."

Count Haeseler referred, of course, to the astounding memory and precision of the great Napoleon. Once, when occupied by much business, the Emperor sent an officer to Belgium to investigate military stores. The officer handed in his report. Napoleon gave him back the document with these words: "There are two guns missing at Ostend." And there were two missing.

"And your general opinion of Franz based on intimate observation?" queried Wilhelm.

"He seems to regard himself as a sort of necessary barricade to progress, yet has no patience with the idea uppermost in Austria that laissez fairemust be perpetuated for ever and a day simply because it's as old as the hills."

"And the Duchess?"

"With Your Majesty's leave, confidently expects to be Empress of Austria."

"Must have Pan-German leanings."

"No, Your Majesty; only the truly womanly passion to be the most envied of her sex."

"Slav conflict with Austria suits me all right," said the War Lord. "The Czechs and Hungarians wanting Sophie, the Austrian Germans will feel the more inclined to join my Germanic Federation."

"But," said Haeseler, "Franz counts upon Your Majesty to help at the enthronisation of Sophie by force, if necessary."

The War Lord went to a bookshelf and pulled out a volume bound in red with atrocious gold decorations. "And Franz brags about having read every strategic work ever written," he commented.

"Majesty refers to Moltke's introduction of the Franco-Prussian war."

"Yes, but this isn't the volume. Can you quote from memory?"

"I will try my utmost, Your Majesty: 'The days are past when for dynastical ends armies went forth – '"

"Take an 'echte,' Edward's brand," said the War Lord.

There was a royal carriage at the station for Herr Ballin, and the royal coachman, keen for marks, waved his whip frantically to attract attention, and coin: the shipping king, emerging from a first-class compartment, affected not to see. Berlin has two kinds of cabs, and Ballin chose the Noah's Ark brand at threepence a mile. When he said "Schloss," the driver quizzed him curiously and decided at once to put him down at the kitchen entrance. "Must be a relative of some housemaid," he calculated, and could not understand at all why the royal carriage, though empty, drove plumb ahead of him when they reached the Schlossplatz. Of course the War Lord's livery meant to impress upon the Court Marshal that he had been on the spot.

Court Marshal von Liebenau left the reception to his aide and ran upstairs.

"With Majesty's permission. Regular Jewski, second-class cab. How long shall he wait?"

"Show him up instantly."

From this it may be gathered as from the scene witnessed at the Wilhelmstrasse, that waiting for Majesty is a punishment meted out on religious or other grounds.

Ballin had anticipated questions, and received instructions. "The Lusitania," said the War Lord, after the curtest, not to say abruptest of welcomes, "must teach you Hamburgers and the Lloyd people this important lesson: In the ocean greyhound to be built hereafter, the naval value is obviously of greater importance than trade or dividend considerations, for the moment war is declared all your vessels will pass under my exclusive control, and I need all the auxiliaries, with a prodigious coal supply and a speed unsurpassable by cruisers, I can get. If war with England came to-morrow, the Lusitania would be turned loose upon our commerce at once, and neither Wilhelmshaven, nor Bremen nor Hamburg boasts a vessel capable of overtaking her. She can sink our ships right and left, and show a clean pair of heels every time. Until yesterday I considered Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, der Krönprinz, die Deutschlandand the flyer named after me capable commerce destroyers, but the Lusitania could sink either of these giants, and boast of her record in the nearest English harbour protected by mines."

"But Majesty doesn't anticipate that merchantman will turn upon merchantman, and that passenger steamers in particular will be sunk either by vessels of the same lay calibre or by regular men-of-war?" ventured Herr Ballin, who evidently believed at that time in "scraps of paper."

"Herr Ballin," said the War Lord, "you were described to me as the most far-seeing and progressive of sea lords outside of my navy. Surely you can't be of opinion that in the great war to come international niceties will be allowed to cut any figure? If Germany must draw the sword before my navy is superior to the British, I propose to save my men-of-war and trust to submarines."

"But passenger steamers – " quoth Herr Ballin rather more timidly.

"Passenger steamers carry freight, and in time of war all goods that might possibly be of use to the enemy in any way, manner or form I consider contraband. And contraband spells destruction."

"Does Your Majesty anticipate that the English, French or Russians would attack Hamburg liners while engaged in the passenger traffic?"

"If they half know their business they will. For my part, I would not hesitate a moment to sink the Lusitania, or any other Cunarder at sight, since all are supposed to be in the service or, at least, at the service of their Government."

Herr Ballin breathed hard as he said: "May it please Your Majesty, what about neutrals? Like the Cunarders, the Hapag carries on every journey hundreds of American citizens."

"I don't know anything about a Yankee's food value," replied the War Lord cynically. "I think the denizens of the big herring-pond will have to make the best of them."

Herr Ballin bowed low. "As Your Majesty commands."

"It is settled then," continued the War Lord. "On your part, bigger and faster boats than the English; on my part, I promise to advise you of the date of the outbreak of hostilities long enough beforehand to save your vessels for the Fatherland. Even if circumstances decree their internment en masse, Germany will be the gainer in the end, when both our navy and our merchant marine remain unbroken."

Ballin was retreating backwards toward the door, when the War Lord recalled him. "I am dickering with Wilhelmina about Curaçao for a coaling station, and" – banteringly – "if you could stir up war between the Netherlands and some other colonial power I would be very much obliged. We got the coaling station in the Red Sea through our pro-Boer sympathies. Curaçao would make an excellent apéritif after getting over Dutch troubles."

"The United States would object."

"Of course, but there are some twenty-six millions of Germans in America, every mother's son of them fighting-mad for me – part of my invisible army and almost as important as the other. The Germans in America have an immense vote-swaying power; they control Washington to a large extent, and some of the State Legislatures absolutely. And, as you know, each American State is sovereign. Suppose I would threaten to decree secession for the States between New York and Seattle, taking in New York, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri, etc. etc., where would Washington be? Would Roosevelt risk Civil War because I want a place to coal my ships not exactly five thousand miles from the Panama Canal?

"I tell you, my men controlling a large portion of the American Press won't let him. And, by the way, Ballin, the Hapag, the Lloyd, Woermann, etc., will have to give more extensive support to my German Press in America than is done now. Die Staats Zeitungs, the Herolds, and whatever-they-call-them can't live on wind. Ridder is a rapacious cuss and a Jesuit besides; but my Washington bureau tells me that his complaints are not altogether groundless. As my Germans become more and more Americanised, the German papers' circulations are dwindling, and likewise slumps the advertising. For this we must make up. German shipping and the industries engaged in international trade must support the German Press in New York, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Kansas City and the minor towns, as my Government supports the Norddeutsche Allgemeine and Krupp his Neueste Nachrichten.

"By the way," he added, grabbing a "Bismarck pencil" suspended from a wire and scribbling on his calendar block, "I will have to tell Krupp, Loewe and the rest of the ammunition hogs to loosen up on those German papers in America. Podbielski shall see them about it. Of course he is no stockholder, but his dear Emma is." (The War Lord referred to the scandals connecting a German general with subserviency to army purveyors to the extent of awarding contracts exclusively to firms in which he was financially interested.)

"It might serve the Hapag and 'meine Wenigkeit' (literally my inferiority, meaning your humble servant) if specifically informed respecting the invisible army Your Majesty was graciously pleased to allude to," bowed Herr Ballin.

"In the States," explained the War Lord, "my volunteers are mostly full-fledged citizens – universal suffrage, otherwise a stench in my nostrils, is working overtime for the German Cause there – but in the rest of the world merchant-princes, manufacturers, trade agents and skilled workmen do yeoman duty for me and the Fatherland. Of course we have a lot of adherents in England – 'naturalised' they call them. Funny term! I hold that it would be most unnatural for a German to embrace another nationality, especially the English."

"Whenever you hear of troubles in Ireland, put it down to my invisible army. That same army has before this fomented labour troubles in Russia, and it never sleeps in France, particularly not in Paris."

And, lowering his voice, the War Lord talked of invisible forces building concrete gun-platforms along the French and Belgian frontiers – "foundations for manufacturing plants," he added sarcastically.

"Of course I am doing my bit in other respects too," he concluded. "I have fed some of these German editors from the States at my own table, and – bad manners they had too; and I have baited them with minor orders in plenty. If Ridder behaves himself I will make him a 'von' some day, and that German Congressman from Missouri – I forget his name – will get a five-pronged coronet too. But to return to Curaçao. If I get a foothold there, I will have both French and English for neighbours – excellent chances for picking a quarrel if desirable."

The War Lord put a finger down vigorously on the Wedell – and Adjutant von Moltke buttons. The nephew of the great Field Marshal responded almost instantly. "I want Wedell."

"Count Wedell is in waiting, Your Majesty." Even while the equerry spoke, the sign language of the telephone announced that the Chief was at the Schloss.

"That Jew of yours will be useful," said Wilhelm approvingly. "He will obey orders like Krupp, but remember His Majesty can't do all the reconnoitring himself. I tell you for the hundredth time that your department is negligent with respect to England. You must get Ballin to help you."

Count Wedell winced. "If I have had the misfortune to fall short of Your Majesty's expectations – " he stuttered.

"'My resignation is, etc.' The old Wedell complaint; I know what you want to say. Only recently I stopped your cousin's litany by remarking: 'I thought you liked your salary and perquisites.' None of that nonsense, please. Listen: I have played sleuth for you at Portsmouth; I know the dockyards there like my pocket. The Solent and Cowes are open books to my General Staff, owing to descriptive matter and diagrams I have furnished, and what I did not tell Tirpitz about Gibraltar is not worth knowing. Really," he added, "English naïveté is astonishing, particularly in the face of the Press campaign. With the most widely circulated and best informed newspapers constantly reminding them that my whole naval policy is directed against Great Britain, English officials – military, naval and civilian – extend me every opportunity for the study of old England's defence and weakness. Thanks to my inspection, my General Staff is as well informed about the Gibraltar signal station as the first English Sea Lord – it is to laugh.

"And how they opened their ports to me: Leith, Port Victoria, Folkestone were as free to the Hohenzollern as Piccadilly Circus.

"The next time I visit Edward I will drive my yacht right up above Tilbury. See if I don't."

"Poor devil of a pilot," mocked Count Wedell.

"Now, don't credit the English War Office with more circumspection than the average German schoolboy has," guffawed Wilhelm; "the pilot will probably get the V.C., and I promise Tirpitz some astounding information for, while on the bridge, I will pump the pilot dry – absolutely dry.

"I really worked hard for your department," concluded Wilhelm; "now show that you can follow my lead."

"Perhaps Majesty favours establishment of semaphores on the British coast on a larger scale."

"After we prohibited the keeping of carrier pigeons in the neighbourhood of German naval stations? No, Herr Graf, I am not dispensing meal tickets to penny-a-liners just now. Think of something new, something Ballin can do for us."

"I submit that cheap excursions to English harbours and seaside resorts, arranged by the Hamburg line during the holiday season – "

"I take it all back," cried Wilhelm. "You are earning your salary, Wedell. Capital idea. The Naval Intelligence Service shall subscribe for a hundred berths, sending its most expert photographers, topographers, surveyors, fortification experts and naval men. In mufti, of course, and you will have men on board to spot fools that betray their official connections. Tell Ballin I want some of his largest steamers for this service, so that my army and my navy men get well lost in the crowd. The larger the crowd, the more men of military age and reservists, of course."

"Your Majesty thinks of everything."

"I have to," said the War Lord. "And make a note of it. Amateur photography is to be encouraged in the schools, the press, in society. No use sending crowds of Germans to England unless they bring back plenty of photographic evidence relating to the enemy coast and land defences. As a special inducement, Ballin shall have a dark-room on board and develop films free of charge. In that way we will get duplicates of everything."

"I beg to submit," said Wedell, "there is still another aspect to Your Majesty's enlightened prospect."

"Fire away!"

"The legend of impossible invasion will suffer a collapse with everybody observing that the supposed impregnability of Dover is all moonshine."

"Not half bad," said the War Lord. "Those tourists will make splendid commis voyageurs for our army of invasion."

"Agents provocateurs!"

Wilhelm shrugged impatiently. "Fouché's business! Of course my War Office will furnish the dates for the excursions. Sounds ridiculous, but England's little vest-pocket army indulges in annual manoeuvres like my own, and it would be curious if some valuable information could not be gleaned from a boat full of military and semi-military sightseers. Of course the English naval manoeuvres are much more important. Sometimes a simple tourist sees things for which the official and unofficial representatives of my Admiralty and your own department, Wedell, search in vain."

The discussion continued in the same vein for another half-hour, the War Lord impressing upon Wedell the absolute necessity of increased espionage in England. "Thirty-six years ago," said Wilhelm in conclusion, "Bismarck had over thirty thousand spies and sympathisers in France doing his work. Have we got as many in England to-day? How many are on the pay-rolls of English railways, of Scotch railways and, particularly, of Irish railways? You can't tell off-hand? Report within three days. And don't forget the proofs, if you please. I likewise want to know how many of your men are detailed to attack British arsenals, harbours, wireless stations and so forth in the event of war. Whatever their number, duplicate, nay, treble it, and don't be sparing with promises. If we invade England, we won't get out in a hurry, tell them, and there will be plenty of pickings for our friends while we are on the Insular side of the Channel.

"Remind them that our army of occupation remained in France two years and five months after peace had been signed. I propose to enjoy English hospitality even a while longer, and the people that serve us 'before and aft' can make enough money while we are in England to evacuate with us and live on their interests in the Fatherland after Threadneedle Street has paid the last instalment. Think of it! Serve the War Lord and feather one's own nest at the same time."

Wilhelm had been sitting down uncommonly long. Indeed he had been almost confidential with his pal in the conspiracy international. He now rose, squared his shoulders and assumed his favourite character of the graven image.

"I don't like Krupp's ignorance of things English. Shall make a few trips into England, and see what there is to be seen," he said in a tone of command. He continued: "I want a talk from Court Chaplain Dryander on the chosen people, not on the Jews – on the term. Got impressed with it while talking to Ballin. Germans the chosen people! Sounds good!"

"Dryander will report at eleven to-morrow morning. Order (Professor) Delbrueck to be here at the same time. I will see him after the sky-pilot has gone. Parsons are such romancers; it's well to digest their palaver to the accompaniment of historic facts."

"One thing more." The War Lord grabbed a pencil and marked asafoetida on half a dozen pages of his daily calendar. "I want to have a conference with chemists by and by."