The View From Olympus 22: His Majesty's Birthday

January 27 is the birthday of my liege lord and reporting senior, Kaiser Wilhelm II, so as usual I telephoned him to offer my felicitations. Frequently I find him just returned from some madcap adventure. This year was different.“Happy birthday, Hoheit. I trust you have been celebrating in good form. A ride in a Zeppelin-Staaken R-7, perhaps?”“Thank you. Actually, you find me in the Garnisonkirche here in Potsdam. They called me to the Fernsprecher in the rector's office. As I'm sure you know, in Heaven all churches are Anglican.”“Well, of course they are. In Heaven everyone's upper class. What other church could they possibly attend? But may I enquire why you are in church on your birthday?”“I find myself spending a good deal of time in church now. This year marks the hundredth anniversary of that vast civilizational catastrophe you know as World War I. Our culture, Western culture, in effect put a gun to its head and blew its brains out. Everything since has merely been the twitching of the corpse.”“If I may ask a somewhat delicate question of Your Majesty, how much responsibility do you, in hindsight, bear for that disaster?”“Your President Wilson's closest advisor, Colonel House, spent a great deal of time with me in 1914. As he subsequently wrote to Wilson, in 1914 I neither wanted war nor expected war. I was know derisively in Germany as the “Peace Kaiser” because in one crisis after another I insisted Germany back down to preserve peace. My error in 1914 was not insisting Austria back down, even though she was in the right. Germany was encircled with enemies at that point, and my advisors were terrified that if we did not support Vienna we would lose our last ally. My instinct was to overrule them, but I didn't. That was my error all too often, before and during the war.”“If I may say so, Your Majesty was almost always wiser than your advisors.”“Thank you, but that means I wasn't stupid, but weak. That may be a fair verdict. I was no Frederick the Great. But remember, he was an absolute monarch, and I was a constitutional monarch. Often, my cabinet simply ignored me.”“Your Majesty will be pleased to hear that according to a piece in the January 18 Financial Times, the German public no longer accepts the canard, invented by the Versailles Treaty, that Germany caused World War I.”“Heaven rejoices that the German people are beginning, just beginning, to rediscover the truth about the history of their country. Except for the thirteen short years of the Third Reich, Germany was a normal country. Germans have as much right to be proud of their history, and the history of their military, as any other people. It is shameful the way the Bundeswehr is forbidden virtually the whole history of the German armed forces, except the few short years of the War of National Liberation from Napoleon. This is due in large part to the influence of the Frankfurt School, as you well know.”“Indeed. Cultural Marxism is even stronger in Germany than in the United States. But let me ask, if I may, about another influence, that of the Fischer Thesis. What is your response to Fischer's charge that World War I was the inevitable culmination of a German plan to become a world power?”“The Fischer Thesis is an example of ideological history. Ideology dictated the conclusion, that the Second Reich was merely a forerunner of the Third—utter nonsense—and then Fischer erected a sand castle of evidence to prove it. That sand castle all stood on one event, a single late-night tabagie where I and some of my senior advisors, especially some General Staff officers, got drunk on anxiety, hubris, and perhaps a few other things as well. As you have observed with the U.S. military, a roomful of officers can late at night turn into a room full of twelve-year-old boys. The discussion had no effect whatsoever on policy. It dissolved in the next morning's light. The Fischer Thesis dissolves with it. Germany had no master plan to conquer the world. It is pure invention, by a German Left that wants to teach Germans to hate Germany.”“I can happily inform Your Majesty that the German people are beginning to reject the Left's version of German history. Financial Times reported that only 19% of Germans now believe Germany bore 'chief responsibility' for World War I. 58% said each of the Powers was to blame.”“That 58% is right. My cousin Nicky was yesterday lamenting the role he played in July 1914. Like me, he could have stopped it but didn't.”“What does your other cousin, King George of Great Britain, say about it?”“I don't know. He's not here. He was something of a rotter, you know.”“He and Winston both.”“Winston's not here, either. Oh, I think he'll get here, eventually. But he has to spend some time in the servants' hall first. In fact, now that you've made me think of him, I'll ring and have him bring me up a pot of good English tea.”“A suitable beverage for celebrating your birthday in this penitential year. I thank Your Majesty for his time and insight. I always suspected Fischer conjured up his facts. Now we know. Until next year, Hoch Hohenzollern!”Deutschland hoch in Ehre, dann und jetzt! May the German people ever so regard it. Goodbye!”