Emil Ludwig Quotes

His extreme vanity soon led him to imagine that he was really among the most remarkable of men.

When so markedly egotistic a nature dominates a realm, the consequences can be nothing but catastrophic; and we are heading straight for a period which will decide whether the age or the Emperor is the stronger. I am afraid it will not be he.

Wealth, as such, impressed him deeply; his unromantic spirit respected this modern form of power—riches, no matter how acquired, were a sufficient attraction.

When Lyncker at about this time took over the Military Cabinet, the Emperor said to him in a pathetically pleading tone: “But, dear Lyncker, you won’t bring me nothing but musty papers, will you? Now and again some funny little story or another!” This is a shocking example of his aversion from anything practical, for the speaker was a man of fifty, who still was called the young Emperor.

Our policy”—so Brandenburg pronounces—“was a petty one, dictated partly by uneasiness, partly by greed and considerations of prestige. Once more, great perdurable things were forgotten in trivialities.

A great and peaceable people, conscious of its subjection to a boastful little monarch, was obliged to pay for the claptrap of its vainglorious sovereign, who only degraded them with the title of Huns that he might ape an Attila.

The State has no higher purpose than the protection of its interests. These, however, for Great Powers, are not necessarily identical with the preservation of peace.

Behind their glittering phrases both monarchs were uneasy. At the Conference it was soon made manifest that genuine Pacifists there were none, except the United States. The time was not ripe. Europe, for her awakening, needed the stench of ten million corpses.

In this document all the elements of his being are fused into a unique amalgam which is the authentic William—the fervour of the Crusader, the lawlessness of the pirate, the rant of the star-actor in a Grand Historical Melodrama, the craving for hegemony, the infatuation of the deluded, while as a finishing-touch the Germans are twice likened to classic murderers.

So in this matter also he attributed his own perfidy to others, vindicating thus his own political propensities.

In only one respect were the Foreign Office and the Emperor completely in accord—each thought and said that the other was crazy.

To Eulenburg Bülow owed his whole career—which, when all is said, remains the only statesmanlike one of the William the Second’s reign.

In the course of five years’ visits the Emperor had roused English feeling against Germany; by his conduct towards his uncle he had offended the Court, by that towards Salisbury the Cabinet; by his prattle he had annoyed society, by his menaces the Press, by his indiscretions the man in the street, who read of them in the papers.

He was living in the world of 120 years ago, more like a descendant of the Bourbons than the descendant of Voltaire’s friend; he regarded Jaurès in the Chamber of Deputies as Jaurès on the throne, and at the bottom of his heart considered all those people who desired to be something more than subjects as only fit to be shot down—except that hanging them would be more suitable.

A sacred duty is imposed by Heaven on us Christian Kings and Emperors—to uphold the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings.