The ghost of socialism is beginning to show a very earnest face ... the Zentrum is a gang of hypocritical blackguards without a Fatherland, intent on… - Alfred von Waldersee

He has an open head, a fresh mind, a great lust and energy to work, and a strongly developed Prussian feeling. Perhaps he is not excessively of much heart, but I believe that this is excellent for him and his future. In his outward behavior he is friendly and pleasant.

If at home there are people so innocent as to imagine that it is here a case of propaganda for Christian civilization and Christian ways, they would be disillusionized. Since the Thirty Years' War and the plundering campaigns of the French in the age of Louis XIV there has been nothing like it.

What he is most lacking in are fixed aims and the faculty of persisting in the line he has taken up.