Dearest Vicky, Darling Fritz

by John Van der Kiste

  On Sunday 24 July Sophie was christened in the Friedenskirche. What should have been a happy occasion was overshadowed by ‘anxious faces and tearful eyes, and a gloom and foreshadowing of all the misery in store’.25 The men in their uniforms and high boots were an uncomfortable reminder of the battlefields they would soon witness, and the King trembled so much that he had to ask the stony-faced Queen Augusta to hold their grandchild. Fritz had been given command of the Bavarian and Württemberg troops, and asked the respective Kings to stand as godparents.

  On the Monday husband and wife took Communion together in the chapel, and early next morning Fritz took his leave. Having agreed with Vicky that they would spare each other a formal parting, he left a farewell note. He was in command of the Third Army, the others being under General von Steinmetz and Prince Friedrich Karl, with the King in supreme command, and General von Blumenthal his Chief of Staff. On 30 July he established his first headquarters at Speyer, about a hundred miles from the French border.

  Within a week they had reached France, and won victories at Weissenberg and Wörth. At headquarters after the second battle he poured out his heart to his friend Gustav Freytag, who had accompanied him as an official chronicler of the campaign. He detested ‘this butchery’, had ‘never longed for war laurels, and would willingly have left such fame to others without envying them.’26 Thankfully the butchery was to be of short duration. At the end of August the German forces won a decisive battle at Sedan, near the frontier of neutral Belgium. Emperor Napoleon and his commanders surrendered on 1 September and three days later a republic was proclaimed in Paris, but the new French leaders vowed to fight until the Germans were defeated.

  Contrary to general expectations, the victor had been determined within one month of fighting, but Fritz’s sense of triumph was shortlived. Like Vicky, he believed in the superiority of the hardworking Prussians to the licentious French, but he could not forget how often he had enjoyed French hospitality at its finest. Soon after the surrender he talked privately with Napoleon, and learnt that he had never wanted war in the first place; contrary to popular belief he was not the real aggressor. It had never occurred to Fritz that declaration of hostilities had been provoked by Bismarck’s trickery. Eager to ensure that the former sovereign was treated well, he appealed to King Wilhelm to ask him to hand over his sword in private, and let him retire to the late King’s castle at Bellevue, promising him that he could join his wife and son in England after the war.

  In Berlin and Windsor, reaction was less charitable. Carried away by Prussian success, Vicky’s expressions of regret for Emperor Napoleon, who ‘brought his fall upon himself’, were tempered with uncharacteristically priggish judgments. ‘May we all learn what frivolity, conceit and immorality lead to!’27 Queen Victoria called the Emperor’s fall a ‘judgment from heaven’ and retribution on a guilty government and vainglorious nation, ‘the fulfilment of beloved Papa’s most earnest wishes!’28 Vicky was pleased that the Prussian character was ‘now appreciated and seen in its true light, its superiority acknowledged with pleasure and pride’, and regretted the harm it had done to Bertie, Affie, ‘and to the young and brilliant aristocracy of London!’29

  Vicky and her children had left Berlin for Homburg near the French border, where barracks had been put at her disposal to organize a military hospital. Visiting the hospital every day, she was a model of efficiency, insisting that there was more to medical care than covering the wounded with filthy rags to keep them warm; the rags were to be burnt, wounds were to be properly dressed, walls and floors of the wards were to be scrubbed thoroughly with disinfectant. Wounded German and French soldiers were resigned to their fate as they were brought in to die on the floors of makeshift huts. Her concern for their plight deeply touched them as they saw that here was somebody who genuinely cared for their condition and was prepared to do something about it, and they clung to her hands and skirts as she went past, mouthing words of gratitude that made it hard for her not to give way to tears in front of them.

  She wrote to Fritz in the few hours she could spare and he sent her his war diary, in which he recorded the campaign from personal experience, combining factual accounts and his personal thoughts.* As she received each instalment she read it, mentally following every movement and route as far as her knowledge of France allowed, consulting a map when necessary. It angered her when the German newspapers reported each victory without once mentioning his name. She knew he would not care as long as his army received due recognition, but she could not but feel hurt when his homeland chose to ignore him, especially as the English press repeatedly praised his heroic virtues and leadership. It was in these pages that he noted, a few days after Sedan, that her presence in the hospitals was much appreciated, and how the doctors declared themselves astonished at her wide range of knowledge.

  Not everybody appreciated this new broom sweeping clean. ‘To overcome the prejudice of doctors and patients against fresh air is really almost impossible,’ she wrote in despair to Queen Victoria. ‘We have not one nurse or dresser here yet, only people from the town, who are dirty, ignorant and useless in the extreme, but we have sent for some better help which we shall have soon.’30 Soon this hard-working, energetic figure was too popular for the liking of others. Her position in Germany had been made no easier by alleged remarks of Bertie in London to the French and Austrian ambassadors in London at dinner, of his hopes that Prussia would be defeated. Such comments were passed on to the court at Berlin by Count Bernstorff, the Prussian ambassador in London, who had never liked the Prince of Wales and had doubtless grossly distorted his words if not made up the story altogether. The Prince assured the Prime Minister, Gladstone, in writing that such statements were without foundation, but the damage was done.31 In October Queen Augusta came to Homburg. Vicky felt sorry for her, as her wellknown French sympathies had made her unpopular, but it irritated her that the Queen was nominal head of the hospital and ambulance services in Germany and took so little interest in them, continuing with her social life despite the war. Queen Augusta was jealous of Vicky’s popularity, and it was surely no coincidence when the latter received an angry letter a few days later from King Wilhelm, ordering her back to Berlin on the grounds that he had not given her permission to go to Homburg with the children, and that she obviously did not understand her duties as Crown Princess. Back home for a much-needed rest, her temper cooled as she drew up plans for modernizing hospitals and nursing homes in peacetime.

  The siege of Paris had begun on 19 September. French armies at Toul and Strasbourg surrendered the following week, and by the end of October the fortress of Metz had capitulated after 70 days. Orléans capitulated early in December, leaving Paris as the last remaining bastion of resistance against the invaders.

  Now at headquarters on the outskirts of Versailles, Fritz insisted that Paris should be starved into surrender rather than bombarded, as it was more humane and less costly in terms of German men and artillery. Even if such a campaign did end successfully, it would still result in disproportionately heavy losses. Moltke and Blumenthal agreed; Roon was the only officer to share Bismarck’s view. Being a politician and not a soldier, the Count wanted to solve the matter the quick way – shell the city so it would surrender within a few days. It came as a surprise to find that he was outnumbered. Even before he had Moltke’s and Blumenthal’s support, Fritz clung to his preference for no bombardment. It shattered Bismarck’s conviction that the Crown Prince was easily swayed once away from his wife. Public opinion in Berlin strongly favoured an all-out attack on the capital, some agreeing with Countess Bismarck’s suggestion of shooting down every French civilian, adults, children and babies alike. On 28 November Fritz noted in his diary that she had told everyone he was responsible for delaying the bombardment. He admitted that he did not intend to open fire ‘till in the opinion of professional gunners and experts the necessary ammunition each single siege gun requires for an effective uninterrupted bombardment is there on the spot.’32
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  The Count and Countess were about to get their own back. In Berlin it was said that he was delaying action not for technical considerations but on ‘petticoat orders’; the two Queens, Augusta and Victoria, urged by the Crown Princess, would not allow it. For a short time the mutual loneliness of Vicky and Augusta during the war had brought them closer together, and this new friendship added fuel to the fire. It was Vicky who was attacked most of all, partly as the Bismarcks saw more to be gained in a vendetta directed towards Prussia’s future Queen than against the present one, and partly because of England’s neutrality. As anti-French hysteria grew in Berlin, so did the whispering campaign against Vicky, and by December Fritz was exasperated at the continued vilification of his wife. Still his troops were not ready to carry out a bombardment of Paris, and he would not yield to ‘the war drones, who follow the course of the war without responsibility or knowledge’33 with no idea what they were talking about.

  Paris endured the siege stoically. The aristocracy and wealthy middle-classes had to make few sacrifices, so the poor suffered most, their houses demolished so the bricks could be used for barricades, the homeless sitting on pavements in the howling wind and rain, clutching their possessions and huddling together, desperate to keep warm. Soldiers cut down the avenues of trees in an attempt to slow the German advance. Fritz shuddered to think of the deprivations that innocent civilians, particularly women and children, suffered because of a war they could not help. As an example to the troops, he and the King confined themselves largely to a diet of dry bread and cheese, with very little meat.

  Meanwhile the equally pressing consideration of German unity was occupying Fritz’s mind. He regularly thought of his late mentors, the Prince Consort, King Leopold and Baron Stockmar, and their plans for a free German imperial state under a monarchical head to ‘march at the forefront of civilisation and be in a position to develop and bring to bear all noble ideals of the modern world.’34 At the same time representatives of four South German states, Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden and Hesse, were discussing an alliance after the war, possibly under a reorganized German Confederation. Soon after they had approached Bismarck for a discussion which settled nothing, Fritz asked him for his views on an imperial Germany. Bismarck pointed out that most of the states were agreeable but King Ludwig II of Bavaria was reluctant to let Prussia take the initiative, and without Bavarian approval Württemberg would also withhold consent. When Fritz suggested that any states which resisted might be compelled, Bismarck snapped that he had no right to say so.

  Fritz knew he was not bothered by Ludwig’s obstinacy, so much as by the North German Confederation Parliament or Reichstag. He had recently spoken to the leaders who knew that in their Crown Prince was a champion not only of empire, but also of majority rule, free elections, and more constitutional monarchy. If the Reichstag took the initiative in unifying Germany, its authority and power would be considerably enhanced. Bismarck knew that if he did not act soon, his political enemies at home in Prussia would be in the ascendant and his own career would be jeopardised. As successive British ministers at the Berlin Embassy had suspected, he intended to unite Germany at the right moment, as long as he could do it in a way that would increase his own authority. The moment was now, before the next Reichstag meeting. After Fritz had gone, with angry taunts of Kaiserwahnsinn (Emperor-madness) ringing in his ears, Bismarck set to work. Loath to admit the superiority of Hohenzollerns over Wittelsbachs King Ludwig remained obdurate, until the Count dangled before him the prospect of a healthy sum from the Welfenfonds, and persuaded him to sign the letter drafted for him inviting King Wilhelm to assume the imperial crown. The King thus believed the creation of the Empire to be at the request of the German princes, not the people. Even Fritz was taken in for a while, and thought that Ludwig had written the letter of his own free will.

  On 4 January 1871 Bismarck goaded the King into giving the order for the bombardment of Paris to begin. ‘What good to us is all power, all martial glory and renown, if hatred and mistrust meet us at every turn, if every step we advance in our development is a subject for suspicion and grudging?’ Fritz wrote in his diary. ‘Bismarck has made us great and powerful, but he has robbed us of our friends, the sympathies of the world, and – our conscience.’35 For all the superiority of German artillery the bombardment was a comparative failure; only 97 Frenchmen were killed, 278 wounded, and 1,400 buildings damaged for an expenditure of 12,000 shells; the several hundred Prussian gunners lost to French counter-battery fire made their enemy’s losses appear trifling. Once fire had been opened on the city, Bismarck felt that military matters as well as political decisions should be his responsibility, much to the disgust of Moltke. To prevent them from falling out completely Fritz’s mediation skills were soon called for.

  The bombardment entered its third week on the same day as the proclamation of the Empire, which took place in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Fritz tried in vain to impress upon his father that the elevation of three German princes to the rank of King by the first Napoleon, sixty years earlier, made it necessary for him to accept the rank of Kaiser in order to assert his superiority. The old man grumbled at having to ‘bid farewell to the old Prussia, to which alone he clung and would always cling.’36 He was not even allowed his own way over the title, which he wanted to be ‘Kaiser of Germany’; Fritz and Bismarck recommended ‘German Kaiser’, or ‘Kaiser in Germany’, which emphasized the merging of Prussia into something greater, and would be more acceptable to the other German princes.

  Both men were in a thoroughly bad temper when proceedings began shortly after midday on 18 January as the new Emperor entered the hall, filled with a crowd of princes, officers and deputations from army regiments. Mounting the dais decorated with brightly-coloured regimental banners, he addressed the throng brokenly before handing over to Bismarck, who read the imperial proclamation in an expressionless voice. The Grand Duke of Baden tried to inject some enthusiasm into the ceremonies as he stood on the dais requesting three cheers for His Majesty the Kaiser, the father-in-law who stood crossly beside him. Afterwards the sovereign stumped out without even glancing at Bismarck.

  For Fritz the pageantry of the proceedings so befitting the new imperial era had been spoilt by the bad atmosphere caused by their ungracious demeanour. Moreover he had been defeated in his aim to help the Reichstag in presenting unity as a popular cause, as he had hoped. The Prince Consort, he wrote to Vicky some time later, would have been impressed by such changes, but ‘would not have approved of the methods whereby unification was achieved any more than you and I.’37

  On 28 January an armistice of three weeks was arranged between Bismarck and the French Foreign Minister Jules Favre, extended twice to allow peace negotiations to be completed. France had to cede the greater part of Alsace and Lorraine, including the fortress of Metz, and pay an indemnity of five million marks. Fritz and the Grand Duke of Baden protested that such humiliation would leave the country thirsting for revenge, but Bismarck and Moltke insisted that the enemy’s spirit must be broken, and the King was greedy for the spoils denied him after their victory over Austria in 1866.

  Back at Berlin, an exhausted Vicky contemplated the changes and took stock of her situation. 25 January, her thirteenth wedding anniversary, was the first she and her husband had spent apart. In a mood of gloom she cast her mind back to the birth of her first child twelve years earlier, and how the first years of his life were so unhappy for her; ‘I fought against the disappointment & the gnawing worry; for his arm has embittered my whole life – & I never really felt delight at having him! It was wrong & ungrateful, & I have in fact got over it . . .’ She admitted that she was proud of him, though she could by no means consider him a genius or an interesting character, but at least she could hope he would become ‘a pure, faithful, true person, who delights in the good & the beautiful & understands the spirit of his time.’38 Perhaps she could see in her heart of hearts that he would be found wanting on almost every count. Her work f
or the hospitals had taken her away from her sons and she was anxious at losing contact with them. What worried her even more was the prolonged absence of their father. Willy and Henry were high-spirited boys, Willy was becoming particularly wilful, and they needed their father’s firm control.

  However she could console herself with the knowledge that his return home was in sight, and only the thought of seeing his family again made Fritz endure the gloating formality of a triumphal march into Paris on 1 March. Yet he could see hope for the future. ‘A noble task lies before our Government, if it is firmly resolved to strive earnestly for the internal development of the Empire on liberal lines in accord with the spirit of the age, and by so doing give the world a guarantee for lasting peace.’39 On 17 March he set foot on Prussian soil again at Wildpark station. As he and Vicky drove back to the Unter den Linden in an open carriage, waving to the cheering crowds who lined his route with cries of ‘Unser Fritz’, he was pleased to be at home again after the longest separation they had yet endured – and were ever to know – which had seemed more like eight years than eight months. It was an unforgettable moment as they stepped out of the vehicle and he set eyes again on his children, assembled on the palace threshold to welcome their conquering father who was the toast of the city. Still the crowds cheered, to break into a deafening roar when a window opened to reveal the smiling family of eight, Fritz fondly holding nine-month-old Sophie in his arms.