The Secrets of Potsdam.
by William Le Queux.
"MY DEAR LE QUEUX,
"_I have just finished reading the proofs of your book describing my life as an official at the Imperial Court at Potsdam, and the two or three small errors you made I have duly corrected._
"_The gross scandals and wily intrigues which I have related to you were, many of them, known to yourself, for, as the intimate friend of Luisa, the Ex-Crown-Princess of Saxony, you were, before the war, closely a.s.sociated with many of those at Court whose names appear in the pages of this book._
"_The revelations which I have made, and which you have recorded here, are but a t.i.the of the disclosures which I could make, and if your British public desire more, I shall be pleased to furnish you with other and even more startling details which you may also put into print._
"_My service as personal-adjutant to the German Crown-Prince is, happily, at an end, and now, with the treachery of Germany against civilization glaringly revealed, I feel, in my retirement, no compunction in exposing all I know concerning the secrets of the Kaiser and his profligate son._
"_With most cordial greetings from_ "_Your sincere friend_, "ERNST VON HELTZENDORFF."
The Secrets of Potsdam
SECRET NUMBER ONE
THE TRAGEDY OF THE LEUTENBERGS
You will recollect our first meeting on that sunny afternoon when, in the stuffy, nauseating atmosphere of perspiration and a hundred Parisian perfumes, we sat next each other at the first roulette table on the right as you enter the rooms at Monte Carlo?
Ah! how vivid it is still before my eyes, the jingle of gold and the monotonous cries of the croupiers.
Ah! my dear friend! In those pre-war days the Riviera--that sea-lapped Paradise, with its clear, open sky and sapphire Mediterranean, grey-green olives and tall flowering aloes, its gorgeous blossoms, and its merry, dark-eyed populace who lived with no thought of the morrow--was, indeed, the playground of Europe.
And, let me whisper it, I think I may venture to declare that few of its annual habitues enjoyed the life more than your dear old ink-stained self.
What brought us together, you, an English novelist, and I a--well, how shall I describe myself? One of your enemies--eh? No, dear old fellow.
Let us sink all our international differences. May I say that I, Count Ernst von Heltzendorff, of Schloss Heltzendorff, on the Mosel, late personal-adjutant to His Imperial Highness the Crown-Prince, an official attached to that precious young scoundrel"s immediate person, call you my dear friend?
True, our nations are, alas! at war--the war which the Kaiser and his son long sought, but which, as you well know, I have long ago detested.
I have repudiated that set of pirates and a.s.sa.s.sins of whom I was, alas!
born, and among whom I moved until I learned of the vile plot afoot against the peace of Europe and the chast.i.ty of its female inhabitants.
On August 5th, 1914, I shook the dust of Berlin from my feet, crossed the French frontier, and have since resided in the comfortable old-fashioned country house which you a.s.sisted me to purchase on the border of the lovely forest of Fontainebleau.
And now, you have asked me to reveal to you some of the secrets of Potsdam--secrets known to me by reason of my official position before the war.
You are persuading me to disclose some facts concerning the public and private life of the Emperor, of my Imperial master the Crown-Prince, known in his intimate circle as "Willie," and of the handsome but long-suffering Cecil d.u.c.h.ess of Mecklenbourg, who married him ten years ago and became known as "Cilli." Phew! Poor woman! she has experienced ten years of misery, domestic unhappiness, by which she has become prematurely aged, deep-eyed, her countenance at times when we talked wearing an almost tragic look.
No wonder, indeed, that there is a heavy and, alas! broken heart within the beautiful Marble Palace at Potsdam, that splendid residence where you once visited me and were afterwards commanded to a reception held by His Imperial Highness.
I risk much, I know, in taking up my pen to tell the truth and to make these exposures to you, but I do so because I think it only just that your British nation should know the true character of the Emperor and of the unscrupulous and ubiquitous "Willie," the defiant young Blackguard of Europe, who is the idol of the swaggering German Army, and upon whom they pin their hopes.
It is true that the Commander of the Death"s Head Hussars--the "Commander" who has since the war sanctioned the cold-blooded murder of women and children, the shooting of prisoners, rapine, incendiarism, and every other devil"s work that his horde of a.s.sa.s.sins could commit--once declared that "the day will come when Social Democrats will come to Court."
True, he has been known to be present at the golden wedding festivities of a poor cobbler in Potsdam; that he has picked up in his yellow ninety-horse-power car--with its black imp as a mascot--a poor tramp and taken him to the hospital; and that he possesses the charming manner of his much-worshipped grandfather, the Emperor Frederick. But he is as clever and cunning as his criminal father, Wilhehm-der-Plotzliche (William the Sudden) or Der Einzige (The Only), as the Kaiser is called by the people of the Palace. He shows with double cunning but one side of his character to the misguided German people, the Prussian Junker party, and the Tom-d.i.c.k-and-Harry of the Empire who have been made cannon-fodder and whose bones lie rotting in Flanders and on the Aisne.
Ah, my dear friend, what a strange life was that of the German Court before the war--a life of mummery, of gay uniforms, tinsel, gilded decorations, black hearts posing as virtuous, and loose people of both s.e.xes evilly scandalizing their neighbours and pulling strings which caused their puppets to dance to the War-Lord"s tune.
I once lifted the veil slightly to you when you stayed at the Palast Hotel in Potsdam and came to us at the Marble Palace, and I suppose it is for that reason that you ask me to jot down, for the benefit of your readers in Great Britain and her Dominions, a few facts concerning the plots of the Kaiser and his son--the idol of Germany, the Kronprinz "Willie."
What did you think of him when I presented you?
I know how, later on that same night, you remarked upon his height, his narrow chest, and his corset-waist, and how strangely his animal eyes set slant-wise in his thin, aquiline face, goggle eyes, which dilate so strangely when speaking with you, and which yet seem to penetrate your innermost thoughts.
I agreed with you when you declared that there was nothing outwardly of the typical Hohenzollern in the Imperial Rake. True, one seeks in vain for traces of martial virility. Though his face is so often wreathed in boyish smiles, yet his heart is as hard as that of the true Hohenzollern, while his pretended love of sport is only a clever ruse in order to retain the popularity which, by dint of artful pretence, he has undoubtedly secured. Indeed, it was because of the All-Highest One"s jealousy of his reckless yet crafty son"s growing popularity that we were one day all suddenly packed off to Danzig to be immured for two long years in that most dreary and provincial of all garrisons.
Of the peccadilloes of the elegant young blackguard of Europe--who became a fully-fledged colonel in the German Army at the age of thirty-one--I need say but little. His life has been crammed with disgraceful incidents, most of them hushed up at the Kaiser"s command, though several of them--especially certain occurrences in the Engadine in the winter of 1912--reached the ears of the Crown-Princess, who, one memorable day, unable to stand her husband"s callous treatment, threatened seriously to leave him.
Indeed, it was only by the Kaiser"s autocratic order that "Cilli"
remained at the Marmor Palace. She had actually made every preparation to leave, a fact which I, having learned it, was compelled to report to the Crown-Prince. We were at the Palace in the Zeughaus-Platz, in Berlin, at the time, and an hour after I had returned from Potsdam I chanced to enter the Crown-Prince"s study. The door was a self-locking one, and I had a key. On turning my key I drew back, for His Majesty the Emperor, a fine figure in the picturesque cavalry uniform of the Konigsjager--who had just come from a review, and had no doubt heard of the threatened Royal scandal--was standing astride in the room.
"I compel it!" cried the Emperor, pale with rage, his eyes flashing as he spoke. "She shall remain! Go to her at once--make your peace with her in any way you can--and appear to-night with her at the theatre."
"But I fear it is impossible. I----"
"Have you not heard me?" interrupted the Emperor, disregarding his son"s protests. And as I discreetly withdrew I heard the Kaiser add: "Cannot you, of our House of Hohenzollern, see that we cannot afford to allow Cilli to leave us? The present state of the public mind is not encouraging, much as I regret it. Remember Frederick August"s position when that madcap Luisa of Tuscany ran away with the French tutor Giron.
Now return to Marmor without delay and do as I bid."
"I know Cilli. She will not be appeased. Of that I am convinced,"
declared the young man.
"It is my will--the will of the Emperor," were the last words I heard, spoken in that hard, intense voice I knew so well. "Tell your wife so.
And do not see that black-haired Englishwoman again. I had a full report from the Engadine a fortnight ago, and this _contretemps_ is only what I have expected. It is disgraceful! When will you learn reason?"
Ten minutes later I was seated beside the Crown-Prince in the car on our way to Potsdam.
On the road, driving recklessly as I sat by his side, he laughed lightly as he turned to me, saying:
"What an infernal worry women really are--aren"t they, Heltzendorff--more especially if one is an Imperial Prince! Even though one is a Hohenzollern one cannot escape trouble!"
How the conjugal relations were resumed I know not. All I know is that I attended their Imperial Highnesses to the Lessing Theatre, where, in the Royal box, the Kaiser--ever eager to stifle the shortcomings of the Hohenzollerns--sat with us, though according to his engagements he should have been on his way to Dusseldorf for a great review on the morrow. But such public display allayed all rumour of his son"s domestic infelicity, and both Emperor and Kronprinz smiled benignly upon the people.
Early next day the Crown-Prince summoned me, in confidence, and an hour later I left on a secret mission to a certain lady whom I may call Miss Lilian Greyford--as it is not fair in certain cases in these exposures to mention actual names--daughter of an English county gentleman, who was staying at the "Kulm" at St. Moritz.
Twenty-four hours afterwards I managed to see the winter-sports young lady alone in the hotel, and gave her a verbal message, together with a little package from His Imperial Highness, which, when she opened it, I found contained a souvenir in the shape of an artistic emerald pendant.
With it were some scribbled lines. The girl--she was not much more than twenty--read them eagerly, and burst into a torrent of tears.
Ah! my dear Le Queux, as you yourself know from your own observations, there are as many broken hearts beating beneath the corsets of ladies-in-waiting and maids-of-honour, as there are among that frantic feminine crowd striving to enter the magic circle of the Royal entourage or the women of the workaday world who pa.s.s up Unter-den-Linden on a Sunday.