The Kaiser answers his American attacker

Kaiser Wilhelm II enjoying a light moment with his officers.

A MR. BRUCE BARTON, THE AMERICAN EDITOR of Every Week magazine, published in his August 7, 1916 issue a “Personal Letter to the Kaiser.” It was shockingly condescending to the point of insulting to Germany and its emperor Wilhelm II. Of course, the letter was not sent,  but just printed in Barton's magazine as something of an editorial. It gives us an idea of just how sleezy were the slanders directed against Germany and Germans in general at that time and how difficult it must have been for German Americans to tolerate.

In response to Barton's letter, The Fatherland published it's own “Open Letter” to him, authored by a “Proxy” for Kaiser Wilhelm. My sense is that it is the work of The Fatherland's editor, George Sylvester Viereck. I think it does an outstanding job sounding convincingly like Wilhelm; if I hadn't been told otherwise, I could easily believe it was the emperor himself, even though I, of course, am not familiar with him. Viereck was, though.

I want to point out a particularly rude statement of Barton's:

“For when your men get back from the trenches, Wilhelm, and see you all nice and warm and cozy in Potsdam, you're going to notice something in their attitude that wasn't there in 1913. They're going to be a little restless and shuffle their feet a bit when you tell them how God has called you to rule over them …”

Pay attention to the clever, good-natured comeback "Wilhelm" gave in response to that! And FYI, the Kaiser was not all "warm and cozy" but was active with his troops on the battle fronts—not staying close to his throne like George the 5th. -cy

Vol 5, no 4     August 30, 1916    Page 3

THE KAISER'S REPLY TO BRUCE BARTON

by Proxy

(Recently Every Week published an open letter to Emperor William which received editorial comment in The Fatherland. We take pleasure herewith printing a reply to Mr. Bruce Barton's epistle by Proxy.)

DEAR Bruce:

Your name is familiar to me but, Bruce, I do not quite place it on American soil. There was once a young man by the name of Bruce and he restored to Scotland the right of independence. I have no doubt but that your father, in giving you title to the name of the famous Scottish king, believed that in your veins ran the blood of the liberty-loving Bruce of Scotland. I hope so, and I hope that you have also read English history, particularly with reference to British tyranny in America. If you have, Bruce, perhaps we are going to be friends again, in spite of your experience with the two Prussian coachmen who chased you and threw snowballs at you. You say, Bruce, that you were ten years old and that you got into a fight with them. Weren't you rather a foolhardy young lad to throw snowballs at two grown men and expect them to let you pepper them? Perhaps you mocked them, Bruce, and laughed at them, as you say you have laughed at me and at Teddy, and so when you took to your legs, my Prussian coachmen got in their laugh, just as I am having my little laugh at you now, for you seem, Bruce, to have an oblique vision and your letter reads to me like a brief for the defendant.

Now, Bruce, I am not going to defend the sinking of the Lusitania. The loss of life of non-combatants is regrettable, but the crime of carrying women and children on munitions ships for a shield is as cowardly as the use of the American flag on an English vessel to give it immunity from the enemy against whom it has declared war. You recall, too, Bruce, the atrocities of warfare and cite in your brief those alleged to have been committed by my troops. I do not defend atrocities of warfare whether they are committed by war-mad men among my troops, or by French or English aviators dropping bombs in Alsace Lorraine, on helpless cities, and Barton especially selecting Corpus Christus day, or by the East Indian troops in France, who cut off my soldiers' ears and ravaged and looted at will.

These things have occurred, and, possibly, have occurred on both sides of the lines, but warfare, Bruce, is more cruel than even snowballing. You recall the Boxer rebellion—that is, you hold a brief upon German soldiers. Do you recall that my minister was murdered in cold blood on the streets of Peking, and that his wife, an American woman, with all other members of the foreign legation, were at the mercy of fanatical mobs without the protection of the throne, for sixty days besieged behind barracks of bags made from the women's skirts, starved to the point of exhaustion and with little ammunition to defend themselves against tens of thousands of armed Boxers? Do you know, Bruce, that English soldiers, and their Japanese allies, caught many of the leaders of those Boxers and stood them over open graves and cut their heads off? And they weren't any too particular either about identificaiton—there wasn't any trial or delayed formalities.

Do you know, Bruce, that Russian cossacks with the Allies in 1900 murdered thousands of Chinese without regard to sex or their participation in the legation outrage? Do you know that the cossacks cut off the heads of Chinamen, en route to Peking, and drove spikes through their skulls and made a trail of skull-blazed paths from Tientsien to the walls of the capital? Do you know, Burce, that cossacks of this same breed are fighting my troops in the East and that they have committed atrocities compared with which the horrors of the Spanish inquisition fade into insignificance; that they have gorged out eyes, cut off ears, slit tongues and ravaged women—helpless, non-combatants in Pilkallen, Tilset, Stallupoenen, Gumbinnen and Goldap? You haven't said much about these things in your letter, Bruce. You seem to read your history of our affairs over here from censored newspapers and inclined your ear to English-Americans who have gone to France and Belgium to find a case against us. Perhaps if you read history deeper and had studied diplomacy longer, you would know more about the affairs of Belgium before the war. You would know that the strong arm has long bolstered up the rotten monarchy of Leopold. You would know that England wrenched from us a treaty that we had with Belgium, a treaty as favorable to us as was the later treaty, which was favored to France and England. You would know, Bruce, that if we must dig up things as a basis of friendship for your hundred millions that we must go back further than the “scrap of paper” incident. We must go back to Frederick and to George IV and try to begin where friendship began.

I am glad you referred to business, Bruce, for I suspect that you are a good businessman, for you have savings stored up from honest toil and honest investment. You no doubt have pride in your savings and want to hand them on to your son, clean and untainted with the blood of war-stained Europe. I am sure you would not want to put money in the bank that had come from profits earned by killing men. That would hurt me very much if I thought so, and make it very difficult to renew our friendship. War is a horrible thing and only excusable between nations fighting for a principle or fighting for their existence. To profit by such a catastrophe to humanity is to write yourself down as a vulture. I hope the majority of your hundred millions of people feel that way and I am sure they do. I am sure, Bruce, the farmers, the artisans, the laboring men, the academicians, the statesmen do not want to enlarge their bank accounts by manufacturing death for humanity in Europe. I'm sure, you who have been my friend, would not countenance such cruelty. I am sure you would not have stood by and rolled icy snowballs for these two Prussian coachmen, if they were snowballing your brother, who has now gone to fight the Mexicans. I am sure you are sorry that munitions manufacturers sold arms to Mexico, now that your brother is going there with troops without enough ammunition, blankets, medicine, food.

If you are not sorry and you countenance all these things, it is going to be very hard for us to get together. It is going to be very hard anyway, if you only read censored despatches and inspired journalism. It is going to very hard, for us, Bruce, if you only see with one eye and listen with one ear.

One of my friends in your country, not Hansel or Schwartz, but the grandson of a veteran of 1812, has written me a letter about things that are going on in America. I can't tell you how I received it—not by wireless, for your government will not permit that—not by cable for all cables are in the hands of my English cousins—but he tells me that there is a path from the headquarters of the British Secret Service to certain departments of the American Government, not literally, Bruce, but figuratively, and that when the British Ambassador is not visiting Mr. Morgan at his country estate on Long Island or on his yacht, that he is busy despatching information to the Department of Justice. Some of it leaks out through a New England journal and other items of gossip find their way into various newspapers, who guard over the interest of stock speculations. He tells me that the British Embassy knows more about what Americans are doing, particularly hyphen Americans, than does the American Secret Service. He tells me that there are numerous retired English army officers, or officers on leave, visiting America; that they travel much, live at the best hotels, entertain and are entertained, yes, and even boast that they are connected with the English Information Bureau. I suppose, Bruce, this accounts for the grave suspicion that there are spies in your midst; that you look with suspicion upon Hansel and Schwartz—and that any firm selling to German exporting firms, are blacklisted. I am afraid, Bruce, that you are unduly apprehensive from German quarters. I am afraid someone has poisoned your mind and endangered your friendship unnecessarily with your good German companions. Do not, my dear Bruce, fill your heart with concern over your cook. I have no spies in America who will corrupt her. I have many good American friends whose blood takes root in the Fatherland, some eight million, perhaps more. They may win away your cook, but my spies are all at the front, fighting, not on leave. Such as championed my cause in America, were, Bruce, like yourself, writers and publicists—some official, others self-appointed. Those who with violent attempts exposed themselves to criticism were promptly requested to cease, as you say in your letter to me.

And now, Bruce, lest any apprehension for my future cloud a reestablishment of the entente cordiale between us, let me conclude by saying that I shall welcome any slap on my back and the endearing cognomen of “Bill” from my returned and triumphant soldiers. If worry you must, let your sympathies go out to the unfortunate tax-ridden nations who, after the war, must for centuries pay interest upon the scraps of paper held in the coffers of your war-made millionaires. They will need and deserve your sympathy, as will the hundreds and thousands in your country whose wages will be cut and whose products and stocks will drop to hard-time prices.

I hope, Bruce, you won't hold hatred in your heart towards me. I hope you won't refuse to buy of me after the war—you may need a friend, you know, in the trade war that must follow, and you may need a customer.

And now, Bruce, I must close, for I have talked frankly, and tried to open a way to a reapproachment. I shall mail this via submarine, as our cousins across the channel have a pernicious habit of distorting phrases, as well as cutting out sentences, as, perhaps, you have recently noticed, all the American correspondents in Germany have protested their inability to tell the plain truth about German affairs, because of garbled despatches by the British censors, and in a round robin have appealed to your government for fair treatment.

WILHELM I. R.,  By Proxy.