In the spring of 1890 there came the 150th anniversary of the accession of Frederic the Great, and with it a sudden shift in the young Kaiser’s admiration. For a long time thereafter he made no speech without alluding to this most splendid figure in Prussian history, and quoting him as an example to be followed with reverential loyalty.
Then in December came the turn of still a third bygone Hohenzollern. It was on December 1, 1640, that the youth of twenty, who was later to be known as the Great Elector, entered upon the herculean task of saving hapless, bankrupt little Brandenburg from literal annihilation. William has told us that as a boy he scarcely learned anything at all about this illustrious ancestor of his. Apparently little had been done to make good this lack of information up to the time when, toward the close of 1890, he found that the Great Elector’s 250th anniversary was near at hand, and felt that it ought to be celebrated. He began reading the history of that memorable reign, and was at once excitedly interested and impressed. There has always been a charming, if childish, _naivete_ about the manner in which William frankly exposes his mental processes, and, having just heard of something for the first time which everybody else knows, brings it forward to public notice as if it were a fresh and most remarkable discovery. The effect produced upon him by his belated introduction to the life and works of the last Elector affords an apt illustration of this tendency. At the celebration William made a long speech in eulogy of his ancestor, which in every sentence seemed to take it for granted that heretofore no one had written or thought or known about the Great Elector. Since that time the young Emperor has rarely spoken in public, at least to a Prussian audience, without some reference to this distinguished predecessor--whereas we never hear now of either Frederic the Great or his savage father.
Doubtless the fervour with which William has adopted the Great Elector as his model ancestor is in large part due to the fact that the latter’s first important act was the summary dismissal of his father’s Prime Minister, Schwarzenberg. The parallel to be drawn between the disgrace of this powerful favourite and the fall of Bismarck is often faulty and nowhere exact, but it is evident that it impressed William’s imagination greatly when he came upon it, and that he could not resist the temptation to suggest it to the world at large. In this same anniversary speech he said: “My stout ancestor had no one to lean upon.”