To serve the Fatherland at the head of the army, that is my will and that also was the foremost wish of all my predecessors. It is to their care that the army owes its power and the consideration which it enjoys. For 200 years she has proven true the sentence of the great King: "The world does not rest upon the shoulders of Atlas any more securely than the Prussian state upon the shoulders of the army!" It has sealed with its blood its love and gratitude for its Kings!
For all this I thank the army deeply. I thank it for the devotion which it has unselfishly shown me and my house year in and year out, in its unceasing service for the Fatherland. So long as this spirit binds the army to its Kings, so long we need fear no storms; and Prussia's eagle will proudly pursue its lofty and undeflected flight for the good of Prussia, for the good of Germany! May God grant us this!
DEDICATION OF THE BARRACKS OF THE ALEXANDER REGIMENT
On the 6th of March the Emperor had been struck in the face by a piece of iron hurled at him by an irresponsible youth, Weiland, in the streets of Bremen. It was doubtless this incident coupled with the increasing strength of the Social Democrats that made him think of the possibility of an uprising and deliver the following address to the population of Berlin. The Social Democrats and many others resented his suggesting the possibility of turning the troops upon the citizens. We give first Penzler's more or less official account of the speech as it appeared in the _Kreuzzeitung_. If the extract which we quote from Doctor Liman's work "Der Kaiser" may be considered at all authentic, the speech seems to have been somewhat edited before publication.
MEMBERS OF THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER REGIMENT:
To-day a new period in your history begins. May the spirit of the memories which you leave behind you in the old barracks live on in your new home. They are memories of beautiful days of peace and of fierce days of conflict. Like a firm bulwark, your new barracks stand in the neighborhood of the palace, which it is primarily your duty to be ever ready to defend. The Emperor Alexander Regiment is called upon in a sense to stand ready as body-guard by night and by day and, if necessary, to risk its life and its blood for the King and his house; and if ever again (the Emperor here called to mind the faithful bearing of the Alexander Regiment at the time of the revolts against the King in 1848) a time like this should reappear in this city, a time of uprising against the King, then I am convinced the Alexander Regiment will be able energetically to force back into bounds any impertinence and rebelliousness against its royal master.[32]