My dear Fritz [turning to his Royal Highness, the hereditary Grand Duke], to-day's parade does you and the corps great honor in every respect, and we can say with a clear conscience that the sons of the Rhineland who have marched by to-day will do their duty as completely, and that they are as well trained and as brave as they were in the time of the great Emperor. _It is our duty to maintain, in all its parts, the army, the work of the great Emperor, against every influence and to defend it against every opposition from without_, and I hope that every general will be as faithful and as upright as you are, and that he will strive to achieve this aim in his field with as good results as you have done.
With this hope I raise my glass and drink to the health of the Eighth Army Corps and its commanding general. The Eighth Army Corps! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!
On this day the Emperor reviewed the Eleventh Army Corps, which was under the command of General von Wittich, in the presence of the Empress and of the King and Queen of Italy. At the banquet which followed in the Castle of Homburg, the Emperor offered this toast:
I am happy to be able to express to you before our royal and princely guests and to the whole army corps my heartiest congratulations on this day. I am pleased to be able to say that the present day in its achievements does not suffer in the least by comparison with the day when, many years ago,[14] the corps defiled before my late grandfather, my dear father, and the late Grand Duke. I thank his Royal Highness, the Grand Duke, for the splendid division which he has led, and I am pleased to see him at the head of the magnificent troops which have done such great things under his father.
A great honor has been conferred upon the corps through the fact that riding at the head of one of his regiments [13th Hessian Hussar Regiment] his Majesty, King Humbert of Italy, has led it before us.
Your Majesty! My army thanks your Majesty whole-heartedly for the great honor which has been conferred upon it. Not only my army but also the whole German Fatherland greets in the person of your Majesty the lofty prince, the close friend of my departed father, the faithful ally, whose coming here shows again to us and to the world that the bond of the triple alliance stands firm and inviolate, the triple alliance which was founded in the interest of peace and which, as time goes on, strikes deeper and firmer root in the consciousness of the peoples, in order finally to bring forth greater fruit.