ament, that of the Conservatives being due
to the injury supposed to be done to landlord interests by the
commercial treaties, and that of the Liberals by an Education Bill,
which, it was alleged, would hand the Prussian school system
completely over to the Church. Perhaps the main cause, however, was
the general unpopularity he incurred by attacking, officially and
through the press, his predecessor, Bismarck, the idol of the people.

It was in the Chancellorship of Prince Hohenlohe, which ended in 1900,
that the most memorable events of this remarkable decade occurred;
but, as was to be expected, and as the Emperor himself must have
expected, the Prince, now a man of seventy-five, played a very
secondary part with regard to them. The Prince was what the Germans
call a "house-friend" of the Hohenzollern family and related to it. He
was useful, his contemporaries say, as a brake on the impetuous temper
of his imperial master, though he did not, we may be sure, turn him
from any of the main designs he had at heart. Prince Hohenlohe, in
character, was good-nature and amiability personified. He was beloved
by all classes and parties, and no foreigner can read his Memoirs
without a feeling of friendliness for a Personality so moderate and
calm and simple. A note he makes in one of his diaries amusingly
illustrates the simple side of his character. He is dining with the
Emperor, when the Emperor, catching the Prince's eye, which we may be
sure was on the alert to gather up any of the royal beams that might
come his way, raises his glass in sign of amity. "I felt so overcome,"
notes the Prince, "that I almost spilt the champagne."

The famous "Kruger telegram" episode occurred during the
Chancellorship of Prince Hohenlohe.

For many years the sending of the telegram was cited as a convincing
proof of the Emperor's "impulsive" character, and it was not until
1909 that the truth of the matter was stated by Chancellor von Buelow
in the Reichstag. In March of that year he said:

"It has been asked, was this telegram an act of personal
initiative or an act of State? In this regard let me refer
you to your own proceedings. You will remember that the
responsibility for the telegram was never repudiated by the
directors of our political business at the time. The
telegram was an act of State, the result of official
consultations; it was in nowise an act of personal
initiative on the part of