Reproduction of Letters from the Kaiser to the Czar

Class Book.. CtpightN^^L CQEffiiGHT DEPOSm LETTERS FROM THE KAISER TO THE CZAR KAISER AND CZAR ABOARD THE "hOHENZOLLERN" The weak Czar was often tricked by the Kaiser when accepting his hospitalit}', and many matters of state were settled (to the Kai- ser's advantage) aboard the Kaiser's yacht. LETTERS FROM THE KAISER TO THE CZAR COPIED FROM GOVERNMENT ARCHIVES IN PETROGRAD UNPUBLISHED BEFORE 1920 PRIVATE LETTERS FROM THE KAISER TO THE CZAR FOUND IN A CHEST AFTER THE CZAR's EXECUTION AND NOW IN POSSESSION OF THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT COPIED AND BROUGHT FROM RUSSIA BY ISAAC DON LEVINE NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS -ss^ R^ Copyright, 1920, by Frederick A. Stokes CoMPAm Jll Rights Reserved SEP 10 i920 ©CU576333 ILLUSTRATIONS Kaiser and Czar Aboard the "Hohenozollern" Frontispiece FACING PAGE Letter No. XIII 42 Letter No. XLIV . 148 "Dearest Nicky from His Affectionate Friend Willy" . 156 Letter No. XLVI o . 168 Comrades in Autocracy 218 INTRODUCTION the Upon the execution of Nicholas Romanoff, former Czar of Russia, and his wife and children in his Ekaterinburg in July, 191 8, a case containing per- private correspondence was found among his batch of sonal effects. Among its contents was a the seventy-three letters from Kaiser Wilhelm to Czar and a much more voluminous batch of letters were from the Czarina to the Czar. The letters to transmitted by the local Ekaterinburg authorities are the central government in Moscow, where they kept in the state archives. There have been so many absurd stories in cir- Kaiser- culation in Europe in connection with the^ publi- Czar letters that the circumstances of their clear cation in Europe and America should be made eulogized here. In Great Britain Winston Churchill The Morning Post for obtaining the letters, although that journal had nothing to do with the bringing of the letters out of Russia. The London Naval and Military Record commented editori- been ally on the same subject as follows: "It has to pub- left to the enterprise of British journalism exposure lish the last and by far the most damaging prominent of Germany's ex-Kaiser." In Paris a [ vii ] Introduction newspaper, describing how I obtained the letters, declared that I was enabled to do so through my influence with Lenin. In Amsterdam a newspaper printed a despatch from its Berlin correspondent an- nouncing that the letters had once been published in 191 7 in a Petrograd monthly periodical. Now the facts are quite different from the fore- going allegations, which circulated in the European press for weeks. It was not the enterprise of British but of American journalism which gave the world the Kaiser's and Czarina's letters to the Czar. In April, 191 9, the writer left the United States to go to Soviet Russia in the capacity of correspondent for The Chicago Daily News, and made two trips there from Scandinavia, one in May and the other In September, 19 19. During my second visit to Soviet Russia I was enabled to gain access to the archives of the government where I discovered, among other things, the Kaiser's letters to the Czar, and immediately real- ized their enormous historical value. The original letters are of course the property of the Russian state and there was no question of obtaining them. The task consisted of receiving the permission of the proper authorities to take copies of the letters. I did not need Lenin's influence for this. As a matter of fact, I never even met Lenin while in Soviet Russia. I carried out with me only one copy from the original letters of the Kaiser to the Czar. Thi§ Introduction copy is In my possession and Is the one reproduced In this volume. The copies of the letters used by The Morning Post in London, the Vossische Zei- tiing In Berlin, the Journal in Paris and the other European publishers were made from the copy In my possession. Being second and third copies, they were not free from errors. The present edition is therefore the only absolutely authoritative one and must be treated as the original edition by students of International affairs. The letters from the Kaiser to the Czar were written in English, the language of the Russian and Ger- man courts, and were usually addressed to "Nicky" and signed "Willy." None of these letters, cover- ing a period of twenty years, 1894-19 14, has ever been published before 1920. The correspondence between the Kaiser and the Czar, which was published In a Russian periodical in 19 17 and reprinted In a New York newspaper several months later, consisted of a number of telegrams exchanged between Willy and Nicky In the years 1 904-1 907. It ap- peared as "The Willy-Nicky Correspondence," and the Amsterdam newspaper previously referred to confused It with the letters here presented. Without questioning the genuineness of the Willy- Nicky telegrams, it should nevertheless be empha- sized that It Is scarcely possible that no errors should have been committed in the transmission of a large number of telegrams. In the case of the letters con- tained In this volume we have really a set of Irrefu- [ix] : Introduction table and unquestionable documents. The Kaiser himself confirmed their genuineness, although criti- cizing their publication. In a letter written in Janu- ary, 1920, from Amerongen, Holland, to Prince Fiirstenberg, and reprinted in The London Times, on January 28th, the Kaiser wrote regarding these letters ''What do you think about the unlawful publication of the correspondence with Nicholas? These people have not the least sympathy in them, and I shall be glad if everything is published without alterations. I have given orders to Loewenfeldt to protest against the publication of these private letters, but as this is being done in hostile countries he will have less success than in the case of Bis- marck. After the treatment I have received and still receive from the German people I am not sur- prised that the German newspapers participate in these dirty practices." The Kaiser's letters are of course published without alterations. There was never any intention to do otherwise. Not a word in them is omitted. Al- though the Kaiser's English is far from perfect, it is left unchanged here. The only change made in this edition is the substitution of the word "and" for the character "&" which abounds in the original letters. The numerous errors in spelling are retained. The most confusing of these errors is "were" in place of "where." Once the Kaiser has "keys" in- Introduction stead of *'quays," and *'boyes" for ''buoys." The other mistakes are understandable. "Beeing" for "being," "wether" for "whether," ''takle" for "tackle," are common misspellings. Even more common are "allready," "allways," "wellfare," ''open- ess," "assisstance." The Kaiser writes "courtesey," "existant" and "thruthfulness." Instead of "Tur- key" he writes "Turky," and instead of "Darda- nelles" he spells "Dardanels." His letters are re- plete with faulty constructions and contain many misspeUlngs in addition to those here mentioned. In reply to the Kaiser's complaint about the pub- Hcation of his private letters, MaximlUan Harden, ex-Kaiser the noted German publicist, wrote : "The stigmatizes as a 'dirty' violation of propriety the publication of his letters to the Czar Nicholas and other monarchs, whereas he considered it to be his right and his duty to purloin documents in Belgium, the to falsify them, and to circulate them all over the globe. This, however, is not surprising when German people, who endured an adept in theatrical- ism for thirty years, are treated as if they were evil- minded, undutiful children." The comment on the letters all over the world has been as voluminous as it has been many-sided. However, three main viewpoints can be discerned in corre- the very numerous reviews of the Kaiser's spondence. First, the opinion of the Kaiser held by The Morning Post, Great Britain's leading Tory [xi] Introduction organ. Second, the comment of The Manchester Guardian, the great Liberal journal. Third, the average German view of Wilhelm as expressed by Professor Walter Goetz. To The Morning Post the letters reveal the Kaiser as an arch-plotter. Its comment has been expressed in a series of comprehensive and virile editorials bearing such titles as "the arch-conspira- tor," the "honest lago," and "Nemesis." Selections from some of the leading articles of The Morning Post* are given below: The publication of the letters of the German Emperor to the Emperor of All the Russias has naturally awakened a profound interest both in this country and abroad, in fact throughout the civilised world. Never before, perhaps, has there been made known in the lifetime of the author so com- plete and so voluminous an exposition of the vast and un- scrupulous intrigues and the grandiose ambitions of the pow- erful and autocratic monarch of a great military nation. Thus the Imperial letters make an historical document of the highest value, providing the key to the complex and hidden machinery of European international policies during the ten years preceding the Great War, which was their in- evitable and disastrous consummation. In as far as the Ger- man Emperor himself is concerned, there is little scope for conjecture. Inasmuch as he condemns himself with his own hand. History as a general rule is largely a matter of * Note.—Many of the notes following the letters in this volume have been culled from the columns of The London Morning Post. [xii] Introduction piecing together available evidence and filling in the gaps with ingenious and learned hypotheses.

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