| It is becoming increasingly common to encounter dislodged kings and ex-emperors on the footpath nowadays. Only the other day I discovered ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany lying on the pavement in Lahore’s Anarkali bazaar. I recognized him at once from his Prussian coat-of-arms and after retrieving him through the volume within whose gilded cover his life lay, I brought him home with me. The last time I had came across the ex-Kaiser had been at the small village of Doorn in Holland, where he had spent the latter part of his life in exile after leading his country into defeat in the First World War. (Holland in those days was neutral and agreed despite Allied pressure to grant him sanctuary and what was more important to him, perhaps, immunity from prosecution as a war-criminal). The equestrian Kaiser spent his follow days recalling his imperial past and, sitting on a swivel chair which had a leather saddle for a seat, he recorded his recollections. These were published four years after he had abdicated and entitled ‘My Memories 1878 – 1918’ (London, 1922). |
| Written as a set of essays rather than as a chronological narrative of his tempestuous reign, they presented a broad fronted defense for his actions as one of the last of the hereditary European autocrats and, in a narrower range, were fired as a rejoinder to the unfavourable image of him that appeared from the published letters exchanged between his mother Empress Frederick and his grandmother Queen Victoria. His long-suffering mother’s letters revealed darker aspects of his warped personality and exposed him as cruelly as if she had lifted the sleeve which hid his withered left arm. [EXTRACT] |
Published in THE NATION 11 June 1992, and reprinted in THE ARMLESS QUEEN (1994). |
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