Was a cigarette case one of the causes of the rise of Hitler?
How often do you hold a piece of real history in your hand? Something that played a part in changing not just an individual life, or that of a country, but of Europe and, in a wider context, the world? Something that, had its original owner not been such an enthusiastic user of its contents that it is possible that there would have been no Great War, hence no opportunity for Hitler to enter Parliament in 1932 and, well, we know the rest.
I recently had the experience of seeing and handling such an item. I was shown a number of historical items by a dear friend who is a member of the illustrious family of Hohenzollern. One was a cigarette case, beautifully fashioned from leather with engraved gold mounts and in silver the Imperial cipher of Emperor Frederick III, son in law of Queen Victoria. The leather still bears marks from the Imperial fingers, so even just handling such an item was to me, an enthusiastic historian, a great thrill and honour.
Frederick III and Empress Victoria were the great, enlightened monarchs that Germany lost. Confirmed social reformers, their reign should have been a pinnacle of sensible democratic modernisation, creating a monarchy that was, like its British counterpart, a force for good in the lives of its subjects and thus, as our monarch is today, loved and respected by those subjects. It was not to be. Their plans were to liberalise German government, moving away from an over-powerful Chancellor, answerable only to to the Emperor, to a cabinet based government, with ministers being responsible to the parliament for their actions. Frederick described the German system of government as ‘ingeniously contrived chaos.’ Opposed to any possible reforms that would curb the power of the Chancellor was the long tenured, deeply conservative Chancellor Otto von Bismarck; a man who proposed that the unification of the independent German princely states into one confederation should, if necessary, take place using military force — the policy of blood and iron. Frederick insisted that unification should be based on ‘moral conquests.’ Fearing for his own position and that of his party, von Bismarck did all he could to keep Frederick out of any position of influence, even spreading untrue stories about him, to make him unpopular with his future subjects. Frederick’s official duties were largely confined to attending ceremonial military and social events. He did serve with distinction several times during Germany’s wars with France and Denmark, but was essentially a man of peace, declaring to two French journalists, ‘I do not like war gentlemen. If I should reign I should never make it.’
Frederick’s father, King William I, was a dogmatic military man, who even used the threat of abdication to thwart attempts at reforms; for example, in 1862 he opposed parliament’s proposed changes to the army funding by his threat to abdicate. Had he done so, obviously Frederick would have taken his place and, by using his influence Germany would have become more liberal than it had ever been, or would be until after the First World War. Father (and mother) and son were frequently at loggerheads over Frederick’s liberal attitude. Such was the degree of opposition that Frederick suffered from his family that he and his wife were frequently in England where his mother in law, Queen Victoria, held him in such high esteem that he was allowed to be her representative at UK official events. This state of affairs lasted the 27 years that Frederick was Crown Prince of Germany except for a brief period in 1878 when, following an attempted assassination, King William was incapacitated.
William finally died on March 9th 1888, aged 80 years. Frederick was still only 56, but his reign, which would undoubtedly heralded a new era of enlightened government, was to be tragically cut short. A heavy smoker, Frederick had been diagnosed with cancer of the larynx. He was horrified, saying, ‘To think I should have such a horrid, disgusting disease. I had so hoped to have been of use to my country.’ One of his doctors advised that he should have his larynx totally removed whilst another counselled against; no patient had ever survived such an operation and this was not just any patient. Frederick’s British doctor, Sir Morrell Mackenzie recommended a tracheotomy and to this he agreed. To facilitate breathing a cannula was fitted into his throat on 8th March 1888; he never spoke again. A further misery was caused by the German doctor bungling the operation, sticking his fingers into Frederick’s throat, causing an abscess that was never cured. A month later he became kaiser. Clearly he was a dying man, but he still found the strength to perform his duties, including welcoming his mother-in-law. He drafted an edict which would restrict the royal power and that of the chancellor. This was never implemented because just 99 days after becoming kaiser, Frederick died.
The new kaiser, 29 year old Wilhelm II was a totally different man to his father. A firm believer in militarism, supporter of Bismarck and totally opposed to the liberal views held by his parents, Wilhelm was never going to be a champion of peaceful democracy. Any liberal legislation brought in during his father’s all too brief reign was abandoned although there was one thought shared by father and son, that the office of Chancellor gave its holder too much power. Bismarck, the man who tried to undermine Frederick and his wife Victoria’s position found himself begging the dowager empress to use her influence with her son to save him. She told him that she had no had none as Bismarck himself had destroyed it. It is unlikely that she would have used it if she had.
Thus began the by now inevitable descent into the madness and horror of World War I.
The question that I ask myself is this; had Frederick not been a heavy smoker, would he have lived long enough to prevent the Great War? It is quite possible that he would. There would still have been the pre 1914 tensions and diplomatic clashes over territorial demands and national interests that had been happening since 1867. There would still have been jostling for power and influence in the Balkans between Austria, Russia and Serbia. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand would probably still have been the catalyst for the July 1914 crisis and bad decision making by European military and political leaders. My belief, however, is that Frederick III, known to be a man opposed to war, would have been more likely to be an influence for peace and mediation than his son, who revelled in militarism.
That militarism rebounded with dreadful results for Wilhelm II, Emperor Franz Josef of Austria and, worst of all, as is well known, for Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. The great European empires were swept away, the eagles fell. In 1919 the kaiser left Germany for exile in Doorn, Holland. In the same year, an Austrian was appointed as an Intelligence Commando in the German army, to both keep an eye on the German Workers Party and be able to use his influence on comrades to ensure that they ‘towed the party line.’ He rose through the ranks, becoming more influential — he was a particularly skilled orator. He eventually became a candidate for the presidency, eventually becoming the Chancellor. Opposition was so fragmented that Adolf Hitler was able to consolidate his situation and become an absolute ruler. Imperial power in the hands of one man, but under a different guise.
Who knows if or how the course of history would have changed? It is interesting however, to contemplate what might have been, had the Emperor Frederick III not been such an enthusiastic consumer of the contents of this cigarette case.
