David Dickinson: Death and the Jubilee

‘Thank you, General.’ Dominic Knox knew that the General did not care for him. He did not care for the General. Knox looked as if he might have been a priest or a philosophy don. Years of reading through the ambiguities of intelligence reports, of second or third or even fourth guessing the words and actions of his opponents had left him with severe doubts about the accuracy of language, written or spoken.

‘I am sorry to have to disappoint you, gentlemen. The only honest answer I can bring to this meeting about the level of threat from Ireland on Jubilee Day is that we do not know. We do not know what new groups may have formed over there by next year. Undoubtedly there is a small section of Irish opinion which would dearly like to assassinate Queen Victoria.’

The Army, the Foreign Office and the Metropolitan Police looked shocked as if Knox had just blasphemed at Holy Communion in Westminster Abbey.

‘We have our intelligence systems in place. We should hear of any such plan inside forty-eight hours. But the Irish are very cunning. They may have made their plans some years ago. They may have planted the would-be assassin in a safe job in London already. He may be going about his lawful business even as we sit here this morning, a waiter in a club or a servant in a grand house somewhere along the route perhaps, watching and waiting for the parade itself when he will reveal himself in his true colours. It may be that we have to investigate all those who have come to London in the last two years.

‘I am sorry that I cannot bring more hopeful news. But I would be betraying my duty if I did not tell you how we see the position. There is over a year to go before Her Majesty sets out from Buckingham Palace en route to St Paul’s. We shall be watching the threat from Ireland on an hourly basis until then. Hour by hour, if not minute by minute.’

Berlin 1896

‘Only in war can a nation become a true nation. Only common great deeds for the Idea of a Fatherland will hold a nation together. Social selfishness, the wishes of individuals, all must yield. The individual must forget himself and become part of the totality; he must realize how insignificant his life is compared with the whole. The State is not an Academy of Art, or of Commerce. It is Power!’

Five hundred pairs of eyes were riveted on an old man at a lectern. Once more the audience in the Auditorium Maximum of the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin rose to their feet. They cheered, they stamped their boots, they waved their hats in the air. Heinrich von Treitschke, the Professor of History, was old now. People said he was dying. His delivery was not couched in the musical cadences of some of the other professors whose eloquence could never pack the lecture halls like he could; it was harsh, and as his deafness increased he shouted in a rough monotone like a man trying to speak in a storm.

‘If a State realizes that it can, by way of its power and moral strength, lay claim to more than it possesses, it turns to the only means of achieving this, namely the force of arms. It is absurd to regard the conquest of another province or another country as theft or as a crime. It is sufficient to ask how the vanquished nation may best be absorbed in the superior culture.’

Von Treitschke had been giving these lectures on German politics and history for over twenty years. His audience was composed not merely of university students, but of bankers, businessmen, journalists, army cadets from the garrisons of Berlin and Potsdam. For many of them, who attended week after week and year after year, the message of the ancient historian, his hair white, his face lined, his expression fierce as he preached the love of the Fatherland, had become more important than that of any preacher they might hear in the churches of the capital. The body and blood of Christ had been replaced with the bodies and the blood of Germany. Here was a true Prussian prophet in his final years leading his people out of the wilderness into the promised Fatherland.

‘When we look . . .’ the old man paused and stared defiantly at the lecture hall and his disciples, ‘when we look at the lessons of our great past towards our glorious future, what do we find? We find that Germany’s greatest enemy lies not to the east in Mother Russia, but in the west! Yes, in the west! Our greatest enemy is an island! An island whose arrogance and presumption has too long denied our great Fatherland its place in the sun, its historical role at the heart of world power.’

Standing by the entrance was a tall thin young man called Manfred von Munster whose face had all the ardour and faith of the congregation. But his eyes were fixed on an even younger man who sat in the second row and whose eyes were burning with passion. He took notes in a small black book and he was first to stamp his feet, to roar on the devotion of the faithful. Von Munster had attended every one of Treitschke’s lectures for the past ten years. For him they were not just a confirmation of his creed, a communion with other believers. They were a recruiting ground.

‘They have a song, these English,’ the Professor was shouting now as he built towards his peroration. ‘They call it “Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the waves.” That has gone on for too long. England, with its decadent and effete aristocracy, its complacent and avaricious merchants who have used the Royal Navy to build up their trade and commerce across the globe, its slovenly and unhealthy workers, this England has been allowed to rule for far too long. One day, my fellow countrymen, when we have built our strength on sea as well as land, one day it will be Germany’s destiny to replace these sordid shopkeepers in the ranks of the world powers. No more Rule Britannia!’

The audience were on their feet, throwing notebooks, hats, pens, hands into the air. ‘Treitschke! Treitschke!’ they shouted as though it were a battle cry. ‘Treitschke! Treitschke!’

The old man held up his hand to quell the noise. He looked, thought Munster, like Moses on the mountain top, about to descend with the tablets of stone to his unworthy people.

‘My friends! My friends! Forgive me! I have not yet finished my lecture.’

In an instant the audience went quiet. They did not sit down, but remained on their feet to hear the last words of the master.

‘No more Rule Britannia . . .’ Treitschke paused. Silence had fallen over his students as though a cloud had blocked out the sun. He stared at his audience, scanning their faces row by row. ‘Rule Germania! Rule Germania!’

The cheers rolled out round the auditorium. Professor von Treitschke departed the stage slowly, leaning on a stick, declining all offers of assistance. The strength seemed to flow out of him now his lecture was over. He looked like any other old man, close to death perhaps, walking back alone to his apartment after the day’s chores were done.

But for von Munster the day’s work was only just beginning. He struck up a conversation with the young man in the second row as they struggled through the crowd leaving the university into a freezing Berlin.

‘Forgive me, please. Haven’t I seen you at the lectures before?’

‘You have.’ The young man’s face glowed with pride. ‘I have attended every single lecture this term. Isn’t it a pity that they are nearly over?’

Von Munster laughed. He knew the young man had attended every lecture. He had watched him every time, looking not at Treitschke’s face but at his companion and his growing devotion to the cause of a greater Germany. This was part of his job. Now, von Munster felt sure, he could bring another disciple into the fold.

‘Have you time for a quick cup of coffee? It seems colder than usual today.’ Munster spoke in his friendliest voice.