The Trial of the Kaiser

trial

As we now know, Kaiser Wilhelm II (aka William Hohenzollern) never stood trial for his part in the first World War, but there was much speculation about it at the time and comparison with the trials of other great men and women.

‘From an article in “Chambers’s Journal,” entitled “Concerning State Trials,” we extract the following:-

Students of human nature and of history must look forward to the coming trial with intense interest. Do eminent and great men, fallen from their high estate and tried for their lives display this greatness by any special composure or dignity? In very many cases this has been so. King Charles was a gentleman always and never more so than at his trial. The same may be said of Louis XVI. Th trial of the French King and Queen does not deserve the august name of a State trial; but answer of Marie Antoinette to the scoundrels who sentenced her to death was simple, courageous and thoroughly queen-like. With the immeasurable contempt of an aristocratic woman. a haughty daughter of an empress-queen, for the rough, ill-clad rabble into whose hands she had fallen, she did not deign to discuss their rite to judge her or the validity of their verdict. In six, short stinging words she told them what she thought of them. “Vous etes tous de profonds scelerats!” (You are nothing but a lot of scamps.) And with this, without another word, she swept out of their presence.

Mary Stuart, always vehement, quick and passionate, but now aging, grey-haired met her doom calmly, quietly answering and herself interrogating her judges. Was her dignified conduct a proof that she felt herself to be innocent? Hardly that; but women have a wonderful power of deceiving themselves, and as twice a Queen she denied to anyone on earth the right to judge her. Charles Stuart and Louis Capet made the same ineffectual protest. Without doubt William Hohenzollern must honestly be of the same opinion, and, contrary to the general idea, he would have some right on his side. Human wisdom for what it is worth, has for ages past invested royalty with an inviolable sanctity, above all laws. And the Kaiser could go even a step further – he could advance the pleas of his vaunted partnership with the Almighty. which (if admitted) should absolve him of all blame. This claim may have its use where, and as long as, the imperial “ipse dixit”* was accepted as final; but a court of law is the most sceptic of bodies, and, as William will find does not accept unsupported testimony.

The Stamford Mercury, 16th January, 1920.

*he said it himself – i.e. an assertion without proof.