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The two vice-admirals, Witte de With and Floriszoon, were killed, and Obdam himself narrowly escaped capture, but Copenhagen was freed from naval blockade. Charles Gustavus however held military possession of a large part of Denmark, and in the spring began to press the attack on the capital from the land side.
Full of indignation, however, at yielding the superiority to the enemy, he frequently exclaimed, "My God! what a wretch am I! Among so many thousand bullets, is there not one to put an end to my miserable life?" One De Witte, his son-in-law, who stood near, exhorted him, since he sought death, to turn upon the English, and render his life a dear purchase to the victors.
Their philippics are directed not against Peter the Great and his reforms, but rather against recent Ministers of Foreign Affairs who are thought to have shown themselves too subservient to foreign Powers, and against M. Witte, the late Minister of Finance, who is accused of favouring the introduction of foreign capital and enterprise, and of sacrificing to unhealthy industrial development the interests of the agricultural classes.
And as this question would in any case become acute within two years, that date was one of the time-limits of the European war, and I ventured to designate it as such to two of the most prominent statesmen of the Entente in the month of March 1914. They both went so far as to say that my anticipation was extremely probable. Count Witte went farther and fixed the end of 1915 as the date.
And all this time the Imperial revenue increased by leaps and bounds, so that the introduction of the gold currency was effected without difficulty. M. Witte was declared to be the greatest minister of his time a Russian Colbert or Turgot, or perhaps the two rolled into one. Then came a change.
Thence, passing between the two mountain ranges which later received the names of Witte and Roode Bergen, we "struck" a wide expanse of level, open country; through this a stream flowed in a northerly direction, along the left bank of which we trekked for a full week, not only for the sake of the water and the richer grass growing in the immediate vicinity of the stream, but also because if there was any game in the neighbourhood it was sure to be found within easy reach of the water.
We should be thankful that we have come off so cheaply, for a rich banker like Witte in Amsterdam, is equal to the Pope in Rome; and I do not think taking off our shoes is paying too dearly to see the pope of Holland. Just think what King Henry IV. had to lay aside before he could see the Pope of Rome not only his shoes and stockings and a few other articles, but his royalty and majesty.
Altogether M. Witte was an inconvenient personage in an administration in which strong personality is regarded as entirely out of place, and in which personal initiative is supposed to reside exclusively in the Tsar. In addition to all this he was a man who felt keenly, and when he was irritated he did not always keep the unruly member under strict control.
Madame Witte is really for bearing not to require the same costume of us." The door behind them was opened hastily, and the banker Witte stepped in. He advanced to meet them with a quiet smile, but suddenly checked himself, and gazed with terror at the king. "My God! his majesty the King of Prussia!" he stammered.
The concessions then made by my friend, the late Count Witte, to the German Chancellor, drained the Tsardom of enormous sums of money and rendered it a tributary to the Teuton. But it did much more. It supplied Germany with a satisfactory type of commercial treaty which she easily imposed upon other nations.
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