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Updated: May 13, 2025
Moritz and Thaden drove to the station with a view to changing their clothes in the train. At one o'clock I was again at the station, when the Emperor punctually arrived. I presented the gentlemen to him, and turned over General Hahnke to Baron Charpentier and Lieutenant Cramer, for them to conduct him to the hunting ground.
It was due entirely to this pressure that the kaiser, incensed beyond measure at the persistency and the malignity of these letters, took the extraordinary step of having Baron von Kotze arrested by the chief of his military household, General von Hahnke merely on the strength of his imperial order, dispensing with any legal warrant.
This is not altogether the fault of the general, for the emperor insists on retaining absolute control of the army in his own hands, and of exercising its command in every particular, no appointment being made without his initiative and sanction, while everything is done through Count Hahnke as supreme head of the military cabinet of his majesty.
The Emperor now demanded either that the recission of the Order should be laid before him, or that Bismarck should resign a demand which the Emperor communicated to Bismarck through General von Hahnke. The Chancellor delayed, but at length gave in the resignation on March 18th. It should be added that already, at the beginning of February, Bismarck had told the Emperor that he would retire.
The emperor happened at the time to have a bruise on the face, caused by a block and tackle swinging against him during a squall, while on deck, and on the strength of this temporary disfigurement, a story most painful to the emperor was circulated to the effect that his black eye was due to a blow from young Hahnke, who resented some indignity in connection with the practical jokes and rough horse-play so frequent on board the Hohenzollern during the emperor's annual holiday.
No account of the emperor's private life can be properly written without including a brief sketch of General Count von Hahnke, and of Baron von Lucanus. The former is the chief of the military cabinet of the emperor, and the other is at the head of his civil cabinet, that is to say, he occupies the post of principal private secretary.
A few years ago the general lost his son under singularly tragical and somewhat mysterious circumstances. The misfortune occurred during one of the annual yachting trips of the kaiser, young Hahnke being a lieutenant on board the yacht.
The quarrel was accentuated by a lively scene which occurred between the Emperor and the Chancellor about this period in connexion with a visit the leader of the Catholic Centre party had paid the Chancellor, and on March 17th the Emperor sent his chief Adjutant, General von Hahnke, to say he awaited the Chancellor's resignation.
Shortly afterwards General von Hahnke reappeared alone, entered the carriage hurriedly, and drove back to the palace. On the following morning it became known that Baron von Kotze had been suddenly arrested, and lodged in the military prison by personal order of the kaiser, and without the warrant of any tribunal or magistrate, either military or civil.
His military colleague, General Count von Hahnke, although a charming man, is, nevertheless, one of the most bitterly-hated officers of the German army; this is due to the fact that he has virtually usurped the prerogatives and the power of the minister of war, who has been reduced to a mere instrument of his wishes.
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