Making of a German Constitution : a Slow Revolution

Last Bastion • 199and, when Wilhelm traveled to Hessen, the Tsar Nicholas II and the Grand Duke,Ernst Ludwig, brushed him off. After this failure, Eulenburg reported that the Kaiser‘looked frightful’. 56 Nicholas later sent word that he ‘no longer wished to receiveletters of a political nature from him’, and declined additional invitations in 1899 and1903. 57 Ernst Ludwig was instructed by his grandmother, Queen Victoria, as soonas he ascended the throne in 1892: ‘For God’s sake’s do not let Wilhelm interferein your affairs—and in family affairs’. 58 Wilhelm was excluded from the Queen’seightieth birthday celebration in May of 1899; the royal family apparently regardedreceiving him as a ‘purgatory rather than a pleasure’. 59 Utterly humiliated, KaiserWilhelm II was without pride when he wrote to Ernst Ludwig about his social rejectionin 1901.But how did you treat me? Condescendingly: as an outsider, you kept me at a distance,your sisters considered me loathsome ... The hope that I would find a second true homein Darmstadt ... quickly evaporated, and I was forced to go away greatly upset and full ofsuffering, because as far as you were concerned I was a ‘nuisance’. 60Wilhelm’s hurt feelings were a mild consequence in comparison to the seriousramifications this type of international rebuff held for his domestic rule in Germany.Although the German people did not face encirclement, the Kaiser was increasinglyisolated in the middle of Europe. At least since the 1860s, the British had wantedto see in Germany ‘consensual, organic political change leading toward a Britishstyleparliamentary monarchy’. 61 Fritz placed great confidence in his Vicky’s anticipatedfuture and ability to foster political reform in Germany. Hope had centredon the crown prince, Frederick III, but this dwindled with his premature death on15 June 1888, after just three months as Kaiser. 62 Ernst Ludwig stood in clear oppositionto Wilhelm’s suprema lex Regis voluntas pretensions, openly favoring a limitedand responsible monarchy as well as the expansion of the power of the other statesat Prussian expense. 63In the political environment of the 1890s, it was not difficult to fathom a constitutionalalteration that would allow other princes in the Reich to hold the Präsidium.Anti-Prussian feeling amongst the state princes focused on Wilhelm II and, increasingly,was articulated in the language of constitutionalism. Here Ernst Ludwig wasonly one voice in a chorus. In 1895, although somewhat eccentric in his own right,Prince Ludwig of Bavaria criticized Prussian leadership in a speech for the coronationof Nicholas in Moscow. In a clear reference to constitutional arrangements, hereminded his audience that the princes were ‘not vassals but allies of the GermanEmperor’. 64 There was no doubt a good bit of domestic and international politicaljockeying behind the scenes, and we should not underestimate the place of princelypolitical ambition and interest to knock off Wilhelm II, regardless of blood ties. Afterthe abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Ernst Ludwig ‘told the Prussian Minister inDarmstadt in 1919 that he believed that the German monarchies could eventually be