Contact with the Neo-Conservatives
Waldemar moved swiftly to cultivate friends in political circles as well.
Most of the conservative figures in German politics disliked Russia, yet among them the differences ran deep. They ranged from ultra-hardliners who regarded pan-Slavism itself as the empire’s chief enemy, through hardliners who simply opposed any conciliatory diplomacy toward Russia, down to the Junker faction—more precisely, those who still remained landowners—who objected to closer ties with Russia on economic grounds, chiefly grain.
Waldemar wanted to make contact with the hardliners among them. The reason was simple.
The ultra-hardliners have basically given up on diplomacy, haven’t they?
If one followed the arguments of men like Elard von Oldenburg-Januschau, who spoke for that wing, any compromise with Russia was meaningless. Putting weight behind them would not merely destroy the League of the Three Emperors; it could invite open war with Russia itself.
By comparison the hardliners were relatively rational. The Conservative Party faction headed by Otto von Helldorff-Bedra opposed the conciliatory policy Bismarck had steered, yet they did so with their own logic and evidence.
They pointed out that the League of the Three Emperors, over the long term, would loosen the Dual Alliance with Austria-Hungary and, more importantly, that the economic advantages tilted toward Russia.
In short, the unbalanced scale of benefits would harm Prussia’s future security, and that was why they stood against it. The military under Field Marshal Moltke supported their view as well.
Among these hardliners Waldemar decided to approach the relatively young circle known as the Neo-Conservatives. Their social standing carried less weight, which made them easier to reach—an advantage in itself. Of course, he had another reason for looking their way.
In foreign policy the Neo-Conservatives opposed Bismarck’s policy of reconciliation with Russia, yet on domestic questions they championed state socialism, the idea that the state should look after the welfare of the workers. To a prince who, as a member of the royal house, watched the advance of socialist forces with wariness, their platform was bound to look highly attractive.
After carefully weighing his points of entry, Waldemar prepared to make contact with Wilhelm von Hammerstein, the man who served as the “voice” of the Neo-Conservatives. Born in 1838, Hammerstein was old enough, by ordinary reckoning, to have grandchildren, yet by the standards of imperial politics he counted as distinctly young.
To reach him, Waldemar borrowed Heinrich’s name. Hammerstein did not take lightly the name of Heinrich, the crown prince’s closest blood relative. A few days later, answering Heinrich’s invitation, Hammerstein appeared in a box at the Royal Prussian Theatre.
“This is my younger brother, Prince Waldemar.”
At Heinrich’s introduction Hammerstein received the prince’s greeting with a faintly sour expression.
Was this not meant to be a private meeting with Heinrich?
He felt a mild irritation, yet like any politician he kept the feeling from his face.
“Wilhelm von Hammerstein. I serve as editor of the Kreuzzeitung.”
The organ of the Conservative Party.
“I know who you are, sir. I have been reading your articles for some time.”
Then as now, the surest way to win a man’s goodwill was to show respect for his opinions. The younger the listener, the better the method worked.
“You have been reading my work?”
Hammerstein had taken little interest in the liberal prince who had somehow been included in a meeting meant for Heinrich, yet the claim that the boy read his articles drew a reaction.
“Of course.”
Waldemar had committed Hammerstein’s pieces to memory for this very moment. When he recited not merely the gist of the arguments but the long contributions themselves, Hammerstein was startled.
I never imagined a liberal prince would have the Conservative Party organ memorized cold. Is this young man a liberal only on the surface and a conservative underneath?
For the first time Hammerstein felt a sharp curiosity about the person called Waldemar. Still, the evening had been arranged for a meeting with Heinrich. He brought the brief exchange with Waldemar to a close, talked with Heinrich while they watched the play, and then left to keep his remaining appointments.
Watching him go, Heinrich turned to Waldemar.
“I arranged the meeting because you asked, but what good is a few words of greeting?”
“You’ll see.”
Waldemar gave his brother an inscrutable smile. Approaching a seasoned politician without prior acquaintance was never as easy as it sounded. That was why, the moment he met Hammerstein, he had behaved like a devoted admirer. The performance was deliberate.
No one guards himself against a follower who echoes his own views—least of all a boy who looks incapable of political intrigue. Waldemar meant to approach Hammerstein while wearing the mask of a fan.
Well then, time to begin.
A few days later Waldemar wrote to Hammerstein. In the letter he spoke, as a member of the royal house, of the unease he felt toward the League of the Three Emperors and asked for the older man’s guidance. Hammerstein could not ignore it. The sender was a prince, and a prince who claimed to follow his teachings. Annoyed though he was, he sent a reply.
The moment the first answer arrived, Waldemar was certain of success.
Now, shall I behave the way I did with Alix?
From then on he sent letters regularly, and ever more of them. Hammerstein, growing weary, shortened his answers, yet he never threw the letters away; he read every one. Discarding them outright was hard when the arguments and reasoning a prince put into them held a certain interest. Through that one-sided correspondence Hammerstein’s opinion of the prince gradually shifted. Reading one of the letters, he fell into thought.
No matter how I look at it, the prince’s views match those of our Young Conservatives. Why, then, has he the reputation of a liberal?
Hammerstein did not believe the prince had deliberately disguised his political leanings. Anyone who could manage that at such an age would be a monster, not a man.
If the prince were to become our political comrade…
It was an attractive hypothesis. Young though he was, Waldemar was a prince of the direct Hohenzollern line. In time he would come of age. Another royal voice inside the house that could speak for their platform would only benefit the Neo-Conservatives; it could do them no harm.
Once he thought that way, the prince’s letters no longer felt burdensome. Hammerstein began writing to Waldemar again, and his replies were no longer perfunctory. They were filled with earnest instruction.
Seeing the change in tone, Waldemar knew he had succeeded in building a genuine acquaintance with the old fox of politics. He had no intention, however, of resting content with that much. The mask of the devoted follower he had constructed in order to approach Hammerstein could never let him exert real influence. It was time to take the mask off.
In the letters he sent thereafter, Waldemar quietly altered the posture of a pupil seeking instruction. Instead he enclosed something that would startle Hammerstein: late-twentieth-century Nordic social democracy. It was nothing less than the complete modern welfare state in which the government assumed responsibility from cradle to grave.
The model had been judged a failure by the twenty-first century, yet the shock it delivered at its height had been immense. A man who had advocated only the modest notion that the state should care for workers now felt genuine dismay.
The state responsible for everything from cradle to grave? That is the sort of talk one expects from the Reds.
Yet from the standpoint of welfare policy there was much in it that Hammerstein could study. Yesterday the prince had looked like a conservative; today he was sounding like a socialist. Hammerstein found himself confused—until he reached the closing lines.
“In theory, this would be the finest model the socialists could ever put forward. In practice, however, it is a model that will ultimately fail.”
— Prince Waldemar
Only after reading those words was Hammerstein certain the prince’s political colors had not changed.
Remarkable all the same. Not even the socialists who have spent their lives in the field have managed to produce a policy like this.
That intellectual jolt led him to reassess the prince—from a promising young admirer worth cultivating to a man with whom one could hold a serious conversation. The judgment grew still more generous once the occasional subsidies the prince began to send arrived. Waldemar forwarded substantial sums and asked that the fact never be made known. His reason was his own still-undeclared status.
Fair enough.
Recalling the prince’s age once more, Hammerstein decided to draw him into the Conservative camp.
Very well. We shall send every one of our people to the prince’s debut stage, and leave nothing to chance.
If luck held and the prince took a fancy to some Neo-Conservative nobleman’s daughter, so much the better.
Waldemar had no idea that his correspondent meant to go beyond friendship and intervene in his public debut. In any case he had no leisure, just then, to worry about the other man’s schemes even if he had known them.
After the British royal family comes Moltke, and after Moltke, Alix.
There was not a single line he could afford to drop. To clear the mountain of unfinished work, Waldemar began answering the endless letters that still waited for him.