George Washington's Ghost

The King and Queen, their ministers and the rest of the original party, accompanied by the one hundred and seven accredited diplomats – including the Ambassador, Sir Evelyn Baring – all peremptorily expelled by personal order of the King of Prussia, Wilhelm VII, had been driven across the city as darkness fell.

Nevertheless, they had seen the bodies lying on the street and buildings burning in the near distance, heard the regular thump and crump of artillery pieces. A pall of smoke hung over the Reich capital as the blood-letting went on unabated.

It seemed that the Deutsches Heer – the Imperial German Army – had acclaimed Wilhelm Emperor, the High Command of the Kaiserliche Marine had swiftly fallen into step with the generals, with only the Air Force, the one service not dominated by Prussian officers, dithering before eventually, splitting down the middle with individuals and squadrons taking different sides.

Wilhelm’s men had mounted a dawn coup d'état, arresting all thirteen of the Electors who had voted in favour of Ludwig of Bavarian’s accession to the Imperial throne. Ludwig himself, and his wife were presently being held at the notorious Moabit Prison, located inside the massive DG – Deutscher Geheimdienst – German Secret Service

Complex in the Mitte District of the city.

The old Kaiser’s security service, officially the German Secret Police Service, had acquired a dreadful reputation in the early years of his reign but had been, albeit only somewhat, rehabilitated in the public eye in recent times. However, this was unlikely to be much comfort to those who fell into the DG’s hands at a time such as this.

It seemed that the King and Queen had witnessed only the beginnings of Wilhelm’s rage at the Charlottenburg Palace. Without risk of over-egging the case, it was obvious that he must, thereafter, have suffered some kind of psychotic episode. The great imperial city had shuddered with explosions and gunfire, the banshee wail of sirens had been continuous, countless aircraft had flown low over the rooftops while the German State Broadcasting Network had played martial music interspersed with orders – not requests – for calm, notifications of a twenty-four hour curfew, warnings that rioters would be shot on sight and that, contrary to the evidence, everything was, quote: ‘Under control and there was no need for the citizenry to worry…’

Stray and spent bullets had hit the Charlottenburg, one had cracked a window within feet of where Queen Eleanor had been sitting that morning. After that the Commanding Officer of the Royal Protection Detail had virtually frog-marched the King and Queen down to the basement, where, shortly afterwards they were joined by the Prime Minister, Sir Hector Hamilton and Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, Sir George Walpole.

Count Lothar von Bismarck of Hesse-Kassel, Foreign Minister in the old Kaiser’s government had found the British party sheltering below ground. He was grey with weariness and mental fatigue. Although he was one of the Electors – despite his ‘electorate’ being essentially honorific – he was not one of the Electors who had allowed whimsy or, in the circumstances, more likely narcotics abuse or congenital imbecility to sway him towards the person of the Kaiser elect, Ludwig. Not actually a great admirer of Wilhelm, he had nevertheless, always done his best to excuse and explain his cousin’s quirks and excesses down the years. It was, the British party assumed, only a combination of his past forbearance and unimpeachable public loyalty, and the fact that he had actually cast his vote for the King of Prussia, which meant he was still at liberty and acting, insofar as it was practical in the present extraordinary circumstances, as an agent of the self-appointed new Kaiser.

Looking every minute of every hour of his near sixty years, the newcomer bowed to the King and Queen and began to apologise profusely for the indignities ‘the situation must inevitably impose upon your most honoured persons…’

His voice had trailed away into the musty, dank air of the crowded basement as he met the gaze of his oldest remaining friend in Christendom.

Ignoring the ire of his monarch and the even colder rage of his Prime Minister, George Walpole had put a fraternal arm of friendship around the German minister’s shoulders.

The two men had sparred, in academia in their younger days and latterly, in the less brotherly sphere of realpolitik for the last, ever-more troubling decade. Whereas, on Walpole’s part, their diplomatic encounters had been interrupted now and then by the vagaries of the workings of democracy in the United Kingdom, this was not a cross that Lothar von Bismarck, whose family had been to all intents, under the Germanic Imperial system, the hereditary masters of the Wilhelmstrasse for the last century ever had to bear.

‘How have we come to this?’ Bismarck sighed, shaking his head.