Colonel Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [27]
NEXT DAY, THE COLONEL and his entourage (now including Cal O’Laughlin as a press spokesman, and two aides, Lawrence Abbott and Frank Harper, courtesy of The Outlook) reentered the world of monarchy. They traveled east via Brussels, where they were received by King Albert and Queen Elizabeth of Belgium. The huge, awkward young ruler endeared himself to Roosevelt with his “excellent manners and not a touch of pretension.” Queen Wilhelmina of Holland repelled him with exactly the opposite combination. He thought her “not only commonplace, but common … a real little Dutch middle-class frau.”
A sobering display of German naval might greeted him when he transferred to a Danish steamer at Kiel on the morning of 2 May. He was en route to Norway, and would not properly enter the Reich for another week. Even so, the dreadnoughts and battle cruisers cramming Kiel’s inner fjord presented their great guns, and rank upon rank of sailors saluted him as he cruised out of the harbor.
From where he stood on the steamer’s bridge, he could glimpse the entrance to Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, crossing the Jutland peninsula. A miniature of his own project in Panama, it showed signs of ominous enlargement. Those dreadnoughts would soon have no problem moving between the Baltic and the North Sea.
Denmark opened out to port: flat, fertile, easily conquerable. King Frederick VIII was unavailable to greet the Roosevelts in Copenhagen, being out of the country on vacation. But by royal command, they were put up at the palace, and entertained by Crown Prince Christian. Roosevelt was informed that the last occupant of their suite had been the King of England, whom he might or might not be seeing later in the month.
According to news reports, Edward VII was not at all well.
They journeyed on to Christiania by night train, arriving there at noon on 4 May. Again they received a royal welcome. King Haakon VII and Queen Maud were on hand at the station, more palace accommodations provided, and the inevitable state banquet loomed.
Norway, despite its energetic attempt at pomp and circumstance, looked to Roosevelt “as funny a kingdom as was ever imagined outside of opéra bouffe.” Crowds lining the streets cheered with a peculiar barking sound. The royal family was palpably bourgeois: “It is much as if Vermont should offhand try the experiment of having a king.” However, given the inability of Europeans to think of continuity except in terms of heredity, he had to admire the way Norway had democratized its monarchy.
On the following day, he braced himself for a round of academic exercises in honor of his Nobel Peace Prize. He did so without enthusiasm, resentful of pressure from Andrew Carnegie to make a speech pleading for arms control, prior to lobbying the Kaiser. The pesky little millionaire (“Here is what I should say to His Imperial Majesty, were I in your place”), then expected to be invited to a follow-up disarmament conference in London—as a return, presumably, for financing Roosevelt’s safari.
Christiania was the obvious forum for a condemnation of the Anglo-German naval race, which vied with the Balkan situation as a likely cause of Europe’s next war. But what Roosevelt had seen of uneasy peace in North Africa, fractious peace in Austria-Hungary, and resentful peace in France had revived his old doubts about “the whole Hague idea of talking away conflicts that had to happen.”
In addition, he had developed a case of bronchitis. It was too late, though, for him to wheeze regrets. Christiania was bedecked with flags and evergreens. Long before he arrived at the National Theater, where the Nobel Committee awaited him, all 1,800 seats were taken by eager members of the public.
Roosevelt’s oration was understandably brief and hard to hear. It drew little applause.