After Emperor Frederick III had closed his eyes for ever, the heavy burden of governing the empire fell upon my_ youthful shoulders. First, of all I was confronted with the necessity of making changes in the government personnel in various quarters. The military entourage of the two em-perers, as well as-the body of officialdom, had grown too old. The so-called maison militaire (military household of Emperor William the Great) had been retained in its entirety by Emperor Frederick IIT, without being required to discharge military duties. In addition, there was the entourage of Emperor Frederick III. I proceeded to dismiss, in the friend-hest way, all those gentlemen who wished to go into retirement; some of them received positions in the army, a few of the younger remained in my service for the transition period.
During the 99 days while T was still Crown Prince, I had silently concerned myself with those person ages to whom I proposed later to give appointments, since the physicians had left ime no doubt that my father had only a short time to live. I ignored Court or external considerations;. nothing but previous achievements and character moved me to my. choice. I did away with the term "mason militaire" and transformed it into
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.