Performing monarchy: The Kaiser and Kaiserin’s voyage to the Levant, 1898

Monika Wienfert has argued that during the nineteenth century 'many European monarchies can be said to have functioned rather successfully as national symbols and as means of effecting a national integration of peoples that were still, in many ways, heterogeneous'. To some extent, this was evident in the royal pair's voyage to the Holy Lands, which was the occasion of symbolically important acts of gift-giving when the Kaiser formally gave over holy sites to both Protestant and Catholic Germans. Le Matin argued forthrightly that the Kaiser's visit 'directly threatens the secular authority in the Christian Levant', while Le Soleil expressed concern that Wilhelm II would be given Syrian coastal territory as a colony by the sultan. The cloud of the Armenian massacres persisted throughout the Kaiser's tour, however, with German officials fearing that Armenian protestors might seek to disrupt the visit.