The Kaiser's Memoirs

by German Emperor William II

FESTIVITIES IN ENGLAND

The remainder of our stay in England was devoted to excursions; we also enjoyed the hospitality of noble English families, at whose homes there was an opportunity to hold intercourse with many members of English nobility.

Special enjoyment in the domain of art was provided by the King to his guests by a theatrical performance at Drury Lane Theater. A well-known English play, "Money," was performed, by a company especially assembled for the occasion, consisting of the leading actors and actresses of London. As a surprise, a curtain fell between the acts, painted especially for the occasion by a lady, which depicted King George and me, life size, on horseback, riding toward each other and saluting militarily. The picture was executed with much dash and was enthusiastically acclaimed by the audience.

The performance of the actors and actresses in "Money" was veritably masterly, since all concerned played their rôles, even the smallest, to perfection. In fact, it was a classic performance.

Another day I attended, at the Olympia track, the sports of the British army and navy, which included admirable individual feats on foot and horseback, as well as evolutions by bodies of troops in close formation.

In describing the unveiling of the statue, as well as the funeral of King Edward VII, I have concerned myself purposely with the externals and pomp that are characteristic of such occasions in England. They show that, in a land under parliamentary rule, a so-called democratic land, more importance is attached to well-nigh mediæval magnificence than in the young German Empire.

The French actions in Morocco, which were no longer such as could be reconciled with the Algeciras Agreement, had once more engaged the attention of the diplomats. For this reason the Chancellor had requested me to find out, as soon as opportunity should arise, what King George thought about the situation.

I asked him if he thought that the French methods were still in accordance with the Algeciras Agreement. The King remarked that the agreement, to tell the truth, no longer was in force, and that the best thing to do would be to forget it; that the French, fundamentally, were doing nothing different in Morocco from what the English had previously done in Egypt; that, therefore, England would place no obstacles in the path of the French, but would let them alone; that the thing to do was to recognize the "fait accompli" of the occupation of Morocco and make arrangements, for commercial protection, with France.

To the very end the visit went off well, and the inhabitants of London, of all social strata, expressed their good will every time the guests of their King showed themselves.

Thus the German Imperial couple was enabled to return home with the best of impressions. When I informed the Chancellor of these, he expressed great satisfaction. From the remarks of King George he drew the inference that England considered the Algeciras Agreement no longer valid and would not place any obstacles in the way of the French occupation of Morocco.

From this the policy followed by him and the Foreign Office arose which led to the Agadir case, the last and equally unsuccessful attempt to maintain our influence in Morocco. The situation became more serious during the Kiel regatta week. The Foreign Office informed me of its intention to send the Panther to Agadir. I gave expression to strong misgivings as to this step, but had to drop them in view of the urgent representations of the Foreign Office.

In the first half of 1912 came the sending of Sir Ernest Cassel with a verbal note in which England offered to remain neutral in case of an "unprovoked" attack upon Germany, provided Germany agreed to limit her naval construction program and to drop her new Naval bill, the latter being darkly hinted at. Owing to our favorable answer to this Lord Haldane was intrusted with the negotiations and sent to Berlin. The negotiations finally fell through, owing to the constantly more uncompromising attitude of England (Sir E. Grey), who finally disavowed Lord Haldane and withdrew his own verbal note, because Grey was afraid to offend the French by a German-English agreement and jeopardize the Anglo-French-Russian understanding.

Here are the details of the case:

On the morning of January 29, 1912, Herr Ballin had himself announced to me at the palace in Berlin and asked for an audience. I assumed that it was a case of a belated birthday greeting, therefore I was not a little astonished when Ballin, after a short speech of congratulation, said that he had come as an emissary of Sir Ernest Cassel, who had just arrived in Berlin on a special mission and wished to be received.

I asked whether it was a political matter, and why, if so, the meeting had not been arranged through the English ambassador. Ballin's answer was to the effect that, from hints dropped by Cassel, he knew the matter to be of great importance, and the explanation for Cassel's acting without the intervention of the ambassador was because the earnest desire had been expressed in London that the official diplomatic representatives, both the English and the German, should not be apprised of the affair.

I declared that I was ready to receive Cassel at once, but added that, should his mission have to do with political questions, I should immediately summon the Chancellor, since I was a constitutional monarch and not in a position to deal with the representative of a foreign power alone without the Chancellor.

Ballin fetched Cassel, who handed me a document which, he stated, had been prepared with the "approval and knowledge of the English Government." I read the short note through and was not a little surprised to see that I was holding in my hand a formal offer of neutrality in case Germany became involved in future warlike complications, conditioned upon certain limitations in the carrying out of our program of naval construction, which were to be the subject of mutual conferences and agreements. Walking with Ballin into the next room, I handed over the document for him to read. After he had done so both of us exclaimed in the same breath: "A verbal note!"

It was plainly apparent that this "verbal note" was aimed at the forthcoming addition to our Naval law and designed in some way to delay or frustrate it. No matter how the matter was interpreted, I found myself confronted with a peculiar situation, which also amazed Ballin. It reminded me of the situation at Cronberg-Friedrichshof in 1905, when I was obliged to decline the demand, made to me personally by the English Under Secretary, Hardinge, that we should forego our naval construction.