I was alone at the hotel for several days. Then, traveling incognito, the dignitaries began to drift in. First came the Austrian, General Moritz Ritter von Auffenberg. A distinguished, quiet, unassuming gentleman, he is known to be high in the confidence of Francis Joseph. I found the War Minister very fond of salmon fishing, and got quite into his good graces by enthusiastic tales of fly fishing in New Zealand.
Admiral von Tirpitz and General von Heeringen came next. The Admiral is typical of the German sailor, a big man, six feet, wide of shoulder, blue-eyed, and full bearded. His manner I found genial and courteous. His exact opposite was von Heeringen, thin, almost crooked of body, stoop shouldered, unusually taciturn, and possessing deep-sunken, smoldering black eyes. He struck me as an animated mummy of the Rameses dynasty--come to think of it, he much resembles Rameses II.
The exact date of the meeting, as I recall it, was October 12, and the place a shooting lodge, named Ehrenkrug. On the morning of the twelfth I hired a vehicle and, loading provisions, wine, and other necessaries aboard, drove to the lodge, sixteen miles into the forest.
No farmhouse or other human habitation was within a radius of several miles. It was a large stone and brick building, somewhat similar to your colonial style. It had five or six guest rooms, a large general meeting hall, and a morning room. It being the property of the royal family, I found two old pensioners of the Imperial Forest Service in charge. They had a good fire going in the grate, which was welcome, for it was still a little damp and chilly, especially in this wet mountain forest.
Patroling both ends of the road were a number of gendarmes. They were scattered through the woods, too, forming a cordon through which no one could come. Indeed, they had challenged me. About three o'clock in the afternoon the German and Austrian envoys came out from the hotel, and at a quarter to four (I remember Waechter remarking "They're three-quarters of an hour late!") the chug of a motor announced the others, Lord Haldane and Winston Churchill.
I had never happened to meet Haldane before, and I found him the English gentleman personified--polished and reserved. Yet his reserve, tempered by age, blended into a genial mellowness. The usual English arrogance had evidently been subdued by reason of his training and cosmopolitan knowledge. In speech and action he was a Chesterfield, but in appearance he was not unlike a canon or a bishop, a little ascetic looking, and rather bald.
Quite the other type of Anglo-Saxon, still boyish in looks, high-strung and nervous, erratic in speech and action, just a bit self-conscious, Winston Churchill was the youngest member of this remarkable gathering. I had met him during the Boer War, and as he took off his motoring coat he looked at me closely.
"I believe I've seen you before," he said.
"I met the right honorable gentleman in the Bloemfontein Field Hospital during the war."
"Ah, yes," said Churchill, his face lighting up.