1911.
Sept. 20th. Lucerne.

Through dancing with a sweet American (and indeed they are truly delightful, especially if you have the same partner all the evening!) I hear via a Bremen multi-millionaire that though the most optimistic official assurances of peace emanate from Berlin yet there is the most extreme nervousness amongst the German business men because of the revelation to them of the French power both financially and fightingly, so unexpected by them. I suppose if a Pitt or a Palmerston had now been guiding our destinies we should have war. They would say any Peace would be a bad Peace because of the latent damnable feeling in Germany against England. It won’t be France any more, it will be England that will be the red rag for the German Bull! And as we never were so strong as at present, then Pitt & Co. would say the present is the time to fight. Personally I am confident of Peace. I happen to know in a curious way (but quite certainly) that the Germans are in a blue funk of the British Navy and are quite assured that 942 German merchant steamers would be “gobbled up” in the first 48 hours of war, and also the d—d uncertainty of when and where a hundred thousand troops embarked in transports and kept “in the air” might land! N.B.—There’s a lovely spot only 90 miles from Berlin! Anyhow they would demobilize about a million German soldiers! But I am getting “off the line” now! I really sat down to write and tell you of a two days’ visit paid to me here by the new American Ambassador to Berlin. He is a faithful friend. He is very, very PRO-English (he has such a lovely daughter whom I have been dancing with, A PERFECT GEM! if she don’t turn Wilhelm’s head I’ll eat my hat!). My friend was American Ambassador at Constantinople when I was Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet—you know it was a ticklish time then, at the worst of the Boer War and the British Navy kept the Peace! That old Sultan [Abdul Hamid] told me so, and gave me a 500-guinea diamond star, bless him! and he called Lord Salisbury a d—d fool for having left him in the lurch and for having said that “England had put her money on the wrong horse” in backing Turkey. The Turks being the one people in the whole world to be England’s fast (and if put to it) only friend! Well, my dear Friend! Leishman saw this then in 1899, and sees it now, and hence we were locked up for hours in a secret room here! It all bears immensely on the present Franco-German Crisis! That “greater-than-Bismarck” who is now German Ambassador at Constantinople (Marschall von Bieberstein), and who is the real director of German policy (Waechter is only his factotum! as I will prove to you presently!) sees his rear and flanks quite safe by having the Turks in the palm of his hand (as Leishman describes it!) and so has been led to bluff at Agadir—but those choice words of Lloyd George upset the German apple-cart in a way it was never upset before! (I suppose they were “written out” words and Cabinet words, and they were d—d fine words!) Before I go on with the next bit of my letter I must explain to you that Leishman is a very great friend and admirer of Marschall von Bieberstein and also of Kiderlen-Waechter, the present German Foreign Minister. When Marschall went on his annual 4 months’ leave from Constantinople he always had Waechter to take his place while away, who was then the German Minister at Bucharest! Leishman is also an ardent admirer of the German Emperor, and he is also the most intimate friend possessed by Mr. Philander Knox, the American Secretary of State, who has forced Leishman to Berlin when he was in Paradise at Rome (at all events his family were!) Well! dear Friend, it’s a good thing that Leishman loves England. I couldn’t possibly write to Sir E. Grey what I am writing to you (I shouldn’t write to you except that this letter goes through France only!) and it would be simply fatal to Leishman if it ever leaked out about his conversations with me, but his heart is with us. I knew this when I spent many weeks at Constantinople (and we had no friends then, 1899 and 1900!). He says our Turkish policy is the laughing stock of Diplomacy! “Every schoolboy knows” that we have a Mahomedan Existence and the Turks love us, but all we do is to kick their ——! As Leishman truly says, the Germans were in the dust by the deposition of Abdul Hamid and England was “all” to the New Turks, but slowly Marschall has worked his way up again, and the Germans again possess the Turks, instead of England. The Turkish Army, the very finest fighting army in the world, was ours for the asking, and “Peace—perfect Peace” in India, Egypt and Persia; but we’ve chucked it all away because we have had d—d fools as our Ambassadors! But how can it be otherwise unless you put in men from outside, like for instance Bryce at Washington? Our strength is Mahomedan, but we are too d—d Christian to see it! and fool about Armenian atrocities and Bulgarian horrors! Tories and Radicals are both the same. Isn’t it wonderful how we get along! I repeat again to you my copyright lines:—

“Time and the Ocean and some Guiding Star

In High Cabal have made us what we are!”

Look at Delagoa Bay, that might have been ours—indeed was ours only we “fooled” it away! Look at Lord Granville and the Cameroons! Well! I haven’t given Leishman away, I don’t think! The real German bonne bouche was the complete belt across Africa, but this only if the right of pre-emption as regards the Belgian Congo could have been acquired. I simply tremble at the consequences if the British Redcoats are to be planted on the Vosges Frontier [meaning the dread of Conscription and a huge Army for Continental Warfare].

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1911.
October 10th. Lucerne.

... I yesterday had a long letter from McKenna begging me to return and “put the gloves on again,” and in view of his arguments I am going to do so when A. K. Wilson vanishes early next year! It is, however, distasteful to me. I’ve had a lovely time here.

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1911.
October 29th. Reigate Priory, Surrey.