In all his criticisms King Edward was scrupulously fair. Even in discussing his sister's relations with her son he would add that they were both strong personalities with different sympathies and view-points, and that sustained agreement between them was probably impossible. He admired the Kaiserin frankly, as all must who know the gracious and kindly lady who in her own quiet and unobtrusive fashion has filled her life with good deeds.
Relations between King Edward and his nephew improved immensely when Queen Victoria died. Not only did the Kaiser come over to the funeral, but he seemed on that occasion to have laid aside the brusqueness that had marked earlier visits. All the Court noticed it, and King Edward commented upon it to me with very evident pleasure. The process of improvement in relations started about 1899. Through the Boer War events had been moving towards a reconciliation.
The Kaiser's correct behaviour during the war, which his frenzied telegram on the occasion of the Raid had done something to bring about, placated King Edward, and after Queen Victoria's death relations between the two men improved sensibly. The Kaiser either limited his criticisms or saw to it that they were not indiscreetly uttered. The old friendliness was resumed, and things became as they were after the attempt on King Edward's life in Denmark when the Kaiser left Berlin and met the royal train at the frontier station to congratulate his uncle upon his escape and inquire after his health. King Edward wrote to me from Sandringham on his return. After thanking me for a letter and telegram of congratulations, he said that the Kaiser came all the way from Berlin to meet his train at Altona and inquire after his health. He thought that was very kind of the Kaiser.
I remember that the Kaiser's later visits to England were quite a success. King Edward remarked to me, when his nephew was staying at Highcliffe in Hampshire for his health, how greatly he had improved in manner, how courteous and considerate he was, and how much of the old unrest and irritability seemed to have gone. Between King George, Queen Mary, and the Kaiser, relations could not have been more friendly, and when King Edward and Queen Alexandra went to Berlin he thoroughly enjoyed his visit, and told me as much on his return.
How then, it may be asked, shall we account for the Anglo-French convention of 1904, and for the meeting between King Edward and the Tsar at Réval when the foundations of friendship between England and Russia were laid? In Germany it is believed that these arrangements were aggressive in their intention and demonstrated King Edward's hostility. In both cases King Edward, absolutely faithful to the Constitution, followed the advice of his ministers, and did not discuss his personal predilections at all. After the Réval meeting I asked him his view of the political situation, and as far as my memory serves this is what he said: "Germany is our commercial rival, she has a magnificent business aptitude, she might develop with growing riches and a few adventurous statesmen a rivalry of another kind. The Réval meeting, with the French convention, will I hope put an end to the possibility. But nothing has been done that stands in the way of a good understanding between London and Berlin. I believe all sensible men desire peace. We have no quarrel with Germany or any other power."
I may add that King Edward admired Germany almost as much as he loved France. The thoroughness of the German business method, the rejection of everything slovenly in thought and action, impressed him greatly, and he once made a remarkable statement to me. It was in London in the late winter of 1909-10, a few months before he died. He came to tea and talked of German administration. "Do you know," he said, "that if this country could be controlled in the same way, we should be all the better for it? If we could be ruled by Germans just long enough to have our house put in order"—he paused, and added with a laugh—"You know the trouble is that if we once had them we could not get rid of them." This statement was made during our last conversation; I never saw King Edward again, but his words should be sufficient to show that he was not animated by an ill-feeling towards the German Empire. They are hardly the words of a man who plotted against the land ruled over by the son of the woman who was at once his favourite sister and most devoted friend.
Age, and an experience of great affairs not to be excelled by any of his contemporaries, had made King Edward a sane and philosophic observer. He possessed very few prejudices, and he never allowed his feelings as a man to stand between him and his duties as a king. But if his personal views had affected political issues it would never have been to Germany's detriment, for every criticism that I heard him utter over a long period of years has been set out here. He had a real love for his French and Austrian friends and a quiet respect for his German acquaintances. I may add that King Edward not only hated war and would have been most reluctant to take any step that might ensue it, but he regarded people with bellicose ideas as fit occupants of asylums. The fine fabric of civilisation impressed him, and he saw in war the blind force that would destroy it and leave the world laboriously and painfully to rebuild. His real interests lay in the direction of social reform, and he even found the trappings of state, in which as a rule he took delight, a little heavy when he realised that they deprived him of the right of free speech enjoyed by the humblest citizen of the realm. He made it his business to know what Germany was doing to solve the problems of unemployment, housing, and factory management, and in the last years of his life his intercourse with Liberal statesmen quickened his interest in plans for the betterment of the class that does the work. Time out of mind he spoke of what Germany had achieved in this direction, always with the frank admiration that only a good sportsman can give under all circumstances. Far from seeking to bring war about, it is with me an article of faith that had he been living in July, 1914, there would have been no war. The immense personal influence he wielded would have been thrown into the scales on the side of peace, he would have reconciled differences at the eleventh hour for he was persona gratissima in every court of Europe, and there is not among the rulers of Europe one who would not have listened when he spoke. Those who suggest that he helped to build the pyre upon which the best and bravest of nearly all the nations of the world are now being consumed, do but slander the dead and testify to their own ignorance.