When in England five years before, the War Lord had prompted Mr. Chamberlain to make his historic appeal in favour of co-operation between Great Britain, Germany and the United States, assuring him that Germany's future policy would rest on such an understanding as on a roche de bronze.
Mr. Chamberlain, being under the impression that only gentlemen were invited to Sandringham House, thought His Majesty sincere and gave public utterance to the message, promising peace and mutual understanding.
But the Roi de Prusse had no sooner shaken the dust of England from his boots than Bülow was ordered to repudiate the whole thing (without directly impugning his Sovereign's word, of course) and to ridicule Chamberlain's "Utopian schemes."
Notwithstanding, the then German Ambassador in London, Count Wolff-Metternich, later had the impudence to complain to Sir F. Lascelles, British representative in Berlin, that the state of English opinion toward Germany and the British Foreign Office's coldness toward the Wilhelmstrasse gave him considerable uneasiness; whereupon Sir Lascelles demanded to know whether Germany expected British Secretaries of State, having been struck in the face, were to turn the other cheek for further castigation and insult?
Three years after the birth of the Quadruple Alliance, at which we are now assisting, the War Lord and his Chancellor had another repudiation game between them. Mr. Harcourt having prepared the way in his amazing Lancashire speech,[#] Wilhelm strove to outdo the Father of Lies in the notorious Daily Telegraph interview, the general theme of which was:
[#] Mr. Harcourt's speech in Lancashire, October, 1908: "I wil not offer to other nations the temptation which would be afforded by a defenceless England, but let me assure you ... there has not been any period in the last ten or fifteen years—and I speak with knowledge and a sense of deep responsibility—in which our relations with Germany—commercial, colonial, political, and dynastic—have been on a firmer and more friendly footing than they are to-day.
"Our rivalries are only in trade and education, and though I should claim for us the supremacy of the former, I would yield to Germany the palm for perfection in the latter; but of personal animosity there is none between the rulers, the Governments, or the peoples. And if in either country there is a small class of publicists who, for selfish and unpatriotic ends, desire to set the nations at variance—well, they are the footpads of politics and the enemies of the human race."
"You English are mad, mad—mad as March hares. What has come over you that you are so completely given over to suspicions quite unworthy of a great nation? What more can I do than I have done? I declared with all the emphasis at my command, in my speech at Guildhall, that my heart is set upon peace, and that it is one of my dearest wishes to live on the best of terms with England. Have I ever been false to my word? Falsehood and prevarication are alien to my nature.
"My actions ought to speak for themselves, but you listen, not to them, but to those who misinterpret and distort them. That is a personal insult which I feel and resent. To be for ever misjudged, to have my repeated offers of friendship weighed and scrutinised with jealous, mistrustful eyes, taxes my patience severely. I have said time after time that I am a friend of England, and your Press—or, at least, a considerable section of it—bids the people of England refuse my proffered hand, and insinuates that the other holds a dagger.
"I repeat that I am the friend of England, but you make things difficult for me. My task is not of the easiest. The prevailing sentiment of large sections of the middle and the lower classes of my country is not friendly to England. I am therefore, so to speak, in a minority in my own land.