It was rather hard to find out exactly what the Kaiser's attitude towards us was. Some of the court circle—there were always visitors from Berlin—announced that the Kaiser was greatly pleased by the result of the Portsmouth conference. He knew the weakness of Russia, and though he believed that German interests required that she should not be strong, he feared, above all things, the preponderance of the Yellow Races. I discovered one thing early, that the Pan-German party propagated the idea that the Japanese alliance with England could be used against the United States.
It was vain to argue about this. 'Japan is your enemy; the Philippines will be Japanese, unless you strengthen yourselves by a quasi-alliance with us; then England, tied to Japan, can not oppose you.' One could discover very little from the Kaiser's public utterances; but he indemnified himself for his conventionality in public by his frankness in private.
He described the Danish as the most 'indiscreet of courts.' He forgot that his own indiscretions had become proverbial in Copenhagen. Whether this 'indiscretion' was first submitted to the Foreign Office is a question. His diplomatists were usually miracles of discretion; but the city was full of 'echoes' from Berlin which did not come from the diplomatists or the court. The truth was, the Kaiser looked on the courts of Denmark and Stockholm as dependencies, and he was 'hurt' when any of the court circle seemed to forget this.
In his eyes, a German princess, no matter whom she married, was to remain a German. The present Queen of Denmark, the most discreet of princesses, never forgot that she was a Danish princess and would be in time a Danish queen.
Every German princess was looked upon as a propagator of the views of the Kaiser;—the Queen of the Belgians was a sore disappointment to him; but, then, she was not a Prussian princess. When one of the princesses joined the Catholic Church, there was an explosion of rage on his part.
As far as I could gather, in 1908-9-10, he was chambré, as liberal Germany said, surrounded by people who echoed his opinions, or who, while pretending to accept them, coloured them with their own.
It was surmised that he despised his uncle, King Edward. Evidences of this would leak out.
He admired our material progress, and he was determined to imitate our methods. The loquacity of some of our compatriots amused him.
He understood President Roosevelt so little as to imagine that he could influence him. There was one American he especially disliked, and that was Archbishop Ireland; but the reason for that will form almost a chapter by itself.
As I have said, it seemed to me most important that good feeling in the little countries of Europe should be founded on respect for us.