Navy to suit himself. But the Chancellor who had the support of the
big shipping interests and the financiers, saw a possible means of
checkmating von Tirpitz by forcing Admiral von Pohl to resign as Chief
of the Admiralty Staff. They finally persuaded the Kaiser to accept
his resignation and appoint Admiral von Holtzendorff as his successor.
Von Holtzendorff's brother was a director of the Hamburg-American Line
and an intimate friend of A. Ballin, the General Director of the
company. The Chancellor believed that by having a friend of his as
Chief of the Admiralty Staff, no orders would be issued to submarine
commanders contrary to the wishes of the Chancellor, because according
to the rules of the German Navy Department the Chief of the Admiralty
Staff must approve all naval plans and sign all orders to fleet
commanders.

Throughout this time the one thing which frightened the Foreign Office
was the fear that President Wilson might break off diplomatic relations
before the Foreign Office had an opportunity to settle the differences
with the United States. For this reason Ambassador Gerard was kept
advised by Wilhelmstrasse of the internal developments in Germany and
asked to report them fully but confidentially to Wilson. So, during
this crisis when Americans were demanding a break with Germany because
of Germany's continued defiance of President Wilson's notes, the
American Government knew that if the Foreign Office was given more time
it had a good chance of succeeding in cleaning house. A rupture at
that time would have destroyed all the efforts of the Foreign Office to
keep the German military machine within bounds. It would have
over-thrown von Jagow and von Bethmann-Hollweg and put in von Tirpitz
as Chancellor and von Heydebrand, the reactionary leader of the
Prussian Diet, as Secretary of State. At that time, all the democratic
forces of Germany were lined up with the Foreign Office. The people