peace had indeed been preserved, but, as Herr von Bethmann Hollweg told
me later on, not without effort. The attitude of Germany toward France
had seemed ominous. The British Government had done all it could to
avert a breach, but its sympathy was opposed to language used in
Germany, the spirit of which seemed to us to have in it an aggressive
element. We did not hesitate to say what we thought about this.

Even after the Agadir incident was quite closed, the tension between
Germany and England had not passed away. The military party in the
former country began to talk of a "preventive" war pretty loudly. Even
so moderate an organ in Berlin as the _Post_ wrote of German opinion
that "we all know that blood is assuredly about to be shed, and the
longer we wait the more there will be. Few, however, have the courage to
imitate Frederick the Great, and not one dares the deed."

The Emperor therefore sent his message in the beginning of 1912, to the
effect that feeling had become so much excited that it was not enough to
rely on the ordinary diplomatic intercourse for softening it, and that
he was anxious for an exchange of views between the Cabinets of Berlin
and London, of a personal and direct kind. As the result of this
intimation, the British Cabinet decided to send one of its members to
Berlin to hold "conversations," with a view to exploring and, if
practicable, softening the causes of tension, and I was requested by the
Prime Minister and Sir Edward Grey and my other colleagues to go to
Berlin and undertake the task. Our Ambassador there came over to London
specially to discuss arrangements, and he returned to Berlin to make
them before I started.

I arrived in the German capital on February 8, 1912, and spent some days
in interviews with the Emperor, the Imperial Chancellor, the Naval