become party to any plan or naval or military combination, alone or in
conjunction with any other Power, directed to such an end.

He and I then sat down and redrafted what he had prepared, on this
basis, but without his committing himself to the view that it would be
sufficient. We also had a satisfactory conversation about the Bagdad
Railway and other things in Turkey connected with the Persian Gulf, and
we discussed possibilities of the rearrangement of certain interests of
both Powers in Africa. He said to me that he was not there to make any
immediate bargain, but that we should look at the African question on
both sides from a high point of view, and that if we had any
difficulties we should tell him, and he would see whether he could get
round them for us.

I replied that I also was not there to make a bargain, but only to
explore the ground, and that I much appreciated the tone of his
conversation with me, and the good feeling he had shown. I should go
back to London and without delay report to my colleagues all that had
passed.

I entertain no doubt that the German Chancellor was sincerely in earnest
in what he said to me on these occasions, and in his desire to improve
relations with us and keep the peace. So I think was the Emperor; but he
was pulled at by his naval and military advisers, and by the powerful,
if then small, chauvinist party in Germany. In 1912, when the
conversations recorded took place, this party was less potent, I think a
good deal less, than it appears to have become a year and a half later,
when Germany had increased her army still further. But I formed the
opinion even then that the power of the Emperor in Germany was a good
deal misinterpreted and overestimated. My impression was that the really