situation with France, when she was very powerful on the seas, that we
had with Germany now. While the fact to which I had referred created a
difficulty, the difficulty was not insuperable; for two groups of Powers
might be on very friendly relations if there was only an increasing
sense of mutual understanding and confidence. The present seemed to me
to be a favorable moment for a new departure. The Morocco question was
now out of the way, and we had no agreements with France or Russia
except those that were in writing and published to the world.

The Chancellor here interrupted me, and asked me whether this was really
so. I said it was so, and that, in the situation which now existed, I
saw no reason why it should not be possible for us to enter into a new
and cordial friendship carrying the two old ones into it, perhaps to the
profit of Russia and France, as well as of Germany herself. He replied
that he had no reason to differ from this view.

He and I both referred to the war scare of the autumn of 1911, and he
observed that we had made military preparations. I was aware that the
German Military Attaché in London had reported at that time to Berlin
that we had so reorganized our army as to be in a position, if we
desired to do so, to send six of our new infantry divisions and at least
one cavalry division swiftly to France. The Chancellor obviously had
this in his mind, and I told him that the preparations made were only
those required to bring the capacity of our small British Army, in point
of mobilization for eventualities which must be clear to him, to
something approaching the standard of that celerity in its operations
which Moltke had long ago accomplished for Germany and which was with
her now a matter of routine. For this purpose we had studied our
deficiencies and modes of operation. This, however, concerned our own
direct interests, and was a purely departmental matter concerning the