the modern German, at least in statecraft. Imagination applied to the
practical matters of daily living is nothing more than the ability to
project one's own personality beneath the skin of another, to look
around at the world through that other person's eyes and to realize
what values the world holds for him. The Prince von Buelow, able diplomat
though they call him, could not look upon the world through Italian
eyes in spite of his Italian wife, his long residence in Rome, his
professed love for Italy. It must have been with his consent if not
by his suggestion that Erzburger, the leader of the Catholic party in
the Reichstag, was sent to Rome at this critical juncture. The German
mind probably said,--"Here is a notable Catholic, political leader of
German Catholics, and so he must be especially agreeable to Italians,
who, as all the world knows, are Catholics." The reasoning of a stupid
child! Outwardly Italy is Catholic, but modern Italy has shown herself
very restive at any papal meddling in national affairs. To have an
alien--one of the "_barbari_"--seat himself at the Vatican and try to
use the papal power in determining the policy of the nation in a matter
of such magnitude, was a fatal blunder of tactless diplomacy. Nor could
Herr Erzburger's presence at the Vatican these tense days be kept secret
from the curious journalists, who lived on such meager items of news. No
more tactful was it for Prince von Buelow to meet the Italian politician
Giolitti at the Palace Hotel on the Pincian. There is no harm in one
gentleman's meeting another in the rooms of a public hotel so respectable
as the Palace, but when the two are playing the international chess
game and one is regarded as an enemy and the other as a possible traitor,
the popular mind is likely to take a heated and prejudiced view of the
small incident. Less obvious to the public, but none the less untactful,
was the manner in which the German Ambassador tried to use his social
connection in Rome, his family relationships in the aristocracy of Italy,
to influence the King and his ministers. He might have taken warning from