on commercial policy, colonies, etc. In these matters, even at that early date, my attention was called to our dependence upon England, due to the fact that we had no navy and that Heligoland was in English hands. To be sure, there was a project to extend our colonial possessions under the pressure of necessity, but all this could happen only with England's permission. This was a serious matter, and certainly an unworthy position for Germany.

INTERCOURT POLITICS

My assignment at the Foreign Office brought a very unpleasant happening in its wake. My parents were not very friendly toward Prince Bismarck and looked with disfavor upon the fact that their son had entered into the Prince's circle. There was fear of my becoming influenced against my parents, of superconservatism, of all sorts of perils, which all sorts of tale bearers from England and "liberal circles," who rallied around my father, imputed against me. I never bothered my head with all this nonsense, but my position in the house of my parents was rendered much more difficult for me and, at times, painful. Through my work under Prince Bismarck and the confidence reposed in me—often subjected to the severest tests—I have had to suffer much in silence for the sake of the Chancellor; he, however, apparently took this quite as a matter of course.

I was on good terms with Count Herbert Bismarck. He could be a very gay companion and knew how to assemble interesting men around his table, partly from the Foreign Office, partly from other circles. However, true friendship never ripened between us two. This was shown particularly when the Count asked to go at the same time that his father retired. My request that he stay by me and help me to maintain tradition in our political policy elicited the sharp reply that he had become accustomed to report to his father and serve him, wherefore it was out of the question to demand that he come, with his dispatch case under his arm, to report to anybody else than his father.

When Tsar Nicholas II, he who has been murdered, came of age, I was assigned at the instigation of Prince Bismarck to confer upon the heir-apparent at St. Petersburg the Order of the Black Eagle. Both the Emperor and Prince Bismarck instructed me concerning the relationship of the two countries and the two reigning dynasties with each other, as well as concerning customs, personages, etc. The Emperor remarked in conclusion that he would give his grandson the same piece of advice that was given him, on the occasion of his first visit as a young man to Russia, by Count Adlerberg, viz., "In general, there as well as elsewhere, people prefer praise to criticism." Prince Bismarck closed his remarks with these words: "In the East, all those who wear their shirts outside their trousers are decent people, but as soon as they tuck their shirts inside their trousers and hang a medal around their necks, they become pig-dogs."

From St. Petersburg I repeatedly reported to my grandfather and to Prince Bismarck. Naturally, I described, to the best of my knowledge, the impressions which I got. I noticed especially that the old Russo-Prussian relations and sentiments had cooled to a marked extent and were no longer such as the Emperor and Prince Bismarck in their talks with me had assumed. After my return, both my grandfather and the Prince praised me for my plain, clear report, which was all the pleasanter for me since I was oppressed by the feeling that, in a number of things, I had been forced to disillusion these high personages.

TO OFFER DARDANELLES TO RUSSIA

In 1886, at the end of August and beginning of September, after the last meeting at Gastein of Emperor William the Great and Prince Bismarck with Emperor Franz Josef, where I also was present at the command of my grandfather, I was commissioned to report personally to Tsar Alexander II concerning the decisions made there and to take up with him the questions relating to the Mediterranean and Turkey. Prince Bismarck gave me his instructions, sanctioned by Emperor William; they dealt most especially with Russia's desire to reach Constantinople, to which the Prince meant to raise no obstacles. On the contrary, I received direct instructions to offer Russia Constantinople and the Dardanelles (in other words, San Stefano and the Berlin Treaty had been dropped!). There was a plan to persuade Turkey in a friendly way that an understanding with Russia was desirable for her also.

The Tsar received me cordially at Brest-Litovsk and I was present there at reviews of troops and fortress and defensive maneuvers, which, even then, unquestionably bore an anti-German look.

To sum up my conversations with the Tsar, the following remark by him is of importance: "If I wish to have Constantinople, I shall take it whenever I feel like it, without need of permission or approval from Prince Bismarck." After this rude refusal of the Bismarck offer of Constantinople, I looked upon my mission as a failure and made my report to the Prince accordingly.

When the Prince decided to make his offer to the Tsar, he must have altered his political conceptions which had led to San Stefano and the Congress of Berlin; or else, on account of the development of the general political situation in Europe, he considered that the moment had come for shuffling the political cards in another way or, as my grandfather had put it, to "juggle" differently. Only a man of the world importance and diplomatic ability of Prince Bismarck could embark on such a course. Whether the Prince had planned his big political game with Russia in such a way that he might, first, by means of the Congress of Berlin, prevent a general war and cajole England, and then, after having thus hindered Russia's Eastern aspirations, cater to these aspirations later, by a stroke of genius, in an even more striking manner, it is impossible for me to say—Prince Bismarck never told anyone about his great political projects.

If the above is true, Bismarck, trusting absolutely to his statesmanlike skill, must have reckoned upon bringing Germany all the more into Russian favor because Russian aspirations were brought to fulfillment by Germany alone—and that at a moment when the general European political situation was less strained than in 1877-78. In this case, nobody except Prince Bismarck could have played the tremendous game to a successful end. And therein lies the weakness in the superiority of great men. Had he also informed England of his offer to the Tsar? England must have been opposed to it, as in 1878.

In any event, the Prince now adopted the policy which I had already noted when I realized the disillusion of the Russians at having stood before the gates of Constantinople without being allowed to enter.

PROPHECY OF RUSSIAN DOWNFALL

At Brest-Litovsk, in the course of the constant military preparations of all kinds, I could easily see that the conduct of the Russian officers toward me was essentially cooler and haughtier than on the occasion of my first visit to St. Petersburg. Only the small group of old generals, especially those at the Russian court, who dated from the days of Alexander II, and who knew and esteemed Emperor William the Great, still showed their reverence for him and their friendly feeling toward Germany. In the course of a talk with one of them concerning the relations between the two courts, armies, and countries, which I had found undergoing a change in comparison with former times, the old General said: "C'est ce vilain congrès de Berlin. Une grave faute du Chancelier. Il a détruit l'ancienne amitié entre nous, planté la méfiance dans les cœurs de la Cour et du Gouvernement, et fourni le