where work was done according to his directions. Able men, with independent ideas, were not schooled and trained there.

This was in contrast to the General Staff under Moltke. There new officers were carefully developed and trained to independent thinking and action, in accordance with approved principles, and by dint of preserving old traditions and taking into account all that modern times had taught. At the Foreign Office there were only executive instruments of a will, who were not informed as to the important interrelationship of the questions turned over to them for treatment, and could not, therefore, collaborate independently. The Prince loomed up like a huge block of granite in a meadow; were he to be dragged away, what would be found beneath would be mostly worms and dead roots.

I won the confidence of the Prince, who consulted me about many things. For instance, when the Prince brought about the first German colonial acquisitions (Gross and Klein Popo, Togo, etc.), I informed him, at his wish, concerning the state of mind created in the public and the navy by this move, and described to him the enthusiasm with which the German people had hailed the new road. The Prince remarked that the matter hardly deserved this.

Later on I spoke often with the Prince about the colonial question and always found in him the intention to utilize the colonies as commercial objects, or objects for swapping purposes, other than to make them useful to the fatherland or utilize them as sources of raw materials. As was my duty, I called the Prince's attention to the fact that merchants and capitalists were beginning energetically to develop the colonies and that, therefore—as I had learned from Hanseatic circles—they counted upon protection from a navy. For this reason, I pointed out that steps must be taken for getting a fleet constructed in time, in order that German assets in foreign lands should not be without protection; that, since the Prince had unfurled the German flag in foreign parts, and the people stood behind it, there must also be a navy behind it.

BISMARCK'S CONTINENTAL PREPOSSESSIONS

But the Prince turned a deaf ear to my statements and made use of his pet motto: "If the English should land on our soil I should have them arrested." His idea was that the colonies would be defended by us at home. The Prince attached no importance to the fact that the very assumption that the English could land without opposition in Germany—since Heligoland was English—was unbearable for Germany, and that we, in order to make a landing impossible from the start, needed a sufficiently strong navy, and, likewise, Heligoland.

The political interest of the Prince was, in fact, concentrated essentially upon continental Europe; England lay somewhat to one side among the cares that burdened him daily, all the more so since Salisbury stood well with him and had, in the name of England, hailed with satisfaction the Double (i. e., Triple) Alliance, at the time of its formation. The Prince worked primarily with Russia, Austria, Italy, and Rumania, whose relations toward Germany and one another he constantly watched over. As to the prudence and skill with which he acted, Emperor William the Great once made a pointed remark to von Albedyll, his chief of Cabinet.

The General found His Majesty much excited after a talk with Bismarck, to such an extent that he feared for the health of the old Emperor. He remarked, therefore, that His Majesty should avoid similar worry in future; that, if Bismarck was unwilling to do as His Majesty wished, His Majesty should dismiss him. Whereupon the Emperor replied that, despite his admiration and gratitude toward the great Chancellor, he had already thought of dismissing him, since the self-conscious attitude of the Prince became at times too oppressive. But both he and the country needed Bismarck too badly. Bismarck was the one man who could juggle five balls of which at least two were always in the air. That trick, added the Emperor, was beyond his own powers.

Prince Bismarck did not realize that, through the acquisition of colonies for Germany, he would be obliged to look beyond Europe and be automatically forced to act, politically, on a large scale—with England especially. England, to be sure, was one of the five balls in his diplomatic-statesmanly game, but she was merely one of the five, and he did not grant her the special importance which was her due.

For this reason it was that the Foreign Office likewise was involved entirely in the continental interplay of politics, had not the requisite interest in colonies, navy, or England, and possessed no experience in world politics. The English psychology and mentality, as shown in the pursuit—constant, though concealed by all sorts of little cloaks—of world hegemony, was to the German Foreign Office a book sealed with seven seals.

SOURCE OF RUSSIAN ENMITY

Once Prince Bismarck remarked to me that his main object was to not let Russia and England come to an understanding. I took the liberty of observing that the opportunity to postpone such an understanding for a long time lay ready to hand in 1877-78, when the Russians might have been allowed to occupy Constantinople—had this been done, the English fleet would have sailed in without further ado to defend Constantinople and the Russo-English conflict would have been on. Instead, I continued, the Treaty of San Stefano was forced upon the Russians and they were compelled to turn about at the very gates of the city which they had reached and saw before them, after frightful battles and hardships.

This, I went on, had created an inextinguishable hatred in the Russian army against us (as had been reported by Prussian officers who had accompanied the Russian army on the Turkish campaign, especially Count Pfeil); moreover, the above-mentioned treaty had been cast aside and the Berlin Treaty substituted for it, which had burdened us even more with the hostility of the Russians, who looked upon us as the enemy of their "just interests in the East." Thus the conflict between Russia and England, which the Prince desired, had been relegated far into the future.

Prince Bismarck did not agree with this judgment of "his" Congress, concerning the results of which he, as the "honest broker," was so proud; he remarked earnestly that he had wished to prevent a general conflagration and had been compelled to offer his services as a mediator. When I, later on, told a gentleman at the Foreign Office about this conversation, he replied that he had been present when the Prince, after signing the Berlin Treaty, came into the Foreign Office and received the congratulations of the officials assembled there. After he had listened to them the Prince stood up and replied: "Now I am driving Europe four-in-hand!" In the opinion of the said gentleman the Prince was mistaken in this, since, even at that time, there was the threat of a Russo-French friendship in place of the Russo-Prussian—in other words, two horses were already to be counted out of the four-in-hand. As Russia saw it, Disraeli's statecraft had turned Bismarck's work as "honest broker" into the negotiation of an Anglo-Austrian victory over Russia.

Despite considerable differences in our opinions, Prince Bismarck remained friendly and kindly disposed to me, and, despite the great difference in our ages, a pleasant relationship grew up between us, since I, in common with all those of my generation, was an ardent admirer of the Prince and had won his trust by my zeal and frankness—nor have I ever betrayed that trust.

During the time of my assignment at the Foreign Office, Privy Councilor Raschdau, among others, discoursed with me