his Majesty the Kaiser. Whoever
asserts that it was is ignorant of what preceded it and does
his Majesty completely wrong."

The Emperor's telegram to President Kruger, despatched on January 3,
1896, ran as follows:--

"I congratulate you most sincerely on having succeeded with
your people, and without calling on the help of foreign
Powers, by opposing your own force to an armed band which
broke into your country to disturb the peace, in restoring
quiet and in maintaining the independence of your country
against external attack."

The echoes of this historic message were heard immediately in every
country, but naturally nowhere more loudly than in England; and the
reverberation of them is audible to the present day. In Germany,
however, for a day or two, the telegram seems to have surprised no
one, was indeed spoken of with approval by deputies in the Reichstag,
and seems not to have occurred to any one in the light of a serious
diplomatic mistake. This state of feeling did not last long, and when
the English newspapers arrived an entirely new light was thrown on the
matter. The _Morning Post_ concluded an article with the words: "It is
not easy to speak calmly of the Kaiser's telegram. The English people
will not forget it, and in future will always think of it when
considering its foreign policy." The British Government's comment on
the telegram was to put a flying squadron in commission and issue an
official statement _urbi et orbi_, calling attention to the Convention
made with President Kruger in London in 1884, reserving the
supervision of the foreign relations of the Transvaal to the British
Government.

The Emperor himself appears to have recognized that he and his
advisers had made a serious blunder, and that a gesture which, it is
highly probable, was partly prompted by the chivalrous side of his
character, was certain to be gravely misunderstood. At any rate his
policy, or that of his Government, changed, and instead of following
up his encouraging words with mediation or intervention, he assumed an
attitude of neutrality towards the war which soon after began.
Subsequently, in the Reichstag, Chancellor von Buelow described the
course the German Government pursued immediately before and during the
war; and there seems no reason to discredit his account. The speech
was made apropos of the projected visit of President Kruger to Berlin,
when on his tour of despair