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 Attache 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
War Office, and the Minister who had the most to do with it was the one
who was now talking to him and who was not wanting in friendly feeling
toward Germany. We could not run the risk of being caught unprepared.

As both Herr von Bethmann Hollweg and Admiral von Tirpitz have devoted a
good deal of attention to these and other conversations in their books,
I have felt at liberty here and in the last chapter to state what, I am
bound to observe, had better not, as it seems to me personally, have
been held back for so long--the exact nature of that which actually
passed when I was sent to Berlin in February, 1912. Accordingly, it is
only necessary that I should add here a few words more about what indeed
appears in most of its detail from the versions given by the two German
Ministers concerned themselves.

I refused, not only because I had been instructed to do so, but because
in my own opinion it was vital that I should refuse, to negotiate
excepting on the basis of absolute loyalty to the Entente with F