So I went to Germany, with a number of introductions to prominent people and friends of England.
It was not the first time I had visited Germany, because the previous year, I think, I had been to Hamburg with a party of journalists, and we were received like princes, fêted sumptuously, and treated with an amazing display of public cordiality. There was private courtesy, too, most kind and amiable, and I always remember a young poet who took me to his house and introduced me to his beautiful young wife who, when I said good-by, gathered some roses from her garden, put them to her lips, and said, “Take these with my love to England.”
But something had happened in the spirit of Germany since that time. The first “friend of England” to whom I presented a letter of introduction was a newspaper editor in Düsseldorf, a man of liberal principles who had taken a great part in arranging an exchange of visits between German and British business men. He knew many of the Liberal politicians in England and could walk into the House of Commons more easily than I could.
He seemed to be rather flustered when I called upon him and explained the object of my visit, and he left me alone in his study for a while, on pretext of speaking to his wife. I think he wanted me to read his leading article, signed at the foot of the column, in a paper which he laid deliberately on his desk before me. I puzzled through its complicated argument in involved German, and through its fog of rhetoric there emerged a violent tirade against England.
When he came back, I tackled him on the subject.
“I understood that you were an advocate of friendly relations between our two peoples? That article doesn’t seem to me very friendly or helpful.”
He flushed a hot color, and said, “My views have undergone a change. England has behaved abominably.”
The particular abomination which he resented most deeply was the warning delivered by Lloyd George--of all people in England!--that Great Britain would support French interests in Morocco, and would not tolerate German aggression in that region. That was at the time of the Agadir incident. The British attitude in that affair, said the Düsseldorf editor, was a clear sign that Great Britain challenged the right of Germany to develop and expand. That challenge could not be left unanswered. Either Germany must surrender her liberty and deny her imperial destiny, at the dictation of Britain, or show that her power was equal to her aspirations. That, anyhow, was the line of his argument, which we pursued at great length over pots of lager beer, in a restaurant where we dined together.