By that occult agency which determines with diabolical delight the irony of fate, it was ordained that Kiel, 1914, should be the occasion of a spectacular Anglo-German love-feast, with a squadron of British super-dreadnoughts anchored in the midst of the peaceful German Armada as a sign to all the world of the non-explosive warmth of English-German "relations." That, at any rate, was the design of that unfortunately nebulous element in Berlin, headed by Doctor von Bethmann Hollweg, known as the Peace Party; for had certain highly-placed Germans acting under the Imperial Chancellor's inspiration had their way, the British Admiralty yacht _Enchantress_, the official craft of the First Lord of the Admiralty and actually bearing that dignitary, Mr. Winston Churchill, M.P., would have been convoyed to Kiel by Vice-Admiral Sir George Warrender's ironclads. The Kaiser's approval of the Churchill project--as I happen to know--had been sought and secured. Eminent friends of an Anglo-German rapprochement in London had done the necessary log-rolling in England. Matters were regarded in Germany so much of a _fait accompli_ that an anchorage diagram issued by the naval authorities at Kiel only a fortnight before the "Week" indicated the precise spot at which Mr. Churchill and the _Enchantress_ would make fast in the harbor of Kiel Bay.
[Illustration: Watching for the Kaiser's Armada.]
But Mr. Churchill did not come. I know why. Grand-Admiral von Tirpitz, to whom the half-American _enfant terrible_ of British politics was a pet aversion, did not want him at Kiel. Mr. Churchill's visit might have resulted in some sort of an Anglo-German naval _modus vivendi_, or otherwise postponed "the Day." The German War Party's plans, so soon to materialize, would have been sadly thrown out of gear by such an untimely event, and von Tirpitz is not the man to brook interference with his programmes. Had not the German Government, under the Grand-Admiral's invincible leadership, persistently rejected the hand of naval peace stretched out by the British Cabinet? Was it not Mr. Churchill's own proposals to which Berlin had repeatedly returned an imperious No? Could Germany afford to run the risk of being cajoled, amid the festive atmosphere of Kiel Week, into concessions which she had hitherto successively withheld? Von Tirpitz said No again. For years he had been saying the same thing on the subject of an armaments understanding with Britain. He said No to Prince Bülow when the fourth Chancellor suggested the advisability of moderating a German naval policy certain to lead to conflict with Great Britain. He said No to Doctor von Bethmann Hollweg when Bülow's successor timorously suggested from time to time, as he did, the foolhardiness of a programme which meant, in an historic phrase of Bülow's, "pressure and counter-pressure." Von Tirpitz had had his way with two German Chancellors, his nominal superiors, in succession. He never dreamt of allowing himself to be bowled over now by an amateur sailor from London, who, if he came to Kiel, would only come armed with a fresh bait designed to rob the Fatherland of its "future upon the water."