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Of course, I informed the State Department of these mysterious manoeuvres. I was taken by back stairways to a mysterious meeting with von Tirpitz at night in his rooms in the Navy Department. When I was alone with him, however, he had nothing definite to say or to offer; if there was any opportunity at that time to make peace nothing came of it.
The third and principal cause was the Tirpitz theory of how to keep the peace, the theory that had come down from Frederick the Great and his father, and was barely a safe one in the hands of even a Bismarck.
His patronage of the Boers early in 1896 was a threatening sign; still more so was his World-Policy, proclaimed repeatedly in the following years, when the appointments of Tirpitz and Bülow showed that the threats of capturing the trident, and so forth, were not mere bravado.
In addition to making visits to the royalties, custom required me to call first upon the Imperial Chancellor and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The other ministers are supposed to call first, although I believe the redoubtable von Tirpitz claimed a different rule.
The press bureau sent out inspired stories that the submarines were causing England a loss of a million dollars a week. They said that every week the Admiralty was launching two U-boats. It was stated that reliable reports to Admiral von Tirpitz proved the high toll taken by the submarines in two weeks had struck terror to the hearts of English ship-owners.
Admiral von Tirpitz, in introducing the Amending Bill of February 1900, demanded the doubling of the navy in a scheme working automatically until 1920. The Socialist leader, Bebel, opposed it as certain to strain relations with England, a war with whom would be the greatest possible misfortune for the German people.
Tirpitz was to tell the latter that he, Bismarck, only wanted to be let alone, and die in peace. His task was ended. He had "no future and no hopes." Tirpitz saw Bismarck twice subsequently. The last time was on the occasion of a surprize visit to him by the Emperor. This visit was not wholly a success. The conversation got on to unfortunate lines.
A certain communication credited to Admiral von Tirpitz was circulated in Germany urging a return to his discarded sea policy. This was nothing more nor less than the pursuit of unrestricted and ruthless submarine warfare, the espousal of which by him as Minister of Marine, in conflict with the milder methods favored by the German Chancellor, forced his resignation earlier in the year.
He then observed that, out of consideration for Tirpitz, we must confer in German, while on the other hand this would be the harder on me because the naval matters with which we had to deal were not in my department, as they were in that of the Admiral. This was, of course, true.
The fifth describes the disastrous breaking up of the Naval Administration into Boards, to which the author says the Emperor William II. allowed himself to be persuaded. The sixth chapter is directed to tactical developments, a subject in which Admiral Tirpitz himself did much. The seventh deals with naval plans.
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