“His Majesty the Kaiser has at different times, and to different private English personalities, made private utterances which, linked together, have been published in the Daily Telegraph.  I must suppose that not all details of the utterances have been correctly reproduced (hear, hear, on the Right).  One I know is not correct:  that is the story about the plan of campaign (hear, hear, on the right).  The plan in question was not a field campaign worked out in detail, but a purely academic (laughter among the Socialists)—­Gentlemen, we are engaged in a serious discussion.  The matters on which I speak are of an earnest kind and of great political importance—­be good enough to listen to me quietly:  I will be as brief as possible.  I repeat therefore:  the matter is not concerned with a field campaign worked out in detail, but with certain purely academic thoughts—­I believe they were expressly described as ’aphorisms’—­about the conduct of war in general, which the Kaiser communicated in his interchange of correspondence with the late Queen Victoria.  They are theoretical observations of no practical moment for the course of operations and the issue of the war.  The chief of the General Staff, General von Moltke, and his predecessor, General Count Schlieffen, have declared that the General Staff reported to the Kaiser on the Boer War as on every war, great or small, which has occurred on the earth during the last ten years.  Both, however, have given assurances that our General Staff never examined a field plan of campaign, or anything similar, prepared by the Kaiser in view of the Boer War, or forwarded such to England (hear, hear, on the Right and Centre).  But I must also defend our policy against the reproach of being ambiguous vis-a-vis the Boers.  We had—­the documents show it—­given timely warning to the Transvaal Government.  We called its attention to the fact that in case of a war with England it would stand alone.  We put it to her directly, and through the friendly Dutch Government in May, 1899, peacefully to come to an understanding with England, since there could be no doubt as to the result of a war.

“In the question of intervention the colours in the article of the Daily Telegraph are too thickly laid on.  The thing itself had long been known (hear, hear).  It was some time previously the subject of controversy between the National Review and the Deutsche Revue.  There can be no talk of a ‘revelation.’  It was said that the imperial communication to the Queen of England, that Germany had not paid any attention to a suggestion for mediation or intervention, is a breach of the rules of diplomatic intercourse.  Gentlemen, I will not recall indiscretions to memory, for they are frequent in the diplomatic history of all nations and at all times (’Quite right,’ on the Right).  The safest policy is perhaps that which need fear no indiscretion (’Quite right,’ on the Left).