[Footnote 501:  Contemporary Review, April 1892.]

His attitude towards Great Britain has varied surprisingly.  During several years he figured as her friend.  But it is difficult to believe that a man of his keen intellect did not discern ahead the collision which his policy must involve.  His many claims to acquire maritime supremacy and a World-Empire were either mere bluff or a portentous challenge.  Only the good-natured, easy-going British race could so long have clung to the former explanation, thereby leaving the most diffuse, vulnerable, and ill-armed Empire that has ever existed face to face with an Empire that is compact, well-fortified, and armed to the teeth.  In this contrast lies one of the main causes of the present war.

Moreover, the internal difficulties of France and the preoccupation of Russia in the Far East gave to Kaiser William a disquietingly easy victory in the affairs of the Near East.  His visit to Constantinople and Palestine in 1898 inaugurated a Levantine policy destined to have momentous results.  On the Bosphorus he scrupled not to clasp the hand of Sultan Abdul Hamid II., still reeking with the blood of the Christians of Armenia and Macedonia.  At Jerusalem he figured as the Christian knight-errant, but at Damascus as the champion of the Moslem creed.  After laying a wreath on the tomb of Saladin, he made a speech which revealed his plan of utilising the fighting power of Islam.  He said:  “The three hundred million Mohammedans who live scattered over the globe may be assured of this, that the German Emperor will be their friend at all times.”  Taken in conjunction with his pro-Turkish policy, this implied that the Triple Alliance was to be buttressed by the most terrible fighting force in the East[502].

[Footnote 502:  See Hurgronje, The Holy War; made in Germany, pp. 27-39, 68-78; also G.E.  Holt, Morocco the Piquant (1914), who says (chap, xiv.):  “Islam is waiting for war in Europe. . . .  A war between any two European Powers, in my opinion, would mean the uprising of Islam.”]

During the tour he did profitable business with the Sublime Porte by gaining a promise for the construction of a railway to Bagdad and the Persian Gulf, under German auspices.  The scheme took practical form in 1902-3, when the Sultan granted a firman for the construction of that line together with very extensive proprietary rights along its course.  Russian opposition had been bought off in 1900 by the adoption of a more southerly course than was originally designed; and the Kaiser now sought to get the financial support of England to the enterprise.  British public opinion, however, was invincibly sceptical, and with justice, for the scheme would have ruined our valuable trade on the River Tigris and the Persian Gulf; while the proposed prolongation of the line to Koweit on the gulf would enable Germany, Austria, and Turkey to threaten India.