The months that intervened between the Presidential election and the declaration of war were especially difficult for the American Embassy in London.  Page had informed the President, in the course of his interview of September 22nd, how unfavourably Great Britain regarded his efforts in the direction of peace; he had in fact delivered a message from the Foreign Office that any Presidential attempt to “mediate” would be rejected by the Allies.  Yet his earnest representation on this point had produced no effect upon Mr. Wilson.  The pressure which Germany was bringing to bear upon Washington was apparently irresistible.  Count Bernstorff’s memoirs, with their accompanying documents, have revealed the intensity of the German efforts during this period; the most startling fact revealed by the German Ambassador is that the Kaiser, on October 9th, notified the President, almost in so many words, that, unless he promptly moved in the direction of peace, the German Government “would be forced to regain the freedom of action which it has reserved to itself in the note of May 4th last[49].”  It is unlikely that the annals of diplomacy contain many documents so cool and insolent as this one.  It was a notification from the Kaiser to the President that the so-called “Sussex pledge” was not regarded as an unconditional one by the Imperial Government; that it was given merely to furnish Mr. Wilson an opportunity to bring the war to an end; and that unless the Presidential attempt to accomplish this were successful, there would be a resumption of the indiscriminate submarine campaign.  The curious developments of the next two months are now a familiar story.  Possibly because the British Government had notified him, through Page, that his proffer of mediation would be unacceptable, Mr. Wilson moved cautiously and slowly, and Germany became impatient.  The successful campaign against Rumania, resulting in the capture of Bucharest on December 6th, and the new vista which it opened to Germany of large food supplies, strengthened the Teutonic purpose.  Perhaps Germany, with her characteristic lack of finesse, imagined that her own open efforts would lend emphasis to Mr. Wilson’s pacific exertions.  At any rate, on December 12th, just as Mr. Wilson was preparing to launch his own campaign for mediation, Germany herself approached her enemies with a proposal for a peace conference.  A few days afterward Page, as the representative of Germany, called at the Foreign Office to deliver the large white envelope which contained the Kaiser’s “peace proposal.”  In delivering this to Lord Robert Cecil, who was acting as Foreign Secretary in the temporary absence of Mr. Balfour, Page emphasized the fact that the American Government entirely disassociated itself from its contents and that he was acting merely in his capacity of “German Ambassador.”  Two communications from Lord Robert to Sir Cecil Spring Rice, British Ambassador at Washington, tell the story and also reveal that it was almost impossible for Page, even when engaged in an official proceeding, to conceal his contempt for the whole enterprise: