Next morning, about 7.30 o’clock, a helmeted guardsman, one of those whom the Emperor had brought over with him from Berlin, knocked loudly at the door and came into my bedroom, and said that he had a message from the Emperor.  It was that he did mean what he had said the night before.  I at once got up and caught a train for London.  There I saw the Foreign Secretary, who, after taking time to think things over, gave me a memorandum he had drawn up.  The substance of it was that the British Government would be very glad to discuss the Emperor’s suggestion, but that it would be necessary, before making a settlement, to bring into the discussion France and Russia, whose interests also were involved.  I was requested to sound the Emperor further.

After telling King Edward of what was happening, I had another conversation in Windsor Castle with the Emperor, who said that he feared that the bringing in of Russia particularly, not to speak of France, would cause difficulty; but he asked me to come that night, after a performance that was to take place in the Castle theater had ended, to his apartments, to a meeting to which he would summon the Ministers he had brought with him.  He took the memorandum which I had brought from London, a copy of which I had made for him in my own handwriting, so as to present it as the informal document it was intended to be.  Just before dinner Baron von Schoen spoke to me, and told me that he had heard from the Emperor what had happened, and that the Emperor was wrong in thinking that the attempt to bring in Russia would lead to difficulty, because he, Baron von Schoen, when he was Ambassador to Russia, had already discussed the general question with its Government, and had virtually come to an understanding.  At the meeting that night we could therefore go on to negotiate.

I attended the Emperor in his state rooms at the Castle at one o’clock in the morning, and sat smoking with him and his Ministers for over two hours.  His Foreign Minister and Count Metternich and the War Minister, von Einem, were present.  I said that I felt myself an intruder, because it was very much like being present at a sitting of his Cabinet.  He replied, “Be a member of my Cabinet for the evening.”  I said that I was quite agreeable.

They then engaged in a very animated conversation, some of them challenging the proposal of the Emperor to accept the British suggestions, with an outspokenness which would have astonished the outside world, with its notions of Teutonic autocracy.  Count Metternich did not like what I suggested, that there should be a conference in Berlin on the subject of the Bagdad Railway between England, France, Russia, and Germany.

In the end, but not until after much keen argument, the idea was accepted, and the Emperor directed von Schoen to go next morning to London and make an official proposal to Sir Edward Grey, This was carried out, and the preliminary details were discussed between von Schoen and Sir Edward at the Foreign Office.