in 1912, as Admiral von Tirpitz appears to imagine, in the conversation at the Schloss, or later on, offer territory that was not our own but belonged to Portugal, or Belgium, or France.  The contrary is evident from the fact that the British government pressed Germany to consent to the immediate publication of the draft Treaty, agreed early in 1914, when signed.  All we did on both occasions was to propose exchanges with Germany of territory that was ours for territory that was hers, to undertake not to compete for the purchase of certain other territory that might come into the market, in consideration of a corresponding undertaking on her part, and to agree about zones within which each nation should distribute its industrial energies and give financial assistance to undertakings.

The gallant Admiral gives an account of the meeting which took place on February 9, 1912, in the Emperor’s Cabinet room in the Schloss between himself, the Emperor and myself.  He represents me as making a “generous offer of colonial territories which the English neither possessed nor of which they had the least right of disposal, in order to flatter the Kaiser’s desires.”  Now in this impression the Admiral was wholly wrong.  What I spoke of was what I have just referred to, exchanges of parts of our own territory for parts belonging to Germany, and undertakings such as I have just referred to.  These things I had considered the previous day with the Chancellor, and I do not think the Emperor was in the least under the impression which von Tirpitz entertained.  The matter was indeed not one with which the Department of the Minister of Marine was likely to be familiar.  My suggestions were made in accordance with my instructions, and were, of course, bona fide in all respects.  What I was pressing for was the means for making possible a slackening in naval construction on both sides, and for acceptance of the Entente and of our position in it.  What I desired was to extend its friendly relations so as to bring Germany and Austria and Italy within them and get rid of anxiety about the balance of power and the growth of armaments.  I think the Emperor throughout understood this, and certainly the Chancellor did.  Tirpitz appears to have suspected, in an attitude in which I was only aiming at being friendly and even cordial, concealment of an encircling and aggressive purpose.  After studying his book I do not wonder!  When one rises from reading it one understands the fixity of an idea, which amounted to an obsession, and compelled him to believe in the necessity for what would have amounted to the overthrow of Britain as a Great Power.