July 13, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
15 
The Kaiser as a Diplomatist 
By Sir W. M. Ramsay 
IT has been remarked that great men, who plume 
themselves on their diplomatic ability and on their 
power of managing other people, and of dealing 
with and hoodwinking nations and governments, 
have certain devices which they employ over and over 
again, satisfied that these devices are a sure way of 
gaining their ends. The Kaiser is, at least in his own 
estimation, a great man and a great diplomatist, and 
it must be acknowledged that with certain races and 
nations his diplomatic methods have proved effective 
up to a certain point. With peoples of a free spirit and 
patriotic self-respect, his methods are ineffective in the 
last degree, but with nations of a different order, the 
same methods seem to be much more useful. 
One may classify nations in two orders, those with 
whom the Kaiser's diplomacy is effective, and those with 
whom it is ineffective. There is no middle class ; either 
he revolts and outlines every national and self-respecting 
feeling in the people with wiom he deals, or he succeeds 
in frightening them and benumbing their powers of 
judgment, and rendering them subservient to himself as 
his wilUng slaves. 
A Favourite Device 
There is one device of which he is especially fond. 
He knows himself to be one of the master strategists of 
military history, and the highest proof of his favour that 
he can give any nation is to furnish it with a strategic 
plan for any war in which it is engaged. His object 
for many years, in his relations with this country, was 
to delude the British nation into the belief that he was 
a sincere and cordial friend ; and he himself, in a famous 
interview, referred to the fact that he had furnished a 
plan of campaign for the Boer War — after it had become 
evident, we should note, that the war must end in the 
defeat of the Boers — as the climax of a long series of 
actions which constituted perfect evidence of his sincere 
love for the English people. He admired . the British 
ffeet ; he studied its history and its strategic methods ; 
he sent his yachts to compete at Cowes ; and in short, 
he aimed at the reputation in Britain of a good sportsman 
and a true gentleman. 
In the Balkan troubles he employed the same device 
of giving strategic advice to the people engaged, for the 
purpose of establishing his influence with each so favoured ; 
and in this way he succeeded in deluding and leadin,; by 
the nose whole nations in the south-east of Europe, 
whereas in Britain he never succeeded in quite eradicating 
from the public mind a certain suspicion and doubt 
about his sincerity, though he did succeed in convincing 
many individuals of his good wishes and good inten- 
tions, if they were brought under the spell of his 
personal influence. 
The facts regarding the action of the Kaiser in the 
Balkan troubles have not been sufficiently or quite 
correctly appreciated, and what I have to say is the 
record of what I knew at the time when it occurred, or 
recognised in its true bearing shortly after it had occurred. 
It was only after the Morocco business in 191 1 that war 
with England was resolved upon as necessary in the 
immediate future, and the time actually fixed. For my 
own part, I had previously refused to believe the evidence 
of English friends, who knew Germany from long resi- 
dence better than I did ; and even the outspoken asser- 
tion of German friends (who said that they regretted it 
personally) that war was inevitable at no distant date, 
had failed to convince me that such an outrage would be 
permitted by the Divine Power. But man is only con- 
ceited and foolish when he thinks that he is able to 
interpret the divine purpose in the world. In the summer 
of iqi2, however, the evidence of what I saw and heard, 
chiefly in Berlin, seemed conclusive, that war was coming 
immediately, and that it would break out in the year 
iqi',. Every plan seemed to be then formed, and 
German acquaintances did not even pretend to «>"*^eal 
their certainty that the war must come now, and that 
victory was certain. Every German, from the Kaiser 
to the humblest shop-boy, was fully convinced that the 
(ierman army would march across France to the Atlantic 
Ocean, doing the parade-step the whole way, as the 
first act in the war with Britain. 
Miscalculations 
These plans were disturbed by the outbreak of the 
Balkan war, and by its unexpected issue. The Germans 
had never dreamed that Turkey would be defeated by 
the Balkan Alliance, and the discovery of this miscalcula- 
tion was distinctly disconcerting. Moreover, the result 
raised up a strong power hostile to Germany, extending 
right across from the Danube and the Black Sea to the 
fui thest western and southern coasts of Greece ; and the 
army of this Alliance had to be reckoned as an enemy, 
which not merely discounted the German ally in Turkey, 
but even formed a distinct factor, not indeed of the highest 
importance, but still possessing some importance, arrayed 
on the side of Germany's enemies in the contemplated 
European war. This necessitated one of two things. 
One was to practise peaceful methods instead of 
world war ; and as we know, though the present 
writer did not even guess it at the time, these j)eaceful 
methods would have been far more successful than the 
way of war, and would have placed Germany in a position 
to take toll of the whole commerce of the world, if they 
had been allowed free play for a certain period of years. 
Early in 1915 the present writer expressed the opinion 
to a far better authority, far more competent to judge 
about the trend of international commerce, that, if the 
Germans had continued peaceful methods for twenty 
years, Germany, in the world of commerce, would have 
been like one of the robber barons in the Middle Ages, 
who from a castle on the Rhine took toll of all trade that 
passed up and down the river. This authority, British 
by birth but American by citizenship, rephed it would 
not have taken twenty, but only five years. 
The other alternative open to Germany was to 
remake its plans, to increase its army, and if possible 
to break up the Balkan Alliance. The latter course 
was chosen — shall we say fortunately or unfortunately ? 
Half a million was added to the amiy of Germany, and 
the Kaiser's diplomacy was brought into operation. 
Austrian Intrigue 
At that time, during the spring and summer of 1913, 
the world in general, including the present writer, 
imagined that it was mainly .\ustrian intrigue which 
was concerned in fomenting the disastrous quarrel within 
the Balkan Alliance, but subsequent events have shown 
clearly that the Kaiser was the guiding force even at that 
time! One of the Allies must be induced to quarrel with 
the others. Bulgaria naturally recommended itself, 
because its bitter hatred against both Serbia and 
Greece in the past was well known. The possession of 
Salonika was the apple of discord which was employed to 
stir up strife. Other districts were also involved, and 
other motives played a part, but the supreme considera- 
tion was the command of that great harbour. Both 
Bulgaria and Greece were bent on having it. Austria 
also was equally resolved on gaining possession of it, 
and to the united Austro-Gcrman power the possession 
of Salonika was almost as important as the dominating 
influence in Constantinople itself. A consideration of 
this fact should have shown both Greece and Bulgaria 
that there was no possible chance for either of them to 
gain possession of Salonika through a union with Austro- 
(iermany ; but both of them were so blinded by the 
eager desire for possession of the harbour, that they shut 
their eyes to the fact that the only possible chance for 
either of them to gain it lay in a peaceable arrangement 
within the Alliance. 
The first step to break up the Alliance was the develop- 
ment of a rapprochemenl between Bulgaria and Turkey. 
Already, during the early spring of 1913, the idea was 
growing among the responsible authorities in Bulgaria 
