liant
occasion--"we are ready!"

Colonel house left Berlin, not particularly hopeful; the Kaiser
impressed him as a man of unstable nervous organization--as one who was
just hovering on the borderland of insanity. Certainly, this was no man
to be entrusted with such powers as the American had witnessed that day
at Potsdam. Dangerous as the Kaiser was, however, he did not seem to
Colonel House to be as great a menace to mankind as were his military
advisers. The American came away from Berlin with the conviction that
the most powerful force in Germany was the militaristic clique, and
second, the Hohenzollern dynasty. He has always insisted that this
represented the real precedence in power. So long as the Kaiser was
obedient to the will of militarism, so long could he maintain his
standing. He was confident, however, that the militaristic oligarchy was
determined to have its will, and would dethrone the Kaiser the moment he
showed indications of taking a course that would lead to peace. Colonel
House was also convinced that this militaristic oligarchy was determined
on war. The coolness with which it listened to his proposals, the
attempts it made to keep him from seeing the Kaiser alone, its repeated
efforts to break up the conversation after it had begun, all pointed to
the inevitable tragedy. The fact that the Kaiser expressed a wish to
discuss the matter again, after Colonel House had sounded London, was
the one hopeful feature of an otherwise discouraging experience, and
accounts for the tone of faint optimism in his letters describing the
visit.

_From Edward M. House_

Embassy of the United States of America,
Berlin,

May 28, 1914.

Dear Page:

. . . I have done something here already--not much, but enough to
open negotiations with London. I lunch with the Kaiser on Monday. I
was advised to avoid Admiral von Tirpitz as being very
unsympathetic. However, I went directly at him and had a most
interesting talk. He is a forceful fellow. Von Jagow is pleasant
but not forceful. I have had a long talk with him. The Chancellor's
wife died last week so I have not got in touch with him. I will
write you more fully from Paris. My address there will be Hotel
Ritz.

Hastily,

E.M.H.

_From Edward M. House_

Hotel Ritz, 15, Place Vendome, Paris.

June 3, 1914.

Dear Page:

I had a satisfactory talk with