rzl told
him that he wanted His Imperial Majesty to persuade the Sultan to open
negotiations with the Jews.

The Count passed Herzl over to the German Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Von Buelow, who happened to be in Vienna at the same time. Van Buelow
knew a great deal about the Zionist movement. He said that the
difficulty lay in persuading the Sultan to deal with the Jews. He felt
certain that the Sultan could be impressed if he was properly advised
by the Kaiser. A week later Herzl was informed of the Kaiser's
inclination to take the Jews of Palestine under his protection, and
repeated that he would like to see Herzl at the head of a delegation
in Jerusalem, later on.

Herzl was afraid of going further in this direction without having in
existence the financial instrument without which neither negotiations
nor colonization could be carried on. Herzl urged David Wolffsohn and
Jacobus Kahn to proceed with the utmost speed to incorporate the
Jewish Colonial Trust. He foresaw the possibility that a demand might
be made at any time to show the color of his money. Although the
affairs of the Bank were in the hands of Wolffsohn and Kahn, Herzl
himself worried over every detail, urging and driving and complaining
about the slowness of the action. On March 28, 1899 the subscription
lists were opened. Herzl's expectations were not fulfilled. Only about
200,000 shares had been sold, three-quarters of them in Russia. The
Bank could not be opened until it had at least 250,000 paid-up shares.
After a great deal of effort, the minimum was finally obtained and the
Trust was officially opened in time for the opening of the third
Congress in August, 1899.

Herzl addressed a mass meeting in London in October, 1899, under Dr.
Gastner's chairmanship. In his address at this meeting, Herzl said
that he believed the time was not far off when the Jewish people would
be set in motion. He asked the audience to accept his word even if he
could not speak more definitely. "When I return to you again," he
said, "we shall, I hope, be still further on our path." At this
meeting Father Ignatius, a Catholic believer in Zionism, referred to
Herzl "as a new Joshua who had come to fulfill the words of the
Prophet Ezekiel." The effect produced upon the audience was not useful
to Herzl's purposes at that time. He had always tried to discourage
the impression of himself as a Messianic figure. The meeting in London
was the only occasion where he lost his s