When the official German communique was issued, the encounter with
Herzl was hid in a closing paragraph and deprived of all significance.
This is how it read:

"Later the Kaiser received the French Consul, also a Jewish deputation
which presented him with an album of pictures of the Jewish colonies
in Palestine. In reply to an address by the leader of the deputation,
His Majesty remarked he viewed with benevolent interest all efforts
directed to the improvement of agriculture in Palestine as long as
these accorded with the welfare of the Turkish Empire and were
conducted in a spirit of complete respect for the sovereignty of the
Sultan."

It was a sudden descent from hope into a closed road. Herzl refused to
be discouraged. It was hard for him to realize that the Kaiser's
enthusiasm in Constantinople could have cooled off so quickly in
Jerusalem, but it seemed that there was no way to continue contact
with the people he had interested in Germany. He tried to pick up the
broken threads, but, once broken, they could not be revived. The Grand
Duke of Baden remained ever constant and loyal, but he could do
nothing. Herzl never saw the Kaiser again. In a letter to the Grand
Duke, closing this chapter of Zionist history, Herzl said:

"I can only assume that a hope especially dear to me has faded away
and that we shall not achieve our Zionist goal under a German
protectorate."

At about the same time, Herzl met Philip Michael Von Nevlinski, a
descendant of a long line of Polish noblemen who had entered the
diplomatic service and became a diplomatic agent-at-large and a French
journalist. In the first stages, Nevlinski guided Herzl in all the
work he did in Constantinople. When Herzl came to Constantinople in
June, 1896 he was under the impression that Nevlinski had already
arranged an audience with the Sultan. It was not so easy, however. But
whether such an audience had been arranged or not, Herzl was able to
meet, a number of highly-placed Turkish officials, including the Grand
Vizier. At first, the line of action was not clear, but by now Herzl
had formulated his proposals to the Sultan.

Ever since the middle of the nineteenth century, Turkish finances had
been in a shocking condition. The Empire was being badly managed. The
Sultan was regarded as "the sick man of Europe." In 1891 the total
external debt, including unpaid interest, reached the figure of two
hundred and fifty-three million pounds sterling. In 1881 th