he 6th of June 1905 Count Buelow was raised to the rank of prince
(_Fuerst_), on the occasion of the marriage of the crown prince. The
coincidence of this date with the fall of M. Delcasse, the French minister
for foreign affairs--a triumph for Germany and a humiliation for
France--was much commented on at the time (see _The Times_, June 7, 1905);
and the elevation of Bismarck to the rank of prince in the Hall of Mirrors
at Versailles was recalled. Whatever element of truth there may have been
in this, however, the significance of the incident was much exaggerated.

On the 5th of April 1906, while attending a debate in the Reichstag, Prince
Buelow was seized with illness, the result of overwork and an attack of
influenza, and was carried unconscious from the hall. At first it was
thought that the attack would be fatal, and Lord Fitzmaurice in the House
of Lords compared the incident with that of the death of Chatham, a
compliment much appreciated in Germany. The illness, however, quickly took
a favourable turn, and after a month's rest the chancellor was able to
resume his duties. In 1907 Prince Buelow was made the subject of a
disgraceful libel, which received more attention than it deserved because
it coincided with the Harden-Moltke scandals; his character was, however,
completely vindicated, and the libeller, a journalist named Brand, received
a term of imprisonment.

The parliamentary skill of Prince Buelow in holding together the
heterogeneous elements of which the government majority in the Reichstag
was composed, no less than the diplomatic tact with which he from time to
time "interpreted" the imperial indiscretions to the world, was put to a
rude test by the famous "interview" with the German emperor, published in
the London _Daily Telegraph_ of the 28th of October 1908 (see WILLIAM II.,
German emperor), which aroused universal reprobation in Germany. Prince
Buelow assumed the official responsibility, and tendered his resignation to
the emperor, which was not accepted; but the chancellor's explanation in
the Reichstag on the 10th of November showed how keenly he felt his
position. He declared his conviction that the disastrous results of the
interview would "induce the emperor in future to observe that strict
reserve, even in private conversations, which is equally indispensable in
the interest of a uniform policy and for the authority of the crown,"
adding that, in the contrary case, neither he nor any success