Herzegovina three years before. Instead of
using diplomatic methods something that looked like a threat was allowed
to appear, and the answer was Mr. Lloyd George's well-known declaration
of July 21, 1911, in the City of London. The sending of the _Panther_,
if intelligible, was certainly unfortunate.

In the winter, after the actual crisis had been got over, there was
evidence of continuing ill-feeling in Germany, and the suspicion in
London did not diminish. In January, 1912, an informal message was given
by the Emperor to Sir Ernest Cassel for transmission through one of my
colleagues to the Foreign Office.[2] I knew nothing of this at the time,
but learned shortly afterward that it was to the effect that the Emperor
was concerned at the state of feeling that had arisen in both countries,
and thought that the most hopeful method of improving matters would be
that the Cabinet of St. James's should exchange views directly with the
Cabinet of Berlin. For this course there was a good deal to be said. The
peace had indeed been preserved, but, as Herr von Bethmann Hollweg told
me later on, not without effort. The attitude of Germany toward France
had seemed ominous. The British Government had done all it could to
avert a breach, but its sympathy was opposed to language used in
Germany, the spirit of which seemed to us to have in it an aggressive
element. We did not hesitate to say what we thought about this.

Even after the Agadir incident was quite closed, the tension between
Germany and England had not passed away. The military party in the
former country began to talk of a "preventive" war pretty loudly. Even
so moderate an organ in Berlin as the _Post_ wrote of German opinion
that "we all know that blood is assuredly about to be shed, and the
longer we wait the more there will be. Few, however, have the courage to
imitate Frederick the Great, and not one dares the deed."

The Emperor therefore sent his message in the beginning of 1912, to the
effect that feeling had become so much excited that it was not enough to
rely on the ordinary diplomatic intercourse for softening it, and that
he was anxious for an exchange of views between the Cabinets of Berlin
and London, of a personal and direct kind. As the result of this
intimation, the British Cabinet decided to send one of its members to
Berlin to hold "conversations," with a view to exploring and, if
practicable, softening the causes of tension, and I was requested by